Bureau of Indian Affairs Officials testimony on Monday, December 17, 1979 concerning the pre-1966 claims of the Indians before the U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Indian Affairs purpose was “To determine the status of the work of the Department of the Interior and Department of Justice in identifying and processing claims of the Indians that arose before 1966.” The BIA had “confessed” to complicity in the aforementioned land frauds in another hearing on March 13, 1979 after evidence pointed toward BIA complicity in the issuance of patents in fee to the Indians. BIA officials told the committee “you hear stories that there are thousands upon thousands of claims out in the misty mountains.” And, they said “BIA Records are stored all over creation.” BIA officials felt the claims had “grown stale.”
The BIA testified “the claims program will affect a significant number of [white] citizens in this country because, in many cases, we are looking at the prospects of regaining title to [Indian] property, and many of these [white] individuals through no fault of their own, are holding void titles.” The BIA testimony glosses over massive Indian land frauds that have driven the Indians to abject poverty for generations, and will continue to do so until the Indians get justice. It is like testifying on the Nazi Genocide in World War II without mentioning the consequences of the Jewish Holocaust.
The BIA aired the issue of heirship problems and thousands of Indian descendants unidentified, as though they were lost somewhere in America and could not be found [relocated to Chicago, perhaps] and then they revealed to the committee that these Indians are potential claimants too, and “our responsibility to them is legal and must be met.” The BIA testified that if the claims did not survive the statute of limitations, there would be a suit against the U.S. Government as trustee for failure to carry out a fiduciary obligation; a breach of the trust obligation to bring an action on their [Indians] behalf.” The BIA was not going down alone, by God!
What happened to the Indian claims since 1980? It remains after one hundred years of the date of the original land frauds and thirty years after the hearings, [1979] that the State of Maine and other white defendants, states, counties, corporations, companies, and individuals have had their land titles secured, but Indian land title claims remain in jeopardy. The BIA policy of ignoring Indian issues, leaving Indian property not dealt with, hoping it will go away, remains in force to date. I think the BIA-Interior Department is trying to or has accomplished the dirty dealing of eliminating dormant pre-1966 Indian title claims in current settlements in the IIM cases and the state-tribal water compact settlements. That is one issue for the Indian lawyers to look into and resolve to give us grassroots Indians an idea of what it is we are agreeing to in the IIM and state-tribal water compact settlements. The IIM lawyers appear to be more interested in settling their $100,000,000 fees. The Indians got the loose pocket change the Congress dropped from its Indian claims fund to placate Cobell et al. Will $1,000 replace your title?
What are the consequences of land frauds on Indian allotments and oil wells? In my opinion, it reaches the level of political and economic genocide of Indian sovereignty and treaty rights usurped by the border-states and border-whites. The BIA admit their entire administrative organization has lost jurisdiction and control over the most potent natural factor in the control of the use of the range as a result of the loss of Patent in Fee lands and the subsequent loss of control of water holes on Indian reservations.
There is not enough Indian grazing land left in blocks big enough to administer, and the fragments are leased by white ranchers, leaving the Indian landowners with minimal payments. The BIA is managing air. The alienated lands [Patent in Fee] to an extent far out of proportion to the allotted acreage control the watering places for stock. In the livestock wars of the early west, the control of watering places was the principle point at issue and it is this control of water today that is just as important and as essential to the efficient utilization of range lands.
The highly decentralized ownership of allotted lands is the “obstacle against which any but the most elastic and readily adaptable plan of grazing will shatter itself and become ineffective.” BIA grazing management plans are “obscured by the very pressing problem of the unified administration of a block of land divided by ownership into thousands of separate parcels.” The expression Grazing Management used in an industrial sense, presupposes the existence of a relatively large tract of land to which supervision can be given toward obtaining continued production and utilization of forage crops.
The Patent in Fee lands [stolen allotted Indian lands] are scattered over the entire reservation, every township having two or more Patent in Fee allotments. The land status maps also indicate a pronounced tendency for the more valuable areas, particularly along water courses, to pass into a Patent in Fee status ahead of the less desirable, drier areas. “This indicates a desire on the part of the white stock owner to acquire title to the watering places to be used in connection with the leasing of adjoining [allotted] range lands. As is indicated by a study of the location of the Patent in Fee lands in relation to the areas under grazing leases, the owners of alienated lands [white ranchers] are in a position to greatly influence and in some cases to absolutely control the use of adjoining allotted range lands.”
The white ranchers and farmers lands, on account of the Patent in Fees, and the available range lands of the Indians, is distinctly a range livestock county within reservation boundaries and as such may be considered a distinct economic territory. This situation is apartheid in nature and practice to separate indigenous people from their land and rights in their own country. The border-white’s goal is to oppress Indians politically and economically through genocidal history. The livestock figures show that the livestock industry of the white ranchers on reservations annually produce three and one half times the income of their nearest county competitor because of the Patent in Fee lands and monopoly of adjacent Indian ranges.
The Indians were promised in treaty, separate lands free of state taxation and state jurisdiction, and free of speculators on Indian land. The treaty doesn’t say Blackfeet Indians and “white ranchers” reservation; it is the “Blackfeet Indian Reservation.” Recently uncovered government documents reveal the physical genocide attempts of Montana border-whites to “exterminate” the Blackfeet Indians for their property. Time ran out on the border-whites physical genocide era [the Indians survived] and then came the social, cultural, economic, and political genocide of Indian people and human rights violations by the border-states and border-whites manipulating the plenary powers of Congress for their economic benefit.
The Indians remain in political and economic bondage to border-whites and under control of border-states today. The Cobell IIM cases and the state-tribal water compact settlements have the potential to extinguish Indian title claims forever by agreeing to money settlements without considering the land frauds and state political oppression of the Indians. The lawyers and Cobell don’t understand the damage they are doing to legitimate Indian title claims for the return of Indian property by pursuing “ambulance chaser” claims for money settlements, but isn’t that what lawyers do?
We want our treaty land titles back as any sensible robbery victim would say, and we want our lost revenues to that resource compensated and we want the border-states and border-whites removed from Indian reservations. We need a “leave us alone law.” This is racketeering. The machinery of the federal government, the President, the Congress and the Supreme Court, gears locked in the question of Indian justice.
We need national Indian lobbyists to call for Congress to re-settle the Indians on their own lands and to remove the border-whites to their own reservations [state lands] and we need to hold IIM Indian claims and state-tribal water compact settlements in abeyance until the Indian land title is restored and the white ranchers “void” titles removed from the reservation.
The estimates of the losses in Indian title and tort claims cases reaches 17,000 individual and tribal claims and 10,000,000 acres of allotted Indian land nationwide. The title issues are to regain title to Indian property.
The BIA testified “the claims program will affect a significant number of [white] citizens in this country because, in many cases, we are looking at the prospects of regaining title to [Indian] property, and many of these [white] individuals through no fault of their own, are holding void titles.” The BIA testimony glosses over massive Indian land frauds that have driven the Indians to abject poverty for generations, and will continue to do so until the Indians get justice. It is like testifying on the Nazi Genocide in World War II without mentioning the consequences of the Jewish Holocaust.
The BIA aired the issue of heirship problems and thousands of Indian descendants unidentified, as though they were lost somewhere in America and could not be found [relocated to Chicago, perhaps] and then they revealed to the committee that these Indians are potential claimants too, and “our responsibility to them is legal and must be met.” The BIA testified that if the claims did not survive the statute of limitations, there would be a suit against the U.S. Government as trustee for failure to carry out a fiduciary obligation; a breach of the trust obligation to bring an action on their [Indians] behalf.” The BIA was not going down alone, by God!
What happened to the Indian claims since 1980? It remains after one hundred years of the date of the original land frauds and thirty years after the hearings, [1979] that the State of Maine and other white defendants, states, counties, corporations, companies, and individuals have had their land titles secured, but Indian land title claims remain in jeopardy. The BIA policy of ignoring Indian issues, leaving Indian property not dealt with, hoping it will go away, remains in force to date. I think the BIA-Interior Department is trying to or has accomplished the dirty dealing of eliminating dormant pre-1966 Indian title claims in current settlements in the IIM cases and the state-tribal water compact settlements. That is one issue for the Indian lawyers to look into and resolve to give us grassroots Indians an idea of what it is we are agreeing to in the IIM and state-tribal water compact settlements. The IIM lawyers appear to be more interested in settling their $100,000,000 fees. The Indians got the loose pocket change the Congress dropped from its Indian claims fund to placate Cobell et al. Will $1,000 replace your title?
What are the consequences of land frauds on Indian allotments and oil wells? In my opinion, it reaches the level of political and economic genocide of Indian sovereignty and treaty rights usurped by the border-states and border-whites. The BIA admit their entire administrative organization has lost jurisdiction and control over the most potent natural factor in the control of the use of the range as a result of the loss of Patent in Fee lands and the subsequent loss of control of water holes on Indian reservations.
There is not enough Indian grazing land left in blocks big enough to administer, and the fragments are leased by white ranchers, leaving the Indian landowners with minimal payments. The BIA is managing air. The alienated lands [Patent in Fee] to an extent far out of proportion to the allotted acreage control the watering places for stock. In the livestock wars of the early west, the control of watering places was the principle point at issue and it is this control of water today that is just as important and as essential to the efficient utilization of range lands.
The highly decentralized ownership of allotted lands is the “obstacle against which any but the most elastic and readily adaptable plan of grazing will shatter itself and become ineffective.” BIA grazing management plans are “obscured by the very pressing problem of the unified administration of a block of land divided by ownership into thousands of separate parcels.” The expression Grazing Management used in an industrial sense, presupposes the existence of a relatively large tract of land to which supervision can be given toward obtaining continued production and utilization of forage crops.
The Patent in Fee lands [stolen allotted Indian lands] are scattered over the entire reservation, every township having two or more Patent in Fee allotments. The land status maps also indicate a pronounced tendency for the more valuable areas, particularly along water courses, to pass into a Patent in Fee status ahead of the less desirable, drier areas. “This indicates a desire on the part of the white stock owner to acquire title to the watering places to be used in connection with the leasing of adjoining [allotted] range lands. As is indicated by a study of the location of the Patent in Fee lands in relation to the areas under grazing leases, the owners of alienated lands [white ranchers] are in a position to greatly influence and in some cases to absolutely control the use of adjoining allotted range lands.”
The white ranchers and farmers lands, on account of the Patent in Fees, and the available range lands of the Indians, is distinctly a range livestock county within reservation boundaries and as such may be considered a distinct economic territory. This situation is apartheid in nature and practice to separate indigenous people from their land and rights in their own country. The border-white’s goal is to oppress Indians politically and economically through genocidal history. The livestock figures show that the livestock industry of the white ranchers on reservations annually produce three and one half times the income of their nearest county competitor because of the Patent in Fee lands and monopoly of adjacent Indian ranges.
The Indians were promised in treaty, separate lands free of state taxation and state jurisdiction, and free of speculators on Indian land. The treaty doesn’t say Blackfeet Indians and “white ranchers” reservation; it is the “Blackfeet Indian Reservation.” Recently uncovered government documents reveal the physical genocide attempts of Montana border-whites to “exterminate” the Blackfeet Indians for their property. Time ran out on the border-whites physical genocide era [the Indians survived] and then came the social, cultural, economic, and political genocide of Indian people and human rights violations by the border-states and border-whites manipulating the plenary powers of Congress for their economic benefit.
The Indians remain in political and economic bondage to border-whites and under control of border-states today. The Cobell IIM cases and the state-tribal water compact settlements have the potential to extinguish Indian title claims forever by agreeing to money settlements without considering the land frauds and state political oppression of the Indians. The lawyers and Cobell don’t understand the damage they are doing to legitimate Indian title claims for the return of Indian property by pursuing “ambulance chaser” claims for money settlements, but isn’t that what lawyers do?
We want our treaty land titles back as any sensible robbery victim would say, and we want our lost revenues to that resource compensated and we want the border-states and border-whites removed from Indian reservations. We need a “leave us alone law.” This is racketeering. The machinery of the federal government, the President, the Congress and the Supreme Court, gears locked in the question of Indian justice.
We need national Indian lobbyists to call for Congress to re-settle the Indians on their own lands and to remove the border-whites to their own reservations [state lands] and we need to hold IIM Indian claims and state-tribal water compact settlements in abeyance until the Indian land title is restored and the white ranchers “void” titles removed from the reservation.
The estimates of the losses in Indian title and tort claims cases reaches 17,000 individual and tribal claims and 10,000,000 acres of allotted Indian land nationwide. The title issues are to regain title to Indian property.
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