Native American PostColonial PostTraumatic Stress Disorders Are Real
The book above by Roberto Duran and Bonnie Duran examines histories role in helping Indian individuals and Indian communities to have a clear understanding of the historical issues that have led to the pain felt by many native individuals and communities today. The authors believe that “Most of those injuries are a direct result of the colonization process.” They say that “Without a proper understanding of the [Indian] history, those who practice in the disciplines of applied social sciences operate in a vacuum, thereby merely perpetuating this ongoing neocolonialism.”
The terms used in describing intergenerational transmission of posttraumatic stress disorders [PTSD] has emerged from research done with victims of the Nazi Holocaust, but it turns out many of those dynamics in effect in the Jewish holocaust experience are similar to those of the Blackfeet holocaust experience with the Montana Border-Whites Indian “extermination” policy over a period of 150 years and counting. The Blackfeet genocide has turned from extermination to dispossession. The United States has not acknowledged the holocaust of Blackfeet people in Montana and this lack of official national acknowledgement remains the main obstacle to the healing process of the Blackfeet people. The inherent denial also keeps the border-whites trapped in an aura of secrecy and alienation since their acts continue to haunt them with guilt and mad consumerism. The ends justified the means.
I can see the knowledge of Blackfeet history healing some of our hurts in today’s world because the white man’s shame will soon be known world-wide. It reminds me of the hundreds of Blackfeet Allotments all gone in a couple of years after the white man established Glacier and Pondera Counties on the reservation. By 1920 there were hundreds of “landless” Blackfeet Indians and the whites had ownership of 210,000 acres of the best reservation lands and oil fields. How did they do that? Conspiracy and government complicity [BIA frauds] was the tools of the criminals, and poverty of the Blackfeet Indians was the result. The cause and effect had to be fraud and conspiracy in order for that many Blackfeet land fraud cases to come in clusters of hundreds in just two years after state encroachment on the reservation. There is a legal term that says “The thing speaks for itself.”
This is a political battle now, not a legal one. The Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in 1979, Forest Gerard, testified to the Congress that the Department of Interior was complicit in the land frauds [forced fee patents, old age assistance, secretarial transfers], and therefore could not bring litigation on behalf of Indian claimants because the government would have to sue itself in federal court. That is quite a legal pickle for sure.
In 1980 Chairman Earl Old Person was suppressing the Blackfeet claims in the tribal office. The Blackfeet elders had requested the tribe to look into their land claims on their own property that had been taken by white men and local trader J.L. Sherburne. That is how the whole trip started in the Blackfeet claims. It is only recently with the sharing of tribal historical research and a renewed effort that we have been able to overcome the weight of Old Person’s political power. We would take the Blackfeet claims to Washington D.C. and Chairman Old Person would cancel them before we got back home. He is a BIA operative. We had the killer documents that proved the BIA criminal conspiracy, but we could not reach the Congress.
Where do you think your money has gone to? What about your grandma’s land? Is there a white man squatting on it, and where did he come from? Who is it that has lost their land and who is it that has gained your land? Will $1,000 cover your losses? Lazy lawyers will tell you the truth is at the bottom of a bottomless pit, but they are just trying to settle and get their cash. But the law says what came into court must come out of court, but the trick played on the Indians is that they have not been to court. Remember the confession of complicity of the BIA in 1979? The BIA is too crooked to get into court and confess, so they just buried the claims at both ends, and guess who was their local man? Old Person tortured us for nearly thirty years. I was worried with the shortness of reservation life and sudden death the case might be buried forever. This is in reality a case that belongs in the Congress to settle because of the many treaty violations contained in the Blackfeet claims. The local whites [Cut Bank, Valier, Conrad, Choteau, etc.] try to kill the treaty but Congress will set them right and move them out to their own reservation [Montana].
I used to believe that if we could present our case to tribal and federal authorities that justice would follow and that if judges saw the evidence right in front of them they would rule in the Indians favor, but the past thirty years have given me a depressing dose of reality in treaty law. It is political! President Reagan and Secretary of Interior James Watt in 1980 defied Congress in implementing the P.L. 96-217 Indian claims law. The claims remain locked up in the Interior Department, The Blackfeet claims remain where President Reagan left them in 1980 and will stay there until the next Congress takes action upon our request [Blackfeet Tribe]. The Tribal Elders Council has treaty issues. We are moving toward the day of Blackfeet rule.
Public Law 96-217, Section 2, says the Interior Department must send all Indian claims to Congress that they deemed inappropriate for litigation. Instead the Interior Department attempted to let the statute of limitations run to extinguish the Indian claims. That is where the Blackfeet claims remain today, awaiting tribal council action in requesting that our claims be sent to Congress for legislative solutions.
There are a couple of issues that yet might derail the Blackfeet claims. The Cobell Case Settlement must not include the Blackfeet land claims or any other claims of the Blackfeet landowners or the Blackfeet Tribe.
The Interior Department lawyers might try to put two corpses in one casket in the IIM settlements eliminating our forced patent claims. I don’t know the terms of the settlement, but it would show some respect to the Indian people for the lawyers to explain the terms and provisions of the settlement before we vote on it, or if it is a done deal.
The other issue is that the tribal council in 2008 agreed to “set aside” the Pre-1966 Indian claims in the state-tribal water compact settlement.
Senator Cohen of Maine in 1980 as Chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee said the Indian water rights to these stolen allotments must be protected, and the title to Indian land is not barred in these cases, therefore it is incumbent upon the Congress to protect innocent Indian victims by this law [96-217, Section 2]. In other words, the water rights and mineral rights go with the land restoration in the forced patents and other land frauds.
The Blackfeet Indians land, water rights and minerals must be restored for the Indians to be made whole from their injuries and losses. Tribal issues include rights-of-way and trespassing violations by the state and county and state encroachment on the reservation. The Tribal Elders Council issues include the Park Boundary and other land issues. The tribal cattle rancher’s claims are a treaty right violation and need support. There is a lot of work to do but the tribal council is helping us and we will meet soon.
It is good to remember that these claims cases are also a therapy for the past and need to be won to begin the healing of the people and nation.
The book above by Roberto Duran and Bonnie Duran examines histories role in helping Indian individuals and Indian communities to have a clear understanding of the historical issues that have led to the pain felt by many native individuals and communities today. The authors believe that “Most of those injuries are a direct result of the colonization process.” They say that “Without a proper understanding of the [Indian] history, those who practice in the disciplines of applied social sciences operate in a vacuum, thereby merely perpetuating this ongoing neocolonialism.”
The terms used in describing intergenerational transmission of posttraumatic stress disorders [PTSD] has emerged from research done with victims of the Nazi Holocaust, but it turns out many of those dynamics in effect in the Jewish holocaust experience are similar to those of the Blackfeet holocaust experience with the Montana Border-Whites Indian “extermination” policy over a period of 150 years and counting. The Blackfeet genocide has turned from extermination to dispossession. The United States has not acknowledged the holocaust of Blackfeet people in Montana and this lack of official national acknowledgement remains the main obstacle to the healing process of the Blackfeet people. The inherent denial also keeps the border-whites trapped in an aura of secrecy and alienation since their acts continue to haunt them with guilt and mad consumerism. The ends justified the means.
I can see the knowledge of Blackfeet history healing some of our hurts in today’s world because the white man’s shame will soon be known world-wide. It reminds me of the hundreds of Blackfeet Allotments all gone in a couple of years after the white man established Glacier and Pondera Counties on the reservation. By 1920 there were hundreds of “landless” Blackfeet Indians and the whites had ownership of 210,000 acres of the best reservation lands and oil fields. How did they do that? Conspiracy and government complicity [BIA frauds] was the tools of the criminals, and poverty of the Blackfeet Indians was the result. The cause and effect had to be fraud and conspiracy in order for that many Blackfeet land fraud cases to come in clusters of hundreds in just two years after state encroachment on the reservation. There is a legal term that says “The thing speaks for itself.”
This is a political battle now, not a legal one. The Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in 1979, Forest Gerard, testified to the Congress that the Department of Interior was complicit in the land frauds [forced fee patents, old age assistance, secretarial transfers], and therefore could not bring litigation on behalf of Indian claimants because the government would have to sue itself in federal court. That is quite a legal pickle for sure.
In 1980 Chairman Earl Old Person was suppressing the Blackfeet claims in the tribal office. The Blackfeet elders had requested the tribe to look into their land claims on their own property that had been taken by white men and local trader J.L. Sherburne. That is how the whole trip started in the Blackfeet claims. It is only recently with the sharing of tribal historical research and a renewed effort that we have been able to overcome the weight of Old Person’s political power. We would take the Blackfeet claims to Washington D.C. and Chairman Old Person would cancel them before we got back home. He is a BIA operative. We had the killer documents that proved the BIA criminal conspiracy, but we could not reach the Congress.
Where do you think your money has gone to? What about your grandma’s land? Is there a white man squatting on it, and where did he come from? Who is it that has lost their land and who is it that has gained your land? Will $1,000 cover your losses? Lazy lawyers will tell you the truth is at the bottom of a bottomless pit, but they are just trying to settle and get their cash. But the law says what came into court must come out of court, but the trick played on the Indians is that they have not been to court. Remember the confession of complicity of the BIA in 1979? The BIA is too crooked to get into court and confess, so they just buried the claims at both ends, and guess who was their local man? Old Person tortured us for nearly thirty years. I was worried with the shortness of reservation life and sudden death the case might be buried forever. This is in reality a case that belongs in the Congress to settle because of the many treaty violations contained in the Blackfeet claims. The local whites [Cut Bank, Valier, Conrad, Choteau, etc.] try to kill the treaty but Congress will set them right and move them out to their own reservation [Montana].
I used to believe that if we could present our case to tribal and federal authorities that justice would follow and that if judges saw the evidence right in front of them they would rule in the Indians favor, but the past thirty years have given me a depressing dose of reality in treaty law. It is political! President Reagan and Secretary of Interior James Watt in 1980 defied Congress in implementing the P.L. 96-217 Indian claims law. The claims remain locked up in the Interior Department, The Blackfeet claims remain where President Reagan left them in 1980 and will stay there until the next Congress takes action upon our request [Blackfeet Tribe]. The Tribal Elders Council has treaty issues. We are moving toward the day of Blackfeet rule.
Public Law 96-217, Section 2, says the Interior Department must send all Indian claims to Congress that they deemed inappropriate for litigation. Instead the Interior Department attempted to let the statute of limitations run to extinguish the Indian claims. That is where the Blackfeet claims remain today, awaiting tribal council action in requesting that our claims be sent to Congress for legislative solutions.
There are a couple of issues that yet might derail the Blackfeet claims. The Cobell Case Settlement must not include the Blackfeet land claims or any other claims of the Blackfeet landowners or the Blackfeet Tribe.
The Interior Department lawyers might try to put two corpses in one casket in the IIM settlements eliminating our forced patent claims. I don’t know the terms of the settlement, but it would show some respect to the Indian people for the lawyers to explain the terms and provisions of the settlement before we vote on it, or if it is a done deal.
The other issue is that the tribal council in 2008 agreed to “set aside” the Pre-1966 Indian claims in the state-tribal water compact settlement.
Senator Cohen of Maine in 1980 as Chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee said the Indian water rights to these stolen allotments must be protected, and the title to Indian land is not barred in these cases, therefore it is incumbent upon the Congress to protect innocent Indian victims by this law [96-217, Section 2]. In other words, the water rights and mineral rights go with the land restoration in the forced patents and other land frauds.
The Blackfeet Indians land, water rights and minerals must be restored for the Indians to be made whole from their injuries and losses. Tribal issues include rights-of-way and trespassing violations by the state and county and state encroachment on the reservation. The Tribal Elders Council issues include the Park Boundary and other land issues. The tribal cattle rancher’s claims are a treaty right violation and need support. There is a lot of work to do but the tribal council is helping us and we will meet soon.
It is good to remember that these claims cases are also a therapy for the past and need to be won to begin the healing of the people and nation.
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