Forgotten Founders Quote

Quote from Forgotten Founders by Bruce E. Johansen
These were the words of Canassatego. Brothers, Our forefathers rejoiced to hear Canassatego speak these words. They sunk deep into our hearts. The advice was good. It was kind. They said to one another: “The Six Nations are a wise people, Let us hearken to them, and take their counsel, and teach our children to follow it.” Our old men have done so. They have frequently taken a single arrow and said, Children, see how easily it is broken. Then they have taken and tied twelve arrows together with a strong string or cord and our strongest men could not break them. See, said they, this is what the Six Nations mean. Divided, a single man may destroy you, united, you are a match for the whole world. We thank the great God that we are all united; that we have a strong confederacy, composed of twelve provinces….These provinces have lighted a great council fire at Philadelphia and sent sixty-five counselors to speak and act in the name of the whole, and to consult for the common good of the people….
-Forgotten Founders by Bruce E. Johansen

Blackfeet Political History

The major problem in understanding Blackfeet political history is that the State of Montana has erased all knowledge of the land thefts of Blackfeet allotments in public school education curriculum. Tribal leaders do not understand allottee forced patent frauds and do not see the need to support tribal members individual land claims. Past tribal council Chairman Old Person was proud of his co-dependency on the BIA. He is the first chief to go against his own people. He ought to be banished, shunned and shamed.
The state-tribal water compact and the Cobell Case ignore the massive land thefts of Blackfeet allotments and oil wells. I advise tribal members to oppose settlement of water rights claims in the current Blackfeet water compact and $1,000 “compensation” in the Cobell case. It is arrogant and ignorant to ask us to sell out our forced patent claims to give white ranchers Blackfeet title to stolen land and water rights on the reservation forever.
The tribal council under Chairman Old Person protected the BIA and the rich white ranchers on the reservation. They ignored the Blackfeet victims of the BIA-white ranchers land frauds in the forced fee patents conspiracy. The evidence testified to in Congress is the truth because BIA Officials were under duress to tell the truth or face five years in federal prison for lying to Congress. In that testimony presented by Forest Gerard, Head of the BIA told of the crimes committed by the BIA against the Indian allottees, and the legal need for Congress to restore the title to the Indians.
Why didn’t the Congress restore the Blackfeet allotments? It was because of Chairman Old Person stonewalling the forced patent claims at the reservation level. I was told by the senate lawyer that Chairman Old Person refused the claims, and there was nothing they could do because the tribal council is the elected representative of the Blackfeet people. This is the visible head of the BIA conspiracy to extinguish tribal forced patent claims. The Cobell Case and the state-tribal water compact are void and illegal.
Before you accuse me of lying, why don’t you ask Old Person and Cobell to explain their proposed claims and settlements in plain language we understand? Did Chairman Old Person and Tribal Treasurer Cobell ever give you a Tribal Finance Report? Where is their concern about the 1,200 tribal members who hold legal claims for loss of 350,000 acres of Blackfeet allotments and oil wells? It would seem traitorous not to care.
What of $300,000,000 in compensation due us? Do we “settle” for $1,000 and give white rancher’s title to 350,000 acres of Blackfeet land, water rights and oil wells? The settlement offers are another BIA operative to extinguish the Blackfeet land claims. First return our land and money that the BIA helped to steal. Indian claims come first to a Blackfeet patriot. The reason there is a push to settle claims is the white man is covering his tracks.

Bureau of Indian Affairs Official Testimony

State of Montana in Wrongful Possession of Blackfeet Indian Allotments and Tribal Assetts on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation for the past 100 years working against the interests of the BlackfeetTribe and Blackfeet Indians.
By Bob Juneau and Robert C. Juneau, September, 2010

The land base of the Blackfeet Reservation in 1912 was 1,440,000 acres of allotted Blackfeet lands-By 1980 the reservation land base was diminished to 946,000 acres; leaving approximately 500,000 acres of former Blackfeet allotments in possession of white ranchers. The consequences of state encroachment on the Blackfeet Reservation are the Pre-1966 Indian claims.

“A great majority of the thousands of Indian claimants are heirs of deceased Blackfeet allottees or trust patentees. We are unable to locate many of them:”
Bureau of Indian Affairs Assistant Secretary Forest Gerard testified on Monday, December 17, 1979 concerning the Pre-1966 Claims of the Indians before the U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Indian Affairs. The Purpose of the Hearing is: 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.
Forest Gerard, BIA Assistant Secretary confessed to “complicity” [partnership in crime] in the Blackfeet land frauds in a hearing on March 13, 1979 on the issuance of patents in fee and other encumbrances of the Indians property by the Interior Department.
BIA officials told committee members “you hear stories that there are thousands upon thousands of claims out in the misty mountains”, and “BIA Records are stored all over creation.” BIA officials also told Congress they felt the claims had “grown stale.” Mice turds were found in the BIA files.

BIA protects white invaders
The BIA was concerned “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. We appreciate the claims program has, or will affect a significant number of [white] citizens in this country because in many cases, we are looking at the prospects of regaining [Indian] title to property, and many of these individuals [whites]-the defendants-through no fault of their own, are holding void titles.”

BIA “loses” thousands of Blackfeet Indians
The BIA aired the issue of heirship problems and the thousands of Indian descendants yet unidentified. The BIA revealed “that these Indians are potential claimants too, and our [federal trust] responsibility to them is legal and must be met. This is the heirship problem. As you know, on many of the allotments, if the original [Indian] allottee has died, the ownership has descended into literally hundreds of individuals. These are potential claimants too. We have difficulty locating these individuals, but our responsibility to them is legal and must be met.”
The BIA officials 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 “loses” the Blackfeet Reservation Water Holes
The BIA Agency Officials admit their entire agency administrative organization has lost jurisdiction and control over the most potent natural factor in the control of the use of the reservation range as a result of the loss of Patent in Fee lands and the subsequent loss of control of water holes on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. 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 holes today that is just as important and as essential to the efficient utilization of [reservation] range lands.

Loss of allotments an obstacle to proper management of range
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.”

Loss of patent in fee lands an obstacle to tribal ranchers
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 Blackfeet Indian Allotments] 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 [white ranchers ownership] ahead of the less desirable, drier areas[Indian allotments]. 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 [Blackfeet 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 Blackfeet allotted range lands.

White ranchers own and control reservation livestock economy
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.
The livestock figures show that the livestock industry of the white ranchers on the Blackfeet Reservation 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 Blackfeet allotted Indian range lands.
The Blackfeet claims issues are regaining Blackfeet title to Blackfeet Indian property, and removal of white ranchers and farmers from the alienated lands [patent in fee].
The jurisdiction of Glacier and Pondera Counties, as well as the State of Montana will recede to the exterior borders of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. The tribal agricultural sector flows will increase to tribal ranchers and farmers and landowners. This will complete the treaty goals of the United States of America and the Blackfeet Nation in the 1896 Agreement/Article Five.

Self-Sufficient Blackfeet cattle ranchers now economically dependent
The formerly independent self-supporting Blackfeet cattle ranchers and the tribal cattle industry have been destroyed by the political and economic power of the white ranchers and farmers working in concert with corrupt BIA officials on the reservation.
There is no longer any treaty talk of bringing the Indians to self-support or to build the Blackfeet nation as a whole economy within the reservation borders because the reserved Indian grazing lands have been stolen by the patent in fee’s and white land grafters.
The political power of tribal treaty rights contained in the 1896 Agreement/Article Five have been diminished by encroaching jurisdiction of the state and county within the Blackfeet Indian Reservation boundaries in violation of the treaty, state constitution, organic act and Congress’ intent.


Blackfeet history must be re-written to change it
The history of the Blackfeet Indians is not the history of the Indian ranchers, and Indian cattle industry, but is the history of the looting, raping, murder and robbery of the Indians by Montana border-whites. The history of the Territory and State of Montana is the history of the border-whites despoiling the territory of the Blackfeet Indians.
This horrific history of exploitation can only be challenged by putting an end to the colonization of the reservation by white ranchers and farmers. We must de-colonize our selves [win tribal and allotted claims] in order to bring economic life back to the Blackfeet people and to restore political power to the Blackfeet Nation. De-colonization of the Indians reminds the border-whites “The last shall be first” as quoted in the Bible.

Note from Bob Juneau: I understand the tribal attorney is working to renew her contract with the tribal council at present. We will progress on the tribal resolution requesting a Congressional response to the Blackfeet Pre-1966 Indian land claims when we get the tribal attorney’s legal assistance in doing the tribal council resolution to Congress. This is the tribal gossip; I don’t know what the truth might be in this case. Let me know!

Notes from Mission Among the Blackfeet by Howard L. Harrod

Notes from Mission Among the Blackfeet by Howard L. Harrod
Table of Contents
Preface pg.vii
Introduction: Indian Missions And Social Change pg.xvii
Part I: Traditional Culture And Early Christian Missions pg.1
Chapter I: Buffalo Days pg.3
Chapter II: White Man’s Medicine pg.19
Chapter III: The Last Buffalo pg.39
Part II: Catholic Missions And Forced Acculturation pg.49
Chapter IV: Conflicts with the powers of Darkness pg.51
Chapter V: A Temporary Protestant Establishment pg.67
Chapter VI: Civilizing and Christianizing pg.82
Chapter VII: The Resistance of Satan pg.97
Part III: Protestant Missions Struggle For Identity pg.107
Chapter VIII: Short coats and Civilization
Chapter IX: The Church of the Little Sweet Pine pg.128
Chapter X: Short coats and Segregation pg.141
Part IV: The Shape of the present pg.153
Chapter XI: A Question of Social Justice pg.155
Chapter XII: Protestant and Catholic Responses pg.165
Conclusion pg.183
The Two Heritages Compared pg.185
Questions
What were the goals of the Methodists on the Blackfeet Reservation?
What was the Blackfeet response to being Civilized and Christianized?
What were the goals of the Catholics on the Blackfeet Reservation?
Introduction Indian Missions And Social Change pg.xviii
Representatives of Major Western Institutions.
1.The Fur Trader
2.The Indian Agent
3.The Soldier
4.The White Settler
5.The Missionary
Introduction Indian Missions And Social Change pg.xix
Two periods of history of Blackfeet relationship with white society.
1.Early decades of 1700’s to late 1870’s. This was the time of relative political, economic, cultural, and religious autonomy for the Blackfeet. From 1850 to the late 1870’s the Blackfeet main food source, the Buffalo, was destroyed and they became dependent upon white society operating through the soldier and the agent.
2.Late 1870’s to the present.
Began with the destruction of vast portions of traditional tribal culture and continues to
the present.
Questions
Why were the early decades of the 1700’s to late 1870’s a time of relative political, economic, cultural, and religious autonomy for the Blackfeet?
From 1850 to the late 1870’s how did the Blackfeet become dependent upon white society.
Starting in the late 1870’s and continuing to the present why were vast portions of the Blackfeet traditional culture destroyed?
Introduction Indian Missions And Social Change pg.xx-xxi
What were the anticipated and unanticipated consequences of the actions of the Missionaries for the Blackfeet?
Questions
What were the anticipated consequences of the actions of the Missionaries for the Blackfeet?
What were the unanticipated consequences of the actions of the Missionaries for the Blackfeet?
Why did Christian Missions have both a destructive and conservative influence on the Blackfeet?
Introduction Indian Missions And Social Change pg.xxi
Religion can be:
1.innovative
2.conservative
3.or destructive force in Human affairs

1.innovative-Mission churches may become the creative nuclei around which Indian life is innovatively reorganized.
2.conservative-missionary institutions may provide a needed center of social order and identity for Indians undergoing a rapid social change-a conservative, stabilizing function
3.destructive-missionaries may introduce innovations in ritual and ethics which are ultimately destructive for Indian life
Christian missions have been both destructive and conservative for the Blackfeet.
Buffalo Days pg.4
Blackfeet Men
Central economic activity was hunting. Only men could be hunters. Boys at age ten had to go on hunts where he would learn to hunt. By his teens he usually learned everything he needed to know to be a hunter. Men were expected to be generous to:
1.poor families
2.the aged
3.families without an able hunter
Blackfoot society condemned the stingy man and rewarded the generous one with social status and political power.
Blackfeet Social Institutions
Centered on the character and movements of the Buffalo. Celebrated the values associated with the hunt.
Blackfeet Political Institutions
Reflected the necessities of the hunt.
Blackfeet Economic Institutions
Hunting. Mainly Buffalo. Reflected the necessities of the hunt.
Blackfeet Religious Institutions
Buffalo was the source of life.
Buffalo Days pg.5
Blackfeet Political Organization
Was formed by the nature of the hunting economy, had to be small enough to make sustenance possible and large enough to make the hunt successful. The band chief was the political leader.
In order to become a band chief you had to:
1.have a impressive war record
2.be generous
3.preserve peace in the group
4.arbitrate conflicts in the camp
Ridicule was used by the group to control cases of personal misconduct.
Blackfeet Women
To become an attractive wife the skills Blackfeet women had to learn were:
1.the dressing of Buffalo hides
2.the making of clothing and lodges
3.the preparation of food
Buffalo Days pg.6
The life of the Blackfeet involved four periods:
1.the season of winter camp
2.the spring hunting and root-gathering season
3.the summer hunting and sun dance season
4.the fall hunting and berry-gathering season
Blackfeet Tribal Chief
Tended to be hereditarily chosen.
Only during summer camp did he have extensive political power and even then was only chairman of a tribal council composed of Band Chiefs.
The Blackfeet bands only came together during the summer hunt and the sun dance season. When they did they formed a Tribal Council with a Tribal Chief as the leader. Decisions were made through discussion and consensus. Each band leader was heard from before a decision was made. This was done to prevent inequality of power or control by a single person.
Catholic Priests
Father Giorda
Father Imoda 1875
Father Prando 1875
Conflicts with the powers of darkness pg.65
What the priests could not possible grasp were the unintentional consequences of their activities, for their attacks on traditional culture tended to weaken Blackfoot life even further and in a tragic way contributed to the historical forces which were destroying the Indian world.
Civilizing And Christianizing pg.93
Their attempt to Christianize the Blackfeet was destructive as well as constructive. Their efforts were destructive because they further undermined social order without fully convincing the Indians to adopt Western culture and constructive because Holy Family Mission became a center of order and meaningful activity for Indians who came deeply under its influence.

Forgotten Founders Quotes

Forgotten Founders Quotes
James Adair’s History of the American Indians (1775) “prefers simple Hebraic-savage honesty to complex British civilized corruption.” Indians, wrote Adair, were governed by the “plain and honest law of nature…”:
Their whole constitution breathes nothing but liberty; and when there is equality of
condition, manners and privileges, and a constant familiarity in society, as prevails
in every Indian nation, and through all our British colonies, there glows such a
cheerfulness and warmth of courage in each of their breasts, as cannot be described.
Iroquoian notions of personal liberty also drew exclamations from Colden, who wrote:
The Five Nations have such absolute Notions of Liberty that they allow of no Kind of
Superiority of one over another, and banish all Servitude from their Territories. They
never make any prisoner a slave, but it is customary among them to make a
Compliment of Naturalization into the Five Nations; and, considering how highly
they value themselves above all others, this must be no small compliment…
The writer sought to refute assumptions that Iroquois women were “slaves of their husbands.” “The truth is that Women are treated in a much more respectful manner than in England & that they possess a very superior power; this is to be attributed in a very great measure to their system of Education.” The women, in addition to their political power and control of allocation from the communal stores, acted as communicators of culture between generations. It was they who educated the young.
Wynn R. Reynolds in 1957 examined 258 speeches by Iroquois at treaty councils between 1678 and 1776 and found that the speakers resembled the ancient Greeks in their primary emphasis on ethical proof.
-Forgotten Founders by Bruce E. Johansen

The Social Contract Quote

The Social Contract Quote
The right of the first occupant,’ although more real than the ‘right of the strongest,’ does not become a true right until the institution of property. Every man has a natural right to what he needs; but the positive act which makes a man the proprietor of any estate excludes him from everything else. His share having once been settled, he must confine himself to it, and he has no further right against the community. Thus we see how ‘the right of the first occupant,’ weak as it is in the state of nature, compels in political society the respect of all men. What this right makes one aware of is less what belongs to others than what does not belong to oneself.
As a general rule, to justify the right of the first occupant to any piece of land whatever, the following conditions must obtain: first, that the land shall not already be inhabited by anyone else; secondly, that the claimant occupies no more than he needs for subsistence; thirdly, that he takes possession, not by an idle ceremony, but by actually working and cultivating the soil – the only sign of ownership which need be respected by other people in the absence of a legal title.
It can, indeed, be said that tying ‘the right of the first occupant’ to need and work is stretching it as far as it will go. Can one really avoid setting limits on the right? Is it enough to put one’s feet on a piece of common land in order to claim it at once as one’s own? Is it enough to have the power to keep other men off for one moment in order to deprive them of the right ever to return? How could a man or a people seize a vast territory and keep out the rest of the human race except by a criminal usurpation – since the action would rob the rest of mankind of the shelter and the food that nature has given them all in common? When Nunez Balbao stood on the shore and took possession of the southern seas and of South America in the name of the Crown of Castille, was that enough to dispossess all the inhabitants and to exclude all the other princes of the world? If so, such idle ceremonies would have had no end; and the Catholic King might without leaving his royal chamber have taken possession of the whole universe, only excepting afterwards those parts of his empire already belonging to other princes. -The Social Contract, by Jean Jacques Rousseau

Forgotten Founders Quotes

Forgotten Founders Quotes
Cohen also found the influence of Indian thought in Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Rousseau,”and their various contemporaries.” Anticipating the arguments of Charles Sanford nine years later, Cohen implied that many of the doctrines that played so crucial a role in the American Revolution were fashioned by European savants from observation of the New World and its inhabitants.
The product of the intellectual traffic, the theories that played a role in rationalizing rebellion against England, may have been fabricated in Europe, but the raw materials from which they were made were, to Cohen, substantially of indigenous American origin.
Cohen, continuing his synthesis of a hundred years of suggestions that Indian ideas helped shape America’s and Europe’s intellectual traditions, asserted that “the greatest teachers of American democracy have gone to school with the Indian.”
Cohen also asserted that Thomas Jefferson freely acknowledged his debt to the conceptions of liberty held by American Indians, and favorably compared the liberty he saw in Indian politics with the oppression of Europe in his time.

3 big reasons to contribute to the Blackfeet Forced Patents Claims Cause

3 big reasons to contribute to the Blackfeet Forced Patents Claims Cause
[NOT MANDATORY FOR ACCESS TO WEBSITE-EVERYONE IS WELCOME]

1.Further research on the Blackfeet Forced Land Patents.
2.Greater ability to put that research for you to read on the internet.
3.Gas money to get from Missoula to Browning [WE ARE BOTH ON WELFARE AND FOODSTAMPS IN MISSOULA] to lobby the Blackfeet Tribal Council on your behalf to get your land back.
I think No. 3 is the most important reason because past experience has taught me that convincing the Tribal Council to actually do this takes a lot personal expense, time and effort in chasing them around the Tribal Office. And then once you convince them you have to keep pursuing them in order to get them to do what they promised you they would do. Without someone to do this for you, you will never get your land back.
But it has to be done in order to convince the Tribal Council to make it priority. Gene Simmons once said anything worth doing takes time, effort, and money. I’ve got the time and effort to do this for you but I don’t have the money. So when you consider donating think about how much you want your land back and the payoff when the United States Government gives you back your grandma’s land and every dollar that was made off of that land from the date it was stolen [$300,000,000 estimated by the Senate Indian Affairs Committee lawyer, Peter Taylor, in 1980 when we brought the claims to Washington D.C]. There are mineral estates worth millions of dollars in oil money due to tribal members who are heirs to the original allottees. The Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs [BIA] testified to Congress that there are hundreds of allottees and thousands of heirs that are due past payments and land titles for these claims.
Most of all we need the full support and financial assistance of the tribal council or the claims will be killed just as surely as when Chairman Earl Old Person stonewalled the claims in 1980. So, we need small financial contributions from tribal members or anyone else who has a sense of justice and large funding from the tribal council to do this properly, as is representative of the past Blackfeet Chiefs and tribal council delegations.
Do not stop using the website if you cannot contribute, you are in good company with us; we understand poverty as well. Thank you in advance for your help. The bat signal is up in the sky, God bless you. We are trying to come to Browning in September.

The Disapearing Assets of the Blackfeet Tribe

THE DISAPEARING ASSETTS OF THE BLACKFEET TRIBE
How the whites in Glacier and Pondera counties robbed the Blackfeet

The law passed by Congress in 1980 pointed to the state, county, corporation, company, and individual as the guilty parties in the Indian claims cases. The land base of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation established by the 1896 Agreement totaled 1,486,874 acres with 1,440,000 acres allotted to the Indians, 2,634 acres for school, agency, and township purposes, and 44,240 acres of tribal timber and grazing reserves.
Allotment itself was supposed to be completed by the Indians by the agreement of the Indians to establishing cattle ranch operations in the 1896 Agreement/Article Five. This is an exemption to the 1887 Indian Allotment Act for the Blackfeet Indians, and tribal sovereignty protection from the state tax and speculators on Indian property and treaty rights. There was no white man allowed to settle on the reservation except as a government employee or for school purposes or treaty purposes.
By 1920, one year after the incorporation of Glacier and Pondera Counties on the reservation in 1919, without the consent of the Indians, [the Blackfeet were denied the vote unless they gave up their treaty rights and converted their land to fee or in the language of the day “turned white”]. There were 760,000 acres of trust patents by living Indians, and 470,000 of deceased Indian lands administered by the Indian Bureau [the deceased Indian lands remain a claim today and cannot be extinguished by the Interior Department and await the tribal council request to regain title to these lands].
210,000 acres had already been stolen by whites, as the senate investigator indicated, “I charge that a conspiracy existed between Horace G. Wilson, former superintendent; former lease clerk, Stuart Hazlett, and land seeking white men, whereby it was arranged to give patent-in-fees to certain Indians [illiterate Indians and mentally disabled Indians] and taxes and liens were filed in county courts to extinguish Indian title [in 1979 Forest Gerard, BIA Assistant Secretary testified to Congress that the whites titles were “void” titles, and the lawyer for the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Peter Taylor, told us in 1980 the white men’s titles were not worth the paper they were written on, but were only Interior Department land certificates, and which land claims Chairman Earl Old Person rejected in 1980 protecting the white men and BIA].
Most of these patents-in-fee were issued from the period of 1918-1921, when F.C. Campbell, H.G. Wilson and T.C. Powers acted as superintendents in rapid succession. The senate investigator reported “There is no doubt at all that scores of these patents were issued illegally to Indians incompetent in fact as well as in the eyes of the law. In nearly every case the issuance of the patent meant that the Indian was defrauded of his land. Three of these superintendents were dismissed from the Indian Service, one went to prison, and the others left hurriedly from Browning to avoid prosecution.”

Tribal possessions dissipated no accounting for Indian funds

The Indians were in a deplorable condition by 1921. The Blackfeet Tribal fund, starting with 1887, received $150,000 every year for 20 years in payment of the Sweet Grass Hills, and the sale of the strip of land that became Glacier Park to bring tribal revenues to a total of at least $3,000,000. Practically all of this money has been spent. Today [1904] the Blackfeet tribal fund is approximately $15,000. Intelligent members of the tribe are unable to get an accounting, although they have repeatedly inquired of various superintendents and even the Indian Bureau itself. Assistant Agency Superintendent Stone informed the investigator there was no record of tribal receipts and expenses on the books of the Blackfeet Agency. Assistant Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington D.C. reply for an accounting is a “model of evasion.” I believe that members of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee will be interested in getting a plain statement of facts concerning the disposal of the huge Blackfeet tribal fund. The costs of the Blackfeet irrigation project were paid out of the tribal fund [over $1,000,000 over the protests of the Indians, who wanted their funds invested in cattle]. $7,000 was given to the Catholic Mission in 1922 raising the constitutional issue of appropriating tribal funds for secular purposes may be questioned [I hope these losses are paid for in the Cobell IIM and Tribal Accounting cases].

Disappearance of the tribal herd

The tribal herd estimated value of $400,000 vanished within 18 months and Mr. Forest Stone, assistant superintendent, testified there were no records, financial or otherwise, of the tribal herd at the agency. In 1896 the treaty commissioners recognized the success of the Blackfeet cattle ranchers in raising cattle for sale and increase of their herds estimated at 25,000 head. Agent Steell took measures to scatter the Indians cattle so they never recovered one fifth of them. The County Sheriff regularly came to the reservation to take Indian cattle, called “injun critters” by the local white stockmen for what he called “bad debts.” The senate investigator noted, “Nevertheless, the tribal herd was valued at $400,000 in 1919, and it is very apparent that agency officials are trying to conceal the facts about the tribal herd, and I believe the senate committee should subpoena all the records or demand an explanation if financial records have been destroyed. According to old time cowboy John Hall, there were 200,000 cattle on the reservation in 1886, 65,000 cattle on the reservation in the 1890’s and 41,000 cattle as late as 1912, but in 1915 there were less than 500 [Indian owned] cattle on the reservation. The Indians facetiously remarked there was only one bull for the cattle purchased by the agency to cover nearly 400 square miles, “that this bull must have had some racehorse blood.” The cattle went dry and were butchered for beef.” Hall said officials wouldn’t know which end of the horse to put the saddle on and were responsible for deaths of the cattle herd.

F.C. Campbell points the Indians to herding sheep for a living

Comrade Campbell, as he was known by the Indians, forced the Indians to shift their focus from cattle to sheep, although everyone agreed the reservation was ideal grazing lands for cattle and produced the best beef in the northwest on the finest grazing lands. Indians who oppose Campbell’s five year program of sheep raising contend that if the Indians were encouraged to take advantage of the natural conditions they could become successful and prosperous cattle ranchers once again. They assert Indians are natural stockmen and by temperament and training like beef cattle. These Indians point out that the livestock industry is a thriving industry and there is no valid reason why the Blackfeet ranchers should not be running many thousands of cattle on the reservation range, evidenced by white stockmen running their cattle on the reservation for ten cents an acre. Superintendent Campbell had then leased 900,000 acres of the reservation to sheep companies in his five year plan for ten cents an acre. These anti-Campbell Indians allege that livestock raising [cattle ranching] among the Indians has been discouraged because it is the deliberate policy of Superintendent Campbell to lease the Indians grazing lands to private sheep companies at a nominal figure [ten cents an acre].

Indians interests seem secondary

There is ample evidence that for a long period of years the head officials at the Blackfeet reservation have been more interested in advancing the interests of a few whites and favored mixed bloods than they have in conserving the property of the Indians. Case after case can be cited where the officials of the Blackfeet Agency have failed to take steps to safeguard the rights of the Indians under their charge. The superintendent aided the county commissioners in getting rights of way and damages waived or reduced payments in gravel pits for the railroad. The entire St. Mary valley was leased to the Great Northern Railroad for ten cents an acre to keep the Indians from opening tourist businesses next to Glacier Park and Hill’s hotels. The big sheep companies trespass on the Indian allotments and Campbell refuses to assess damages. The Hill hotels exploit the Indians for tourist’s entertainment and pass the hat for their pay and feed them from scraps of food scraped from the tourist’s dinner plates. It is a reflection on the Hill interests that they treat the Indians as beggars, and is disgraceful to Superintendent Campbell that he allows this condition to continue year after year. There are 1,200,000 acres of grazing lands on the reservation and Campbell has 900,000 acres leased to outside sheep companies for ten cents an acre. The prevailing rate for Montana range lease is 36 cents per acre for less desirable lands than the reservation.

Condition of the Indians 1904-2010

The Indians had $24,582 left out of $3,000,000 in ceded land funds, no cattle and were destitute once again. The white men “owned” the Blackfeet reservation, either by leasing 900,000 acres for ten cents or acquiring 500,000 acres in patent in fee lands up to 2010. Blackfeet Indians claims remain stonewalled by the tribal council in 2010. For 30 years from 1980 to 2008 Chairman Old Person stonewalled the Blackfeet claims and rejected the claims in 1980, 2001, and in 2008 when we were successful in getting the tribal council resolution to invite the senate committee to the reservation to investigate the claims of the Blackfeet Indians.
He ought to be removed as Blackfeet Chief for his traitorous acts and treason against the Blackfeet Tribe. I hope the traditional people take steps to strip him of his bogus chieftainship. He is a disgrace to the memory of our ancestors who literally gave their lives to preserve this reservation for us. He has given the idea roots that this is not the problem of the tribal council but instead called us a “bureau problem” and told the council they did not have to address the land frauds committed against our people.
But there are tribal claims for millions of dollars for trespass, rights of way and water rights claims at stake. The minerals and water rights to the stolen Blackfeet allotments, and the patent in fee lands now number over 500,000 acres and are growing each year. In the end we are all together whether it is tribal or allotted lands, minerals, and water rights. We are all together; there is no separation on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, except as to leaders who chose treason to nullify our rights and those land thieves.

An e-mail I received from an English friend on the Red Nation

Bob Thank you for giving me the chance to read the Mabel H Bonds letter. I have to say that as far as I am of the understanding this is purely a case of Lack of Natural Justice at the very least to sheer racism and Bullying terrorist tactics at the very most. In answer to your question about most Europeans I would honestly say that in most cases they would agree with me and be astounded and shocked at the lengths that people go to, just to obtain a persons land and to feed their own greed. Obviously there are one or two that would have an opposite view but hopefully that number is dwindling down and that people in Europe are now learning Tollerance and understanding. I had to read it two or three times to understand and believe that the Blackfeet nation had been treat so abominably, and can only stand in awe and wonder at the strength the Blackfeet nation has, to survive and grow the way it has. In Europe we were never really taught about the Indian nation very much except in Films and Cowboy books etc but through education and understanding we are now learning so much more and we are seeing the real tragic truth. Not the Hollywood truth. Since the learning of the WW2 atrocities people are now learning more about other cultures and by education perhaps we can learn some very harsh truths about my culture. I hope you will not hold this against me but I am a proud British Girl. But I have a big heart for ALL Peaople no matter what race, creed or culture. After all I think it was George washington or Abraham Lincoln (Not sure who) that said 'All Men are Equal' and that to me means all people no matter who they are. I am not sure if this helps you at all but please keep up with educating us, we so desperately need it and if the truth hurts us Europeans then so be it, we need to learn where we went wrong and learn never to do it again or even let it happen again by anyone. Standing in silence is as bad as doing the deed. Please tell me how I can help to educate my people and to work together with you bring the 'real' truth out. Thank you

Forgotten Founders Quote

Forgotten Founders Quote
Contact with Indians and their ways of ordering life left a definite imprint on Franklin and others who were seeking, during the pre-Revolutionary period, alternatives to a European order against which revolution would be made. To Jefferson, as well as Franklin, the Indians had what the colonists wanted: societies free of oppression and class stratification. The Iroquois and other Indian nations fired the imaginations of the revolution’s architects.
They learned from American Indians, by assimilating into their visions of the future, aspects of American Indian wisdom and beauty.
-Forgotten Founders by Bruce E. Johansen

The Social Contract Quote

The Social Contract Quote
Nations, like men, are teachable only in their youth; with age they become incorrigible. Once customs are established and prejudices rooted, reform is a dangerous and fruitless enterprise; a people cannot bear to see its evils touched, even if only to be eradicated; it is like a stupid, pusillanimous invalid who trembles at the sight of a physician. -The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Hidden Colonists

Hidden colonialists on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation got in by stealing the Blackfeet allotments back in 1912-1922 and sewed up the grazing lands of the Blackfeet cattle ranchers held by treaty. The hidden colonialists are the white men in Glacier County and a little bit of Pondera County who have taken up and stolen the private property of the Blackfeet Indians. The white men in Glacier County are erasing the treaty rights of the Blackfeet Indians by their occupancy of fee lands in every township on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.
The Blackfeet Chiefs protested state law in the townships, preferring tribal law on the reservation. Political genocide of the Indians gained social acceptance among white power groups on the reservation, even taking on the burden of civilization to the reservation and Indians. It was patriotic, in fact, to kill Indians for territory, as is the history of Montana border-whites. Glacier County is an example of political genocide committed for the sole purpose of economic gain of the oppressors. What other reason is there to kill for territory? The white residents of Glacier County have operated a conspiracy over the Blackfeet Indians in partnership with federal Indian Bureau government officials. The Blackfeet Indians are check-mated and checker-boarded by their treaty rights and trust property fallen into the hands of the border-whites; now reservation-whites and demanding water rights to stolen Blackfeet allotments. It is an example of Frontier Montana political and economic colonialism rare to see this side of the apartheid policy of white South African Nationalists, let alone in the United States today and sanctioned by the Indian Bureau and Congress, who are well aware of the existence of genocide in Montana history.
The scale of Blackfeet human rights violations are not yet ended in relation to the long time suffering of the Blackfeet Indians caused by Montana border-whites for over a century. The individual Indian people became anonymous in their collective suffering over the decades while the critical message of Montana border-whites genocide of the Blackfeet Indians for territory was turned to public school curriculum of dangerous savages exterminated. The lies and propaganda of public schools and state officials have been muted over time by the truths emerging from government archives to dispel the myths of white superiority.
When the magnitude of the calamity is observed in all its political and economic genocide in view of the rights of man-it will be a sight to behold. The vision of sacred buffalo purification burning through the mist of the lies and propaganda told through the centuries about Indians. Now, the truth will emerge through all of the ordinary people who live their lives in the most ordinary ways, and who are the special people singled out to receive the most wonderful gift of all-the gift of blessing by the Great Spirit to live their lives exactly as they wish to live their lives; to be free of state tax and white rule forever. Isn’t that God’s vision for the Blackfeet Indians?
I was watching state t.v. the other day. I wish the tribal cable channel had this channel because it televises all state legislature committee meetings, the white people know better than to let their politicians govern in the back room. Anyway they had some Blackfeet down to testify on foster care, and I was really impressed with Mary Ellen LaFromboise’s testimony on the Blackfeet methods of handling so-called foster children by returning them to their grandparents care instead of the state method of putting the child in foster care, or non-relative’s care.
I had a nephew taken by the county welfare department from his Blackfoot mother and put into state foster care for 18 years or so, and I thought about the fight my mother put on for all those years to get him back. He was placed with Jehovah’s Witness foster care parents and never knew a birthday party or any holiday we associate with Blackfeet or American culture. It struck me watching testimony of Mary Ellen’s that state foster care is a form of cultural genocide if the purpose is to tear the child from his roots and make him into a white child. The state welfare law does not belong on the reservation nor its rules and regulations concerning Indian children.
The public schools also promote a curriculum that glorifies the Montana settlers neglecting to mention the massacre, starvation, small pox, whiskey trade, land frauds, removal and assimilation of the Blackfeet people by border-whites to get Blackfeet lands. Glacier County is the representative government of the border-whites brought to the reservation to legitimize white men’s land thefts and to provide white men with the cloak of legal respectability [county courts] to cover up political and economic genocide of the Blackfeet Indians. Alas, their titles are considered “void” titles by the Congress, but the tribal council will not request their removal. The Blackfeet Tribal Business Council is well aware of the land frauds and constitutional issues inherent in the white occupation of reserved treaty lands of the Blackfeet Indians. Our more learned ancestors went to the Congress to get things straightened out with Montana Territory. I think we need a tribal summit to clear the issues and to give the tribal members who are the heirs to the stolen lands occupied by whites on the reservation an opportunity to testify for their relatives. We need to take ownership of our reservation in every way, and get on with rebuilding the Blackfeet Nation.