Cobell v. U.S.

Indians' attorneys say they'll probe delay in Interior trust case
Billings Gazette (AP); 11/05/2003

Indian trust case a landmark for U.S. courts, Western history
Newsday; 08/31/2003

Government report says Indian trust accounts off by $60 and change
Great Falls Tribune; 03/26/2003

Government lawyers made a 'mockery' in Indian trust case, judge says
Salt Lake Tribune (AP); 02/07/2003

Economic development

Arizona to boost Indian tourism
Arizona Republic; 01/07/2004

New Mexico tribe starts Indian version of Home Shopping Network
Albuquerque Tribune; 12/18/2003

Utah tribe readies high-tech start-up
Salt Lake Tribune; 12/17/2003

Indian leaders decry shortage of banks
Indian Country Today; 12/10/2003

Utah counties want tribe to ease up on drilling fees
Salt Lake Tribune; 11/12/2003

Casino profits lifted Arizona tribe from poverty
Arizona Republic; 09/16/2003

New Mexico tribe to open $60 million casino next week
Santa Fe New Mexican; 08/28/2003

Land

New Mexico tribe settles long-standing land claim
Santa Fe New Mexican (AP); 12/23/2003

BLM drops Wyoming tribe's land from oil and gas lease auction
Billings Gazette; 11/25/2003

Western Shoshones sue to reclaim vast tracts of ancestral land
Reno Gazette-Journal; 10/01/2003

House panel OKs Shoshone settlement
Reno Gazette Journal (AP); 09/26/2003

Bush signs bill returning land to two New Mexico pueblos
Santa Fe New Mexican; 07/31/2003

Wyoming reservation moves toward land-use plan
Billings Gazette (AP); 05/16/2003

Water

Navajos say they were left out of New Mexico water deal
Farmington Daily Times; 01/08/2004

Judge wants settlement of N.M. tribes' 1966 water suit by next summer
Santa Fe New Mexico; 12/10/2003

Navajo, feds reach agreement on N.M. water lawsuit
Arizona Daily Sun (AP); 12/07/2003

Indian water rights bill gets hearing
Arizona Republic; 10/05/2003

New Mexico governor approves Navajo pipeline project
Arizona Republic; 08/11/2003

Idaho judge orders end to negotiations over Nez Perce water claim
Idaho Statesman; 05/30/2003

Montana tribe, irrigators may settle decades-long water fight
Missoulian; 05/09/2003

Indian land tenure

Stainbrook's testimony before the Senate's Committee on Indian Affairs on May 7, 2003, regarding the American Indian Probate Reform Act of 2003.

Tribes' sites

Inter Tribal Council of Arizona

The Navajo Nation - Arizona

Hopi Tribe - Arizona

Southern Ute Tribe - Colorado

Ute Mountain Ute - Colorado

Coeur d'Alene Tribe - Idaho

Nez Perce Tribe - Idaho

Shoshone-Bannock Tribe - Idaho

Montana Tribes

Nevada Tribal Governments

New Mexico Tribes

Utah Tribes

Skull Valley Goshutes - Utah

Eastern Shoshone Tribe - Wyoming

Cobell

The Indian Trust Web site on Cobell v. Norton, et al.

The Department of Justice Web site on Cobell v. Norton, et al.

Economic

The Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians Web site listing of native-owned businesses

The Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians tribal tourism Web site

Land

The National Congress of American Indians' Resolution No. SD-02-101, support for S. 1340, The Indian Land Consolidation Act Amendments of 2002

The Indian Land Tenure Foundation

The Indian Land Working Group

President Nixon's July 8, 1970 Speech on Indian Self Determination

The Wheeler-Howard Act, June 18, 1934 (Indian Reorganization Act)

The Dawes Act of 1887

Water

Ten Tribes claim on Colorado River water

The 1990 Fort Hall Indian Water Rights Agreement signed by Idaho's Shoshone-Bannock Tribes

Water and Growth Issues for Tribes and Pueblos in New Mexico

The history of struggle between Indians and non-Indians over the ownership and use of land began with the landing of the Mayflower.

Today, the issues surrounding the ownership and management of land within reservation boundaries have become so complex as to defy generalizations. However, many of the tribal histories and reservations of the Inter-Mountain West and Great Plains have much in common.

The treaties between tribal nations and the United States government were generally agreed to between 1850 and 1875, and they contained many of the same terms, conditions and language. Some form of the phrase, "as long as the grass grows and the waters flow" can be found in most of the documents.

Also referenced in many of these treaties was a guarantee that the land within the reserved area would be for the exclusive use and occupation of Indian people. Despite its clarity, this particular treaty term has been the most consistently violated provision of all the treaty agreements. The loss to the Great Sioux Nation of the land known as the Black Hills is only one of many examples.

The most ubiquitous taking of Indian land within reservations came with the passage of the General Allotment Act of 1887, also known as the Dawes Act. Before this legislation, the collective tribal land ownership was estimated to be 138 million acres of land.

Through this act of Congress, individual tribal members were allotted title to specific parcels of reservation land ranging in size from 40 to 160 acres, but the federal government claimed title to the land to be held in trust for the individual Indians for 25 years, as they were deemed to be unskilled and incompetent to manage their own transactions.

Thus, land ownership passed from tribal ownership to federal ownership by the unilateral action of the United States government and without just compensation.

Once the allotments were established, the remainder of reservation land, if any, was declared to be surplus to the needs of Indian people and was appropriated by the federal government. These "surplus lands" were then opened for homesteading and mining claims, or sold to other development entities, such as the railroad companies.

Notably, there are a considerable number of acres within original reservation boundaries still held by the federal government in the form of wildlife refuges, national forests and grasslands, and parks.

Collectively, tribes across the nation lost approximately 90 million acres of reservation land to the provisions of the General Allotment Act — 22 million acres were opened to homesteading, 38 million were "ceded" to the federal government, and 30 million acres were lost through subsequent sale or dispossession through legal and illegal means.

The result has been that on most Indian reservations in the West, less than 50 percent of the land is owned by the tribes or Indian people to which the federal government had guaranteed exclusive use and benefit.

For example, the Nez Perce Tribe in western Idaho and its tribal members own less than 11 percent of the original reservation. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe and tribal members own approximately 27 percent of the original reservation.

Further exacerbating the situation is the pattern of ownership on reservations, which on most reservations is a checkerboard of interspersed Indian and non-Indian land. This has created jurisdictional conflicts that for years have cost the tribes, counties and states countless millions of dollars in lawsuits and lobbying efforts.

The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 put an end to the allotment of tribal lands and contained specific provisions to restore tribal land bases. There was a clear congressional understanding of the value of the land base in supporting the tribes economically, socially and culturally. Unfortunately, few of the land restoration provisions of this act were funded or implemented.

For the tribes of the West and Great Plains, the loss of the land base has had economic and social impacts that cannot be overstated. The tribal lands were in rural and often quite remote locations where agriculture was the base economic driver through most of the last century.

Using a conservative application of Economic Research Service agricultural land data, the Indian Land Tenure Foundation calculates the revenues generated on non-Indian owned reservation land exceeds $2 billion per year.

As with off-reservation land in rural communities, non-Indian owned land on reservations is increasingly owned by fewer people, absentee owners and corporations. The result has been two-fold. The depopulation of these rural areas stretching back well into the last century has been well-documented and continues today, with one-quarter of all rural counties recording a population decline in the 2000 Census. And, fewer dollars remain in the local economy to support businesses and community infrastructure.

Unlike off-reservation land, the reservations are the traditional homelands for Indian people. Indian people are connected spiritually and culturally to their families and tribes on these lands in a way most non-Indians cannot comprehend. Given economic opportunity to survive on the reservation, Indian people will remain in or return to their community as many are currently doing.

Remote, rural counties that include reservation areas have generally shown upward population trends attributable to increases in the Indian population. Glacier County, Mont., which includes the Blackfeet reservation, had a net population increase of just 2,619 between 1980 and 2000. The Indian population of the county increased by 3,372 people over that same time, while the non-Indian population fell by 750. Similar examples exist throughout the Great Plains.

With the increasing Indian population comes a market for rural Indian and non-Indian businesses, as well as support for community infrastructure. Goods and services are sought from throughout an expanded local area and economy, as most reservations still have severely under-developed business sectors.

If the increase in housing units is an indicator of economic activity, then it is interesting to note that the four reservations in North Dakota had an average increase in the number of units of approximately 20 percent between 1990 and 2000. Over the same decade, North Dakota overall saw slightly less than a 5 percent gain.

Other tribes have become major employers in their local economies. For example, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation of Oregon are now the second largest employer in Umatilla County. The tribes' 1,100 employees are almost equally split between Indians and non-Indians.

Tribes such as the Coeur d'Alene Tribe in Idaho have built and now operate health-care facilities that are open to Indian and non-Indian clients. The school systems in reservation border towns have long sought to increase their number of Indian students, as each one means an increase in Johnson-O'Malley Education Funds.

All of these situations and many others have led at least some public decision-makers to conclude that it is time to begin working with the tribes in economic forums. However, there has not been a general agreement that the tribal ownership of land is one of the economic fundamentals.

Thus, as the tribes attempt to recover land for housing and business development, they often find the local units of government opposed to their plans. This is despite the fact that the tribes and Indian people are likely to remain in the local area and economy long after the corporations that have found favor with local officials are long gone.

The history of the Klamath Tribes of Oregon provides some insight on this point. The tribes were marked in the early 1950s for termination — loss of federal recognition as an Indian tribe and loss of reservation lands — apparently because of their economic success.

Prior to termination, the tribes and the tribal members were near economic par with the surrounding local community. The tribal revenues were generated from a variety of activities carried out on the 820,000-acre reservation, most significantly including approximately $2 million annually from their well-managed stand of ponderosa pine.

Upon the termination of tribal status, the land was taken into ownership by the federal government and currently is the majority of land known as the Fremont-Winema National Forest. However, many tribal members did not leave the area and assimilate into the broader community, as was the expressed intention of the termination legislation. Rather they chose to remain on or near their homelands.

The lands lost by the Klamath have been degraded through over-harvest of the slow-growing ponderosa pines and rendered less productive by disruptive development activities. The conflict in recent years over the quality and quantity of water in the Klamath River Basin has brought all of this into focus. Also clarified were the tribes' water rights, which have been held to be senior to all others in the basin.

The tribes regained federal recognition in 1986 and organized their headquarters in the defunct Johns Manville plant. Since that time, the increase in the number of tribal members in the county accounts for nearly all of the population growth, and the tribes have increased their economic viability.

Currently the tribes provide the Klamath County economy with $25 million in annual payroll and purchases of goods and services. The tribes also employ 250 county residents.

Now seeking the return and restoration of 690,000 acres of reservation land from the national forest, the tribes have developed a long-term forest management plan that emphasizes restoration and job creation.

The ultimate result would be a many-fold increase in the economic and social productivity of the land. Yet the tribes have been met with resistance from the surrounding residents.

But even if non-Indians throughout the rural areas of the country cannot see why a growing population and a locally owned land base is beneficial to their area and economy, what is more confounding is their silence on the Cobell v. Norton class-action lawsuit.

This suit, filed in 1996 by lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell, a Blackfeet tribal member, seeks to end 115 years of mismanagement of Individual Indian Money (IIM) accounts.

These accounts contain the revenues from land-related activities such as grazing leases, timber harvest, and mineral extraction that have been collected by the federal government as trustee for individual Indian people.

The lawsuit alleges $137 billion belonging to more than 500,000 Indian people cannot be accounted for by the federal government.

The plaintiffs also sought to have the government's IIM accounting system reformed so that Indian people would receive the money that is generated from their land. Each year nearly $500 million is collected from trust land transactions and placed in IIM accounts. Substantially less is actually returned to Indian people each year, as many accounts continue to grow without annual disbursements. Other funds go unaccounted for each year.

Over the past several decades, congressional inquiries, General Accounting Office reports and other investigations have shown that Indian trust funds were used to bail out savings and loan institutions, the Chrysler Corporation and New York City, as well as to reduce the national debt.
It goes without saying that Indian people want justice and they want the money that is rightfully theirs. But what of the rural economies from which the funds were produced and then taken?

The 2000 Census continues to show that rural counties in close proximity to reservations in the Great Plains and Intermountain West have some of the highest poverty rates in the country. Buffalo County, S.D., which contains the Crow Creek Reservation, had in 1999 perhaps the highest rate of people living in poverty in the country at nearly 57 percent.

Twelve other counties containing all or part of reservations in South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Idaho had 1999 poverty rates that exceeded 30 percent. In each instance, funds have been taken from the local economy and are being held in trust accounts for tribal members.

One can only imagine the political lobbying the rural counties would muster should Congress begin consideration of a $100 billion rural aid package that also included annual contributions of $500 million. And yet, there has been no expression of support from rural communities for fully settling the Cobell v. Norton lawsuit.

In the opinion of the community that organized the Indian Land Tenure Foundation, it is clearly now time for recognition of the contributions of the tribes and Indian people to local rural economies.

Further, rural economies would be strengthened and have greater viability if the tribal land base was restored and the proceeds from the land's use retained at the local level.

And finally, jurisdictional fighting would not drain away valuable resources from either the Indian or non-Indian communities.

Tribes' rising fortunes
would pay off in town

By Greg Lakes, editor
Headwaters News
Jan. 21, 2003

As tribes throughout the region push to re-establish ownership and control of reservation lands and resources, some of the people that stand to benefit most are those that live in adjacent communities.

It's not widely touted, or even widely recognized, judging from an admittedly limited sampling, but if reservations received an infusion of revenue or managed to stunt their gripping poverty, the economic boost likely to follow could fuel growth in retail sales, services, and particularly, health care industries across Indian Country.

Great Falls, Mont., is one county south of the Blackfeet Reservation, home of lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell and ground zero for the biggest malfeasance suit ever filed against the U.S. government.

The poverty rate on the Blackfeet Reservation is 35 percent or more. Unemployment was about 15 percent in 2002. Great Falls is the regional center for retail trade and medical services for about 20,000 Indians on the Blackfeet, Rocky Boy's and Fort Belknap reservations. The Blackfeet Tribe is the single largest customer at the Great Falls hospital.

The Cobell lawsuit seeks $100 billion in damages, some proportion of which would theoretically come to the region's reservations, assuming the suit is resolved following a one-year, Bush administration-engineered delay of a judge's order for a full accounting.

But a less confrontational and in the end, much more effective, approach may be a $12 million initiative intended to reduce poverty that has already brought uncalculated benefits in raised awareness.

Peggy Beltrone is a Cascade County commissioner in Great Falls and co-chair of the Northcentral Montana Community Ventures Coalition.

The coalition spent two years and a $600,000 grant from the Minnesota-based Northwest Area Foundation mapping out a 124-page plan to reduce poverty.

In the process, it brought together Indian leaders, area business people, family services agency staffers and economic development specialists. Thanks to aggressive recruitment, 40 percent of the participants were Indian, Beltrone said is a recent interview.

The results were more than 100 proposals to reduce poverty and its effects, and a revelation of the potential of the reservation economic engine.

"I'm not sure I would have known anything about it three years ago," Beltrone said, but now "I definitely see a connection between the reservation and the health of the community."

Tribes are sovereign nations, and tribal relations have typically been with federal and state – not county – governments, Beltrone said. And before the coalition, Beltrone, her fellow commissioners and the county in general didn't look as far as the reservation for economic development.

She had never attended a Tribal Council meeting; now, she's been to three.

"There has not been the realization by people of the economic engine of the reservation," Beltrone said. "It just hasn't been on the radar screen in that regard."

She said consensus on and off the reservation is that the biggest need on the Blackfeet Reservation is for health care. Diabetes is epidemic, as it is among Indian communities across the West.

For lack of funds, Blackfeet tribal agencies must ration services, she said, and tribal members reportedly wait years for procedures such as hip replacements that more affluent residents elsewhere in the state simply go get.

The average Indian lifespan is a startling 25 years less than the average white's, Beltrone said. Federal expenditures for the average prison inmate is roughly five times higher than for the average tribal member.

And a conservative estimate by a Native American group calculated that if health care spending per Indian matched federal health care spending for federal employees, it would mean an infusion of $13 million into the northcentral Montana economy.

"Those are primary dollars," Beltrone said. "They will turn over in this economy."

They would also raise the quality of care for Great Falls residents by increasing demand for specialists the community now has difficulty attracting and keeping, she said.

Much of that money would be directed at preventative care, which would likely ease the demand for state- and community-sponsored services.

Foremost, Beltrone said, is relaxing the crushing grip of poverty on the reservation, and she acknowledges Cascade County will profit from the results.

"We should be concerned because they are people living in our region." Beltrone said. "We should be concerned because they're our neighbors. We should be concerned for a lot of reasons."

Readers respond

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Funds for conservation
Chris Stainbrook makes several good points about the opportunity for rural communities, both tribal and non-tribal, that would come with settling the Cobell v. Norton lawsuit.

He also makes a good case that rural economies would be strengthened if the tribal land base were restored.

And I agree with him that many Indian people retain important spiritual and cultural connections to their traditional lands.

Why not connect these dots? Perhaps a small percentage of an eventual settlement of the Cobell case should be earmarked for tribal governments or tribal land trusts to purchase land owned by non-tribal members within existing reservation boundaries.

These lands could be designated primarily for spiritual and cultural purposes, including conservation and restoration of traditional native plant and animal communities.

The tribes could utilize this new land repatriation and conservation fund for purchases on a willing-seller, willing-buyer basis.

Author's blog:
Proven abilities
The Salish, Kootenai and Pend d’Oreille tribes signed the Hellgate Treaty in the summer of 1855 and agreed to relinquish their occupation of a vast territory that covered most of western Montana and parts of Idaho and Canada.

A treaty the United States government deemed necessary to guarantee that the tribes would be "friendly with all citizens thereof, and pledge themselves to commit no depredations upon the property of such citizens.”

In return, the tribes received a 1,433,600-acre reservation described in the treaty "for the exclusive use and benefit of said confederated tribes as an Indian reservation. Nor shall any white man, excepting those in the employment of the Indian department, be permitted to reside upon said reservation.”

Subsequent acts of Congress in 1889, 1904 and 1920 reduced the reservation size and tribal ownership, and ultimately provided the means for non-Indian ownership within the reservation boundaries.

The allotment process began in 1904, and by 1935 there were 3,351 individual allotments totaling more than 830,000 acres within the reservation.

Today, the reservation is approximately 1.2 million acres with only 804,000 acres in tribal or individual Indian ownership.

The checkerboard pattern of landownership resembles that of other reservations as non-Indian and Indian owned land is interspersed.

Two significant land holdings within the reservation are the Nine Pipe National Wildlife Refuge (2,062 acres) and the National Bison Refuge (18,500 acres). Both properties are held and managed by the United States government.

Unlike most tribes, the tribes of the Flathead Reservation have assumed management and control of their land operations from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. These functions include the administration of land titles and records and the management of income from land activities.

The efficiency that the tribes have brought to the process is becoming a model of success for other tribes.

The tribes have also begun a small but growing land acquisition program aimed at reducing the level of fractionated ownership on allotments.

The acquisition program is a necessity, given the population and development needs of the tribes.

Between 1980 and 2000, the Indian population of the reservation grew an astounding 86 percent to nearly 7,000.

The two counties that overlap the majority of the reservation, Lake and Sanders, increased in population over the same time by 40 and 17 percent, respectively.

Over a similar time period, the median household income for Indian people rose 11 percent, while Lake County showed a slight decrease and Sanders County household incomes fell 8.3 percent.

The Indian household income is now on par with both of these counties.

The success of the tribal college in preparing tribal members for positions of employment with the tribal government or in the private sector is well known throughout Indian Country. Now that success is beginning to be recognized at the local level.

Today, there are more than 85 Indian-owned and operated businesses on or near the reservation. These firms range from the tribal enterprises to the single entrepreneur, and they provide a host of construction and building services, as well as a variety of retail outlets and consulting services.

While it is difficult to ascertain the economic impact of the tribes on the surrounding economies, it is undoubtedly substantial.

Despite having proven themselves by assuming their own land-management functions from the Department of the Interior and having developed the skills and abilities of their tribal members, the tribes still face opposition from the local populace in their quest to manage the National Bison Range.

Indeed this would be a relatively easy and straightforward venture when compared to the past complexities the tribes and tribal members have negotiated while dealing with the BIA and other federal agencies.

Indeed, the tribes maintained the herd of bison that are the ancestors of the current herd for nearly 30 years before non-Indians recognized the importance of such preservation and established the National Range on reservation land -- the same land that was guaranteed to the tribes through the treaty.

The tribes of the Flathead Reservation have been in this area for time immemorial and will remain in this area.

They will most certainly continue to contribute to the economy and social structure of western Montana.

They will eventually be recognized by others in the state for the positive aspects that they bring to the area.