As court wrangling continues to hold up actual payouts from the historic Cobell settlement, the federal government last week moved forward with talks about how it will part of the money to buy up fractured pieces of land and give it to tribes.

Here’s the full story from Associated Press reporter Matt Volz:

HELENA – Federal officials Thursday released their proposal on how they plan to spend up to $1.9 billion to buy up Native American-owned fractionated lands and turn them over to tribes.

The program is a major part of the $3.4 billion settlement of a class-action lawsuit brought by the late Elouise Cobell of Browning over Indian land royalties mismanaged by the government for more than a century.

The program aims to reduce the number of fractionated lands within 10 years by prioritizing tracts with the most individual owners, finding landowners willing to sell and targeting land that can be bought with little preparatory work and where controlling interest can be gained quickly. The program is voluntary for people willing to sell their individual allotments.

Land fractionation was caused by the 1887 Dawes Act, which split tribal lands into individual allotments often inherited by multiple heirs with each passing generation. In some places, individual allotments now have dozens to more than 1,000 individual owners.
The Interior Department has identified 88,638 fractionated land tracts owned by nearly 2.8 million people.

John Dossett, the general counsel for the Native Congress of American Indians, said the draft proposal appears to address most of the tribes’ major concerns. Of particular importance was that the tribes be involved in implementing and administering the land consolidation program through cooperative agreements, which are addressed in the draft plan.

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Tags: cobell settlement, Dawes Act, elouise cobel, indian trust, john dossett, matt volz, native congress of the american indian

Just catching up with this interesting story from a couple of days ago by Clifton Adcock of the Tulsa (Okla.) World:

(Photo from NowPublic.com)


A federal lawsuit filed in Tulsa by the Cherokee Nation seeking a declaration that the descendants of freedmen are not entitled to membership in the tribe has been ordered transferred to Washington, D.C., where a similar lawsuit is pending against tribal leaders and the federal government.

The Cherokee Nation filed its suit last year against the U.S. Department of the Interior and five descendants of freedmen — former slaves that had been owned by tribal members. The freedmens’ descendants had obtained tribal membership before Cherokees voted in 2007 to restrict Cherokee citizenship by excluding people whose ancestors were not listed on the Dawes Rolls as having a percentage of American Indian blood.

U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy gets the case. He’s also hearing a lawsuit brought in 2003 by Marilyn Vann, who heads Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes Association. That case names Cherokee Principal Chief Chad Smith and the Interior Department, which includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

“We eagerly await the day when all descendants of Dawes-enrolled Cherokee freedmen can register/reregister as Cherokee Nation tribal members, vote and run for tribal political office, as promised our ancestors by the U.S. government and tribal officials in 1866,” says Vann.

But Cherokee Attorney General Diane Hammons tells Adcock, “The record clearly shows that the federal government itself has extinguished any rights non-Indian freedmen descendants had under the treaty.”

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Cherokee Nation, Dawes Act, Dawes Rolls, Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes Association, freedmen, Gwen Florio, slaves, tribal membership, U.S. Interior Department

Last week, U.S. Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., sent a letter to the editor of the Casper Star Tribune (see previous post, here) explaining an amendment he put forward to the $3.4 billion Cobell v. Salazar settlement.

That change would have limited attorneys’ fees to $50 million in the 14-year lawsuit designed to partially compensate hundreds of thousands of Indian people for royalties on their lands due them from the federal government. Backers of the settlement, led by lead plaintiff Elouise Cobell, objected, saying any changes could kill the entire settlement. Cobell responded with her own letter, here, and run in full below.

Editor:

A lot has happened since 1887 when Sen. Henry Dawes of Massachusetts got Congress to pass a law to break up Indian lands across the country.

Congress then did not believe Indians could manage their lands or their money, leading to creation of the infamous Indian Trust system.

It was a failure from the day it began operation 123 years ago.

But one lawmaker from Wyoming hasn’t got the word that Indians can do a better job of managing their lands and government than Uncle Sam.

I’m talking about Sen. John Barrasso. He wants to kill the settlement of our 14-year lawsuit over the government’s mismanagement of our lands and our money.

The trouble is he doesn’t trust the nation’s Native Americans any more than Sen. Dawes.

We have traveled across Indian Country and we have found that Indians overwhelmingly want our settlement with the government approved — as is.

Sen. Barrasso seems determined to limit the Indian’s lawyers to less than what lawyers in any other class action lawsuit would be allowed for resolving the monumental mess that the Indian Trust has become.

His proposed amendment would kill the settlement, which allows only a simple up-or-down vote by Congress.

Furthermore, this is not a case, as his June 30 letter to the Star-Tribune (“Senator defends amendment”) seems to suggest, of protecting taxpayer money.

This dispute is all about money that belongs to individual Indians — and has since 1887.

Funds for the settlement would come from the government’s long-established settlement fund. It does not require a special appropriation.

Under the settlement, Native Americans would get a small portion of their funds that the government lost. Nothing will be offered to them if the senator’s amendment is added.

It’s time for Sen. Barrasso to realize most Native Americans have got it right.

ELOUISE COBELL, Browning, Mont.
Lead plaintiff, Cobell class action lawsuit
Member, Blackfeet Nation

Tags: buffalo post, Cobell v. Salazar, Dawes Act, Elouise Cobell, Gwen Florio, Indian trust funds, Native American news, Sen. Henry Dawes, U.S. Interior Department

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have decided not to participate in a centennial commemoration of homesteading on their reservation.

The issue of commemoration was always a touchy one – the U.S. government opened the reservation in western Montana to nontribal homesteaders in 1910 after the death of Chief Charlo, who had long oppposed it.

Nontribal people quickly snapped up homesteads on Salish, Kootenai and Pend d’Oreille tribal territory, as this Missoulian story by Vince Devlin recounts.

More than a year ago, Lois Hart, head of the Polson Flathead Historical Museum, sought to involve the tribes in the commemoration.

“I told them it would be called a commemoration, because it’s not a celebration,” she said back then. “But I also said we would do nothing unless they wanted to be a full partner.”

As Devlin writes:

With the allotment and homesteading, the Salish, Kootenai and Pend d’Oreille people quickly became a minority on their own reservation and have remained such for a century now.

Some residents, of course – both tribal and nontribal – can trace some or all of their roots here back to the first homesteaders. While it pales in comparison to the thousands of years that Indians were here before the United States was formed, the last 100 years remains a considerable chunk of U.S. history, and an even bigger chunk of the state’s. Montana was just 21 years old when the reservation was opened to homesteading.

“It’s a complicated history,” [CSKT spokesman Rob] McDonald said, “and it’s further complicated when small factions pop up and want to add their own spin to it.”

Hart says the tribes’ decision will significantly change the commemoriation.

Gwen Florio

Tags: buffalo post, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, Dawes Act, Flathead Indian Reservation, Gwen Florio, Kootenai, Native American news, Pend d'Oreille, Salish