RESERVATION Report

A Monthly Media Letter Regarding Native American Indian Policies

Volume 1, Number 1 October, 2001

For RELEASE Upon Receipt

FORGOTTEN ANNIVERSARY? August 13, 2001, marked the 50th anniversary of the deadline set by Congress, and approved by the President of the United States, for Indian tribes to sue the United States for grievances arising prior to 1946. On August 13 of ’46, President Harry S. Truman signed into law the Indian Claims Commission Act. This Act created a special judicial body before which American Indian tribes could file any kind of claim against the United States government. According to Indian Policy legal experts Randy V. Thompson and Brandon Thompson of the St. Paul, MN, law firm of Stapleton, Nolan, MacGregor & Thompson: "Any claim that any Indian tribe had against the United States, extending back to the American Revolution, could be brought before the Commission…. Any claim not brought before August 13th, 1951, would be forever barred by the statute." However, Indian tribes have continued "to file claims for loss of their treaty rights, loss of land, and other claimed injustices," right up to the present time.

The Indian Claims Act, which was supposed to close the book on this anachronistic part of America’s history, write Thompson and Thompson, "is now largely forgotten by the courts and the public." The purpose of the Act was to "bring this practice to an end…. "Today, a half-century later, the Act’s purpose still stands unrealized."
(Randy and Brandon Thompson co-authored this article on behalf of Proper Economic
Resource Management, Inc. (PERM) www.perm.org a Minnesota non-profit corporation whose mission is the preservation and management of natural resources for all persons, on or off Native American Indian reservations.)

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ALL NEWS MEDIA: Where was the national news coverage of the story you have just read? There wasn’t much, if any. Why? Because amid all of the daily coverage of the news there is woefully little information about the policies and conditions affecting over 500 tribal reservations and the one million Native American Indians and over 700,000 non-Indians who live on them. U.S. Indian policies are often in conflict with the U.S. Constitution. This sometimes means that the constitutional rights of many Americans—Indian and non-Indian—are often violated or ignored. This new monthly letter will publish news leads and information, with due reference to reliable and authoritative contacts who can assist interested editors, feature writers, columnists and talk show hosts in developing more general U. S. awareness of tribal reservation public affairs, policies and concerns.

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CHIEF’S PASSING MOURNED: Curtis L. "War Horse" Custalow, Sr., Chief of Virginia’s Mattaponi tribe in historic King & Queen County from 1969 through 1977, died in September at age 85. He was a highly regarded U.S. hero of World War Two, having sustained serious head injuries during the Battle of the Bulge. When elected to head the tribe, Chief Custalow dedicated his efforts to finding job opportunities for his people and obtaining a modest expansion of the Mattaponi reservation in the Middle Peninsula of the Virginia Commonwealth. His election, fortuitously, coincided with that of Virginia’s first Republican Governor, Linwood Holton, who named him to a newly created state committee dealing with Native American Indian issues. The Chief’s first major achievement was to persuade Holton to redirect state funds for tribes to the tribal authorities rather than through the hands of the County government. He also won the right to control construction on reservation property so that members of the tribe would be given a priority in hiring by contractors. Another success was provided by the largest employer in the vicinity of the Mattaponi reservation—a major paper products pulp mill—which donated wetlands acreage to Chief Custalow and the Mattaponi to enhance the size of the reservation.

Chief Custalow was instrumental in establishing an era of harmony and progress in Indian and non-Indian relations throughout Virginia. In 1987, speaking at a Williamsburg conference on the future of Native American Indians, he declared: "We must look at the laws of the white man. The Native American people are the most regulated of any group of people in this country. …We sometimes wonder if we should leave bygones buried, so to speak, or try to make amends for yesteryear. We need to decide a route to take that will be upgrading to the Indian people. We all have problems; we all need to deal with them."

As one of the founders of the Mattaponi Indian Baptist Church, Chief Custalow said in 1969: "Church work means more to me than anything on the reservation except the reservation itself." He is survived by his wife of a 59 year marriage, Gertrude Minnie Ha-ha Custalow, and their three sons and two daughters. Virginia leaders throughout the state joined in mourning his death.

RULING FROM HIGH COURT: On June 25, the U.S. Supreme Court decided unanimously that states have inherent jurisdiction on reservations with regard to off-reservation violations of State laws. By a 9-0 vote, the highest court in the land held that a tribal court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate a claim that a state wildlife warden violated tribal and federal law when he executed a search warrant on tribal land. He did so as part of an investigation of an off-reservation crime by a tribal member. The high court also ruled in Nevada vs. Hicks that petitioners are not required to exhaust their claims in tribal courts before bringing them to the Federal District Court because this would only cause unnecessary delays.

LIMIT ON TRIBAL AUTHORITY OVER NON-INDIANS: On May 29, the Supreme Court decided a tribe’s "sovereign" power to impose taxes "reaches no further than tribal land and does not give…tribes broad authority over non-members or their property."

(Continued on Page Three)

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LIMIT ON TRIBAL AUTHORITY (Continued from Page Two)

The Atkinson Trading Company, which maintains a hotel on the Navajo Indian Reservation could not be taxed by the tribe, said the Court. Such levying power by the tribe, on non-member activities on non-Indian fee lands, is limited to tribal trust land and does not extend to non-members or their property. The Supreme Court justices said "because Congress has not authorized tribes to tax non-members through treaty or statute, tribal governments don’t have the authority to do so."

N.Y. LANDOWNERS CONTINUE FIGHT WITH CAYUGA "INDIAN" CLAIMS:

Over two hundred years ago in 1795 and 1807 New York State and the Cayuga Indians agreed on two treaties that sold the reservation land that New York State had established for the Cayuga Indians back to the state. Both parties in these treaties honored the sale of the land in the 1795 and 1807. The federal government was to provide a witness to these treaties and the United States Congress was to ratify the treaties. The federal government provided a witness but Congress ignored formal ratification of these treaties, as well as some 27 other treaties between NY State and Indian tribes.

In 1980 the Cayuga Indians filed a claim in Federal District Court alleging that the sale of the land by the Cayuga Indians to the State of New York in 1795 and 1807 was illegal.

They based this argument on the fact that the United State Congress never ratified the sale. The Cayuga Indians have asked the court to give them $350 million for trespass damages, evict 7,000 current property owners from their homes, and give the land back to the Cayuga tribe. Note that this claim was filed even though they received annual payments in accordance with the original treaties. They have requested and obtained additional sums of money on at least 8 occasions. In the 205 years the Cayuga Indians have been paid 1.63 million dollars. Factoring reasonable interest and inflation these payments may have a current equivalent value of up to one billion dollars.

The Cayuga Indian land claim issue has been in federal court for twenty years. The U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Interior (Bureau of Indian Affairs), have both advocated that the Cayuga Indians try to settle this case out of court.

http://www.ucelandclaim.com

ARIZONA INDIAN GAMING OVERULED: Race still seems to influence state decision-making where Native American Indians are concerned, especially where a state governor signs a compact granting tribes privileges not available to non-Indians. That was the substance behind a ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Broomfield. He declared that not only are slot machines, keno and blackjack illegal in Arizona, but that the state’s gaming compacts with Native American Indian tribes, are unconstitutional. Judge Broomfield, in July, issued an injunction to prohibit Governor Jane Hull from renewing, expanding or extending existing compacts. The Judge’s ruling stated: "Federal law does not permit the state to enter compacts authorizing tribes to engage in gaming otherwise prohibited by state law." The Judge made it clear that if such devices as slot machines are illegal in Arizona, they are also illegal on Indian reservations situated within the State of Arizona. The case is likely to be appealed to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals but for the moment, Judge Broomfield’s ruling affects 28 states where Indian reservation casinos are now operating even though state laws forbid such gaming activity.

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CONGRESS MAY THREATEN NON-INDIANS ON YAKAMA RESERVATION: Section 504 of the proposed "Comprehensive and Balanced Energy Act of 2001" would turn control, rate structuring and billing authority of the electric utility serving Washington State’s Yakama Indian reservation over to the tribal council. Representatives of the 35,000 citizens on some 10,000 properties within the reservation, where the population is 90% non-Indian, fear they will henceforth be at the mercy of tribal leaders who get their electricity free of charge and may show too little concern for the paying users. Contact Elaine D. Willman, executive director, Citizens Standup Committee, Inc., Toppenish, WA (509) 865-6225.

ILLINOIS’ MIAMI TRIBE DENIED RECOGNITION: The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, in June, upheld the U.S. Department of Interior’s denial of designation as the Miami Nation of Indiana. The importance of the Court action is that the Miami tribe had laid claim to some 2.6 million acres of public and private land in eastern Illinois, which the tribal leaders said was granted to them by treaties 200 years ago. The case was brought to court when the tribe sued 15 owners of private property, alleging they were occupying tribal land. Illinois Governor George Ryan and his Attorney General have repeatedly said they believed the Miami tribal leaders are using the land claim ploy as a bargaining chip for obtaining Illinois permission to establish a tax-exempt gambling casino in the state.

UNITED PROPERTY OWNERS (UPO) SEEK BUSH ADMINISTRATION HELP: The Redmond, WA, group has alerted the Administration in Washington, DC, that they are deeply concerned by the fact that "many tribal governments in their ‘sovereign’ capacity, are increasingly imposing taxes and regulations upon their non-Indian neighbors and businesses…." The private property group insists this trend is in violation of their right to a republican form of government "as provided in Article IV, Section 4, of the U.S. Constitution." At the same time, UPO declares that tribal governments are "opting out of compliance with federal laws, rules and regulations imposed upon all other non-Indian citizens and their businesses." While the federal government insists on tribal input in all decision making affecting reservations, Washington, DC, is exempting tribes from compliance with federal requirements under such laws as the Endangered Species Act. "This is unfair, divisive and a clear violation of the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment," UPO asserts. (UPO has a membership of over 60,000 owners of private property and business in the Pacific Northwest. Barbara Lindsay of Bellevue, WA is executive director. E-mail: united property@hotmail.com

A NATIVE AMERICAN HAWAIIAN "TRIBE?": Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) has proposed that Hawaiians have their own federal agency, similar to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, so they can claim reservation lands with gaming privileges. A "U.S. Office for Native Hawaiian Relations" would serve "Hawaiians only," he suggests.

RESERVATIONS is compiled edited and published by New Century Commuications,

newsletter publishers, P.O. Box 277, Reedville, VA 22539. nccomm@crosslink.net