Broken Trust: A Report from Blackfeet Country
Native Americans demand greater control of their most cherished resource–their land.
Ford Foundation
By: Sara Bullard
Fall 2000
Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Montana–From the hills behind her wheat-colored modular home, Suzie White Calf can see a fair sample of the lands that make up the Blackfeet Indian Reservation–from the narrow fertile valley of Cut Bank Creek, across planted fields and wild plains, up to the forbidding wall of the Rocky Mountains that marks the end of the reservation and the beginning of Glacier National Park. For 79 years this reservation has been her home, and somewhere amid its 1.5 million acres is land that belongs to her.
She doesn’t know where that land is, who might be using it, what resources it holds or how much wealth it generates.
That’s because the federal government holds White Calf’s land in trust along with that of hundreds of thousands of other Indians across America, and the government’s records of Indian trust lands are, by all accounts, a shambles. Those lands–many of them leased to oil, agricultural, timber and mining interests–reportedly earn an estimated $500 million dollars in income each year for Indian landowners, money that is held in Individual Indian Money (I.I.M.) trust accounts and should be paid out periodically to them. But the government admits it cannot determine how much money is or should be in those accounts or even how many accounts there are.
Late last year a federal judge handed down a decision that raised White Calf’s hopes. Ruling on a class-action lawsuit brought by the Native American Rights Fund, United States District Court Judge Royce C. Lamberth found the Federal Departments of Interior and Treasury in breach of trust and ordered them to fix the system. While he did not appoint a receiver or special master over the I.I.M. accounts as the plaintiffs had requested, Judge Lamberth did assert continuing jurisdiction over the reform efforts for the next five years and ordered the government to submit quarterly progress reports.
The Department of the Interior’s immediate response to the ruling was a statement expressing gratitude that “Judge Lamberth is allowing the federal government an opportunity to move forward and implement [its] plan to manage the Indian Trust Funds.” Even so, the government subsequently appealed the judge’s decision, challenging the court’s jurisdiction over the case. A ruling on the appeal is expected this fall.
Meanwhile Indian plaintiffs are hopeful that ongoing negotiations will result in a settlement that could finally make sense of the accounting mess and provide Indian trust beneficiaries with their fair share of payment for the use of their property.
Progress in the case dramatically vindicates the work of Elouise Cobell, a friend of White Calf and a fellow Blackfeet who is one of five named plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Cobell’s quest for justice on the trust account issue stretches back three decades, and she remains determined as ever even though some skepticism remains on the reservation about whether the trust beneficiaries will ever see much money as a result of legal action.
For Cobell, 55, who heads the Blackfeet Reservation Development Fund, the lawsuit–with its capacity to generate publicity, define an issue and stir debate-reflects much more than money. “Our people have been brought down to the ground because we don’t have the opportunity to use our assets in the same way other communities can–to put our children through school, to give them proper health care,” she says. “My major goal is to reform the entire system in a way that empowers people to make use of their assets. It’s not just money we’re talking about here, but freedom.”
American Indians had already been deprived of their livelihoods and confined to reservations when the United States Congress passed the Dawes Act in 1887. That legislation, also known as the General Allotment Act, aimed to break up the tribes’ communal land holdings and make those lands available for outside development by allotting reservation lands to individual Indians. “The allotments were the product of the United States’ effort to eradicate Indian culture,” Judge Lamberth wrote in his December 1999 ruling. In 1934 the Indian Reorganization Act ended the awarding of more allotments but indefinitely extended the trust period for allotments already made.
Today, the United States still holds approximately 11 million acres out of the 54 million acres originally allotted to individual Indians. Bureaus within the departments of the Interior and the Treasury share trust management duties. The government controlled the trust funds originally because it considered Indians too inexperienced to manage their own accounts. Now it cannot say how many of those trusts it holds or verify the balance in any given account, and it concedes that the trust funds have been badly mismanaged. Though some Indians have been able to locate their land, others, like White Calf, have no idea where theirs is. The government estimates that there are now more than 300,000 active I.I.M. accounts reportedly holding a total of about $500 million at any one time; Indians argue that the number of accounts is closer to 500,000. In 1994, after a report documented the mismanagement, Congress passed the Indian Trust Fund Management Reform Act, which confirmed and codified the trust duties of the United States.
Cobell became aware of the problem in the 1960’s while still a college student majoring in business. During a summer job at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, she watched and listened as older Indians came in to request money from their I.I.M. accounts. The agents would quiz them like loan applicants, and judge the worthiness of their requests. “They would say, ‘We need food,’ or ‘We need clothes,'” Cobell remembers. “I thought it was welfare, but it was their own money they were asking for.”
It enraged her that her tribe’s elders–the ones who still had the language and songs and prayers–were having to beg for access to their own money while oil was being pumped out of their land, other people’s cattle were grazing in their fields and gravel was being driven off their land by the truckloads.
“Our people own thousands of acres of land and they’re living in poverty,” Cobell says.
She went on to serve as tribal treasurer for 13 years, started an Indian-owned bank, launched a community development fund, and in 1996 helped to devise the I.I.M. lawsuit.
It is the largest class action ever against the federal government. Cobell and four other named plaintiffs sued the Secretaries of the Interior and Treasury on behalf of all Indians with individual trust accounts, charging the government with breach of its trust obligations and asking for a full accounting of trust properties and incomes. The suit also called for payment of any monies owed to trustees and a wholesale reform of the trust system. The Cobell v. Babbitt trial record is dense with details of problems that the government acknowledges: There are more than 46,000 I.I.M. trust accounts with beneficiaries who can’t be reached because of inadequate addresses, more than 5,500 accounts for “minors” who have actually reached the age of majority, at least 123,000 accounts lacking a Social Security number or tax identification number, a probate backlog of approximately 12,000 cases and 212,000 title defects due to an appraisal backlog. In addition, thousands of records have been destroyed, or are otherwise missing.
The Treasury Department admitted destroying 162 boxes of trust records even while the breach-of-trust trial was proceeding. For failure to produce documents and covering up the failure, Judge Lamberth found both Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and then-Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin in contempt of court. “I have never seen more egregious misconduct by the federal government,” Lamberth wrote.
For Indians like White Calf, the history of mismanagement means that she has no way of knowing whether the government checks she receives represent her proper lease income. She does know that some of her money is being withheld to repay a loan she obtained three years ago to meet burial expenses when her husband died. Since she doesn’t know how much she is entitled to each month, she doesn’t know when that loan will be paid off. In the meantime, she has been told she is unable to qualify for Supplemental Security Income “because I get too much lease money.”
Stories told by the Blackfeet are echoed throughout Indian Country–of trust land sold to pay off small debts and lease checks that aren’t worth the envelope they’re mailed in. At the southern end of the reservation near Heart Butte, a Blackfeet elder who asked not to be named recalls: “My uncle ran up a grocery bill for $60. He put his thumbprint on a piece of paper and they took his land: 360 acres.”
Near the small community of Starr, 14-year-old Tiffany Morris is the only wage earner in her family of five. Her father, disabled from a fire-fighting injury, would like to have access to the land he owns, but it is being leased to oil companies, earning him an income of 18 cents a month. “Sometimes I have to give my dad money to buy gas, and he has an oil well on his land that’s pumping oil every day,” Morris says.
Indians everywhere “grew up knowing this trust system was a farce,” says John Echohawk, a member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and executive director of the Native American Rights Fund. “What we owned, whether we were owed any money, we were kept in the dark all the time. It was something you had to accept because there was nothing you could do about it.”
In drawing international attention to the problem, the lawsuit has already accomplished one of Cobell’s aims: “I wanted to disclose to the world what this government did to people who could not defend themselves.” But it may be years, she acknowledges, before individual Indian account holders can be sure they are getting their rightful trust revenues.
While the case made front page headlines around the country, and the judge himself wrote that Indians “should take great satisfaction in the stunning victory that they have achieved,” the reaction on the Blackfeet Reservation has been muted. Many residents agree that Cobell is fighting a worthy battle, and during last summer’s Indian Days festivities she was awarded the eagle feather traditionally given to warriors. “It was all right,” says White Calf, who was in attendance that day. Other Blackfeet are concerned that any monetary settlement resulting from the case could jeopardize tribal solidarity by sparking tensions between those with trust lands and those without. “Not everybody will be getting money,” says Geri Weatherwax. “You’ll see jealousy.” Cobell disputes that. “Because some of the claims in the suit were made on behalf of the whole tribe, every tribal member will get a chunk,” she says. “We’ve still got a lot of educating to do so that everyone here understands that.”
Some Blackfeet argue that the Congressional act that allotted tribal lands to individual Indians in 1887 was wrong to begin with. Now, most of the original allottees are dead and the trust lands are hopelessly divided among numerous descendants. “You can’t bring back the dead and say, ‘We’re sorry,'” says Jackie Parsons, an artist and a judge in the tribal court. For a settlement to be fair, she says, “I’d like to see every enrolled tribal member get an equal amount.”
And some go a step farther. “I would like to see communal ownership of the entire reservation,” says Kenny Weatherwax, “and any money coming from the suit shouldn’t be individual money but communal money.” It’s an idealistic notion, he admits, “But it would work. We did it for eons.”
Two hundred years ago, the Blackfeet were the dominant tribe on the Northern Plains and the only Indians to challenge the Lewis and Clark expedition on its way west. In the years since their lands, language and traditions were forcibly taken away from them, the Blackfeet, like other Indians, have been left with a legacy of poverty that surpasses any other minority group, as well as an abundance of related problems. At least a third of Blackfeet reservation land now belongs to non-Indians and another third is leased to outside interests. Many Blackfeet rely on government support, and unemployment and alcohol and drug dependency are significant problems. The only available health care comes from inexperienced Indian Health Service doctors who work to pay off medical school debts and then leave to be replaced by other young doctors in debt.
Still, a visitor these days senses a resurgent spirit, symbolized, perhaps, by the magnificent Blackfeet sentries that command the roadside at four highway entrances to the reservation. They are adorned with full ceremonial dress, the coarse hair of their horses’ tails lifted by the plains winds. Awesome in the sharp Montana light, it’s not immediately apparent that they are made almost entirely of junked car parts.
The statues, created by Blackfeet artist Jay Laber, are a small step toward nation building, says Marilyn Parsons, tribal planning director. Junk cars were “one of our biggest eyesores,” she says, so her departmental team collected old autos from front lawns, and some of them ended up in the roadside artwork. “We wanted something to let people know they’re on a reservation and we’re proud of who we are.”
There are other signs of progress. In Browning, the reservation hub, Blackfeet Community College has expanded into new buildings; the nonprofit Piegan Institute has started two Blackfeet language-immersion schools; a new elder-care center is being built; and the Blackfeet Youth Initiative is bringing together local and visiting youth to work on service projects. A corporation has been set up to harness and sell energy through wind farms, and plans are under way to create an educational park that illustrates a traditional Indian creation story.
Cobell’s Blackfeet Reservation Development Fund, founded in 1991, is working to improve economic literacy. It has piloted a 10-week college curriculum on the history and operations of Indian trust monies, and it has set up “minibanks” in reservation schools to give children practical experience in personal money management and accounting. Even elementary students are setting up their own banks, electing boards of directors and managing banking functions. The development fund also manages a revolving fund to support Indian artists, and it is developing a community loan fund to assist local businesses.
With the hope that a resolution of the I.I.M. lawsuit will bring new resources to Indian landowners, the fund is also beginning to research and catalogue innovative land-use opportunities and sources of financing that will enable individual Indians to be more entrepreneurial with their land. Rather than trying to enter the highly competitive world of big cash crops such as wheat and corn, landowners would be introduced to new products such as kenaf, an alternative crop for paper production, and paulownia, a hardwood tree in demand for furniture.
Meanwhile the Blackfeet National Bank, which Cobell helped found in 1987 as the only Indian-owned national bank in the country, has loaned more than $11 million, sparking the development of several new Indian-owned businesses. It is now seeking to capitalize branch banks on other Montana reservations.
The private, nonprofit ventures are being matched by renewed tribal government efforts to build community pride and independence. “There’s a movement here to start acting like a sovereign nation,” Cobell says.
As temperatures reached 100 degrees during the summer of 2000, members of the Weatherwax family were among those gathered on the banks of Two Medicine River, under the cooling shade of the cottonwood trees. This was the final day of a five-day Language and Culture Revitalization Camp sponsored by Blackfeet Community College, and the evening was set aside to honor the elders.
As the older ones arrived, Marvin Weatherwax greeted them in conversation that moved easily from Blackfeet to English and back. His wife Geri kneaded dough for traditional fried bread, and Dustin, their son, served coffee. The strength of their nation, they believe, will be built on what they have here: a strong community of family and friends of all generations who treasure their Indian identity.
Dinner that evening began with a Blackfeet prayer, spoken in rapid, rhythmic phrases by Suzie White Calf, and followed by a slow-moving circle dance to the accompaniment of drums and song. Guests continued to arrive, and the field along the riverside encampment of tents and tepees became a car lot. Several drumming circles were formed, and the singing continued late into the night.
Dorothy Still Smoking, the president of Blackfeet Community College, watched the dancing from a picnic table under the trees. She saw no contradiction between efforts to preserve the Blackfeet traditions and efforts to build economic assets. “We’re used to relying on outside people,” she said. “Now we need to rely on ourselves – on our elders for our history and on our educated people for our future.” She described Cobell’s work to reform the trust funds system as “a monumental effort” and a “wake-up call for Indian people.”
Cobell travels frequently between the courtrooms of Washington, D.C., and the homes of her friends on the reservation. At White Calf’s kitchen table recently, she didn’t talk about litigation, but about children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. White Calf reported her family news with a range of excitement, pride and worry. A son was on dialysis. One of her great-grandchildren had been attending the language-immersion school and can now speak to White Calf in her own first language. A granddaughter and her two children had come to live with her. Money was tight. She didn’t know when her next lease income check would come, or how much it would be.
Such conversations lead Cobell to imagine what might have been, had the I.I.M. accounts been properly managed from the start. “None of this land would be owned by non-Indians,” she said. “These oil wells would be ours.” Her own parents could have mortgaged their land allotments and sent nine children to college. Molly Kicking Woman, an elder who died in July, could have had the kind of expert health care she needed. Generations of Blackfeet to come would be ensured good schools, good jobs and a strong community.
“We would have really been a powerful nation,” she said. “We’re rebuilding toward that now, but what the government has done to us as a people is horrible, and that kind of damage takes a long time to heal.”
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