Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 16:51:20 -0500
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-I: Jim Craven's comments on "Energy Tribes"


Jim Craven is an economist whose mother was a Blackfeet raised by Jewish
foster parents. Today he works with the Blackfeet Tribal Bank. These are
his remarks on "Energy Tribes", which I want to share with you.

Louis Proyect

***************
Comment: This piece was simply very well done and to the point. Under 
the old formulae of Reagan/Bush, the oil-holding Tribes were ripped 
off for over $5 billion through systematic and calculated under-
valuation of oil and mineral assets. Add another $3 to $5 billion of 
BIA accounts suddenly "missing" (with the records torched)--perhaps 
much more. Right now the old formula is being examined as the claims 
for lost royalties due to undervaluation were about to expire under 
statute of limitations--in 1992-93.

Further, we have a history of the BIA (Boss Indians Around) doing 
seismic and other surveys in order to tip off developers and 
oil/mineral extractors where the most profitable reserves were and in 
order to de-Indianize land by buying out land for a song. According 
to the U.S. and Blackfeet treaties, there is a provision that the 
reservation remain 100% Blackfeet-owned forever. Historically, the 
BIA, acting under the authority of the Secretary of the Interior, 
issued forced patents on Blackfeet allottees and severed Blackfeet 
land from Blackfeet ownership. Some of this land was taken for 
grocery bills amounting to $9.00 for a 320 acre allotment. The 
Blackfeet allottee did not receive due process because the Indian 
traders presented a bill to the Indian agent and the Blackfeet 
allottee was forcibly removed from his land by the BIA. In more 
recent times, allottee land was taken by Glacier County and sold for 
delinquent taxes which should have never been taxed under the terms 
of the Blackfeet Treaty. The Blackfeet Tribal Council has had to 
formally request the Senate Indian Affairs Committee to come to 
Browning to investigate these and other violations.

These stories are happening among virtually all of the Tribes across 
the country. The Peigan ( Amskaapipiikani) Blackfeet in Browning and 
the Blackfoot [ Siksika]  and Blood [Kainaa] in Alberta--the Tribes 
of the Blackfeet Nation-- all have some substantial oil reserves on 
reservation lands that have been progressively carved away and stolen 
for a song over many years.  And as their have been problems forging 
unity even among the Tribes of a given Nation, forging unity and 
collective action among the diverse Nations and Tribes is even more 
difficult. Added to all of this, as Louis so elequently points out, 
is the divide-and-rule strategy of the BIA, historical emnities, 
stark poverty demanding immediate solutions and scarrping for crumbs 
and meagre resources, some sell-out Indians in position of privilege, 
bankrupt liberalism offering aspirins--or less--for cancer, and I 
agree wholeheartedly, some of the "brain-dead" or theoretical 
masturbators and parlor debaters of the "left" who refuse to lend a 
hand or a voice to this ongoing genocide; it seems that struggles in 
Chiapas (very important no doubt), or conditions in Bosnia (also very 
important) or Nike in Indonesia (also important) are easier to grasp, 
relate to and wax eloquent/esoteric about than ongoing genocide right 
here, in your face, next door, in America.

                                 Jim Craven

*-------------------------------------------------------------------*
*                             "Who controls the past,               * 
*  James Craven              controls the future.                   *  
*  Dept of Economics           Who controls the present,            *
*  Clark College             controls the past." (George Orwell)    *
*  1800 E. Mc Loughlin Blvd.                                        * 
*  Vancouver, Wa. 98663  (360) 992-2283  FAX:  (360)992-2863        *
*  jcraven-AT-clark.edu                                                * 
* MY EMPLOYER HAS NO ASSOCIATION WITH MY PRIVATE/PROTECTED OPINION  * 





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