Wampum

Yesterday we were favored by a visit by an adult fish eagle doing circles over the Salinas River. The white tail and head against the dark body and wings was easily visible. Today we are favored by a guest post by Nord Wennerstrom:

I want to call your attention to a cultural treasure that is under threat ... the 10,000+ petroglyphs and pictographs in Utah's Nine Mile Canyon:

May 1, 2008 is the deadline for contacting the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) about a proposal that could dramatically step up damage to the rock art in Utah's Nine Mile Canyon, affectionately known as the "world's longest art gallery" and home to more than 10,000 petroglyphs and pictographs made primarily from the Fremont and Ute Indian cultures. A massive proposed oil and gas development project (more than 800 wells!) will cause a four-fold increase truck traffic inside the Canyon, resulting in enormous amounts of dust, chemical dust suppressants and vehicle exhaust that will accumulate on and permanently harm this native, and human treasure.

A recently released study shows a direct link between truck traffic in the Canyon and the deterioration of the rock art panels, due to a build up of dust and harmful chemicals used to control dust on the road. The BLM, which manages much of the land in and around Nine Mile Canyon, needs to recognize the findings of this study and present plans for a new access road to the exploration site, rather than continuing to rely on the narrow dirt roads that run through Nine Mile Canyon.

We urge you to send an email to the Bureau of Land Management today at UT_Pr_Comments@blm.gov and copy the National Trust for Historic Preservation at crc@nthp.org.

Let BLM know that it is imperative for them to protect the thousands of prehistoric petroglyphs and pictographs in Nine Mile Canyon. Tell BLM that it is unacceptable to allow these international treasures to be damaged by the dust and chemicals and exhaust generated by current and proposed truck traffic in Nine Mile Canyon. Ask BLM to perform a detailed evaluation of alternative routes that trucks could use to access the project area instead of the existing dirt roads in Nine Mile Canyon and its narrow side canyons. Encourage BLM to fulfill its role as the steward of the world's longest art gallery and save our shared heritage for future generations.

Additional information:

1. More information and to access the Draft Environmental Impact Study are available from the BLM.

2. Learn more about Nine Mile Canyon.

3. YouTube video

4. The following article appeared in the magazine Science January 25, 2008, Dust Storm Rising Over Threat to Famed Rock Art in Utah: [I'm looking for a non-pay link to the 1pp .pdf, ebw]

5. ninemilecanyoncoalition.org [ebw add]

The author is director of communications for the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Posted by EBW at 04:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The House Natural Resource Committee, formerly chaired by Dick Pombo (R-CA-11), now by Nick Rahall (D-WV-03), approved four Indian bills at a markup on Thursday. The bill that caught my eye was HR 1575 To reaffirm and clarify the Federal relationship of the Burt Lake Band as a distinct federally recognized Indian Tribe, and for other purposes.

(b) Membership Criteria-

(1) To qualify for membership in the Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, a person must be able to demonstrate through evidence acceptable to the Tribe that the person meets at least 1 of the following requirements:

(A) The person descends from one or more tribal members who were domiciled at Colonial Point, Burt Township, Cheboygan County, Michigan before or at the time that the Tribe's village was burned in October 1900, as said tribal members are identified in the United States v. McGinn litigation and related documents, the 1950 Albert Shananaquet list of Colonial Point Residents, or both.

(B) The person descends from one or more tribal members who are listed on the 1900 and/or the 1910 Burt Lake Township Federal Census, Indian Enumeration Schedule.

(C) The person has an Indian ancestor who was, prior to 1910, living in tribal relations with the Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians as the Burt Lake Band is defined in this Act.

(D) The person descends from Rose Midwagon Moses.

No weasel words attempting to limit Indian Gaming either, no sovereignty subordinate to a state.

Posted by EBW at 02:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Issue: Whether tribal courts have authority to decide a civil lawsuit that involves business dealings between a company owned by a member of the tribe and a bank that owns land on a reservation, but itself is not owned by a tribal member.

The issue in Plains Commerce Bank v. Long Family Land & Cattle was whether tribal courts have jurisdiction over a dispute between a nontribal bank and a company that is majority Indian-owned. More than 51 percent of the owners of the South Dakota ranching company in the case are members of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, and, as such, the company was entitled to loan guarantees from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Roberts seemed concerned about how a bank can be expected to know whether a company it is dealing with is a so-called "Indian corporation," thereby triggering tribal court jurisdiction. After all, companies incorporate under state, not tribal, law.

"That's a concept I don't understand," said Roberts, who then pointed to the left side of the bench and added, "If Justices Scalia and Alito form a corporation, is that an Italian corporation?"

Amid laughter, veteran advocate David Frederick of Kellogg, Huber, Hansen,Todd, Evans & Figel wisely sidestepped the issue. "I would like to beg the indulgence of the Court in not answering that question specifically."

In the past, Justice Antonin Scalia, like many other Italian-Americans, has bristled at being described as Italian since he, like Alito, was born in the United States, not Italy. But Scalia went along with the joke and interjected with a question of his own: "And do we get special loan guarantees?" Justice Samuel Alito Jr. was laughing too.

Isn't Roberts funny? Via BLT.

Posted by EBW at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The nine Mi'kmaq of Bands located in western and central Newfoundland (Isle) overwhelmingly endorsed an agreement-in-principle over the weekend with the federal government that will give them recognition as status Indians.

The Federation of Newfoundland Indians has around 10,500 members, of which about 8,000 were eligible to vote. A total of 3,232 ballots were cast in Saturday’s vote and the preceeding Tuesday's advance polls. Of those 2,913 were in favor of the agreement-in-principle announced by the FNI and the federal government last fall.

This means that the members of the Federation of Newfoundland Indians will obtain recognition under Canada's Federal Indian Act.

The federation chose to pursue status as a landless band, because so many of its members live in different communities and did not want to move from their homes to a reserve.

There is a very nice piece on the election at The Western Star.

This is an approach that is foreign to the US Federal Indian Law experience, yet Native Hawai'ians, and California Mission Indians until rather recently (and my neighbors, the Esselens and just about every other non-gaming California Indian Band), and the Lumbees and ... actually exist in landless, status limbo(s) (note the plural).

The turn-out was an order of magnitude greater than the CNO's last attempt at democracy. Something to keep in mind, Tribal elections don't have to be complete cock-ups.

h/t Acee's Indianz.com

Posted by EBW at 01:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If the Indian vote in the early primary contests was anything near the African-American vote, if Santa Fe and Albuquerque, not Reno and Las Vegas, were the third cache of mid-winter voters to open and consume, to analytically crack the bones and suck out the marrows -- canvas, message, poll, vote, spin -- then everyone, non-Indian as well as Indian, would be thinking through the meanings of this:

Obama's campaign said he believes tribal gaming should be decided on a case-by-case basis with consideration for the wishes of the states involved¹.

The most exculpatory construction, to which Molly Ball devotes several paragraphs, is that the Obama inner-circle of 2007 hadn't given any thought to the issue and recycled the non-surprising policy of most non-Indians in state-level electoral politics -- state's rights, not in the 10th Amendment sense of a covert undermining of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but the even more corrosive sense of nullification of the first Indian Nonintercourse Act (Act of July 22, 1790, 1 Stat. 137) and its sequella, 25 U.S.C. § 117, which hold that a sale of Indian lands was not valid unless "made and duly executed at some public treaty, held under the authority of the United States." Oklahoma after the 1906 Act. All of Indian Country from 1947 to 1961.

Howard Dean, while governor of Vermont, used state money to lobby the BIA to reject or delay the application for Federal Recognition made by the Swanton Band of Abenakis. His administration argued in state, and federal courts, for Vermont's jurisdictional exclusion of any Tribal standing in the state or the federal courts. That came back to haunt him in the New Mexico and Oklahoma primaries, which in the '04 cycle were neither early nor late, where he was defeated by the candidate I advised, Wes Clark, who was unconditionally for the Nixon model (the Gold Standard for the Tribal-Federal relationship) -- Self-Determination.

But what if the Obama inner-circle of 2007 had considered Indian Gaming, not as a policy problem, but as a political tool, a device to motivate demographics that reject "special rights", and who may not be able to reject "special rights" such as Affirmative Action, or Non-Discrimination, or Disabilities, could safely go after Indian Gaming as unfair, unequal, un ... American.

Does anyone have any indication that the Obam a inner-circle of 2007, or the Obama inner-circle of 2008, has a policy position on the Federal-Tribal relation, a policy position that envisions substantive changes to the contours created by a hostile Court over the past three decades?

If not, then its time to click through to a 10 minute read on the use of a political tool, a device to motivate demographics, by the Obama inner-circle in late 2007 and early 2008, and reflect on what this means, for Tribal Executives looking at either a McCain, or an Obama Administration, and for the fragile coalition of the historically disadvantaged who simply must have accommodation, or sink back into the conditions that caused Truman to send federal troops to Little Rock. Via Avadon, who's hesitation to post this is surprising. Sean Wilentz's piece in TNR, How Barack Obama played the race card and blamed Hillary Clinton.

Now reflect on the Land-into-Trust issue, the likely trajectories of the USET tribes, the California gaming and not-yet-gaming tribes, the Great Lakes and Upper, Middle, and Lower Mississippi gaming, and not-yet-gaming tribes, the Oklahoma tribes, and the Federal-Indian policy goals, and political goals, of an Obama Administration formed by the past, and present Obama inner-circle. Will the non-gaming issues like gas, oil, coal, and mineral rights, or energy corridors, be treated any differently?

Posted by EBW at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Periodically MB asks me what are my differences with Juan Cole. I reply that for Juan, the firing of Qassam rockets, powered by sugar and potassium nitrate (the same fuel mix I used as a teen rocketeer), with payloads of TNT and urea nitrate (which I passed on), ranges less than 10km, and payloads of less then 10kg, from Gaza, or the firing of 122 mm Katyusha artillery rockets, ranges less than 30km, and payloads less than 30kg, from ad hoc launch points in Lebanon, are sufficient to excuse or justify or ... limited and unlimited response by a sophisticated combined-arms military with effectively infinite depth.

Juan calls them terrorists. I call them opfors.

We don't talk alot about WK2. We don't talk about the balance of forces. We don't talk about what happened twenty five years ago as if it happened in someplace under a "friendly regime", attacked by a Soviet proxy. Or as a failed attempt at "popular liberation" by armed forces, Soviet proxy or organic to some remote, exotic peoples. We don't even talk about what happened twenty five years ago as if it were "terrorism", state-sponsored or otherwise.

A few days ago Tim Giago wrote No celebrating at Pine Ridge Reservation. Tim grew up in Wounded Knee. However, no where in his thousand words is there an awareness that a military operation was planned, and executed, within the boundaries of his childhood.

To Tim, his childhood was flooded by foreigners who had no claim on the boundaries of his childhood. I know I could have written a similar piece too, 99 people out of 100 can't trace their ancestry in California to when the Lembkes came to grow beans in pre-irrigation Los Angeles. But I don't think I ever have, or ever will. Age is experience remembered, not title to land.

Not long after, Richard Powers wrote a reply Defending the AIM occupation.

This is where I have to raise something, an empty hand will suffice, and point out that no one is writing history, Tim, and everyone, including myself, are writing politics. The AIM/NAIM split is still present, and even those who damn both the AIM/NAIM factions, can damn the pre-split AIM/NAIM, and external to that is the tribal vs (the 4th) pan-tribal conflict, and even beyond that is the ... are urban mix-bloods Indians question.

I fall somewhere within that mass of fissures of a thousand practices of accommodation and resistance.

Richard correctly places WK2 in a militarized context. There was a "dirty war". About a company strength of men and women were killed by gunfire during the sporadic exchanges of fire. Most of the casualties were inflicted by the US and its proxy, the Dick Wilson "Guardians of the Oglala Nation", whom we all called "GOONS", then and now.

Richard also correctly places Tim's piece in a larger universe of Anti-AIM writings, and he also correctly places the composition of the pre-split AIM's cadres, armed and unarmed, in the pan-Indianism of 1969-1971 occupation of Alcatraz. A Cherokee died at the Knee. A Mic'mac also died at the Knee.

Tim errs, whether he rejects that, inherently armed pan-tribalism, or the present legalistic pan-tribalism, in alienating the armed, unarmed, and other, including non-Indian, who came -- from most directions -- into the boundaries of his childhood. Wounded Knee does not belong to those who camp, or throw up buildings, roads, and business on a massacre site. Monk's Mound does not "belong to" the Indian living closest to it, and if it does, "accommodation and resistance" does not encompass the totality of continuity and transcendence.

Tim supports Chad Smith. I don't. But that is just theft and graft over several administrations. Not life, and death, in and around Pine Ridge, the Rosebud, and so on.

Posted by EBW at 11:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Floyd collaborated with Vine in 1969 and each produced a Custer Died for Your Sins, Floyd's was a song, and Vine's a monograph.

Indian Country Today has an obituary. Today is a good day to browse YouTube for samples of his performance work, and his conversations.

Posted by EBW at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

When we look for blogs that go to the root causes, to Rehnquist's Oliphant v. Suquamish for the jurisdictional mechanism that protects perpetrators of violence against women, or Cobell v. Clinton's Babbit, then v. Bush's Norton, and now v. Bush's Kempthorne, for the principle of trust that protects perpetrators of theft of individual property, we come up thin to empty.

So we see the outpouring of cash that comes from the PayPal clickstreams of blogs that fund raise for the womens shelter on the Standing Rock Rez as kin to Missionary Barrels. Putting on our American hats we become even less charitable. Private charity, preferably channeled through Christian cults, not public policy, is the dogma of Republicans.

Make no mistake, sixty-k dollars plus a ten-k hat for any detached residential unit, would be nice, even if a handout from White Liberals, but it's no substitute for fixing what's broken anymore than holding bake sales is an effective response to defunding public education.

Yes, the following liberal bloggers posted on Markos Moulitsas Zúniga's community scoop or on their own blogs:

nbier, flautist, sarac, njgoldfinch, Devilstower, Christy Hardin-Smith, mole333, DB, William Neuheisel, and no doubt others

But they don't write about Indian issues, about what's broken and what can be fixed. They've adopted a poster child, and that's all they've screwed themselves up to the sticking point to do. To steal a quote from Noel Pearson, responding to an event that is also making the rounds in the liberal blogs, also in isolation:

In my view, unless we tackle grog and welfare, the problems of this 10-year-old child at Aurukun ultimately will have no solution.

Noel has long argued passive welfare is to blame for a complete breakdown in social norms in Indigenous communities, in Cape York and elsewhere in Australia. His point is that responding to one report of child abuse because the abuse was pack rape, and ignoring the thousands of open or unfiled reports of child abuse because the abuse isn't sexual, just malnutrition or general care -- 80 reported and 30 substantiated per month in Cape York. just isn't reality based.

And yes, on the order of eight hundred people clicked through the donations links for a total of $50,000. So here's the link to contribute to the "netroots", or DailyKos+FireDogLake+... effort to buy a single bandaid.

What you won't get from DK/FDL/... is Abramoff as a complex crook who supports tribal soverignty reckoned in billions of dollars, or the full measure of inter-locked corruption at Interior and Justice, also to the tune of billions of dollars, or the embedding of sexual assault white privilege in Federal Indian Law, not as a crime of war, as the International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague determined systematic rapes in 1996 in Kosovo, but as the necessary consequence of eroding tribal criminal jurisdiction, re-affirmed every October by the Supreme Court of the United States.

And so on. These are issues, stories, complex and human interest, that these liberal bloggers don't write or link to, and haven't for as long as they've each been around as on-line venues of political writings. Its why we didn't hold the Koufax Awards this year -- we're tired of people who only read Wampum to see their names, and if their names come first, or close enough to be cool, before going back to their no-Indians-or-Dogs avocations.

We're happy to see the Feminist Law Profs Blog do a post -- Unprosecuted Abuse of Native American Women, but its Zero Hour was April this year, when the Amnesty report got earned media. We hope they go the distance, it would be good to have another progressive legal group of co-authors go the distance too.

Posted by EBW at 01:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

That's the ratio of FAS diagnosed children to developmentally normal children in Aboriginal communities in North West Australia. And it gets worse from there. The infant mortality rates for Aboriginal children are three or four times higher than for non-Aboriginal children. Most of the deaths are preventable, the result of accidents, injury, suicide or infection.

Wednesday we'll post a fund-raiser for the Pretty Bird Woman House, which is coordinated by Andy Ternay of Street Prophets, aka Andyt on Daily Kos.

The 10 year old girl pack-raped at Aurukun, in Cape York, has FAS. As do some of the adolescents named, but not charged, in the report.

We just want to make the point that moral outrage has been the social basis for intervention there, and elsewhere, in the past, and that the problems are bigger than funding one Lakota women's shelter startup costs, or getting one Aboriginal child protection order and a dozen problematic felony sentences.

Things aren't too good in the Gaza Strip either. Israel blocks all imports into the strip, except for a short list of about half a dozen basic articles. 900 trucks used to be employed daily for the imports and exports of the Gaza Strip, now their number is reduced to 15. For example, no soap is allowed in.

Local water is undrinkable. Israel does not let in bottled water. Nor does Israel allow the importation water pumps. The price of water filters has gone up from $40 to $250, there are no spare parts at all for filters. Only the well-to-do can still afford them. However, chlorine is let in.

There is no import of cement. When there is a hole in the ceiling, it cannot be repaired. The building site for the children's hospital stands silent. There are no spare parts of any kind. A medical instrument that goes out of order cannot be repaired. Not even incubators for babies or dialysis equipment.

The populations of Cape York, the Standing Rock Reservation, and Gaza, have some things in common. Unemployment by design. Disintegration by design. And Settlers who can see everything but their own shadows.

Posted by EBW at 09:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

07-375 Aroostook Band of MicMacs v. Ryan, Patricia E., et al.

The 1st Circuit has ruled that all Maine tribes are subject to state jurisdiction under the 1980 Maine Indian Land Claims Settlement Act, even the Aroostooks, who weren't even included in the 1980 Act, and who's 1991 Act doesn't contain the "state jurisdiction" language. The people who wrote Bush v Gore couldn't be bothered.

In separate news, Alaska and Hawai'i have been ordered to relocate to the area bounded on the west the Mississippi river, and on the east by the Ohio river, in accordance with the Ordinance for the government of the territory of the United States North West of the river Ohio, which became law in 1787.

Afterthought: I suppose we Abenakis can now bring an federal cause of action against Maine for failing to subject us to state jurisdiction, since no matter when we are Federally Recognized, and no matter what the US Congress has to say about the conditions attached to a government-to-government relationship, the 1st Circuit will support the state of Maine's claim that its jurisdiction is supreme. So what's Steve Rowe's excuse for failing to paper us?

A proactive prophylactic legal pyrotechnic.

Posted by EBW at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The nature and circumstances of this case strongly reinforce this rule of interpretation in its present application. It is a case involving the judgment of a court of special and limited jurisdiction, not to be assumed without clear warrant of law. It is a case of life and death. It is a case where, against an express exception in the law itself, that law, by argument and inference only, is sought to be extended over aliens and strangers; over the members of a community, separated by race, by tradition, by the instincts of a free though savage life, from the authority and power which seeks to impose upon them the restraints of an external and unknown code, and to subject them to the responsibilities of civil conduct, according to rules and penalties of which they could have no previous warning; which judges them by a standard made by others, and not for them, which takes no account of the conditions which should except them from its exactions, and makes no allowance for their inability to understand it. It tries them not by their peers, nor by the customs of their people, nor the law of their land, but by superiors of a different race, according to the law of a social state of which they have an imperfect conception, and which is opposed to the traditions of their history, to the habits of their lives, to the strongest prejudices of their savage nature; one which measures the red man's revenge by the maxims of the white man's morality. It is a case, too, of first impression, so far as we are advised; for, if the question has been mooted heretofore in any courts of the United States, the jurisdiction has never before been practically asserted as in the present instance. The provisions now contained in sections 2145 and 2146 of the Revised Statutes were first enacted in section 25 of the Indian intercourse act of 1834. 4 St. 733. Prior to that, by the act of 1796, (1 St. 469,) and the act of 1802, (2 St. 139,) offenses committed by Indians against white persons, and by white persons against Indians, were specifically enumerated and defined, and those by Indians against each other were left *572 to be dealt with by each tribe for itself, according to its local customs. The policy of the government in that respect has been uniform. As was said by Mr. Justice MILLER, delivering the opinion of the court in U. S. v. Joseph, 94 U. S. 614, 617:

"The tribes for whom the act of 1854 was made were those semi-independent tribes whom our government has always recognized as exempt from our laws, whether within or without the limits of an organized state or territory, and, in regard to their domestic government, left to their own rules and traditions, in whom we have recognized the capacity to make treaties, and with whom the governments, state and national, deal, with a few exceptions only, in their national or tribal character, and not as individuals."

The writs of habeas corpus and certiorari prayed for will accordingly be issued.

This is Rehnquist's greatest work, the core of Oliphant. I've made bold the portions of the original text that Rehnquist didn't dare try to get past Marshall and Burger. The art here is that the black letter law and precident obviously held that Tribal Courts had jurisdiction over non-members, whether Indian or non-Indian, and Rehnquist turned this into the "rationale" why Tribal Courts did not have jurisdiction over non-members, whether Indian or non-Indian.

Great acts show great daring, even the bad ones.

Posted by EBW at 02:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The six murals at the Old Post Office on 12th Street, which are the subject of Section 106 consultation, are American Kunst.

We're fortunate that the muralists of the '30s chose Soviet Realism over expropriation of Southern Ceremonial Cult images.

The Individual and Tribal Trust Accountings, the Bush/Clinton/Bush/Reagan lootings in Interior, the Declaration on the Rights of Indian Polities, sweeping aside the lies that have accumulated since Marshall ignored every deed of sale and lease from the early Colonial Period to the 1820s to fabricate the reasoning in the trilogy of cases that bear his name to the Rehnquist fabrications, the loss of habitat and species ...

We want what is real. Some murals in a monumental edifice in the trophy taking capital isn't real.

Posted by EBW at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Four years ago this week a group of Rhode Island State Police executed a Rhode Island warrant on the premises of a Narragansett Tribal business. The RISP force inflicted injuries upon the person of the elected executive and seven members of the Narragansett Tribe. The order for the raid was issued by Rhode Island Governor Don Carcieri.

You may not remember this, but we do, and Joe Trippi does, as does Dr. Howard Dean, former governor and leading presidential candidate at this point in the previous cycle ("the Sleepless Summer", replacing Senator Joe Lieberman, then a Democrat, as the candidate to beat), and now Chairperson of the Democratic National Committee.

This is were the bones are ... Inyo County v. Bishop Paiute Tribe.

Can States physically seize documents from Tribal government offices under some "evidence" claim arising in a State court action? It is a question everyone in Maine knows, and we know the answer too, where the tribes are jurisdictionally mere townships of the State. We posed the general question, and failing to elicit the required response, we set out to ... ensure that authors of the wrong response did not advance.

Today the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Carcieri v. Kempthorne, joining the 8th Circuit, the 10 Circuit, and the 2nd Circuit on a fundamental test of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.

Narragansett 1, Rhode Island 0.

You have to wonder if all those DNC Dems who are lining up behind the junior Senator from New York and her constituent pleasing stands against Native land claims in that state are as full of themselves as the Deaniacs of the Sleepless Summer, right up to the post-Iowa nails in their campaign's coffin in Oklahoma, Washington, and New Mexico, or if they are taking their "inevitability" to novel heights.

Making nice to some Nevada Chiefs last week doesn't really offset most of a decade of making ugly to all Native land claims.

Posted by EBW at 02:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The Bush Administration thought they won a huge victory by having Cobell v. Babbitt/Norton/Kempthorne judge Royce Lamberth removed last year. Maybe they want to rethink that.

With his eyes toward an October trial, the federal judge handling the Cobell trust fund case said on Monday he wants the federal government to show how much money Indian beneficiaries were or weren't paid.

Indian Country deserves to know the answer, Judge James Robertson said at a 2.5-hour status hearing in Washington, D.C. So do Congress and the public, he told lawyers for the plaintiffs and the Bush administration.

"What does it all add up to?" Robertson said. "What are the big numbers?"

The very last thing this government wants is an actual accounting, which is exactly what it seems Robertson is demanding.

Posted by MB Williams at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

This may not be a surprise to anyone, but the campaign website for Stacy Leeds is now hosted on the hardware that also hosts the Koufax website. I fixed the Blix theme for Drupal 5.x, as Stacy's original tech support selected that theme, using Wordpress, and replicated the content over the weekend, going live last Sunday.

The following is from the Muskogee Phoenix, and the best part about it is the recognition of the motivation for the special election -- not preservation of culture or limiting distribution of benefits -- the messages used by the proponents of the special election, but the crass, early-Rehnquist motive of voter suppression -- in a polity that has fewer than 10% turn out, a history of Constitutional crisis, and almost seven decades in the 20th century of total failure of the political system.

"I just think this is a suit that's not winnable (for the Cherokee Nation) on the issues at hand," Cherokee Nation Councilor Linda O'Leary, chair of the Executive and Finance Committee, said Wednesday.

"When we're talking about civil liberties, then we are on the losing end of the stick here."

O'Leary said Principal Chief Chad Smith was the main supporter of the special election to disenfranchise Freedmen.

"Chad did this for political reasons to keep the Freedmen from voting (in the upcoming election) -- and the Cherokee Nation will have to spend millions of dollars in legal funds," O'Leary said.

Cherokee Nation spokesman Mike Miller said the Cherokee Nation is being sued.

"It's not our choice whether we spend money to defend ourselves or not," Miller said. "It was not a lawsuit we filed, but a lawsuit filed against us."

Jack Abramoff gave to Chad Smith, so you can give to Stacy Leeds. Its that simple.

Posted by EBW at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

[original from H-NET Discussion List for African American Studies, ebw]

News From Congresswoman Diane Watson 33rd Congressional District

March 13, 2007 For Immediate Release Contact: Bert Hammond (202) 225-7084, Lois Hill Hale (323) 965-1422

Congresswoman Watson & Congressional Black Caucus Register Outrage Over Blatant Discrimination by Cherokee Nation

Washington, DC-- Congresswoman Diane E. Watson and 25 other members of the Congressional Black Caucus have sent a letter to the Bureau of Indian Affairs protesting the recent vote by the Cherokee Nation to revoke the tribal citizenship of an estimated 2,800 black Cherokee descendants.

"On Saturday, March 3, a very small minority of the Cherokee Nation voted to disenfranchise their tribal members who have African ancestry in violation of established treaty rights," said Congresswoman Watson. "This is blatant discrimination of the worst kind."

"I and my colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus question the validity, legality, as well as the morality of the Cherokee Nation's vote. The black descendant Cherokees can trace their Native American
heritage back in many cases for more than a century. They are legally a part of the Cherokee Nation through history, precedent, blood, and treaty obligations."

"In fiscal year 2006, the House Appropriations Committee estimates that The United States Government spent $12.6 billion a year on programs in support of Native Americans. The Cherokee Nation is one of the largest Native American tribes in the U.S. and its members obviously receive a significant share of federal funds."

"I have reason to believe that the Cherokee Nation's annual budget is somewhere in the range of $300 million a year, of which 75% is derived from federal funds. Black Cherokee descendants are now put in the incredible position of having to pay federal taxes to subsidize their own discrimination. This is a gross violation of their social, economic, and human rights."

"The federal government has a trust and responsibility through treaty obligations and federal statutes to provide for the well-being, health care, and education of Native American tribal members regardless of race. Fundamental social justice demands that the black Cherokees be reinstated in the Cherokee Nation with full rights."

The letter signed by Congresswoman Watson and Members of the Congressional Black Caucus is addressed to Carl J. Artman, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs. The full text of the letter follows:

March 13, 2007
The Honorable Carl J. Artman
Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs
Bureau of Indian Affairs
1849 C Street, NW
Mail Stop 4101
Washington, D.C. 20240

Dear Mr. Artman:

The undersigned members of the Congressional Black Caucus are shocked and outraged at the March 3 vote by Cherokee Nation members to revoke the tribal citizenship of an estimated 2,800 black descendants of the Cherokee Nation.

The black descendants are of mixed African-Cherokee heritage. Their lineage extends back for well over a century when they accompanied other tribal members to new settlements in Oklahoma after the Cherokee Nation had been expelled from its traditional lands in North Carolina and Georgia . Many African descendant Cherokees died during the forced migration, which has become known as the "Trail of Tears."

The Cherokee Nation fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. After the war it signed a federal treaty, in 1866, committing that its African-Cherokee descendants would be absorbed as citizens of the Cherokee Nation. In 1983, the Cherokee Nation expelled many African descendants by requiring them to show a degree of Indian blood through the Dawes rolls. A tribal court reinstated them in March 2006. The most recent March 3 vote is an apparent attempt to override the March 2006 court decision.

We question the validity, legality, as well as the morality of the Cherokee Nation's March 3 vote to disenfranchise its African descendants. A sizeable number of persons throughout the United States who can rightfully lay claim to Native American tribal citizenship and lineage are of mixed ancestry. The tribal lineage of black Native American descendants is rich in history and precedent that equals, if not surpasses, that of other racially and ethnically mixed Native Americans who have sought and been granted full tribal status.

We respectfully request an interpretation from the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the March 3 vote, particularly the legality of the vote, as well as what actions can be taken by the Bureau to correct this
egregious violation of the rights of Cherokee Nation members of African descent.

We are resolute in our efforts to undo this outrage.

The letter is signed by the following Members of the Congressional Black Caucus: Diane E. Watson (CA), Carolyn C. Kilpatrick (MI), Chaka Fattah (PA), Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC), Gregory W. Meeks (NY), John Conyers, Jr. (MI), Sheila Jackson-Lee (TX), G. K. Butterfield (NC), William J. Jefferson (LA), Bobby L. Rush (IL), Barbara Lee (CA), Donald M. Payne (NJ), Julia Carson (IN), Al Green (TX), Emanuel Cleaver (MO), Edolphus Towns (NY), Juanita Millender-McDonald (CA), Charles B. Rangel (NY), Wm. Lacy Clay (MO), Henry C. "Hank" Johnson, Jr. (GA), Yvette D. Clarke (NY), Kendrick B. Meek (FL), Stephanie Tubbs Jones (OH), Corrine Brown (FL), John Lewis (GA), Eddie Bernice Johnson (TX)

Posted by EBW at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

In 1903 William C. Rogers became last elected Cherokee chief for 68 years.

Ms. Diane Watson is an enrolled member of the Democratic Party and represents a quarter of a million residents of Los Angeles county in the lower house of the Federal legislature in Washington City. She an opinion on the issues involved in the March 3rd Special Election of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.

She also has a remedy. She wants to to end payments by the United States to the Cherokee Nation.

The likelihood that Representative Watson has an opinion on the causes for, or effects of, the Cherokee Nation not being able to hold elections for almost seven of the ten decades of the 20th century is wicked small, but I'm going to attempt the comic and ask the Congresswoman. Hell, she may not know that something happened in Mittle Europa during the middle decades of the same century. Some people are wicked focused on their own interests and need no partners, no coalition, to obtain their unilateralist, uncomplicated deciderist goals.

There's one like that at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, an enrolled member of the same, to hell with treaties party.

There are issues of Federal oversight of constitutional revisions, under section 16 of the Wheeler-Howard Act (The Indian Reorganization Act, June 18, 1934), and of course, anything really fundamental in Federal Indian Law goes, now that Bill Rehnquist is doing Hispanic voter intimidation in the several precincts of Hell, to Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Clarance Thomas to fabricate out of a whole cloth and call stare decisis et non quieta movere.

I don't advise Chad Smith, or support his quixotic adventure into non-vital issues in a polity that has only three decades of modern election history, and a voter turn-out of one in ten qualified voters, and I don't advise Stacy Leeds, who I support in her race against Chad Smith in next June's election. However, if I had the ear of the prince and Ms. Watson's brain fart managed to catch fire among the other Americans -- to end the existing treaties -- I'd advise that was worth looking into. Setting the clock back to 1822, before Marshall and Johnson formally committed the former British colonies to banditry outside of International Law, or 1789, or 1776, when the British Crown surrendered its claims under the right of Discovery against non-Christian Kings and right of War against Christian Kings (the Dutch and the French) to the Americas south of the Red Line, or even back to de Soto, would be an improvement over the perpetuation of the present.

If Rep. Watson's concern is with the legality of exclusion, rather than the fiction of race, she could look at the Pechenga, an hour's drive from her district office on Wilshire Boulevard, or any of the other California Tribes struggling with membership issues, rather than eastern Oklahoma, where Indians couldn't vote for any Federal office for half of the time between the 1861-1865 Insurrection and the present, and could not vote for any Cherokee governmental office for three quarters of the 20th century.

Unless spin is all.

Posted by EBW at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Two issues stand out to my reading: Section 2(b), which does not extinguish a right to petition for federal recognition by any group of Indians residing in Robeson and adjoining counties, and Section 5, the civil and criminal law jurisdictions.

Compare the criminal and civil law jurisdictions of the H.R. 65 and PL 280.

First, H.R. 65:SEC. 5. (a) The State of North Carolina shall exercise jurisdiction over (1) all criminal offenses that are committed on; and (2) all civil actions that arise on, lands located within the State of North Carolina that are owned by, or held in trust by the United States for, the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, or any dependent Indian community of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. (b) The Secretary of the Interior is authorized to accept on behalf of the United States, after consulting with the Attorney General of the United States any transfer by the State of North Carolina to the United States of any portion of the jurisdiction of the State of North Carolina described in paragraph (1) pursuant to an agreement between the Lumbee Tribe and the State of North Carolina. Such transfer of jurisdiction may not take effect until 2 years after the effective date of the agreement. (c) The provisions of this subsection shall not affect the application of section 109 of the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 (25 U.S.C. 1919).

Second, PL 280: 25 U.S.C. § 1321. Assumption by State of criminal jurisdiction

(a) Consent of United States; force and effect of criminal laws.
The consent of the United States is hereby given to any State not having jurisdiction over criminal offenses committed by or against Indians in the areas of Indian country situated within such State to assume, with the consent of the Indian tribe occupying the particular Indian country or part thereof which could be affected by such assumption, such measure of jurisdiction over any or all of such offenses committed within such Indian country or any part thereof as may be determined by such State to the same extent that such State has jurisdiction over any such offense committed elsewhere within the State, and the criminal laws of such State shall have the same force and effect within such Indian country or part thereof as they have elsewhere within that State.

The full text of H.R. 65 is in the extended area. I hope it becomes law, but I'd like language added to graduate from State, or Federal jurisdictions to Tribal as the legal institutions of the Lumbee Nation mature. I'm writing to the following members of the House Natural Resources Committee to that effect:

Chair Nick Rahall, WV-03 (I'm sorry, but 10 minutes wasted on e-brokenness of the www.house.gov webbish and I still don't have his mailto or click 4 form.)
Grace Napolitano, CA-10 click 4 form
Dan Boren, OK-02 click 4 form
George Miller, CA-07 mailto or click 4 form
Edward Markey, MA-07 click 4 form
Patrick Kennedy, RI-01 click 4 form
Stepanie Herseth, SD-AL mailto

As for this guy, well, he's in the pockets of the Michell Hicks, the current principal chief of the Eastern Band, so he's simply another seat the GOP will pick up in a cycle or two:
Heath Shuler, NC-11

I'm underwhelmed by the scholarship of Chief Hicks' opus on why the Lumbee Recognition Bill should not be made law, so I'll post an annotated version of it in the next few days. The original is here, a 10pp .pdf.

Continue reading "Commentary on H.R. 65, the Lumbee Recognition Act" »

Posted by EBW at 06:08 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I wrote about the issues earlier, the url is Nation and Race. This morning someone asked me to comment on the election.

I haven't read the results yet, so I've no idea how Chad Smith's proposal did, other than to hear that his campaign got the most votes yesterday. I would have voted against it, and I support the campaign of Stacy Leeds against Chad Smith.

People who want to write about it -- please use the comments.

Posted by EBW at 05:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Samoset get no turkee 2005

Moonin' the 'grims 2004

Derailing the Midnight Rider (Cobell v Norton) 2003

Holiday reading 2002

Posted by EBW at 08:27 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Dave Harris wrote us recently:

I recently finished Ghost Tribes, a short documentary about six Virginia Indian tribes -- the tribes of Pocahontas and her people -- and their 400 year struggle for sovereignty and federal recognition.
My film was selected as 1 of 6 finalists in the Third Millenium Foundation's "Seeds of Tolerance" film competition. I need your help to win. By taking a minute to vote for Ghost Tribes, you can help determine the winner and garner much needed publicity and funding for the these tribes' efforts.

Congressman Jim Moran (D-VA) has sponsored a bill that would grant the tribes recognition, and in the new congress, he just may have the political "capital" to push it through. In addition to funding for the tribes' cause, Al
Gore will present the winning film live, in a televised awards ceremony, raising awareness for the tribes.

To vote, Current will require you to register, but it's quick (<30 seconds) and there aren't any follow up emails or newsletters.

Vote for Ghost Tribes here (It's the 3rd video from the left): http://www.current.tv/tolerance

Thanks for your help.

-Dave Halliday

Posted by EBW at 10:01 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

When we were at Sleeping Bear dunes I happened to be at the Leelanau Coffee Roasting Company (featuring fine caffine and data) one day, and ended up being asked by the editors of the Glen Arbor Sun to read and respond to a piece they'd just published by a local contributor.

After I read it I looked up from the page to the two men and said it was very good writing.

It came to mind forcefully today as more and more children came to the playground today. We've been nearly alone here for a week, and people are already exotic. These were even more so. Most of the boys were in camos, with paint. The kind I used to wear when doing ambush exercises, with an M-14, in 1972/3. Even the girls were in Rambo face paint, So I'm posting Ojibway artist, author, and basket maker Lois Beardlee's "The Shirt".

The Shirt

By Lois Beardslee
Sun contributor

"No. You can't have the shirt."

"But I want it."

"I know. But you can't have the shirt."

"My friends will think it's cool!"

"I know. But you can't have the shirt."

It's on sale, isn't it?"

"Yes. But you can't have the shirt."

It is a camouflage design, in muted shades of military beiges and greens. The corporations that control America want to go to war again. And they are marketing children's clothing as early recruitment groundwork. The shirts are cheaper than any other shirts. They are in all the stores, and they are cheaper than all of the other shirts. It comes in other colors, that camouflage pattern. Oranges. Reds. Muted. Blending. Bloodlike.

"It comes in other colors, too. Look."

"I know. But you can't have the shirt."

"Why?"

She wants to tell him.

"Why?"

She wants to tell him. But she knows that he is still too young to understand modern military operations. He is too young to understand death. He is too young to understand permanent loss of faculties, of limb. He thinks it's cool. Blood and gore and stuff like in the horror movies. Like a Hallowe'en mask.

"It's cool."

Like a Hallowe'en mask.

"Mom. I said, it's cool."

"I know. But you can't have the shirt."

But nothing like a Hallowe'en mask.

"I could wear it for Halloween."

"No, I wouldn't let you."

"Why not?"

"I don't want you to be a soldier for Halloween."

"I could put fake blood on."

"It's called Hallowed Evening."

"What?"

"Hallowe'en. It's short for Hallowed Evening. And that means Holy Evening. It's supposed to be a Holy Evening."

"Who cares?"

"I care." It's supposed to be about honoring the dead, she's fairly sure, not just about gruesome ceremonies and an association with all things gory. It's supposed to be about loving the dead, loving their memories. And scaring the kids is just a bonus. Because scaring kids a little bit is important to keeping them alive and safe. That's why we've got stories about bad things. They are preventative stories. They are the true warriors' stories. And it's fun scaring the kids, too. It's fun hearing children squeal with delight.

Ima Pipiig's mind is wandering. It is taking her away from the urban development fringing the once-small town of Traverse City, Michigan. She is in small graveyards in the woods. Small patches of history and intertwined lives. She is sprinkling tobacco on the graves, following her mother, glad for the opportunity to toss and scatter something wildly with her young arms that beg for wide and simple motions without consequence.

She is hiding bundles of fresh sweetgrass behind the gravestones of Indian soldiers, where the white people will not see them and take them away, as souvenirs attesting to the quaintness of northern Michigan's remnant Native inhabitants. The boy is sprinkling tobacco on the graves, following his mother, glad for the opportunity to toss and scatter something wildly with his young arms that beg for wide and simple motions without consequence.

"But I want it."

"No. You can't have the shirt."

"Why?"

It is a camouflage design, in muted shades of military beiges and greens. The corporations that control America want to go to war again. And they are marketing children's clothing as early recruitment groundwork. The shirts are cheaper than any other shirts. They are in all the stores, and they are cheaper than all of the other shirts. It comes in other colors, that camouflage pattern. Oranges. Reds. Muted. Blending. Bloodlike.

He cannot have the shirt because, because -- there is nothing in our oral and written history prior to the advent of the fur trade that refers to protectors being recuited as warriors. There is nothing in our stories, no cultural precedents for the concept of children recruited for future disposability in the form of corporate warriors. Once enlisted, these children are endlessly deployed until death or dismemberment. There is no Anishnabe word for this. There is no Anishnabe concept for this. This came with the fur trade, and our success at adapting to the warfare you brought upon us is being used to recruit us right now.

Ima Pipiig has seen the government posters, distributed in the Native American communities, the ones that talk about Indian warrior traditions. Ima Pipiig knows at this time that the boy is to be protected from the idea of protector as warrior, until he is old enough to know that dead is forever, until he is old enough to know that dismemberment is not cool, until he knows that one must carefully choose what one protects.

"Mom. I want the shirt."

"I know. But you can't have it."

From last year. Little has changed, other than the numbers are larger than before and in the aggressor state, children are still dressed for war.

Posted by EBW at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by EBW at 11:53 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Associate Justice Scalia wrote the majority opinion in 1990. The case caused Congress to pass the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to ensure members of the Native American Church could use peyote as a sacrament without punishment.
Scalia:

Two defendants in the case were drug counselors and it was discovered that they were going off in the mountains every week to smoke peyote

For the remaining Deaniac reading wampum, this Scalia gem:

... State sovereignty does not end at a reservation's border ...

via Indianz, from Justice Scalia and ACLU.

Posted by EBW at 01:01 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

In the 80th Assembly District, which covers the eastern Coachella Valley and Imperial County, the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla contributed $450,000 to the Riverside County Republican Party, which spent the money on paid media for Assemblywoman Bonnie Garcia, R-Cathedral City.

Here's how Steven Maviglio wrote it up for The California Majority Report:

Garcia has been carrying the tribes' water for years. A protégé of Sen. Jim Battin of Palm Springs, she introduced the legislation approving tribal compacts during the waning days of this year's legislative session. Garcia reports nearly $200,000 from the tribes in yesterday's filings.

Talk about "pay to play."

In the same piece he offers the following as context:

Why are the tribes throwing big bucks behind the Republicans?

A bit of recent history: After sailing through the Senate, Assembly Democrats put the brakes on approving the compacts. The card clubs and horse track interests, as well as several labor unions, weighed in heavily against approval in the final days, and the compacts didn't muster enough votes for approval.

You can't get how bad it is in Federal Indian Law until the absurdity of a bait shack on pier on a lagoon completely within a tribal polity's territorial jurisdiction rises to a state's highest court, and the underlying issue whether a tribal polity has the right to copy the zoning code of an adjacent municipality, and issue building permits using that code, or must obtain building permits using that code from the adjacent municipality, oozes out of your pores.

Every tribal government I've ever been in contact with wants its legal institutions, and that includes its civil and criminal codes, developed. The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla is unlikely to be an exception. I expect they'd like what millions upon millions of tax dollars have paid for in California -- a mature legal system. But theirs, or theirs shared with other cooperating tribal governments, or theirs shared with other cooperating tribal and state(s) governments, or ... but what is on the table is California's, unamended for Indians. Legal leg irons. Termination by labor rather than calvary or capital.

But more than just the Agua Caliente are working the issue this cycle.

The Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla, the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation, the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians and the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians have pooled more money, over $3 million, to fund a Political Action Committee, Team 2006. The Desert Sun reported yesterday that the PAC has spent a third of its contributions, and its all been for Republican candidates.

That leaves two dollars in three as yet unallocated. The Desert Sun quotes Daniel Tucker, the chairman of the Sycuan Band, as saying the tribes will support candidates who "understand the challenges facing Native Americans" and "care about moving California's economy forward."

Any guesses on how the heck candidates wearing white hoodies and/or moving California's economy anywhere other than forward manage to pass for ... Democrats?

It does get better. Agua Caliente Chairman Richard M. Milanovich is on record for one bond measure on the November ballot, Proposition 84. Tribes across California understand that the time is right for stepping up to support the environmental infrastructure that's needed. Our tribe has more than 31,000 acres covering Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Rancho Mirage and into the mountains where we have committed to preserving and protecting critical habitat. Team 2006 is going to be spending on Prop. 84, and for some as yet unidentified Democrats.

November is when we gather acorns.

Posted by EBW at 11:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Citgo doesn't have a refinery in Alaska, though it does in Boston, which is why I tried I, II, III to get heating oil for Abenaki, Mic'mac, Maleseet, Passamaquoddy, and even Penobscot households last winter. It was a very mixed bag. Poverty-owning urban Democrats in Massachusettes horned in and cut all Indians out of the offer, eventually Maine Indians except Abenakis were allowed some oil, and a good man died on his way home after executing the deal that brought about $300 per household in heating season discounts to Pleasant Point.

In lieu of Citgo heating oil, discounted at about $1 per gallon, with approximately 300 gallons allocated per native household, Citgo allocated $5.3 million to native nonprofit organizations to buy 100 gallons this winter for each of more than 12,000 households. About 150 native corporations (Indian towns) in Alaska have accepted.

The Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, on behalf of 291 households in Nelson Lagoon, Atka, St. Paul and St. George, rejected Citgo's offer of money for 100 gallons per household of heating oil. A gallon of heating oil goes for above $5 in the towns on islands on the eastern shore of the Bering Sea. My grandparents operated a BIA school at Unalakleet, also on the Bering, but on the mainland. Keeping a small school warm in the winter required lots of fuel and no accidents, however minor.

Dimitri Philemonof heads the APIA. He said accepting the aid would be "compromising ourselves." He also said "I think we have some duty to our country, and I think it's loyalty."

Justine Gunderson is the administrator for the tribal council in the Aleut village of Nelson Lagoon. She said "As a citizen of this country, you can have your own opinion of our president and our country. But I don't want a foreigner coming in here and bashing us. Even though we're in economically dire straits, it was the right choice to make."

That's close to six figures for ... what? The principle that freedom of expression doesn't apply to persons who actually can make meaningful criticism? The principle that lessé majesty, like leprosy, is contagous?

If that sounds wicked dumb, a lamp post only the bottle or fume afflicted would lean into, John Baldacci said he had no plans renew last year's agreement with Citgo -- the one that cost Pleasant Point Gov. Melvin Francis his life last January -- on behalf of all the poor households of Maine.

Posted by EBW at 08:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

The jury pool exclusion of Indians in Kesser v. Cambra took place in Humbolt County. I came across this yesterday when looking up the history of the Mendocino Indians and the Mendocino Indian Reservation. MacKerricher SP is what is left of the 25,000 acre Mendocino Indian Reservation. In 1867 the land was sold off to settlers at $1.25 per acre. Thirty yeas later the Congress would terminate the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma to "ease" the transition of the Oklahoma Territory to Statehood. It took half a century to restore government to government relations between the US and th