BISMARCK, N.D. | State and federal officials in the Dakotas are working with a Native American reservation that straddles the two states’ border on a unique project to reduce the number of released felons who return to a life of crime.
Officials cite a lack of services and jobs as big reasons for recidivism on the Standing Rock Reservation. The Multijurisdictional Re-entry Services Team hopes to come up with a blueprint for addressing those problems.
The team includes federal prosecutors from both states, state corrections and tribal relations officials, and Sioux tribe officials.
Possible measures include identifying employers on and off the reservation who would be willing to hire convicted felons, identifying housing resources and establishing American Indian mentors.
Officials say the effort eventually could be used as a model by other tribes.
The sport of Lacrosse was invented centuries ago by Native Americans and it continues to evolve today in way people never imagined. The rules of the game have greatly changed, but for Lyle Thompson and his older brothers: Jeremy, Jerome Jr. and Miles, the notion of playing for a higher purpose remains. The game was regarded as a gift from the Creator and was to be played for his enjoyment and presumed to possess healing properties.
The sport has always been a big part of the the Thompson brother’s life, and it is now more meaningful than ever. All of the Thompson brothers are members of the Iroquois Nationals lacrosse team, for which Thompson Sr., their father, played in 1990. The Nationals are the only Native American team that is sanctioned to compete as its own country in international play, a distinction that inspires the Thompsons every time they don the team’s purple and yellow jerseys.
In the 2014 World Lacrosse Championship, the four brothers put their talents on display as the Nationals went on to win the team’s first-ever bronze medal at the World Championships and Jeremy and Lyle were both named to the All-World Team.
“THERE WAS A LOT OF PRIDE WITHIN THIS COMMUNITY, NOT JUST IN THE ONONDAGA RESERVATION, BUT IN ALL OF THE SIX NATIONS, ALL OF INDIAN COUNTRY. EVERYBODY KNEW ABOUT IT,” LYLE SAYS. “BUT AT THE SAME TIME, WE KNOW THAT WE CAN KEEP BUILDING AND MOVING FORWARD AND, HOPEFULLY, ONE DAY WIN GOLD.”
This Fall The Six Nations will host the tournament, marking the first time it will take place on Native American lands.
“IT WILL BE A HISTORICAL MOMENT FOR US TO HAVE IN OUR HOMELAND,” SAYS JEREMY. “WE WILL BE ABLE TO SHARE THE GAME OF LACROSSE AND SHOW WHERE THE GAME CAME FROM AND HOW IT WAS INVENTED.”
The Thompson brothers will have the opportunity of a lifetime to show the world and their community the importance of the sport and the great value they place on it. Despite all of the awards and accolades that are given, the brothers retain lacrosse’s greater meaning. “I’m playing for a much different purpose, and that’s for the Creator. It’s for medicine; it’s for my community,” Lyle says. “The game is part of our religion.”
via: Nike
FILE – In this Nov. 2014, file photo, Navajo Nation presidential candidate Russell Begaye, center, speaks with a group during the Navajo Nation elections outside of the Shiprock Chapter House in Shiprock, N.M. Voters on the countrys largest American Indian reservation are choosing a new president who will have to deal with rampant unemployment and a lack of infrastructure while helping tribal members through a bitter dispute that has divided communities. (Alexa Rogals/The Daily Times via AP, File)
Tribal law now requires top leaders to understand, be fluent; voters will decide whether to continue or ease the qualification.
By FELICIA FONSECA, The Associated Press
Flagstaff, Ariz. » It’s a question that dominated conversation in the Navajo Nation presidential election: Should the tribe’s top leader be fluent in the language?
Voters will settle that question Tuesday in a referendum vote.
Tribal law now requires candidates for tribal president and vice president to understand Navajo and speak it fluently, and read and write English — a qualification that can be enforced through tribal courts. An affirmative vote on the referendum would let individual Navajos decide whether candidates speak and understand Navajo well enough to hold office.
The debate goes beyond tribal politics and to the heart of the identity of Navajos. The language is a defining part of the tribe’s culture, said to be handed down by deities, but not all Navajos believe it should dictate who gets to seek the tribe’s top posts.
Judy Donaldson says she’s willing to let a Navajo president learn the language along the way, as long as that person is well educated and can navigate politics on and off the reservation. She said voters should question candidates at campaign rallies to get a true sense of where they stand.
“The voters know who they want to lead us,” she said. “They’re not just going to pick my uncle because he gave us 20 bucks. They’ll say, ‘look at this person here, he can do it, he has a Ph.D.'”
A simple majority of voters would have to approve the referendum for it to pass. The revised requirement would be in effect for the 2018 election.
The Navajo Nation Council approved the referendum after efforts to make changes to the fluency requirement failed through other legislation. It came as the result of Chris Deschene being disqualified from the most recent presidential race because he refused to show he could speak fluent Navajo.
Some Navajos rallied around him, questioning the definition of “fluency” and saying a well-educated Navajo who intended to learn the language shouldn’t be ruled out for the presidency. But others said Deschene lied when he attested to being fluent in the language and deserved to be knocked out of the race. The tribe’s high court ruled that fluency in Navajo is a reasonable requirement for the presidency.
More people speak Navajo than any other single American Indian language, about 170,000 out of 300,000 tribal members, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Tiffany Manygoats doesn’t want to be counted among the non-speaking statistic and strives to learn the language, going so far as to seek out a partner who knows it.
“Being someone who doesn’t speak fluently and trying to learn my language and culture and everything, I don’t want to have our Navajo Nation president lacking what I lack,” she said. “It’s a little scary knowing it could die out pretty soon and I would be just another wash out.”
Tribal President Russell Begaye said the Navajo people should insist that the top two leaders speak Navajo, a language that the federal government tried to eradicate but also sought out for a code that helped win World War II.
“The referendum is part of this whole brainwashing agenda to say that we should lay down our language and assimilate into the American society,” Begaye said.
Christina Platero sees learning the Navajo language as a personal decision and one made within families, not one tribal government should mandate. Not knowing the language fluently shouldn’t be a black mark against candidates, she said, and suggested the president could have an interpreter to speak with tribal members who don’t understand English.
Above all, she encouraged Navajos to vote Tuesday.
“Think about it first before you make that decision, think about the consequences,” she said.
About a dozen Native American extras walked off the film’s set in April, criticizing passages in the script as offensive.
by The Associated Press
Adam Sandler feels that when audiences finally see his upcoming Netflix comedy, The Ridiculous Six, they will realize he wasn’t trying to offend anyone.
The spoof takes its name from the Western classic The Magnificent Seven and pokes fun at the genre. But not everyone found it funny.
Earlier this year, a group of Native American actors walked off the New Mexico film set over complaints that content in the film was offensive to their culture. The actors objected over the vile names of some of the characters, as well as a Native American woman urinating while smoking a peace pipe.
“It was just a misunderstanding and once the movie is out will be cleared up,” Sandler told theAssociated Press on Saturday on the red carpet for the world premiere of his new film, Pixels.
Sandler called The Ridiculous Six 100 percent pro-American Indian.
Rapid City is among the defendants that may be sued in federal court by the Native American students who were the targets of alleged beer-spilling and racial taunts at a January hockey game in the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center.
A Minneapolis lawyer, Robert R. Hopper, has filed in the U.S. District Court of South Dakota a “pre-suit notice” alleging “atrocious behaviors” by some of the defendants at the Jan. 24 Rapid City Rush game.
But the lawyer for one of the defendants responded that the notice is “little more than a shakedown for money.”
State law requires that to sue a “public entity,” such as the city, over some incident, written notice must be given within 180 days of the incident. Thus, the deadline for giving the city written notice occurs this week.
Named as prospective defendants in the yet-to-be-filed suit are the city of Rapid City, which operates the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, in which the Rush play their games; Eagle Sales of the Black Hills, which leases the luxury box from which the beer-spilling and racial taunts reportedly came; Trace O’Connell, a Philip resident who has been charged with disorderly conduct in connection with the incident; and “other guests of Eagle Sales’ box suite” on the night of the game.
Rapid City Mayor Steve Allender on Saturday said he had “skimmed” the pre-suit notice and has scheduled an executive session at the Monday night Rapid City Council meeting for council members to discuss the possible lawsuit with legal counsel.
“I guess it wasn’t unexpected,” Allender said.
“It could very well be that the impact might be to elicit a settlement” from the defendants, he added. An attempt Saturday to reach an executive with Eagle Sales was unsuccessful.
O’Connell’s attorney in the disorderly conduct case, Michael J. Butler, responded in an email:
“The notice to bring a lawsuit against Rapid City, the Civic Center, Eagle Sales, my client, and others is little more than a shakedown for money, captioned as a lawsuit claiming racism. I am familiar with the investigation. This case is not about racism, but it is about a few who are advancing a personal agenda and using race to do it. The lawyer filing notice should take some time to inform himself of the investigation and do his homework. ”
The pre-suit notice lists as plaintiffs parents who are acting on behalf of the students. In a cover letter, Hopper refers to the plaintiffs as a “Putative Class of Native American Children.”
The pre-suit notice says the plaintiffs “and putative plaintiffs class (were) subjected to (1) an escalating series of racially derogatory comments; (2) foul language; (3) objects, including bottle caps and Frisbees, thrown at them; and (4) spitting, spraying and throwing of beer onto their clothing, in their hair, and on their faces.”
Some of those accusations are familiar, although the references to thrown bottle caps and Frisbees apparently are new.
The pre-suit notice said the “atrocious behaviors” were committed by “several adults … in a private suite … leased by the Civic Center to Eagle Sales of the Black Hills, Inc.”
Those actions, the notice says, “were allowed to perpetuate and were exasperated by the negligence of the Civic Center and its responsible agents and employees acting in their official capacity on behalf of the City.” In an email, Hopper said “exasperated” should have been “exacerbated,” and he explained that an auto-correct feature on his computer made the mistake.
The students, all from the American Horse School on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, were at the game as a reward for academic success. They were accompanied by adult chaperons. The group had 65 tickets to the game.
After a lengthy investigation, O’Connell was charged with disorderly conduct, a Class 2 misdemeanor. His trial is scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday this week in the Historic Theatre at Rapid City High School.
U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran has nearly $30,000 from 12 different American Indian tribes since January in support of his re-election bid.
Moran, a Hays Republican who was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2010, received $1.43 million from January through June for his re-election campaign, according to his most recent filing with the Federal Election Commission. So far $1,000 of that has come from Kansas’ Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation.
Moran has also received money from Oklahoma’s Chickasaw Nation; Louisiana’s Tunica-Biloxi Tribe; Washington State’s Puyallup Tribe of Indians, Snoqualmie Tribe and Lummi Indian Business Council; Arizona’s Gila River Indian Community; California’s Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation and Shingle Springs Band Miwok Indians; Alabama’s Poarch Band of Creek Indians; and New York’s Seneca Nation of Indians.
The donations from the various tribes add up to $29,700.
The support from the tribes shouldn’t come as a surprise. Moran, a member of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, has championed legislation to strengthen the autonomy of tribal governments in recent years.
He co-sponsored the Tribal General Welfare Exclusion Act, which broadened tax exemptions for tribes and was signed into law in 2014. He has also sponsored and pushed for the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act, which would have exempted tribal governments from the National Labor Relations Act.
“These Native American tribes are part of a diverse group of individuals and organizations who support Senator Moran – including Kansans in each of our state’s 105 counties,” Moran for Kansas spokeswoman Elizabeth Patton said in an e-mailed statement.
Moran has also received money from Kansas born billionaire Phillip Anschutz and his wife, Nancy, for $2,700 each. Anschutz, a native of Russell and alum of the University of Kansas, helped found Major League Soccer.
Charles Koch, CEO of Koch Industries, gave Moran $2,700. His son, Chase Koch, president of Koch Fertilizer, and Chase’s wife, Anna, also each gave Moran $2,700.
Moran’s most recent report also includes contributions from state Rep. Mark Hutton, R-Wichita, who gave $2,700, and Kansas Secretary of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism Robin Jennison, who gave $1,000.
Read more here: http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/prairie-politics/article27927961.html#storylink=cpy
OPINION: The Affordable Care Act continues to evolve and improve, but more important, as more states expand Medicaid, they add real dollars to the Indian health system. 401(K)2013 / cc via flickr
These days “new” money is hard to find. That’s the kind of money that’s added to a budget, money that allows programs to expand, try out new ideas, and look for ways to make life better. Most government budgets are doing the opposite: Shrinking. Calling on program managers and clients alike to do more with less.
That’s why the news from Alaska last week is so exciting: Alaska’s new governor announced the expansion of Medicaid and this will significantly boost money for the Alaska Native medical system. Indeed, the significance of this announcement to the Indian health system was clear when Gov. Bill Walker and Department of Health and Social Services Commissioner Valerie Davidson made the announcement at the Alaska Native Medical Center on July 16. The governor took this action using executive authority because the Alaska Legislature had failed to even vote on legislation to accept Medicaid.
The governor says Medicaid expansion would reduce state spending by $6.6 million in the first year, and save over $100 million in state general funds in the first six years. “Every day that we fail to act, Alaska loses out on $400,000,” the governor said. “With a nearly $3 billion budget deficit, it would be foolish for us to pass up that kind of boost to Alaska’s economy.”
“We know Gov. Walker has worked tirelessly to expand Medicaid since he came into office on December first,” Davidson said at the news conference. It was one of the campaign promises made by the independent governor. “He included it in the budget. He introduced a bill both in the House and in the Senate side. It was a subject of both special sessions. And, it’s the right thing do do for Alaska.”
The expansion of Medicaid is one of key components of the Affordable Care Act. It’s critical a tool for the Indian Health System because it opens up a revenue channel for clinics and hospitals to bill Medicaid, a third-party insurance, for services. That boosts budgets at the local level, in a political climate where Congress is unlikely to spend more money on Indian health. How big a number? More than a million American Indians and Alaska Natives are now insured by Medicaid. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimated in 2013 that Indian health facilities collected $943 million in third-party payments.
“By far the largest third-party payer is Medicaid, which accounts for $683 million or 70 percent of total third-party revenues, and 13 percent of total IHS program funding for FY2013,” Kaiser reported. Nearly 150,000 Alaska Natives and American Indians receive health services across the state from tribal and nonprofit health organizations funded by the Indian Health Service. By law IHS-funded clinics must seek third-party billing from patients, such as Medicaid, the Veterans Administration or private, employer-based health insurance.
Medicaid is an odd program for Indian country. Most of us understand the IHS to be the government’s fulfillment of its treaty obligations. However the agency has never been fully funded. Medicaid, however, is an unlimited check. If a person is eligible, then the money is there. Yet states, not tribes nor the federal government, determine the rules for Medicaid. And many Republican states have been determined to fight the Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare,” at every turn, and that means refusing to accept Medicaid expansion (the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 that states could turn it down).
Alaska’s decision means the number of states rejecting Medicaid is continuing to shrink. Most recently, Montana agreed to expand Medicaid in April. The states with large American Indian and Alaska Native populations that have not expanded Medicaid include Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Maine, Wyoming, and Idaho. Utah is the next state considering an expansion.
The Affordable Care Act continues to evolve — and improve. But more important, steps that states are taking to expand Medicaid are adding real dollars to the Indian health system.
Mark Trahant is an independent journalist and a member of The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. He served two terms as the Atwood Chair of Journalism at the University of Alaska Anchorage. For updated posts, download the free Trahant Reports smartphone and tablet app.
The views expressed here are the writer’s own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, emailcommentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.
The Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation, an American Indian tribe of 3,000 members, filed a civil-rights action lawsuit in federal court against the state and Gov. Chris Christie’s administration Monday.
The tribe alleges that between 1980 and 1982, the state officially recognized it and two other tribes in New Jersey as American Indian tribes, confirming that recognition through numerous actions and subsequent decades, but the Christie administration is attempting to rescind the state’s recognition.
The tribe also alleges in the lawsuit that the state is motivated by an irrational, stereotype-driven fear of an Indian casino. But the tribe’s charter and religious tenets expressly prohibit gaming.
State recognition plays no role in securing federal gaming rights, and the tribe has never sought such rights during 33 years of state recognition, according to the full complaint.
The lawsuit, filed by Washington, D.C., law firm Cultural Heritage Partners, PLLC and New Jersey law firm Barry, Corrado Grassi, PC, alleges that the state’s position regarding the tribe’s status is causing “extensive damage” to tribal members of all ages.
The suit say the tribe faces the imminent loss of dozens of jobs, withdrawal of federal economic development grants, college scholarships, and the revocation of its ability to label the arts and crafts produced by its 40 professional artisans as “American Indian made.”
“They are denying the way we exist,” said Mark Gould, tribal chairman and principal chief of the tribe. “Our people have been an integral part of this region for thousands of years.”
The Governor’s Office did not respond to calls for comment Monday evening.
The Lenape tribe are not recognized as a tribe by the federal government, only by the state. Taking away state recognition would cost health grants for the tribe, many of whose members battle diabetes, Gould said.
The loss of state recognition would also cost the Lenape nearly $260,000 yearly from items labeled “American Indian made,” $600,000 in health grants from the federal government, $650,000 per year in tribal employment, and about $7.8 million from their company, NLT Enterprises, since the company was formed a decade ago, the lawsuit says.
The tribe’s lawyer, Greg Werkheiser, said the withdrawal of recognition injures an already vulnerable community based on a racial stereotype that all tribes want casinos. Gaming has only been available to American tribes since October 1988, when the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act was enacted.
Werkheiser has filed eight counts against the state and Christie’s administration.
“They are saying they don’t exist. Imagine what that does economically — not only psychologically,” he said. “Without due process, (this) violates federal and state civil-rights laws. While the rest of the country is having an adult conversation about racial reconciliation, the administration in New Jersey is pretending select minorities out of existence.”
“We are entitled to fair and proper treatment by the state, and to confirmation of our long-held status as a state-recognized tribe,” Gould said.
In 2001, the tribe sued a private citizen who claimed to have his own, new constituted tribe, and the Lenape stopped him from implying association with them and pursuing gaming rights, the lawsuit says.
Since then, the tribe believed, the earliest attempt by the state officials to undermine the tribes’ state-recognized status was a letter written by the Division of Gaming Enforcement in 2001 during the pendency of the lawsuit by the private citizen against the state for a land claim.
The federal Indian Arts and Crafts Board sent its standard inquiry to the state Commission on American Indian Affairs asking for any additions to the state’s list of recognized tribes. Before the commission replied, the state’s Division of Gaming Enforcement intervened, asserting New Jersey has no state-recognized tribes.
The lawsuit says Christie’s admininstration stopped communicating with the tribe for months, and ultimately told the Lenape it would do nothing to resolve the matter.
ROLLA, Missouri — The paperwork for Southern Cherokee’s application to become a federally recognized Native American tribe weighed 79 pounds. Members divided the forms into three boxes, posed for a picture, and shipped them to Washington for $105, plus $12.90 for a signature upon delivery. More materials, 26 boxes of genealogies and family trees, will soon follow.
“It’s going to open some eyes,” said Steve Matthews, the group’s leader.
Fifteen years ago, members of the Southern Cherokee Indian Tribe — the group’s official name — began researching their ancestry and heritage. Finally, after years of compiling materials, in early May of this year, the group’s 484 members reached the end of the first step of the tribal recognition process.
Also called the acknowledgment process, it determines who is or isn’t a Native American tribe in the eyes of the federal government. Being granted tribal status gives a group access to federal funds, to the legal processes to obtain land and water rights, to tribal sovereignty, or self-governance, and to the right to define what indigenousness means.
Although there is no universally agreed-upon opinion about federal recognition, benefits do include an immediate financial infusion. Through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the New Tribes Program gives tribes with fewer than 1,700 members $160,000 a year for a period of three years.
If the Southern Cherokee receive federal aid, Matthews said, they would use it to address health problems within the community, and to fund heritage preservation and education. But unless they are federally recognized, they’ll never see a dime — and even under new regulations, which went into effect on June 29, it could take years before that happens.
In Missouri, there are nearly 30,000 American Indian and Alaska Natives, according to the 2010 Census. Although some belong to federal and state-recognized tribes, none of these groups are legally headquartered in Missouri. If their paperwork is approved, the Southern Cherokee Indian Tribe could become the first one. The only question is whether their story will stand up to scrutiny.
Hiding History
Traces of Missouri’s first peoples are scattered throughout the state. Osage Beach, a town on Lake of the Ozarks, was named after the Osage Indians before they were edged into Oklahoma. Chillicothe, a 10,000-person town in northwest Missouri now perhaps more famous as the home of sliced bread, was named after the Shawnee, who had their own “chillicothe,” or big town, nearby. The name of the state itself is indebted to the Missouria Indians.
Many Native groups fear fading away without federal support, but the Rolla group has held on for decades without it. Fearing persecution from the state and the bigger Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, with whom it has long-standing disagreements, the group’s ancestors would meet in secret in one another’s homes, Matthews said. Charles Wilcox, a barber and Southern Cherokee member, said that when he was young, his mother would tell him and his siblings to hide whenever someone came to the house unexpectedly. When he would ask her how much Indian heritage he and his siblings had, she would always respond, “just a little,” Wilcox said. “And she was a full-blood.”
When Wilcox and Matthews’ generation decided to take up the cause of recognition, their parents didn’t like it. Some were wary that just being a member of a tribe might mean that they would all be relocated to Oklahoma.
Guidelines and reform
The majority of the 566 tribes officially recognized in the U.S. never had to go through the recognition process. Their origins were established long ago via policy decisions, lawsuits and treaties with the government. Those who have gone through the process have often found it, as the Southern Cherokee do, monumental, overwhelming and expensive.
From 1978, when the Bureau of Indian Affairs implemented its previous standard, to this year, when the new system was put into place, there were 316 petitioners. Only 51 managed to complete the application, and just 17 were “acknowledged as an Indian tribe within the meaning of Federal law.” The other 34 were denied. Even tribes with documented historical lineages have taken decades to be acknowledged: The Mashpee Wampanoag, who greeted the Pilgrims in Massachusetts in 1620, waited 29 years before they were federally recognized in 2007.
The new guidelines will make it easier to obtain recognition. Under the revised criteria, only 80 percent of a group’s members have to be descendants of a historical tribe (instead of 100 percent); and only 30 percent need to maintain an active community (instead of a “predominant portion”). Tribes that have already been rejected won’t be able to re-petition. Luckily for the Southern Cherokee, the new standards will not force groups currently in the middle of the process to start over.
Not everyone is pleased about the reforms. Some politicians fear incursion from the casino industry if more petitioners are acknowledged. Then there are financial limitations: the more tribes there are, the less the federal government can assist each one. Recognized tribes also worry about diluting tribal sovereignty and the meaning of being Native. Principal Chief Bill John Baker of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, for example, worries that groups with “loose citizenship requirements” might have an easier time becoming tribes. Baker, like many tribal leaders, fears imposter groups may undermine the power and legitimacy of recognized tribes.
In evaluating candidates, the BIA uses a three-person team that includes a historian, a genealogist and an anthropologist. To be recognized, a group must satisfy seven mandatory criteria, including the tricky stipulation that petitioners show they have maintained community and political authority since 1900 to the present. For this reason, approving the Southern Cherokee in Rolla may be difficult. There are three other “Southern Cherokee” petitioners in different states, and the BIA frowns on what it calls “splinter groups.”
Differences between the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and the Southern Cherokee, for example, are reflected in the records they use to evaluate members — preferring certain records over others means privileging a specific interpretation of the past. For Cherokee Nation, the Dawes Rolls, which were kept from 1898 to 1914, are the most important. Signing the Rolls was necessary to receive a land allotment during a period when the federal government was attempting to break up reservations. Members of the Southern Cherokee, Matthews is proud to say, never joined the 101,000 Dawes signatories. Instead, Southern Cherokee membership is based on the Tompkins Roll, a census of Cherokee living in Oklahoma in 1867, and on the muster rolls of Stand Watie, a Civil War brigadier general who is viewed as one of their founding leaders.
Still, these records don’t clarify what makes a tribe and when exactly a new one forms.
For example, several Southern Cherokee groups claim the 1834 Treaty of New Echota, which led to the Trail of Tears, as their founding document.
The treaty was signed by Major Ridge, a minority leader in the Cherokee tribe, amid pressure from the federal government to sell Cherokee land in what is now Northwest Georgia and parts of the southeast. The treaty deeply angered Cherokee Principal Chief John Ross and his followers, who had wanted to sell the land for a better price. This led to deep divisions between the groups, and after both resettled in Oklahoma, members of the Ross Party began to attack the Ridge Party and assassinate some of its leadership. When the Civil War came, Stand Watie, a confidant of Ridge, formed a military regiment and fought for the South, which is where the Southern Cherokee get their name. After the war, Steve Matthews said, some Southern Cherokee families moved to Missouri to escape Ross Party violence.
The complexities of histories like this, and the BIA’s reluctance to acknowledge them, are why many Native people are frustrated with what they see as a narrow recognition process. “We’re not any better or worse than the federally recognized groups,” said Robert Caldwell, a member of the Choctaw-Apache in Ebarb, Louisiana, which has not been officially recognized by the federal government. “We’re just different.”
Looking ahead
The Rolla Cherokee hold meetings once a month at the Elks Lodge a little south of town. On a cold night last February only one door was unlocked. It opened into a long white hall with a disco ball and a drum set at one end, and a mounted deer head at the other.
They spend a lot of time here reviewing birth and death records to trace individual members’ lineages back to their rolls. Other records — from letters to signatures in Bibles — are scrounged from handed-down papers and official repositories. The group’s journal, which Steve Matthews kept from 1976 through 2004, will also help establish their history, but the Rolla Cherokee will try to bolster their claims with anything relevant they can find. No one knows if they have enough material.
With the first part of their application finished, raising money to send the other 26 boxes of genealogies and ancestral charts is now the biggest challenge. All that weight is expensive, but they hope to send it in a month or so.
When asked what’s driving them, Steve Matthews replied, “We couldn’t tell our kids we didn’t try.”
The Apache Stronghold Convoy visited the graves of the children who never came home at Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, remembering the Chiricahua Apache children who were held as prisoners of war.
“We need to know our history, where we have been will guide us to where we are going. ” said Wendsler Nosie Sr., Apache.
“The Apache Stronghold visited our relatives who never made it back home. It was a real emotional experience for all of us. The Chiricahua Apache children who were there did not arrive as students like other tribes, but arrived as Prisoners of War,” Nosie said after being present at the Carlisle Indian School cemetery.
The Apache Stronghold Convoy is enroute to Washington DC to demand repeal of the law which would desecrate the Apaches sacred Oak Flat with copper mining, which Sen. John McCain sneaked into the defense bill.
The Apache Stronghold will be in New York Times Square at noon today, Friday, July 17. It will be in DC on July 21 and 22 for a spiritual gathering. In DC, Ariz. Congressmen Raul Grijalva and others will join the Apache Stronghold to urge repeal of the law.
The San Carlos Apache Nation said, “Stops have been made in Denver, where Neil Young offered the pre-opening show to the Apache Stronghold. Other spiritual prayers were also provided by members of the Sioux Nations in South Dakota when stops were made at the Crazy Horse Memorial and at Wounded Knee. Radio, TV and newspaper interviews followed in various cities. The convoy continued into Minneapolis, MINN and Chicago, and were graciously greeted by those in support of the repeal of the land exchange.”
“The spiritual journey of the Apache Stronghold caravan led by Wendsler Nosie, Sr., former Tribal Chairman and now the Peridot District Council for the San Carlos Apache Tribe, first stopped at the Gila River and Salt River Indian communities for spiritual prayers.”
“On the Navajo Nation, they met with spiritual leaders. After stopping at the Jicarilla Apache Reservation in Dulce, N.M., members of the Tribal Council unanimously passed a Tribal Resolution in support of the H.R. 2811, a bill introduced by Arizona Representative, Raul Grijalva to stop the implementation of Section 3003 of the National Defense Authorization Act which was passed last December 2014, that allows federal land at Oak Flat to be given to a foreign mining giant, Resolution Copper Company-Rio Tinto-BHP to construct a billion dollar mine while promising jobs.” Read statement and more: http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/07/gathering-power-apache-stronghold.html)
Back in Arizona, Dine’ (Navajo) walkers enroute to the Sacred Mountains are speaking out about the coal mining and power plants that have devastated the Navajo Nation.
On Big Mountain at Black Mesa, the Nihigaal bee Iina, Journey for Existence, described the enormous impact and loss of water from the Navajo Aquifer as a result of Peabody Coal’s mining for the Navajo Generating Station, one of the dirtiest coal-fired power plants in the world. While it provides electricity to southern Arizona, Navajos on Black Mesa live without running water and electricity. This coal mining and power plant are the real reason for the relocation of more than 14,000 Navajos and the heartbreak of those families. Read the Dine’ walkers words about Peabody Coal’s abuse of water: http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/07/nihigaal-bee-iina-on-big-mountain.html
Meanwhile across Indian country, deception, fraud and plagiarism dominate national online Indian country news. When the casino industry took control of online national Native media, reporters were replaced with stay-at-home plagiarizers. Currently, there are no watchdog media actually present in DC.
The lack of authentic reporters who are present in Indian country also means that there are no Indian country reporters on the Tohono O’odham Nation to expose how the Israeli Apartheid defense contractor Elbit Systems is building spy towers and pointing those at traditional O’odham homes. Homeland Security gave the border contract for surveillance towers to Israel’s Elbit Systems, responsible for Apartheid security surrounding Palestine.
The lack of authentic reporters on the Arizona border means no one is covering the fact that US Border Patrol agents kill with impunity and run drugs, while the agents abuse Indigenous Peoples, including Tohono O’odham, in their homeland. There is no one to expose the real role of the US in the so-called drug war, including the fact that the US ATF armed cartels with assault weapons.
In Sonora, Mexico, Yaqui defenders of water rights remain imprisoned, regardless of judges orders to release them. Even with an appeal from Amnesty International and judges orders, two spokesmen for Yaqui water rights defense remain in prison, Fernando Jiminez and Mario Luna. http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/04/yaqui-water-rights-defenders-released.html
Meanwhile, in Chiapas, Zapatistas SupGaleano, formerly known as Marcos, continues to speak out on the truth of capitalism and the reality of the ongoing struggle for dignity, autonomy and justice. Read his latest words:
