© 2024 Concerned Citizens of Western Montana
NOTE: When we refer to the “Tribe” in any of our articles, such reference is intended to be the CSKT tribal government corporation, and not individual Indians or tribal members. With the exception of their membership in the tribe we consider tribal members to be separate and distinct from their tribal government, as are we from our own very corrupt government entities.
Department of the Interior,
Washington, January 23, 1904
Sir:
I am in receipt of your letter of the 13th instant, inclosing H. R. 8324, being a bill “for the survey and allotment of lands now embraced within the limits of the Flathead Indian Reservation in the State of Montana, and the sale and disposal of all surplus lands after allotment,” and asking for a report on the same.
In reply I would state that it has been the desire of the Department for some time to take steps to allot the Indians of the Flathead Reservation upon tracts of land in severalty, to make provisions for the irrigation of their allotments, where needed, and to place all the Indians on the reservation in a position to improve their condition and support themselves, and with certain amendments, which are indicated and set out below, I believe that these objects can be accomplished by the proposed bill, if enacted into law,
Source: Senate Report 1930 April 4 1904 pertaining to H.R. 12231 Flathead Allotment Act (linked below)
Flathead Allotment Act Follow Up
In our last post, we provided a copy of a letter from the Department of the Interior to the Chiefs of the Flathead Tribes of Indians. The letter was the United States’ response to the tribes’ opposition to the allotment of Flathead Reservation Lands to individual tribal members and opening of any surplus lands to settlement as provided in Article VI of the Hellgate Treaty.
We were a bit surprised that the United States didn’t reference the Article VI provisions of the Hellgate Treaty, and spoke instead about Congressional authority to abrogate the treaty.
Despite that, the record shows that the Department of the Interior and Congress were fully aware of Article VI provisions of the treaty when they ratified the Flathead Allotment Act legislation on April 23, 1904.
From House Report 1678 dated March 17, 1904:
By the treaty with the Flathead Indians, made by Governor Stevens when this reservation was set aside, it was expressly provided:
Art. 6. The President may from time to time, at his discretion, cause the whole, or such portion of such reservation as he may think proper to he surveyed into lots, and assign the same to such individuals or families of the said confederated tribes as are willing to avail themselves of the privilege and will locate on the same as a permanent home on the same terms and subject to the same regulations as are provided in the sixth article of the treaty with the Omahas, so far as the same may be applicable.
The article in the Omaha treaty referred to expressly provides for the sale of all the surplus lands, paying the proceeds to the Indians.
There are included in this reservation about 1,450,000 acres of land. It is estimated that 100,000 acres will cover the allotments for all Indians on the reservation, leaving 1,350,000 acres for settlement. Some of the most fertile lands in the State of Montana are embraced within this reservation and are now lying idle and unoccupied.
From Senate Report 1930 dated April 4, 1904:
The Committee on Indian Affairs, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 12231) for the survey and allotment of lands embraced within the Flathead Indian Reservation, in the State of Montana, and the sale and disposal of all surplus lands after allotment, having had the same under consideration, submit the following report and recommend the passage of the bill without amendment:
By the treaty with the Flathead Indians, made by Governor Stevens when this reservation was set aside, it was expressly provided that the President should cause the lands to be surveyed, the necessary lands alloted to the Indians, and all the surplus lands sold for their benefit. The present bill merely provides the necessary means for carrying the agreement with the Indians into effect.
We believe that the provisions of this bill, in creating a commission to be named by the President for the classifying and appraising of these lands, consisting of two Indians now holding tribal relations with the said Indians, two citizens of the State in which the lands are situated, and one special agent of the Indian Bureau, is a most just and equitable provision and one that will meet with the approbation of all friends of the Indians in fully protecting their interests.
These Indians now inhabiting said Flathead Reservation are far advanced in civilization and are anxious for the early carrying into effect of the wise and equitable provisions of this act.
Why is Article VI Important?
First and foremost, the Flathead Allotment Act providing for the allotment of lands to Individual Tribal members and the opening of the reservation represents the United States’ fulfillment of the Hellgate Treaty.
You can only get to the CSKT’s current position that the reservation and all of its waters were reserved for the exclusive use of the tribe if you pretend that Article VI doesn’t exist. Despite the fact that the treaty uses the term exclusive, Article VI makes it clear that such terminology was only meant to be until such time that Article VI provisions were enacted by Congress.
It’s not acceptable to pick and choose which provisions of the Hellgate Treaty still apply to the tribe and the reservation and which do not. Unfortunately the tribe’s government compadres the United States and State of Montana never call the tribe out for their misleading approach to the treaty which is found in the first recital of the Flathead Water Compact legislation incorrectly saying that it was the tribe that reserved the reservation.
The truth is that the tribe ceded all of its land in western Montana, and the reservation was created by the United States from a portion of the ceded land. By untruthfully stating they reserved the land, the tribe fraudulently claims that they own all of the water flowing through over and under the reservation.
Don’t fall for the false notion that this interpretation of the treaty falls under the Canons of Construction (the tribe’s interpretation of the treaty). It has everything to do with cherry picking favorable language in the treaty and litigating it in a vacuum for the purpose of rewriting history and advancing the tribe’s stated mission of eventually restoring all of their ceded lands back to the United States Tribe.
Next, settlement of non-Indians within the former Flathead Indian Reservation would never have taken place if homesteaders ever thought that their property rights and water needs would fall under the control of an adversarial tribal government that in 2024 is seemingly accountable only to itself.
Settlers came to western Montana with the understanding that if they put forth the backbreaking effort to develop their land, fulfilling the many stringent requirements of the Reclamation and Allotment Acts, they would own patented private fee property with bona fide water rights like anyone else in America.
And last but not least, the United States has done a great disservice to the citizens of our country both Indian and non-Indian by completely reversing federal assimilation policies.
In 2024, the tribal members are far worse off than they were at the time of the Flathead Allotment Act, particularly with a free and clear allotment in their possession.
Thanks to the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act, tribal members now live in a legal no man’s land falling under a communist tribal government structure that bilks billions of dollars out of the United States and Montana’s treasuries, none of which ever seems to benefit the individual members. Adding insult to that injury, the courts have ruled that if Indians choose to be a member of the tribe they do not have the same protections under the Constitution of the United States as other Americans.
Non-Indians are also disserved by Federal Indian Policy from the standpoint that the system has established and empowers an excessively litigious and aggressive tribal government that works over time to restore its ceded lands and more back to the tribal government to the detriment of everyone else living in western Montana.
In its lust for “revenge”, the CSKT tribal government has become a cancer that is destructive of everything it touches.
What the compacting parties are doing to western Montana with this compact is unconscionable.
Sadly the United States and State of Montana are hiding behind a phony tribal sovereignty shield in order to achieve their own “environmental” and monetary agendas whatever they may be.
The letter from the United States to the tribe that we posted yesterday was right on.
Notwithstanding the fact that the treaty provided for the diminishment of the Flathead Indian Reservation via the allotment of land to individual Indians, and sale of surplus lands, Congress had and still has the authority to completely abrogate the treaty if it thinks it is in the best interests of the Indians and other citizens of the United States.
By reversing course in 1934, a course that many Indians fought (they wanted to be free of tribal governance), the United States has caused irreparable harm to all of the people living in western Montana. See: An Amazing Flathead Indian Woman
What is wholly inexplicable is the state of Montana’s willingness to follow the tribe’s lead with this water compact to the detriment of its own interests and to those of its citizens.
Think about this:
There currently would be no reservation, diminished or otherwise, and no need for a compact at all, if Indians were truly “self-determined” as was intended more than a century ago when the Flathead Allotment Act was passed.
Instead our three governments leveraged off of of a reversal of that policy and established a modern pathway to the destruction of everyone’s water and property rights, as well as our constitutional protections. It is a pathway that ensures that their destructive compact will be fully implemented and the damage is done, prior to any legal or judicial review.
If the compact is allowed to stand, by virtue of its design, it will result in the destruction of all that is special about western Montana and the people that live here.
There can be no certainty, and people cannot thrive when the legal and constitutional rugs are continuously pulled out from under them with ex post facto legislation. See: What is Ex Post Facto Law?
Does the pot of federal money laundering gold at the end of the Compact Party rainbow end somewhere downstream of the state of Montana via monetary rewards for the delivery of water to Bonneville Power or some private / public partnership that cares not about the people?
We may never know.
What we do know for certain is that there no longer is any pretense that our respective governments are acting in the best interests of any of the people.
For far longer than we would like to think, they’ve been operating without the consent of the governed.