06.07.10

Some Compensation for American Indians

Posted in History at 9:47 pm by Administrator

With all the various crises springing up–i.e. the BP oil leak, the Gaza blockade issue with the upcoming Asian summit where Turkey is likely trying to determine who is aligned with them in their quest for justice from Israel, the impeding additional sanctions on Iran, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the huge budget deficient, all the way down to the environmentalists screaming to save the whales, and gay activists trying to legalize gay marriages and openly serving in the military;  Obama sure has his plate full.  Unfortunately, as with all the other elected presidents, he hasn’t been able to keep all of his campaign promises.  That’s not to say that he hasn’t been trying to tackle them, but with our huge bureaucracy and the fact that too many people want different things, it’s no wonder that promises seem to have been watered down.   One of those campaign promises is the one made to the American Indians, BUT at least they are “finally” getting a settlement after more than a hundred years of being thrown off their land and given the shaft by our legal system.   Below is a part of an article titled, A Victory for Native Americans? by James Warren that explains the recent trust settlement.

Mistreatment of Indians is America’s Original Sin, and the narrative is consistent. They lose their land, get portrayed as caricatures of social maladies, and are ripped off by the likes of Jack Abramoff. So it’s no surprise that a tale with a very different ending, namely the righting of a horrible wrong affecting 500,000 Native Americans, proceeds with virtually no notice.

In short here are some of the details from Warren’s article:

The facts are these: Following the House’s approval, the Senate is considering whether to approve a $3.4 billion settlement of a 15-year-old lawsuit, alleging the government illegally withheld more than $150 billion from Indians whose lands were taken in the 1880s to lease to oil, timber, minerals and other companies for a fee. Back then, the government started breaking up reservations, accumulating over 100 million acres, giving individual Indians 80 to 160 acres each, and taking legal title to properties placed in one of two trusts. The Indians were given beneficial ownership but the government managed the land, believing Indians couldn’t handle their affairs. With leases for oil wells in Oklahoma, resorts in Palm Springs, and rights-of-ways for roads in Scottsdale, Arizona, some descendants of original owners receive six- and even seven-figure sums annually. But the prototypical beneficiary [the original owners of the land and the typical person to benefit from this trust settlement], now poised to share in the settlement, is a poor Dakotan who struggles to afford propane to heat his quarters and has been receiving as little as $20 a year. More than $400 million a year is collected from Indian lands and paid into U.S. Treasury account 14X6039.

To read the full article click here.

Now, I understand that wars are fought all throughout history and around the world resulting in displaced peoples and shifting of land ownership.  However, what I think makes a big difference with the American Indians is that the U.S.  made many, many treaties with the Native Americans, many of which the U.S. broke.   So a lot of  land the U.S. acquired wasn’t soley from battles won, but rather acquired by fraud and the subsequent use and profits of the land stolen.  As a country that claims to value our laws and parrots how lawful we are in comparison to other foreign countries, the first things we should do is at least honor our own treaties.  And this recent settlement with the Native American Indians, while it may not be perfect, is a good start.

Marlakins

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