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Portland Observer
Thursday. April 15. 1978
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Page 3
American merchants promoted slave trade
Early-day changes that profit-minded
British merchants "forced" slavery on the
American colonists haven't stood the test
of time or research, says an Oregon State
University historian who is an authority
on 18th century America.
Some Starved and other* Sickened and
Dyed."
The Oregon State University historian
has written twenty papers on the slave
trade and the institution of slavery and is
planning a book on the subject. He is
co-author of a widely-used college text
book, "A History of Colonial America.*
Wax also is a member of the .Oregon
Bicentennial Commission.
Darold D. Wax points out that "a
remarkable number of merchants in the
colonies at one time or another invested
funds in the African slave trade. In fact,
there were very few of the leading
mercantile houses that did not eventually
try the African trade."
Plainly, Americans found slavery as
profitable as did the British merchants,
he notes. New York, Boston and New
port, Rhode Island, were the major slave
trade ports before the American Revolu
4/‘
tion.
Richard Wilson, outgoing president of
Oglala Hioua. |D . McGuire photo.I
Albert Trimble, who became president
on April 12th. 11). McGuire photo. |
Selo Black Crow, leader of Italiota
Treaty Council. iGallacher photo.|
What the Oglala Sioux want
by David Corkery
Second in a Series
P IN E R ID G E . S O U T H D A K O T A
(PNS) The near civil war raging on Pine
Ridge Reservation
at the cost of an
estim ated seventy lives since the
Wounded Knee confrontation three yeari
ago has gone far beyond a struggle over
land and power. The traditional Oglala
Sioux are fighting to secede from the
United States.
They never legally joined. The 1968
treaty ending the wars between the
Great Sioux Nation and the United States
was an agreement between two so
vereign nations.
Today the traditional Oglala people see
sovereignty as their only hope for sur
vival. Leaving the reservation for the
cities means an isolated existence in a
foreign culture for which they are unpre
pared
a form of psychological suicide.
Alcoholism and suicide are common re
suits.
But staying on the reservation under
the power of the federal Bureau of Indian
Affairs (B IA ) means, for most, dying at
the age of 42. BIA policies, in the word.',
of traditional leader Louie Bad Wound
are “an attempt to destroy the Indian
completely
not only his culture, his
religion, his language, but the totality."
larg e ly as a result of BIA policy
ninety percent of* Oglala lands are now
controlled by ranchers with Little or no
Indian blood.
With unemployment, at
seventy percent, the reservation's 900
federally funded jobs are monopolized by
mixed bloods who share the white cul
ture.
Recognition of Sioux sovereignty
secession
means gaining control over
tribal lands and government.
The BIA itself, in its original June 1975
Pine Ridge Commission Report, agreed
that the key issue underlying the on
going crisis was recognition of the so
vereignty granted by the 186« treaty.
But the White House, a BIA source told
PNS. forced omission of this portion from
the final published version.
To the traditional*, the treaty issue is
not just a bargaining chip to gain reform
of the BIA or financial compensation for
Sioux lands taken.
The traditional Oglala people have
been taught from birth that they are a
sovereign nation
their sacred lands
illegally occupied by White America.
They have organized their own gov
ernment made up of their 33 traditional
chiefs and headmen, and separate from
the tribal council
called the Iakota
Treaty Council.
"Lakota," meaning “friend" or "ally." is
the word traditionals use to identify their
tribe. "Sioux." they say. is derived from
the French word meaning "cutthroat."
The Oglala people are one band of the
Iakota nation.
The Treaty Council has already met
with President Ford and other govern
ment officials in Washington, out of which
came a Presidential Treaty Review Com
mission. They have opened an office in
New York to press their case before the
UN and are appealing for legal recogni
tion of their sovereign rights from the
World Court in Geneva.
Meanwhile, at Pine Ridge, the council
has been recognized by newly elected
President Al Trimble as his principal
advisory body.
RE EM ER G IN G N A T IO N A L IS M
The power of the sovereignty issue has
grown as a direct result of the increas
ingly bloody polarization on the reserva
tion between the traditionals, on one side,
and the mixed bloods who share the
white culture and monopolize the reser
vation's land and jobs, on the other.
A t one time, the traditionals asked for
federal intervention to stem the reign of
terror they claimed Wilson and his
supporters waged to preserve that
monopoly. After repeated futile efforts,
they are now convinced that the U.S.
government is actively siding with W il
son's forces as a way of preserving white
control over the reservation.
As a result, they are pushing for total
separation from the federal government
and white America.
W ith sovereignty, the traditionals be
lieve, they would be able to begin erasing
the impart of White America on their
land and culture.
The plan to discard the representative
aysteni of tribal government - with its
eleefed council and president ■ imposed
on them in 1934 by the BIA and legally
ratified in an election held only in
English, barring the participation of
many traditionals.
In its place they would put the old form
of tribal government, with a council of
chiefs and headmen who consult with
their people on every issue and do not act
until tribal consensus has been reached.
I .ess tangible but perhaps more impor
tant, they would rebuild their traditional
culture and religion
the system of
values that binds them together and has
been severely threatened by the white
culture brought to the reservation by the
federal BIA.
Traditional leaders point to a state
ment made in the late 19th century by
J.D.C. Atkins, the commissioner of In
dian Affairs, “must be imbued to the
exalting egotism of American Civilization
so that he will say 'I' instead of 'We,' and
‘This is mine' instead of 'This is ours.’ "
Young traditional activist Tim Tiger
echoes Atkins' words when he explains
that "In old Indian ways, and even
nowadays on reservations, what people
have belongs to everyone. The center of
life isn't money for Indian people, it's the
well being of the (Iako ta) nation. But for
white people, it’s each man for himself."
Selo Black Crow, a leader of the Lakota
Treaty Council, points to the difference
between white and Indian attitudes to
ward the land. He speaks of the whites'
"two headed god of money and progress"
that is "raping for the land. The Sioux
see themselves as "keepers" and "protec
tors" of the land - hot "owners".
Further, Black Crow points to a con
cept of justice, totally at odds with the
white system, in which offenders are
cleansed and forgiven through special
ceremonies.
N E W T R IB A L P R E S ID E N T
The man who will play a key mediation
role between the federal bureaucracy and
the traditionals as they press for recogni
tion of sovereignty is Al Trimble.
Though Trimble grew up on Pine Ridge
Reservation, he has worked the past
twenty years for the BIA, largely on
other reservations.
After the 1973 Wounded Knee occupa
tion he was named BIA Superintendent
at Pine Ridge
and during his sixteen
months in that post he says he learned
first hand the suffering of the traditional
people under Wilson and the BIA.
As he began to work to bring back
control over jobs, land and the police to
the traditional Sioux, he became a thorn
in Wilson’s and the BIA's sides. Wilson
freely admits putting pressure on the
BIA, successfully, to remove Trimble.
In addition to experience with the BIA,
Trimble has worked closely with Con
gressional leaders, including South Da
kota Senator James Abourezk (Demo
crat). head of a Federal Policy Review
Commission undertaking the first major
comprehensive review of Indian policy
since 1934. (A report is due late this
year.)
Beyond the treaty issue, Trimble and
his supporters will be working to neutra
lize the Wilson power structure - in
Trimble's words, "to diminish fear and
anxiety on the reservation by getting rid
of Wilson's goon squad."
They will also attempt to decentralize
control of police, education and other
services on the reservation -- putting
them in the hands of local citizens in each
community.
If the Oglala's fight for recognition of
sovereignty fails, no one here knows
what will happen. They have a deep
religious faith that their God
whom
they call Great Mystery
will never let
the Sioux nation die. If it should, they are
sure revenge will be visited on those
responsible.
Their faith seems, to this writer, the
kind people die for.
As Selo Black Crow says, "When my
people ratified the 1868 treaty at Fort
I^ram ie we picked up our sacred pipe
and we asked the Great Mystery to put
the treaty into the seven stars of the
Dipper.
"The only way you can destroy the
1868 treaty is if the stars of the Dipper
fall. And that will be the end of the
world."
Rangel charges FBI job bias hurts enforcement
Congressman Charles B. Rangel (D
NY) has charged that the minimal num
her of minority persons employed as FBI
special agents constitutes implicit discri
mination and impairs effective and just
law enforcement in minority communi
ties.
In a letter recently released, Rangel
urged FBI Director Clarence Kelley to
take immediate action to increase the
number of minority special agents. Ac
cording to figures supplied by Kelley,
only 106 (1.2 percent) of the F B I’s 3,514
special agents are Black, and 121 (1.4
percent) are Spanish surnamed.
“This is disturbing not only because of
the implicit discrimination involved, but
also because it reflects on the FBI's
capacity to effect equitable law enforce
ment in minority communities," Rangel
said.
Rangel pointed out that the efforts of
FBI personnel, particularly on under
cover assignments, are likely to be
fruitless unless the agents are of the
same ethnic heritage as the residents of
Contract Managem ent Association Inc.
PROFESSIONAL
M ANA G EM ENT P L A N N IN G AN D C O M M U N IC A TIO N S
S ervicing businesses a nd Professionals w h o w ish to g ro w
Special em phasis on m in o rity businesses a nd Professionals
for
C ou nse llin g, Im p le m e n ta tio n Processes
a nd Technical Assistance
the community in which they are operat
ing.
Rangel emphasized, however, that the
issue of minority representation goes
beyond considerations of the FBI's effec
tiveness.
"The functions of the Bureau have a
direct and substantial impact on law
enforcement in the nation, and by exten
sion, the administration of equal justice
for all Americans," Rangel said. "If the
FBI is insensitive to minority people in its
hiring practices, what assurance can
there be that the same insensitivity will
not be practiced in the Bureau's enforce
ment operations?"
The only way to resolve the problem,
Rangel said, is to substantially increase
the number of minority persons serving
as special agents. Therefore, he said, the
FBI should initiate a hiring policy that
will result in the immediate future in a
responsible proportion of special agents
from minority backgrounds.
“Only then will there be any chance
that the FBI's law enforcement efforts
can be both effective and just in minority
Taxes placed on imported slaves by the
colonies “were seldom motivated by a
desire to phohibit the slave trade," Wax
has found from extensive study of co
lonial America.
"Far outweighing any humanitarian
impulse to end the trade through taxing
it were the need for revenue, fear of
slaves insurrection, over-extension of
credit, and the desire of some to limit
slave importations and thus enhance the
value of Negroes already in the colonies."
One 18th century w riter referred to
selling slaves as “by far the most profit
able trade that we have in this part of the
world."
Inexperienced, transient or casual tra
ders sometimes suffered serious losses,
however, because "they lacked an appre
ciation of the skills necessary for success
ful involvement in the slave trade," Wax
emphasized.
"The trade in Black slaves diverged
from other forms of commerce in critical
ways: slaving vessels carried human
cargoes which had to be fed, cared for and
watched over to prevent mutiny. To
embark on a slaving voyage without an
understanding of the peculiarities of the
African trade was to court almost certain
disaster.
Sickness sometimes took a heavy toll.
Wax has learned from his study of slave
trade records and diaries. One diarist
observed: "Some Drowned themselves
á( <X WÚÍíÁ. y
10 minutes for $1.
I t ’ll tak e you about an hour to
write a letter and say as much as you
can in 10 minutes by phone. Then
you may have to wait two weeks to
get a reply
And that 10-minute talk can be so
very inexpensive when you do the fol
lowing: 1) call any place within the
state; 2> dial the number yourself,
without operator assistance; and 3)
call between the hours of 10 p.m. and
8 a.m.
Ten full minutes: just $1 or less,
plus tax.
It ’s a nice way to lick the high cost
of postage
Pacific Northwest Bell
T a x m e e t ng
changed
The Business Tax Workshop regularly
held by Internal Revenue Service on the
third Thursday of each month in Portland
will be conducted on April 22nd this
month.
Short indicated that the workshop will
resume their regular scheduling, the
third Thursday in each month, in May.
The workshops begin at 1:00 p.m. and
are conducted in room 1578 in the new
Portland Federal Building. Each session
covers tax requirements for small busi
nesses and are excellent opportunities for
persons beginning a new business to
learn how to set up an adequate record
keeping system for federal tax purposes.
The half hour IRS film “Hey, We're in
Business" isnormally shown at 3:00 p.m.
and is followed by a new feature - The
Business Topic of the Month. The topic
for April will be "Depreciation" and
May'sv topic will be “Recordkeeping”
(Businessmen and tax practitioners are
welcome to attend eitner the entire
workshop or the business topic section).
b re a d
HOW’S YOUR
SAVINGS GAME
PORTLAND?
U.S. Bank has ways to help you win.
......
See our local branch manager for a game plan.
V
BANK
communities," Rangel said.
2 8 8 -8 4 6 9
3 9 3 3 N.E. Union Portland, Oregon
I
Member FD I C