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News from Indian Country Page 7 Tribal faction seizes control of reservation KENT, Conn. (AP) - A tribal faction has seized control of the Schaghticoke Indian reservation to develop property along the Housatonic River. Members of the faction say they have plans for houses and unspecified “eco nomic development.” Schaghticoke Indian Tribe members on Friday took over the tribe’s office and picnic pa vilion, forcing out the rival Schaghticoke Tribal Nation. The two groups, who each claim to represent the tribe that has lived in Kent since the 1700s, have feuded since the 1970s. “The reservation belongs to all Schaghticokes,” Alan Russell, the Schaghticoke Indian Tribe faction’s chairman, said Satur day. “We want to start our eco nomic development program here.” Russell’s group, which is seek ing federal recognition, says it is the true Schaghticoke tribe. Like the rival Schaghticoke Tribal Nation, the Schaghticoke Indian Tribe also is interested in devel oping a casino or bingo hall. The reservation, which was once more than 1,000 acres but has been reduced during hun dreds of years of land sales, has been at the center of conten tion over tribal recognition. The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs in October denied for mal federal recognition of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation. State politicians and Kent offi cials strongly opposed recogni tion, fearing the tribe would try to open a casino. Schaghticoke Tribal Nation members said Saturday that they were pulling back because they had no interest in clashing with Russell’s group. They said they are focused on a court ap peal of the BIA’s recognition decision. “We’ve got bigger batdes to fight,” said Michael Pane, vice chairman of the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation. “I’m just shrug ging my shoulders.” Schaghticoke Tribal Nation Chief Richard Velky said Russell’s takeover was “ridicu lous at this stage of the game.” “We are looking for federal recognition,” he said. Group prepares lawsuit to stop Buffalo casino BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) - As semblyman Sam Hoyt, preser vationists and anti-gambling groups will go to court this week to try to halt construction of a Seneca Indian Nation casino in the city. The group last Friday an nounced plans to file a lawsuit in U.S. D istrict Court that claims federal agencies, includ ing the Department of the In terior, ignored laws governing the approval process for gam bling on Indian land. They’ll ask a judge to declare the casino illegal. The announcement came as the Senecas celebrated the par tial opening of a 26-story luxury hotel adjacent to their existing casino in Niagara Falls. The Sen ecas Friday opened the first 10 floors of the hotel, which tow ers over the Niagara Falls, N.Y., skyline, with plans to open the full hotel in March. The Senecas’ broke ground on the Buffalo casino Dec. 8 on nine acres of land currently oc cupied by an early 1900’s grain elevator complex which preser vationists say is eligible for list ing on the National Register of Historic Places. Spilyay Tyrooo January 5, 2006 Federal government to end support for Indian museums BROWNING, Mont. (AP) - The Museum of the Plains Indian stands to lose its federal funding and close in less than two years, unless other support is found. The Indian Arts and Crafts Board of the U.S. Depart ment of the Interior plans to eliminate funding for the Brown ing museum, and for American Indian museums in Rapid City, S.D., and Anadarko, Okla., the Great Falls Tribune re ported in Sunday’s editions. Absent other support, the Interior Department expects to lock the doors of the Browning museum on Oct. 1, 2007. Collections of war shirts, necklaces and tools historically used in daily life on the Northern Plains would be shipped to the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. Established in 1941, the Museum of the Plains Indian has tribal arts and artifacts of the Blackfeet, Crow, Northern Cheyenne, Sioux, Assiniboine, Arapaho, Shoshone, Nez Perce, Flathead, Chippewa and Cree. The museum houses histori cal clothing, horse gear, weapons, household implements, baby carriers and toys. The Indian Arts and Crafts Board acquired the three museums in the 1950s from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, as the bureau faced budget reductions. The board has an annual budget of about $1 million and allocates some $450,000 of that to the three museums. The Browning museum’s annual budget is roughly $138,000. The focus of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board is shifting from museums to the prevention of Indian craft counter feiting, and prosecution of counterfeiters. British Columbia seeks apology for 1884 lynching by US vigilantes VICTORIA, British Colum bia (AP) — British Columbia’s lieutenant governor is asking her counterpart in Washington state to arrange an apology for the 1884 lynching of a 14-year-old Stodo Indian boy by an Ameri can mob. Louie Sam was being held by provincial authorities in Febru ary 1884 when more than 100 Americans came across the bor der on horseback, abducted the boy and hanged him. He was suspected in the kill ing of a shopkeeper in Nooksack, in what is now Wash ington state’s Whatcom County. Washington did not become a state for another five years, in 1889. The lynching has not been forgotten by the Stodo or histo rians, who believe the boy died for a killing he didn’t commit. B.C. Lt. Gov. Iona Campagnolo raised the issue in i September, during a visit by W ashington Lt. Gov. Brad Owen. “We’re still trying to work things out,” Owen spokesman Brian Hatfield said earlier this month. “But there will be a statement ... an apology.” “The lieutenant governor describes it as a healing,” Hatfield told the Toronto Globe and Mail. A resolution will be submit ted to the Legislature during the session that begins Jan. 9, he said. “It’s always been one of those issues of injustice that’s never been made right, and it’s good that this is happening,” said Grand Chief Doug Kelley of the Stodo Tribal Council. “It certainly means a lot to me and I think to all Stodo.” Keith Carlson, a professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan, became inter ested in the case a few years ago while working as a consultant for the Stodo. He found records in the B.C. Archives that not only detailed the vigilante raid into Canada, but described an under cover operation by two provin cial police officers, who went into the Washington territory to investigate the death of store keeper James Bell. “The B.C. police were quite convinced he was framed for the murder. They had people telling them who really did it,” Carlson told the Toronto news paper. Louie Sam lived just north of the U.S.-Canadian border in a small Stodo community near what is now Sumas, Wash. He had been offered a job south of the border, but when he got there he found there wasn’t any work, Carlson said. The night Sam headed back home, Bell was killed and his store set afire. Louie was ac cused by two local men. Stodo leaders turned the boy over to provincial police, believ ing he would be treated fairly. But vigilantes seized Sam at the homestead where he was being held by a deputized B.C. con stable. His body was found later, hanging from a tree just north of the border. According to Carlson, out raged leaders of the 21 Stodo tribes in the Fraser Valley saw two options: “Ride south and kill the first white man they saw, or ride south and kill 120 whites _ one for each member of the Avoid replacing your windshield Chip Repairs $59.95 $ I0 for each additional one Madras Paint & Glass 1 0 7 6 SW H w y 97 in M adras, ph. 4 7 5 -2 1 6 6 Open 7:30-5:30 M-F; 9-4 Sat lynch party.” “It was on the verge of be coming a race war,” he said. To keep the peace, the B.C. government sent the under cover officers south, posing as laborers. They returned with statements from witnesses that implicated two Washington men, including the man who recruited Louie Sam for the non-existent job and later took over Bell’s business. The other man mar ried Bell’s widow. “I don’t think there’s any doubt but that Louie Sam was innocent. He was framed,” Carlson said. In December 2004, Wash ington state exonerated Nisqually Chief Leschi after evidence was heard by an unof ficial “Historical Court of Jus tice.” Leschi was hanged by the ter ritorial government in 1858, accused in the death of a white militia soldier, Col. A. Benton Moses. The court — formed and headed by state Supreme Court Justice Gerry Alexander — did not address the question of whether Leschi shot Moses — after so long, it’s impossible to know for sure what happened. But the judges determ ined Leschi should never have been charged because he would have been acting as a lawful combat ant during the region’s 1855 In dian War.
