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
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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.