Prison contracts regularly come up for reconsideration

Each year, dozens of private prison contracts come up for re-bid. Help MuckRock’s Private Prison Project by letting us know about the contract debate near you.

The FBI protects Superman’s secret identity from FOIA

Included in the most recent batch of Federal Bureau of Investigation records regarding the Church of Scientology is the script for a play written by COS’s Ministry of Public Relations in order to counter the “inflammatory statements” being made by a “dissident church member.” Making light of what they call the “comic book flair” of the rogue ex-Scientologist’s claims, the play consists of an interview between him and “the greatest reporter of them all,” Superman’s alter-ego, Clark Kent – whose secret identity is safe, thanks to the Bureau’s redaction.

Public records shed little light on Chicago Police’s bizarre choice of profile picture

In the summer of 2017, the Chicago Police Department did something on social media that would usually be unremarkable: it changed its profile picture.

Recent court ruling ignore’s the CIA’s long history of abusing “sources and methods”

Last month, a federal court ruled that the Central Intelligence Agency can selectively disclose classified information while shielding its release from FOIA in order to protect “intelligence sources and methods.” That ruling ignores the Agency’s history of arbitrarily applying that label to everything from beer brands to cafeteria names and using it to hide behavior that was embarrassing, illegal, or both.

Get your FOIA swag on

Keep that warm and fuzzy feeling of transparency all year round with a purchase from the MuckRock Swag Store. Get a magical unredacting coffee mug, FOIA-inspired cocktail coasters, stickers, hundreds of gigabytes of FOIA data, and much more. Each purchase from the MuckRock store is a purchase in support of transparency. 

Learn the secrets of the government’s psychic spies

An eight page document unearthed in the Central Intelligence Agency’s declassified archives offers a standardized procedure for remote viewing, the psychic espionage technique utilized by various agencies during the government’s decades-long researcher into the militarization of ESP.

Join MuckRock and Abraham Payton on Slack this Friday

Public records researcher Abraham Payton of Due Diligence Group will be joining us for this Friday’s FOIA chat on MuckRock’s Slack channel, and you’re invited! The chat will begin at 12 p.m. Eastern Time, and you can read a recap of last week’s chat with Lynn Walsh here.

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“Letters From Behind The Wall”

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Inbox

From:

ANDRES AGUIAR (37249053)

Date:

4/18/2018 12:05:15 AM

Subject:

Initial Contact…

Message:

Dear Ms. truthpress.org:

Hi, We are about to lock-in real soon so this will be short. I just wanted to thank you for accepting my e-mail application. I am a friend of Chacale (Lorenzo) and he gave me your address. I have been litigating for years. I will give you some more information in tomorrow’s e-mail. This is just a short note to say thank you and let you know I’ll be in touch again tomorrow.

1. think I have some interesting legal things to run by you for your thoughts. As I understand, you like to litigate just as much as I do. Take Care.

Respectfully yours,

Andres

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From:

ANDRES AGUIAR (37249053)

Date:

4/19/2018 2:06:57 PM

Subject:

Follow-up from last-night ….

Message:

TO:  Marylou Gentry ( truth@truthpress.org )

Hi Marylou: 

Okay here’s a little bit about myself.  I’ve been in for almost 27 years on a drug offense and, I have life.  It was not a big case and, it did not involve weapons or murders.  It was a simple case of a drug courier (mule) who was arrested at the airport and implicated me.   See U.S. v Aguiar, 975 F2d 45 (1992) (2nd cir.)  

But that is not the issue that I want to share with you today.  I read one of the e-mails that you sent Lorenzo and I was impressed about how you express yourself regarding your love of the law.  I myself love to litigate and, although the system is terribly rigged, I believe that the key is to publically expose the Judges who commit stupid or contradictory rulings in their cases in a way that leads to public embarrassment and disgrace to the bench.

I also believe that all public officials should be treated the same.  Whenever they act outside of the scope of the same rules that they want to apply to the everyday Joe (or Jane) then they should be punished, too.  However, since many times that doesn’t happen, exposure; public embarrassment, humiliation and further litigation could bring about a better result or, at least, removal from the job.  It may also serve to deter the next CLOWN from partaking in these types of circus acts in the future.

Now here’s what I would like you do … If you have the time.  Go to Western District of Louisiana, District Court and pull out this case:  Andres Aguiar v. Stancil, et al.  Civil Docket Case Number:  18 – CV – 00235 -DDD – JPM.   This civil suit  was originally filed in the District Court in Washington, DC because the proceedings that prison officials actually obstructed through their criminal acts was in the Washington Court.  However, the case was transferred from Washington over to Louisiana by the Court.  Its still pending.

Now if you read the handwritten pleadings you will see what happened to me at Pollock.  They placed me in the hole; took away the papers, prevented me from filing grievances to obstruct me from exhausting my administrative remedies and ultimately, they transferred me here.  But, I want you to check out the 3 Exhibits attached to the motion. 

You will see a motion for a Writ of Mandamus against the U.S. Dept. of Justice to compel them to investigate and prosecute the federal offenses committed by staff at that prison; The Letter to the U.S. Senator, Mr. Trey Gowdy and; The On-line Petition that I wanted him (or anyone else) to help sponsor or represent so that I could have it submitted on Change.org. for the public to review and sign up.  

These were the real reasons that prison officials placed me in the SHU for 6 months and transferred me here.  This place is just as bad, too.  In fact, I would say that staff here are a lot worse then over there.  First of all, the majority of the inmates here are either third world country, illegal immigrants; gang bangers who are ignorant of the law and that won’t fight for their rights or, are simply too scared to do anything because of the abuses that staff commit around here.  This place sure has one healthy batch of rotten apples when it comes to bad C.O.’s.  (In fairness, They are not all bad.  There are some good ones but they are team players – they let the bad ones run wild and cover up for them) 

Later down the line I’ll send you documents pertaining to an ongoing conflict I am having with certain C.O.’s here at the prison who went out of their way to mess with me for no reason at all other than to abuse their authority.  As we speak papers are in route to the Courts; Internal Affairs; OIG and All BOP Department heads.  I’m not going to let these fools do to me the things they do to others around here.  I know how to litigate and I know BOP policies like the back of my hand and, I know how to go for their jobs. 

However, with the help of someone like you on the outside, I will be a “FORCE” like the song says.   Especially, if its true that you still have a Radio show out there that can be used to expose these types of misconduct.  Anyway, once you go to PACER you will see the Papers that never made it to Senator Trey Gowdy or the Courts because prison officials originally took them away from me at USP Pollock’s law library and locked-me up in SHU. 

Since I was in the SHU, getting a copy was almost impossible.  Therefore, once I was able to get a copy, I used it as an Exhibit in support of the Civil Suit and I submitted it in Washington, D.C. (Originally – the case was in the U.S. District Court for Columbia Case Number 17 – CV- 02050 Aguiar v. Stancil, et al.  Then it was transferred to Louisiana by the court.) 

My intention was to be able to get someone like you who would go into PACER down-load the papers and submit them by e-mail to Senator Trey Gowdy and other Agencies such as Prison Legal News, etc.  Any organization that is interested in defending the rights of prisoners and; exposing the illegitimate acts that takes place behind these walls.  

The key is to approach creating a better system by getting rid of the bad apples.  It would also help the economy and provide a benefit to the general public by providing jobs to those who qualify and deserve said jobs.  Instead of allowing these old, unfit prison officials who violate federal laws and policies to continue employed at these high or well paid jobs that they do not deserve, give a chance to the next guy.  Someone who is indeed fit for the job and willing to abide by the BOP’s Regulations (which by the way profess a whole bunch of crap about professionalism and integrity, bla, bla, bla…) and hold-on to these jobs the right way. (Not because dept. heads are willing to turn a blind-eye to the type of staff misconduct; rules, and federal criminal statutes that are being violated on a routine basis with absolute impunity. 

Well, now you got a better idea at who I am and what I am trying to accomplish.  If this is really, not your cup of tea, its okay.  I respect your position but can you at least, throw a bone to this underdog and down load them documents from PACER and shoot them around to someone who will help me see this thing thru?  

Remember, the Senator probably never found out about this unless some clerk in the Washington, DC court took an interest in the case / documents and tipped him off to check out the Exhibits I submitted in support of the motion.  That letter and Petition was for the Senator – what they (staff at Pollock) did to me by intercepting these documents is a Federal Obstruction of Justice crime all day long.

The reason I choose Washington, instead of Louisiana is because I figured I get more action over there since it was a process that belonged to that District which was tampered with and, because the Obstruction of Justice statute gives the government the option to prosecute the case either in the state where the crime occurred or, where the proceedings obstructed were pending or about to be pending.  (See; 18 USC Sections 1505; 1512, and; 1513. ) 

I am also searching for someone to help me out with a Blog and a website.  I have someone going to put me up on facebook or, another website to help promote my writings  and a project that I have in mind.  (Yes, I am into writing books, too)  I just have not had any help on the outside and, I have had bad luck because when I am ready to get things going something happens that sets me back.  But, we’ll cross that bridge another day if you want to. 

This is it for today.  Feel free to bounce this e-mail around to anyone who is interested in helping me, too.  You can also send me any references or messages from anyone interested in this project. (if you are not)  In addition, if you see fit, contact Senator Gowdy and bounce a copy from the Court files over there so that he can finally see and receive the letter and Petition that prison officials at Pollock prevented me from sending out. 

You have my consent to go on the air and place this matter before your audience or post this up on your site. I have friends here and other relatives that will contact you if any other type of improper actions are taken against me here by staff in retaliation for exercising these Constitutional Rights to Freedom of Speech and to Petition the Government for Change

You take care and thank you for your time and support.  I hope that we can make something good come about from this relationship and bring some real and positive changes to a dirty and broken-down system.

Sincerely yours,

Andres Aguiar

Reg. No. 37249-053

USP – Victorville

P.O.  Box  3900

Adelanto, CA. 92301

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From:

ANDRES AGUIAR (37249053)

Date:

5/3/2018 2:08:31 PM

Subject:

RE: May 3, 10 am cst

Message:

Hi:  Good to hear from you.  I have been receiving your posts/news bulletins.   I have been working on several things.  Was waiting anxiously to hear some news.  I’ve been fighting the wrongs of this system w/o outside help.  But, I think I got the goods (bad acts) on many people.  

I hope you visited PACER and pulled up the Exhibits I told you about and have been able to evaluate the scope of my goals.  Especially, with the on-line petition and so forth.   In addition, check out my latest pending civil action.  Andres Aguiar v. David Shinn, 5: 18-CV-00805 in the U.S. District Court, Los Angels, CA.  (I mentioned this to you in my initial writings) 

Well, I am awaiting anxiously to hear something from you.  ttyl  take care.   Andres Aguiar, 37249-053

—–Gentry, Marylou on 5/3/2018 9:06 AM wrote:

>

ANDRES AGUIAR (37249053)

mlc

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Carroll County, Arkansas was Osage territory, ~Boone County was formed

Home / Browse / Boone County

Boone County

Located in the Ozark Mountain highlands, Boone County has endured struggles from its creation. Political, racial, and union conflicts have drawn national attention, often overshadowing the contributions of the county’s residents and businesses

Louisiana Purchase through Early Statehood
Although they had no communities in the area, the Osage had claims to what would become Boone County until an 1808 treaty, and they often hunted there. Part of Boone County was in a Cherokee reservation which existed from 1818 to 1828. Most of the Cherokee lived further south in the reservation, away from the Osage presence to the north.

During this time, many name and boundary changes occurred. Becoming part of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase, the area was part of Missouri Territory in 1812 when Louisiana was admitted as a state. When Arkansas became a territory, the area was part of Lawrence and Izard counties before Carroll Countywas established in 1833. The land that became Boone County had a small strip inMarion County and a much larger portion in Carroll County. The Arkansas legislature created Boone County from Carroll in 1869 and added the Marion County portion in 1875.

Native Americans, forced into Indian Territory along the Trail of Tears, crossed the land when it was part of Carroll County. A post office was established in 1836 at Crooked Creek, the town that would become Harrison. Some Arkansas residents gathered their wagons at Beller’s Stand, near Caravan Springs south of present-day Harrison, to head toward California where they intended to buy land and build new lives. However, their journey came to an abrupt end when, on September 11, 1857, a mob of Mormonsambushed the caravan at Mountain Meadows, Utah, and killed most of the people. The event is known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

Civil War through Reconstruction
The Civil War hit the border region hard. The region, originally against secession, eventually joined the rest of the state in secession. Families divided: some fought for the Union, some for the Confederacy. Bushwhackers and jayhawkers (both often referred to as bushwhackers in this area) were a problem. Confederates gathered to plan and execute raids into Missouri. The Union destroyed Dubuque and its niter works, and the town never recovered. On Crooked Creek, Union forces destroyed a powder mill. Many people fled to Missouri, and the area’s population decreased.

After the war, residents petitioned the legislature to divide Carroll County. The legislature created Boone County on April 9, 1869. Land was taken from Marion County on the east and Carroll County on the west. Boone County’s northern boundary was designated part of the state line separating Arkansas from Missouri. Although no documentation supports it, the most widely quoted belief is that the county was named for frontiersman Daniel Boone. But some say the name is a misspelling of boon, because it was thought that the creation of a county would be a boon to residents.

Lines drawn between residents during the Civil War often resurfaced in the new county. When the county seat was selected, it was not in the established town of Bellefonte but in the new town of Harrison, where Confederate beliefs were not as strong. Towns developed. Lead Hill grew up near the site of what had been Dubuque. Smelters were built to process lead from the area. With the popularity of the healing waters in Eureka Springs in Carroll County, Boone County’s Elixir Springs was promoted.

Post Reconstruction through the Gilded Age
The post-Reconstruction era began with the resurgence of conflict between the former Confederates and the Republicans that controlled Boone County. The ex-Confederates attempted to move the county seat from Republican-controlled Harrison to Bellefonte. After a countywide vote, it remained at Harrison.

Lead and zinc mines began to appear. Fruit crops consisted of peaches, pears, plums, and the popular “Boone County apples.” Cotton was a big cash crop until declining prices cut production in half.

Early Twentieth Century
The 1900s brought change with the arrival of the Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad. The railroads provided easier access to the county. Towns developed along the tracks, and existing towns grew. Alpena Pass requested a post office in 1901. Farmers grew more crops to sell because they had access to a larger number of buyers. Lumber became a big part of the economy as lumber mills and woodworking facilities appeared along the tracks. The production of cream started a new economic endeavor. When the St. Louis, Iron Mountain, and Southern Railroad set its tracks into Bergman, Boone County experienced an influx of people. By 1912, the Missouri and North Arkansas line had moved its headquarters to Harrison.

The African-American population, which had shown limited growth in each census since 1870, decreased from 142 in 1900 to seven in 1910. The sudden change was attributed to race riots that occurred in Harrison, which were thought to have been caused by the arrival of workers constructing the new rail line. Also, the quick conviction of a young black man for the assault of an elderly white woman brought a rapid decline in the black population of the county. Soon, establishments providing higher wages for black workers closed. By the time the convicted man was hanged, most black citizens had fled the county. No black residents were listed on the 1940 census.

World War I led to an increase in mining. Lead and zinc were needed for the war effort. Railroads allowed shipping from the region. The mining of zinc in Northern Arkansas, which included Boone County, tripled, peaking by 1917. The increase in production and the arrival of miners contributed to the county’s economy. Boone County men answered the call to fight in Europe. As in the rest of the nation, Liberty Bond rallies were held. Women knitted socks and sweaters to be sent to servicemen.

The county garnered national attention on February 18, 1921, when Henry Starr and accomplices tried to rob the Peoples National Bank in Harrison. Starr was shot by former bank president W. J. Myers and died four days later from the wound. Later that month, a strike of the Missouri and North Arkansas line occurred when workers protested reduced wages. Anger toward strike breakers resulted in threats andassaults. Trains were derailed, bridges were destroyed, and union officials were ordered out of town. Forced into receivership, the line was sold, and it reopened with lower wages. The strike continued, ending in 1923, when a mob hanged Ed Gregor on a railroad bridge and other strikers left town. More positive national attention appeared when Earl Rowland, pioneer aviator from Valley Springs, won an air race, the Ford Reliability Tour, in 1925.

In the 1920s and 1930s, Harrison was home to district headquarters for theArkansas Highway Commission. Canning factories processed locally grown vegetables. Tourism increased as visitors hiked the Hemmed-in Hollow trail and toured Diamond Cave in neighboring Newton County. A levee was built to contain Crooked Creek, which occasionally overflowed. Bridges and roads were built, and some roads were widened. But the hard times forced many families to seek jobs outside the county.

World War II through the Faubus Era
Boone County resident Jack Williams posthumously received the Medal of Honor for courageous action at Iwo Jima during World War II. Progress followed World War II as a natural gas line was brought into Harrison and an airport was built. Duncan Parking Meter Company (today Duncan Parking Technology) moved to Boone County in 1947. They continue to produce parking meters that are used across North America. The voter-approved hospital was completed in 1950, the same year a garment factory located in the county. A food-processing plant followed. Livestock and lumber were the primary economic producers. Chalkboard maker Claridge Products and Equipment, Inc., moved to Boone County in 1955. Pace Industries, a die-casting facility, incorporated in its present location in Boone County in 1970.

A dam on the White River was completed in 1951, resulting in Bull Shoals reservoir and the relocation of Lead Hill and two highways. Diamond City grew at the edge of Bull Shoals Lake. After years of problems, strikes, and changes in ownership and names, the Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad closed.

County residents took an active part in political life. John Paul Hammerschmidt was elected Third District congressman in 1967. He served twenty-four years. J. Frank Holt served as state attorney general in 1961. After his resignation, Jack Holt Jr. completed the term; he became chief justice of Arkansas in 1985.

Modern Era
With a continually increasing population came educational and economic benefits. Voters approved the creation of North Arkansas Community College, now North Arkansas College. Tyson Foods constructed a feed mill in Bergman to handle the increase in poultry production and provide for more growers. The building of a regional distribution center for the U.S. Postal Service created more jobs. Dogpatch USA, an amusement park in Newton County, helped Boone County’s tourism industry. The Buffalo River headquarters is located in Harrison and draws many tourists to the area each year.

The Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), based in Harrison, drew national attention to Boone County in the late 1980s and 1990s. Conflicts began when Thom Robb was elected grand wizard. Stories of the purchase of land for a headquarters at Zinc, national meetings, and the request to adopt a one-mile section of U.S. 65 kept the county in the news. Although the KKK participated in the Adopt-A-Highway program from August 1993 to July 1997, it has ceased participation.

The economy still is driven by agriculture and wood products, as well as service and manufacturing. The top three employers are FedEx Freight, North Arkansas Regional Medical Center, and Pace Industries, an aluminum-die-casting company. In 2004, it ranked sixth in the state in beef cattle. The area draws many retirees. Tourism continues to play a role in the economy; travelers venture into Boone County as they head north on U.S. 65 to Branson, Missouri, or take a leisurely drive along Arkansas Scenic 7.

For additional information:
Boone County Historian. Harrison, AR: Boone County Historical and Railroad Society (2003–).

Boone County Historical and Railroad Society. History of Boone County. Paducah, KY: Turner Publishing Co., 1998.

Blevins, Brooks. Hill Folks: A History of Arkansas Ozarkers and Their Image. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

Hanley, Ray, and Diane Hanley. The Postcard History Series: Carroll and Boone County, Arkansas. Chicago: Arcadia Publishing, 1999.

Rea, Ralph R. Boone County and Its People. Van Buren, AR: Press-Argus, 1955.

C. J. Miller
Springdale, Arkansas

Related Butler Center Lesson Plans:
Naming our Counties (Grades 2-8)Last Updated 8/9/2011

About this Entry: Contact the Encyclopedia / Submit a Comment / Submit a Narrative

http://www.ozarkscivilwar.org/regions/carroll

http://www.nationalatlas.gov/mapmaker?AppCmd=CUSTOM&LayerList=federallands&visCats=CAT-boundary

Carroll County, Arkansas

• Formed: November 1, 1833

• County Population 1860: 9,053

• Slave Population 1860: 330

• Civil War Engagements
  - Skirmish at Carrollton, January 10, 1863
  - Skirmish at Crooked Creek, February 5, 1864
  - Suffered constant guerrilla warfare

Johnson’s New Illustrated Family Atlas, 1865
Image courtesy of the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection

Before white settlement, Carroll County, Arkansas was traditionally Osage territory. In the 1800s, the Osage shared the area with the Cherokee and Choctaws who were pushed into the area from the Southeastern United States. White settlement began in earnest in the 1830s, most coming from the mountains in Tennessee and Kentucky. Early settlers included William and Charles Sneed and Louis Russell, William Coker, David Williams, Martin, John, and Samuel Standridge, Jerry and Jacob Meeks, Squire and Richard Blevins, George Stone, and Robert Dawson.

Carroll County is located on the Missouri-Arkansas border in the Northwestern part of the state. Fresh water sources are plentiful and include King’s River, Dry Creek, Indian Creek, White River, Osage Creek, Long Creek, and Yocum Creek. Prairies, including Big Prairie and Scott’s Prairie, provide abundant grazing land for livestock. The area contains natural silver and iron deposits, and the soil is suitable for growing wheat and corn.

Carroll County was officially established on November 1, 1833. It was named after Charles Carroll, of Carrollton Tennessee, who was among those who signed the Declaration of Independence. Burnnett Cheatham and John S. Blair were in charge of naming the county seat and established it at Carrollton. There were several prominent citizens during the county’s early years. Henderson Lafferty helped Carrollton’s development. Squire Wilson Ashbury built the first ferry across the White River, a quarry to supply building stone to Carroll and surrounding counties, and built Beaver Inn (later renamed Riverside Inn). Blackburn Henderson Berry settled in present day Berryville, which was the county’s second county seat. Arthur A. Baker became the first doctor in the county and donated land for the first public school. Jacob Meek helped save several important documents from destruction during the Civil War and later became Berryville’s mayor. Tilford Denton became court clerk, county treasurer, and fought in the Civil War as a Captain-Quartermaster in the Carroll County Militia. He also donated land for the public school. James Fancher served in the Arkansas House of Representatives.

When the Civil War began, most Carroll County residents sided with the Confederacy and voted for secession. Slavery was not a huge issue in Carroll County, but most residents could not fathom going to war with other Southern states. The Carroll County Home Guard formed shortly after Arkansas seceded, and formed four companies under H.B. Fletcher, J.H. Pittman, John Denney, and Leander Hayhurst respectively. These companies took part in the Battle of Wilson’s Creek in Greene County, Missouri. Carroll County men also took part in several other regiments. These included: Company E, 16th Arkansas Mounted Infantry under Captain W.S. Poynor, Company D, 16th Arkansas Mounted Infantry, and Companies K and G, First Regiment Arkansas Volunteer Cavalry under Captain Rowan E.M. Mack and Captain Theodore Youngblood respectively. These regiments took part in the Battle of Pea Ridge in Benton County in March, 1862.

There were many Carroll County residents who refused to take part in the war at all, for either army. They formed the Arkansas Peace Society, sometimes called the Peace Organization Society, which advocated resistance to either army in Carroll and other Arkansas Counties. Several members of this society were arrested in 1861, and the organization disbanded. Several years after the war ended a fierce political debate erupted as the location for the new county seat. The issue was resolved through an election in which Berryville was declared the county seat in 1875. A courthouse was constructed in 1880. A newspaper, the Carroll County Bowlder, was the first printed in the county. It was printed in Carrollton in late 1874 and later moved to Berryville. Carrollton High School, Fairview Academy, and HYPERLINK “http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=5616″ Clarke’s Academy provided education in Carroll County. The use of mineral springs in the western part of the county in 1879 brought a rapid population increase in the area. Individuals seeking the healing powers of its waters made Eureka Springs a thriving community.

Browse all collections in Carroll County

• Consulted:

• Jim Lairr, An Outlander’s History of Carroll County, Arkansas, 1830-1983(Berryville, AR: Carroll County Historical and Genealogical Society, 1983).

• “Carroll County”, The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture, (Little Rock, AR: Central Arkansas Library System), accessed on 3 November 2010,

• http://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/encyclopedia/entry-detail.aspx?entryID=752

1900 United States Federal Census about James L Hughey

Source Citation: Year: 1900; Census Place: Sugar Loaf, Boone, Arkansas; Roll: T623_51; Page: 10A; Enumeration District: 32.http://thelibrary.springfield.missouri.org/lochist/periodicals/wrv/v8/n3/Sp83g.htm

h ttp://www.ncgenweb.us/cabarrus/index.htm

http://books.google.com/books?id=jabjJc_POSMC&pg=PA170&lpg=PA170&dq=rowan+county,+north+carolina,+henry+hughey,&source=bl&ots=jw04ETW5gk&sig=nhV5jUjWUJET5f3WDm_BT0-J 2XA&hl=en&ei=S9y6TNK0LcX7lwfR5sySDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5& ved=0CCoQ6AEwBDgK#v=onepage&q=hughey&f=false

http://digital.ncdcr.gov/cdm4/results.php?CISOOP1=all&CISOBOX1=hughey&CISOFIELD1=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOOP2=exact&CISOBOX2=&CISOFIELD2=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOOP3=any&CISOBOX3=& CISOFIELD3=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOOP4=none&CISOBOX4=&CISOFIELD4=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOROOT=/p 249901coll22,/p249901coll44,/p249901coll37,/p15012coll4,/p15012coll8,/p249901coll33,/p15012coll1,/p2 49901coll39,/p249901coll36,/p15012coll9,/p15012coll6,/p249901coll31,/p249901coll26,/p15012coll5,/p15 012coll10&t=a

Cabarrus County is located in the south central section of the state, and it is bordered by the North Carolina counties of Stanly, Union, Mecklenburg, Iredell, and Rowan.  The county was formed in 1792 from part of Mecklenburg County. It was named in honor of Stephen Cabarrus of Edenton, who was a member of the North Carolina State Legislature several times, and Speaker of the House of Commons four times. In 1795 an act was passed naming commissioners to erect a courthouse on the land of Samuel Huie (Hughey) which had already been selected as a proper place for the county seat.They were ordered to lay out the town of Concord, which was incorporated in 1806.

Notes by mlcg Rowan and Note Rowan and Cabarrus are adjoining counties, and it is probably  a connection, 10.17.2010

Hughey

http://www.sampubco.com/wills/nc/ncrowan02.htm

UGHEY, HENRY                NTL                           NC-80-D-190HUGHEY, JACOB                NTL                           NC-80-C-1HUGHEY, ROBERT               NTL                            NC-80-E-102HUGHEY, SAMUEL               NTL                           NC-80-H-623HUGHEY, SAMUEL               NTL                           NC-80-D-168HUGHS, TIMOTHY               NTL                           NC-80-C-3

http://www.co.rowan.nc.us/GOVERNMENT/Departments/RowanPublicLibrary/HistoryRoom/TheHistoryofRowan/tabid/1191/Default.aspx

In April of 1753 a petition bearing 348 names from the inhabitants of the western section of the Colony of North Carolina requested that a new county be formed. This county sectioned out from Anson included all land that lay in the Granville Tract north to the Virginia line and was essentially boundless to the west extending to the ‘South Sea’ (Pacific Ocean) or more practically to the Mississippi. Lord Granville’s land was north of the current Rowan County southern boundary and at its eastern end included two-thirds of what is now Guilford County. Not until 1840 did the county reach its present configuration, so for 87 years Rowan was one of the largest and most important counties in North Carolina.

These early residents of Rowan had come primarily from Pennsylvania and Virginia down the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road through the Shenandoah Valley, past Pilot Mountain into the fertile land near the Yadkin River. They were primarily of Scotch-Irish or German extraction. The Scotch-Irish settled primarily in the west and north western sections of the county beginning in the 1740s. The German settlers arrived a few years later establishing communities in the south eastern portion of the county. There were fewer African-Americans in the western portion of North Carolina than the east, but both slave and free blacks appear in the records from the 1750’s on. The primary benefit of the county was to provide a location for a court house nearer than that of Anson to those colonists in the Western part of the state. Our court records begin in June of 1753.

Rowan, the western frontier of the thriving American colony in the 1740’s and 50’s, continued to play an important roll as the nation developed. Rowan and its neighboring county Mecklenburg, with their strong Scotch-Irish Presbyterian bend towards independence and liberty, became the “hornets nest” of the rebellious southern colonies in the War for Independence. The Rowan Resolves declaring the citizens’ support of the town of Boston in its bid against the injustices of the British Crown was the beginning of the Revolution for North Carolina.

Renowned scholars, preachers, patriots and statesmen began careers here. Elizabeth Maxwell Steel restored hope to General Nathanael Greene by supplying money to the Patriot Cause. She was also the mother of John Steele, who was to become the first comptroller of the United States appointed by George Washington and retained by the next two presidents. Spruce Macay, attorney and judge, taught William R. Davie and Andrew Jackson both instrumental in the early years of our republic. Judge Richard Henderson, founder of the Transylvania Company and a colonial judge, along with, Daniel Boone, began their explorations of the western lands that would become Tennessee and Kentucky right here in Rowan around the year 1775. Samuel Eusebius McCorkle, Presbyterian minister and educator was president and teacher of the Salisbury Academy in the early 1790’s.

Judge Richard Henderson, founder of the Transylvania Company, along with Daniel Boone, began their explorations of the western lands that would become Tennessee and Kentucky right here in Rowan. Renowned scholars, preachers, patriots and statesmen began careers here. Elizabeth Maxwell Steel restored hope to General Nathanael Greene by supplying money to the Patriot Cause. She was also the mother of John Steele, who was to become the first comptroller of the United States appointed by George Washington and retained by the next two presidents. Spruce Macay, attorney and judge, taught William R. Davie and Andrew Jackson.

As advocates increased representation for the Western part of North Carolina in state government, Charles Fisher urged support for Calhoun and Jackson through the newspaper The Western Carolinian, founded in 1820. The Carolina Watchman, established in 1832, was created as an anti-Jackson Paper. Both papers were based in Salisbury and served the Western half of the state.

No history of Rowan would be complete without mentioning a few tidbits about industrial development. Gold was discovered in 1799 by John Reed and a booming mining town prospered in the mid 1800’s at Gold Hill. Transportation was an important consideration as well. In 1850 sixteen plank road companies included the Salisbury and Taylorsville Plank Road were chartered. Plank roads were later abandoned in lieu of railroads. Noted Salisburians, Charles F. Fisher, who became president of the Western North Carolina Railroad, John Ellis, Nathaniel Boyden and Burton Craige all took an interest in this growing industry. In August of 1860 Fisher had completed the railroad up to 13 miles east of Morganton.

In May of 1861, North Carolina seceded from the Union and the Confederacy sought a site in Rowan for a military prison. An old cotton mill near the railroad line proved to be a splendid location. In the early part of the war, prisoners were well cared for and even indulged in baseball as is recorded by Otto Boetticher. His drawing at Salisbury Confederate Prison is the first drawing ever of a baseball game in America. Later when the prison became overcrowded and the death rate rose from 2% to 28%, mass graves were used to accommodate the dead. The area of the prison is now a National Cemetery and continues to be a place of historical interest.

Rowan has produced supporters of education from the beginning of its existence. Davidson College owes much of its stature to the men of Rowan who founded and supported it, among them Maxwell Chambers. Many with ties to early Rowan were instrumental in the creation of the University of North Carolina as well. From the small but vital academies like Crowfield and the Female Academy to the Freedman’s School funded by the Friends Philadelphia Freedman’s Aid Society, the Crescent and later Livingstone and Catawba Colleges, education remained vital. Continuing into the 20th century Rowan was the home of renowned educator and women’s rights activist Elizabeth Duncan Koontz. Koontz was the first black elected president of the National Education Association and, under President Nixon, the first black director of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Woman’s Bureau.

The years after the Civil War saw slow growth in industry. Farming as well as tobacco and cotton factories were predominant in the 1880’s. Along with the textile mills, Rowan saw lumber, saw and grist mills prosper. From the Civil War to 1908 the liquor distilling industry flourished as well. In the early 1900’s, the Southern Railroad roundhouse and Spencer shops created a great deal of prosperity for Spencer and other sections of Rowan County. Entrepreneurs founded successful companies such as Stanback, Cheerwine, Food Lion and Power Curbers.

Rowan was home to North Carolina’s great hero Colonel Charles F. Fisher, for whom Fort Fisher is named and who gallantly died on the field at Manassas. His daughter, Frances Fisher Tiernan, better known as writer Christian Reid, later penned the epitaph of North Carolina, the Land of Sky. Other intriguing characters in Rowan’s history include Peter Stewart Ney, Otto Wood, Theo Buerbaum, Elizabeth Dole, Sydney Blackmer, Skinnay Ennes, and Bobby Jackson. Rowan County continues to play an important role in the unfolding history of both North Carolina and the nation.

Please click on the links below to access the Rowan Public Library movie series about the history of Rowan County – Check for available copies of A Ramble Through Rowan’s History.

In colonial times, and even later, county boundaries were not always well-defined in frontier areas. Also, new piedmont counties were being created rapidly during the 1700′s, and county lines changed again and again during this process. In addition, families sometimes lived very close to another county and may have gone there for various reasons. It is good genealogical practice to check records in the neighboring counties for your families.

1850 United States Federal Census
about Ezekiel Hughey

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Keetoowah Society Factions

also see Modern-day Keetoowah Denominations

also seeRedbird Smith Story (factions)

also see Smith, Redbird – Cherokee religious and political leader – fromEncyclopedia of North American Indians

also see (offsite) Testimony before the BEFORE THE CHEROKEE NATION CONSTITUTION CONVENTION COMMISSION

also seeBURNING PHOENIX: A Study of the Federal Acknowledgment, Reorganization and Survival of THE UNITED KEETOOWAH BAND OF CHEROKEE INDIANS IN OKLAHOMA, and of CHEROKEE NATION OF OKLAHOMA’S Efforts to Terminate the Band ALLOGAN SLAGLE, FOR THE UKB: 1993

—

SILLY ARGUMENTS OVER CREATOR AND THE SACRED FIRE: Button, Button, whose got the Button

As taught by John Red Hat Duke, a Longhair Clan elder of the Original Keetoowah Society aka “Nighthawk Keetoowahs”

“Friendly relations were established between the members of the various tribes hitherto at variance, except in the case of the Cherokees. The ancient feuds among this people are remembered still.” From “AGREEMENT WITH THE CHEROKEE AND OTHER TRIBES IN THE INDIAN TERRITORY, 1865.”may be viewed here

In the world today, there are many who claim to be “Cherokee” who the old ones might have shunned. Ones such as these. But then there has been altogether too much shunning. Many close family members have not spoken to each other in generations… and over what? Over arguments about the Creator, that’s what… arguments which are so silly, because we all at times seem to have forgotten rule #1: Don’t’ argue about Creator!

Misguided people like these, seemingly have no foundation in the Old Ways. One may wonder; do they to speak out of turn out of pure selfishness, or to get gain or power over the minds of the people?  What is at the very basis of all the misunderstanding and the confusion it has caused for so many years amongst all the differing and even feuding factions of the Cherokee Nation (and it seems to be only styling of the name of our nation that the political type of Cherokees could agree on at one time) — its clans, families, bands and individual renegades?

The sad thing is (by this point in time) that these people who seem to be so misguided at this time are only repeating what they were taught by their elders — and are just dutifully doing their jobs as they learned them — otherwise who would have to have taught them such hateful things? They don’t really know any better, so it is our word against theirs… love against hate – just as it was when we killed off the Ani’-Kuta’ni ancient Priestly clan before Columbus arrived.

The Cherokee are still fighting an internal war between factions of kinfolks (as was prophesied long ago) and the Original Keetoowah Society, The Nighthawk Keetoowahs – in order to fulfill its obligation to see that the Cherokee people do not cease to exist, which in turn will assure that all of humanity will not cease to exist – are exposing these wrongdoings and calling for our kinfolk to stop telling falsehoods to the people.

The Stokes Smith stompground reputedly (as no one seems to be able to even agree on that) was the original grounds in Oklahoma – near Vian, Oklahoma. After the death of Redbird Smith, his sons had serious disagreements amongst themselves, and in (sad but true) Cherokee fashion, they went their separate ways. Many (20 or so) separate “stomp grounds” and “fires” were established in Oklahoma – and it was well known that similar stompgrounds and fires existed in Mexico, Texas, and all over the eastern United States – wherever Cherokee people lived and continue to live who evaded capture and/or assimilation into white culture – buthad to hide the practice of their religion (which included the Stomp Dance) up until fairly recently.

The selfish action on the part of the sons of Redbird Smith and their descendants has caused much loss of our religious culture.

Redbird Smith, in his time, recognized other “fires” other than those in Oklahoma… specifically recognizing the “fires” in Missouri where it was illegal to be an Indian – on pain of death if you didn’t have a pass signed by the governor. Those statutes were never repealed by Missouri – just dropped from the Missouri law books. Many Indians were hung publicly even after the turn of the 20th century.

Today, there are one or more people who some of the Keetoowah factional members call “Chief” who would contradict the decision made by Chief William Smith and the Keetoowah Society Council in the early 1980s – would contradict the decision of another Cherokee denomination that their denomination split off from — and thereby give people unfamiliar with Keetoowah Society hstory the idea that there are no others among the Cherokee religious traditionalists that should be listened to… chief among them the Original Keetoowah Society.

The decision to allow the photographing of parts of the Stomp Dance and parts of other ceremonies was made by the Original Keetoowah Society council in the early 1980s. The pipe smoking was filmed, and the wampum belts were shown and sermons were filmed. These “Chiefs” nowadays seemingly act like the Original Keetoowah Society Council’s decision to allow filming never occurred. They seemingly would have you ignorant of these facts. Interestingly, one “Chief” that has spoken out – crossing Cherokee denominational lines – is employed by the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma as a “linguist.” George Stopp is only the nominal chief of ONE of the factions amongst the Keetoowahs.  His faction, according to what he has said publicly, apparently teaches that theirs is the ONLY Cherokee religion and has in their possession the only “sacred fire.” Imagine a white church claiming to have the only true religion and what do you have? The Mormons; the Catholics; Islam – all fighting amongst each other — and some to the death.

Some people have forgotten that the Sacred fire is portable and “splitable” and was moved here from the east by the Natchez people and Redbird Smith obtained it from them by and by, but that is another story.  The fire was actually split by Stokes Smith (Redbird’s 8th son) when he disagreed with Redbird’s and the Council’sdecision to venerate Jesus, and went and founded another grounds and ironically named it after his father!

The Cherokee religion of old was and still is a religion of love, inclusiveness and diversity. Politics has entered into our religion and we say this to those who would destroy it: “Tell them they lie!”

Even though the Policy Analyst for the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma has said that they as a political entity have no business dictating who may stomp dance, but on the other hand sneak in a dig that religious leaders would never give permission for the dance to be held “outside of the communities in which the Cherokee people reside” as if there are no Cherokees in North Carolina where they were state and later federally recognized; Arkansas where they are federally recognized, Mexico where they are federally recognized, and in Georgia and Alabama where they are state recognized… as if the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma is the only bunch of Cherokee in the entire world… when in fact the United Keetooowah Band was federally recognized many years before the “Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma” was ever thought of. Ah, some people in Tahlequah have certainly learned the skills of rumor, innuendo, and circumlocution very well from some lowly white politicians… or maybe even from some even more lowly Cherokee politicians.

Not that all Cherokee politicians are bad hearted… some believe, and properly so, that in today’s world the only way they may personally help the people with programs is by entering politics, and so be it… as long as they don’t forget who they are serving… and not start serving themselves… as many have done and still do – as politicians in general do.

Many Keetoowah Indnias have to tribal affiliation a all.. no access to legal standing as Indianas owing to an earlier stand to not involve themselves in political affairs e.g.  no access to Indian Child Welfare.

Political discussion should be fostered — and encouraged to INCLUDE all Cherokees in the political process… and each side (UKB/CNO) should decide toquickly find common ground — because the Cherokee people are suffering. We have suffered internal strife since ancient times. Do you remember the 14 years Cherokee suffered after the Trail of Tears while politicians wrangled over the payments of the 5 millions of dollars owed us in settlement for our lands in the east? The poor Cherokee people starved and froze while the politicians argued and lived in luxury.

Recently, even though the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma’s Policy Analyst said publicly that the CNO has no business dictating religious policy, but they seemed to go ahead and do it anyway – an old lawyer’s courtroom trick. All the controversy, it would seem was over Sam Sizemore running a Stompdance in Kentucky — where so many Chickamauga people, many being descendants of Cornblossom, hid out in the hills and evaded capture during the removal period. Many Chickamauga childen were massaced at Ywahoo Falls. The Keetoowah Indians and theChickamaugas lived side by side on the old Arkansas reservation with the Western Cherokees who organized a traditional government along AniKituwaghi lines, so we certainly have affinity among us. George Lowry made that clear in his letter to the Eastern Cherokee.

ICARE Radio had so much fear over this issue, that they even went so far as to put words in Sam Sizemore’s mouth (and even change his identity to the other Sizemore, Donald – who publishes the book Cherokee Clothing. Obfuscation is an old trick used by some lawyers and politicians… Politician use the old trick “Well the people who reported to us” blah blah blah… that’s just like the white politicians and media people when they say “We have it from a reliable inside-the-beltway source” ad infinitum, ad nauseaum… and none of that tripe would make it in a court if law because it is just third party “he said she said” hearsay… but some Cherokee people seem to love to buy into “hearsay.” That’s the way some people stir up trouble, and it makes you wonder who they are working for… the BIA, the CIA, the the truth is that “Cherokees are their own worst enemies” as Chief D.L Hicks of the Texas Cherokees liked to say when he came and danced with the Keetoowahs.

You may read George Stopp’s statement below, where he reveals to the world the existence of the various factions of the Keetoowahs. Please be aware that George Stopp, in his statement, disagrees with a 20 year old decision of the Original Keetoowah Society Council, then led by Chief William Smith. When George Stopp says “I have no knowledge” he may want the world to believe that he speaks for all Keetoowahs, which he most certainly does not.

Sam Sizemore doesn’t have George Stopp’s permission, it is clear, but Sam Sizemore may indeed have been properly trained by other Keetoowahs with a much less biased connection with ancient Keetoowah religious traditions. George Stopp has no more say over what the Original Keetowah Society says and does than the Lutheran Church Bishop has over the Vatican Pope.

George Stopp contacted us at one time, and offered to open a dialog, and we offered to open that dialog, but he has never bothered to answer our follow up emails or phone calls.

Here is Richard Allen’s (Policy analyst for the Cherokee Nation) statement copied from here:

“The Cherokee Nation does not have authority to give permission to anyone to do a stomp dance. The spiritual essence of the Cherokee people are maintained at what people refer to in English as the “stomp grounds.” There is a separation between the government of the Cherokee Nation and the spiritual practice of the Cherokee people similar to a separation between church and state. It would be unreasonable and unthinkable for any of the leaders of the spiritual organizations to authorize anyone to do a stomp dance outside of the communities in which the Cherokee people reside. They would not authorize a dance for education purposes outside of their own domains.“

The Original Keetoowah Society, or “Nighthawk Keetoowahs,” has from ancient times taught that NO group of Keetoowahs or Cherokees “owns” the Sacred Fire. Redbird Smith once encouraged our religion to flourish — as a signatory to the Moberly (Missouri Cherokees)  Constitution — and some of his descendants still encourage Cherokees everywhere to participate in the Cherokee religion, of which our dances and ceremonies are but a part. Our religion is a religion of love, period.

If you as an elder have been taught in the past (as so many Chickamauga elders have been instructed) how to properly officiate in any of our Dances or Festivals, please feel free to communicate this part of our culture to the younger generation.

Modern-day Keetoowah Denominations -

Yes, each stompgrounds has a few little differences, because each is their own denomination. Stokes Smith Ceremonial Ground is Keetoowah Society; Redbird Smith Ceremonial Ground is Nighthawk Keetoowah, and Long Valley Ceremonial Ground is Kituwah Association (although all claim Nighthawk to some extent and that is another story). We have two other stompgrounds which are not Keetoowah, but are Four Mothers Society.

It would be very difficult and take many years for stompgrounds to sprout back up…..the ground must have the Sacred Fire, which was carried West from our homelands by four firecarriers. A ‘new’ stompground cannot exist without the actual Sacred Fire being moved to it. There are those who do NOT have the Sacred Fire, and we call them exhibition or practice grounds. Each ground must have a medicine person. We realize that medicine people have been trained since birth, which is a term that makes implications of all sorts of rituals, procedures, and regimens. A hundred years ago when we still had 22 ceremonial grounds, Redbird Smith spent his life traveling in wagon from ground to ground to oversee them. He was the ceremonial chief of the Nighthawk, and each individual fire had a firekeeper and captains, the ground operates under the mother ground. New stompgrounds far away would be hard to monitor, and assist. Medicine men would be unwilling to move from our communities and families. It will take people coming home to the ancient Sacred Fires, and spending their time learning, and raising their children in these churches, so that their children can fulfill these roles in their own homelands someday. That is the only way I see it possible.

There are very certain protocols that sometimes differ, but for the most part, they do not. The fires are all from the Sacred Fire, and they are rekindled the same by each ground. Only the ceremonial Chief and the firekeeper is allowed to even touch the wood. No woman who has not reached menopause, must EVER touch the wood for this fire. This is just the tip of the iceberg. But remember, raising your children in this way WILL make it happen.

There is a Stomp ground in the Big Cove community on the Eastern Band of Cherokee Qualla Boundary. It is run by Walker Calhoun. – Aginni

Smith, Redbird

(1850-1918)

fromhttp://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/naind/html/na_036500_smithredbird.htm

Cherokee religious and political leader

Redbird Smith was born in the Cherokee Nation just west of Fort Smith, Arkansas, to a Cherokee father and a half-Cherokee, half-German mother. His father, Pig Redbird Smith, was a blacksmith—thus the name Smith. Smith grew up in a highly conservative family, but by the 1850s most traditional Cherokee institutions had disintegrated. The clan system and the division of the political arena into White (peace) and Red (war) moieties had all but disappeared. Christianity had replaced the traditional tribal priesthood and community religious ceremonies. The sacred fires were no longer maintained; the stomp dances were no longer performed. Even the tribal wampum belts had been entrusted to the elected chief, John Ross. The only Cherokee religious rites still actively practiced were those related to healing, conjuring, and witchcraft. In most ways, the lifestyle of even the traditional tribesmen bore more resemblance to that of their white neighbors in Arkansas than to that of their ancestors.

Despite these changes, however, the western Cherokees were a deeply divided people. “Full-blood,” Cherokee-speaking families lived primarily as subsistence farmers and hunters. They formed the core of a group that resisted further cultural change. Opposing them were acculturated, “mixed-blood” families, whose leaders were usually wealthy slave owners. Their plantation lifestyle was indistinguishable from that of wealthy southern whites. The two groups had divided in the 1830s over the issue of removal to Indian Territory. The “mixed-blood” leaders had signed the removal treaty of New Echota in 1835, and the “full bloods” had been forced west. In the years immediately following the removal, a virtual civil war of recrimination and revenge had raged within the Cherokee Nation. With the approach of the American Civil War, political issues imposed on the Cherokees from outside once again amplified the differences between these two groups.

In 1859 a white Baptist missionary, Evan Jones, revived the Keetoowah Society. The purpose of this secret society was to reestablish the moral life of the tribe. More social and political than overtly religious, the society quickly found favor among the conservative “full bloods” of all religious persuasions: Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, Quakers, and non-Christians. Their main cause was their opposition to slavery and to the power of the wealthy Cherokee planters. Pig Smith was an early member of the Keetoowah Society.

At the outbreak of the Civil War the Smith family, together with some other Keetoowah families, joined Opothleyaholo and the neutral Creeks and Seminoles in their disastrous flight to Kansas during the winter of 1861-62. Eventually most of the Keetoowah families ended up in the refugee camps in Kansas; Keetoowah men formed the core of the Cherokee regiments that opposed their government’s alliance with the Confederacy and fought for the Union.

By the end of the war, Pig Smith had emerged as a major leader of the Keetoowahs, particularly among the most conservative, non-Christian element of the tribe. In 1867 he was elected to the Cherokee Senate and served as president. Pig Smith argued that the divisions and rivalry that had plagued the tribe since removal had been caused by the loss of traditional Cherokee values and beliefs. Foreseeing that his life would be too short to fulfill his mission (he in fact died in 1871), he took his son Redbird to Creek Sam, a Natchez religious leader, so that he could be educated to act as his adviser. Notchee (Natchez) town, located in the Illinois District of the Cherokee Nation, south of Tahlequah, was one of the most conservative communities in all of what is now Oklahoma. The Natchez had brought their sacred fire with them from the East, and their home in the Illinois District became the gathering place for religiously conservative kinsmen. It was in this community, with its living ties to preremoval Cherokee life, that Redbird Smith came of age.

In the years after the Civil War, the Keetoowahs became the major force in Cherokee politics. Tribal rivalries continued, however, and the “mixed bloods” gained control of the Cherokee government in 1887. That same year, pressure on all Indians to conform to Anglo-American norms increased as Congress adopted the General Allotment Act and pressed for tribes to divide up their lands. By 1889 many of the Keetoowahs believed that their society had become too political and had lost its original moral purpose. Meeting together, these dissenting Keetoowahs broke away from the old society and formed a new Keetoowah Society that would be religious as well as political. Redbird had been a “little captain” (community leader) in the old society. He now became a head captain of the Illinois District. In 1890 he was elected to the Cherokee council.

During the 1890s, as pressures from the federal government to allot the lands of the Five Civilized Tribes mounted and the number of non-Indians living in Indian Territory grew, conservatives such as the Keetoowahs and their supporters started banding together in opposition. The Four Mothers Society was established in the Illinois District, with the Natchez and their sacred fire forming its core. Redbird Smith, together with many other Cherokees as well as Creeks, became active in this new society. Some followers thought the society should be more overtly political, while others believed that it should withdraw entirely from society and focus exclusively on religion.

Redbird Smith sided with those who believed that the divisions in Cherokee society would not be healed until political opponents stopped resorting to violence and witchcraft. He argued that the Cherokees had brought their problems upon themselves by turning away from the teachings of their Creator. Only the Creator could save the Cherokee people. As he spoke out on the need to revive traditional religious practices, Smith called for the general adoption of the “White Path,” the path of nonviolence and righteousness. To accomplish this goal, he instructed his followers to rekindle their sacred fires, revive the stomp dances, and take back their wampum belts.

Redbird Smith scored his first success when one of John Ross’s sons gave the Keetoowahs seven tribal wampum belts. The interpretations of these belts became the basic teachings of a new religion. In 1896 Smith and his followers revived the Cherokee stomp dance. In 1902 they rekindled the first of the new Cherokee sacred fires. By 1906 there would be twenty-two sacred fires among the Cherokees. Finally, Smith and his followers formally broke with the earlier, political Keetoowah Society and became the Nighthawk Keetoowahs.

In spite of the opposition of the conservative Cherokees, the official tribal government agreed in 1900 to the allotment of Cherokee lands. As a member of the Cherokee Senate, Smith refused to vote on the agreement, and when it was presented for approval he declared he would not sign it. Smith encouraged his followers to resist allotment by refusing to register for their lands. It was estimated that over five thousand Cherokees followed his lead. In frustration, the Dawes Commission, the body charged with overseeing the allotment process among the Five Civilized Tribes, ordered the arrest of Smith and several other Nighthawk Keetoowah leaders. They were jailed briefly, but the Dawes Commission released them and proceeded to add their names to the allotment roll and assign them allotments.

In 1906 Redbird Smith appeared before a special U.S. Senate investigating committee in Tahlequah, asking that the federal government stop the process of allotment and honor its treaty obligations to the tribe. Although allotments had been assigned to the Nighthawks, hundreds refused to recognize their new titles or to live on their allotments. In 1910, seeing that the government was not going to change its position and that resistance was no longer in his followers’ interest, Smith accepted an allotment. Although he continued to try to find a peaceful way to restore traditional beliefs, the power and influence of the Nighthawks began to wane. By the time of his death in 1918, many of the sacred fires had been consolidated and the Nighthawk Keetoowah Society had become primarily a religious movement; its days as an active political force were over.

Janey B. Hendrix and Garrick Bailey, Redbird Smith and the Nighthawk Keetoowahs (Park Hill, Okla.: Cross Cultural Education Center, 1983).

Roberta Glenn Bailey

Tulsa, Oklahoma

WATCH: (click and then click “open”) the 1984 55 min. DocumentaryVideo“Spirit of the Fire” – revealing the “Original Keetoowah Society,” the spiritual core of the Cherokee Nation. The Smithsonian institution was turned down by the Nighthawk Keetoowah elders in favor a Tulsa news man, Bill Jones because he had “blue veins” and came in a good way. KJRH TV Tulsa’s Bill Jones was privileged to produce this documentary – filming the sacred Stomp Dance, Pipe Smoking, Sermons, and the display of Keetoowah Wampum Belts for the very first time. Either Download a small 4-Megabyte Media player or try using your onboard Media Player first. The most recent versions of Real Player or Windows Media Player will work. Please support Prophecykeepers Radio at www.prophecykeepers.com

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Map of the Inhabited Areas of the Upper Cherokee NationDrawn in 1762 and published in Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake, London 1765

[6] See also Wilkinson & Volkman, Judicial Review of Indian Treaty Abrogation: “As Long as Water Flows,
 or Grass Grows Upon the Earth” —
How Long a Time Is That?, 63 Calif. L. Rev. 601 (1975) (hereinafter Wilkinson & Volkman).
http://turtletalk.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/supreme-court-citations-to-indian-law-scholarship/

United States v. Dion, 476 US 734 – Supreme Court 1986

http://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=4489545945245924720&q=cannot+abrogate+treatys&hl=en&as_sdt=2,26#[7]

476 U.S. 734 (1986)

UNITED STATES
v.
DION

No. 85-246.

Supreme Court of United States.

Argued March 25, 1986

Decided June 11, 1986

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

735*735 Jeffrey P. Minear argued the cause pro hac vice for the United States. On the briefs were Solicitor General Fried, Assistant Attorney General Habicht, Deputy Solicitor General Wallace, Harriet S. Shapiro, Donald A. Carr, Claire L. McGuire, and James C. Kilbourne.

Terry L. Pechota by appointment of the Court, 474 U. S. 978, argued the cause and filed a brief for respondent.[*]

Briefs of amici curiae urging affirmance were filed for the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Reservation et al. by Harry R. Sachse and Arthur Lazarus, Jr.; for the Hopi Indian Tribe by Michael P. O’Connell; for the National Congress of American Indians et al. by Henry J. Sockbeson and Steven C. Moore; and for the Seminole Indian Tribe of Florida by Charles A. Hobbs and Jerry C. Straus.

JUSTICE MARSHALL delivered the opinion of the Court.

Respondent Dwight Dion, Sr., a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe, was convicted of shooting four bald eagles on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota in violation of the Endangered Species Act, 87 Stat. 884, as amended, 16 U. S. C. § 1531 et seq. (1982 ed. and Supp. II).[1] The District Court dismissed before trial a charge of shooting a golden eagle in violation of the Bald Eagle Protection Act, 54 Stat. 250, 16 U. S. C. § 668 et seq. (Eagle Protection Act). Dion was also convicted of selling carcasses and parts of eagles and other birds in violation of the Eagle Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, 40 Stat. 755, as amended, 16 U. S. C. § 703 et seq. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed all of Dion’s convictions except those for 736*736 shooting bald eagles in violation of the Endangered Species Act. 752 F. 2d 1261, 1270 (1985) (en banc); 762 F. 2d 674, 694 (1985) (panel opinion). As to those, it stated that Dion could be convicted only upon a jury determination that the birds were killed for commercial purposes. 752 F. 2d, at 1270. It also affirmed the District Court’s dismissal of the charge of shooting a golden eagle in violation of the Eagle Protection Act. Ibid. We granted certiorari, 474 U. S. 900 (1985), and we now reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals insofar as it reversed Dion’s convictions under the Endangered Species Act and affirmed the dismissal of the charge against him under the Eagle Protection Act.

I

The Eagle Protection Act by its terms prohibits the hunting of the bald or golden eagle anywhere within the United States, except pursuant to a permit issued by the Secretary of the Interior. The Endangered Species Act imposes an equally stringent ban on the hunting of the bald eagle. The Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, however, sitting en banc, held that members of the Yankton Sioux Tribe have a treaty right to hunt bald and golden eagles within the Yankton Reservation for noncommercial purposes.[2] It further held that the Eagle Protection Act and Endangered Species Act did not abrogate this treaty right. It therefore directed that Dion’s convictions for shooting bald eagles be vacated, since neither the District Court nor the jury made any explicit finding whether the killings were for commercial or noncommercial purposes.[3]

737*737 The Court of Appeals relied on an 1858 treaty signed by the United States and by representatives of the Yankton Tribe. Treaty with the Yancton (1858 spelling) Sioux, Apr. 19, 1858, 11 Stat. 743. Under that treaty, the Yankton ceded to the United States all but 400,000 acres of the land then held by the Tribe. The treaty bound the Yanktons to remove to, and settle on, their reserved land within one year. The United States in turn agreed to guarantee the Yanktons quiet and undisturbed possession of their reserved land, and to pay to the Yanktons, or expend for their benefit, various moneys in the years to come. The area thus reserved for the Tribe was a legally constituted Indian reservation, see Minesota v. Hitchcock, 185 U. S. 373, 389-390 (1902); Wood v. Jameson, 130 N. W. 2d 95 (S. D. 1964). The treaty did not place any restriction on the Yanktons’ hunting rights on their reserved land.

All parties to this litigation agree that the treaty rights reserved by the Yankton included the exclusive right to hunt and fish on their land. See Brief for United States 19; Brief 738*738 for Respondent 7.[4] As a general rule, Indians enjoy exclusive treaty rights to hunt and fish on lands reserved to them, unless such rights were clearly relinquished by treaty or have been modified by Congress. F. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law 449 (1982) (hereinafter Cohen). These rights need not be expressly mentioned in the treaty. See Menominee Tribe v. United States, 391 U. S. 404 (1968); Alaska Pacific Fisheries v. United States, 248 U. S. 78 (1918). Those treaty rights, however, little avail Dion if, as the Solicitor General argues, they were subsequently abrogated by Congress. We find that they were.[5]

II

It is long settled that “the provisions of an act of Congress, passed in the exercise of its constitutional authority, . . . if clear and explicit, must be upheld by the courts, even in contravention of express stipulations in an earlier treaty” with a foreign power. Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U. S. 698, 720 (1893); cf. Goldwater v. Carter, 444 U. S. 996 (1979). This Court applied that rule to congressional abrogation of Indian treaties in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock, 187 U. S. 553, 566 (1903). Congress, the Court concluded, has the power “to abrogate the provisions of an Indian treaty, though presumably such power will be exercised only when circumstances arise which will not only justify the government in disregarding the stipulations of the treaty, but may demand, in the interest of the country and the Indians themselves, that it should do so.” Ibid.

We have required that Congress’ intention to abrogate Indian treaty rights be clear and plain. Cohen 223; see also 739*739 United States v. Santa Fe Pacific R. Co., 314 U. S. 339, 353 (1941). “Absent explicit statutory language, we have been extremely reluctant to find congressional abrogation of treaty rights . . . .” Washington v. Washington Commercial Passenger Fishing Vessel Assn., 443 U. S. 658, 690 (1979). We do not construe statutes as abrogating treaty rights in “a backhanded way,” Menominee Tribe v. United States, 391 U. S., at 412; in the absence of explicit statement, ” `the intention to abrogate or modify a treaty is not to be lightly imputed to the Congress.’ ” Id., at 413, quoting Pigeon River Co. v. Cox Co., 291 U. S. 138, 160 (1934). Indian treaty rights are too fundamental to be easily cast aside.[6]

We have enunciated, however, different standards over the years for determining how such a clear and plain intent must be demonstrated. In some cases, we have required that Congress make “express declaration” of its intent to abrogate treaty rights. See Leavenworth, L., & G. R. Co. v. United States, 92 U. S. 733, 741-742 (1876); see also Wilkinson & Volkman 627-630, 645-659. In other cases, we have looked to the statute’s ” `legislative history’ ” and ” `surrounding circumstances’ ” as well as to ” `the face of the Act.’ ” Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. Kneip, 430 U. S. 584, 587 (1977), quoting Mattz v. Arnett, 412 U. S. 481, 505 (1973). Explicit statement by Congress is preferable for the purpose of ensuring legislative accountability for the abrogation of treaty rights, cf. Seminole Nation v. United States, 316 U. S. 286, 296-297 (1942). We have not rigidly interpreted that preference, however, as a per se rule; where the evidence of congressional intent to abrogate is sufficiently compelling, “the weight of authority indicates that such an intent can also be found by a reviewing court from clear and reliable evidence in the legislative history of a statute.” Cohen 223. What is 740*740 essential is clear evidence that Congress actually considered the conflict between its intended action on the one hand and Indian treaty rights on the other, and chose to resolve that conflict by abrogating the treaty.

A

The Eagle Protection Act renders it a federal crime to “take, possess, sell, purchase, barter, offer to sell, purchase or barter, transport, export or import, at any time or in any manner any bald eagle commonly known as the American eagle or any golden eagle, alive or dead, or any part, nest, or egg thereof.” 16 U. S. C. § 668(a). The prohibition is “sweepingly framed”; the enumeration of forbidden acts is “exhaustive and careful.” Andrus v. Allard, 444 U. S. 51, 56 (1979). The Act, however, authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to permit the taking, possession, and transportation of eagles “for the religious purposes of Indian tribes,” and for certain other narrow purposes, upon a determination that such taking, possession, or transportation is compatible with the preservation of the bald eagle or the golden eagle. 16 U. S. C. § 668a.

Congressional intent to abrogate Indian treaty rights to hunt bald and golden eagles is certainly strongly suggested on the face of the Eagle Protection Act. The provision allowing taking of eagles under permit for the religious purposes of Indian tribes is difficult to explain except as a reflection of an understanding that the statute otherwise bans the taking of eagles by Indians, a recognition that such a prohibition would cause hardship for the Indians, and a decision that that problem should be solved not by exempting Indians from the coverage of the statute, but by authorizing the Secretary to issue permits to Indians where appropriate.

The legislative history of the statute supports that view. The Eagle Protection Act was originally passed in 1940, and did not contain any explicit reference to Indians. Its prohibitions related only to bald eagles; it cast no shadow on hunting 741*741 of the more plentiful golden eagle. In 1962, however, Congress considered amendments to the Eagle Protection Act extending its ban to the golden eagle as well. As originally drafted by the staff of the Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation of the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, the amendments simply would have added the words “or any golden eagle” at two places in the Act where prohibitions relating to the bald eagle were described. Miscellaneous Fish and Wildlife Legislation: Hearings before the Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation of the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, 87th Cong., 2d Sess., 1 (1962) (hereinafter House Hearings).

Before the start of hearings on the bill, however, the Subcommittee received a letter from Assistant Secretary of the Interior Frank Briggs on behalf of the Interior Department. The Interior Department supported the proposed bill. It noted, however, the following concern:

“The golden eagle is important in enabling many Indian tribes, particularly those in the Southwest, to continue ancient customs and ceremonies that are of deep religious or emotional significance to them. We note that the Handbook of American Indians (Smithsonian Institution, 1912) volume I, page 409, states in part, as follows:

” `Among the many birds held in superstitious and appreciative regard by the aborigines of North America, the eagle, by reason of its majestic, solitary, and mysterious nature, became an especial object of worship. This is expressed in the employment of the eagle by the Indian for religious and esthetic purposes only.

…..

“There are frequent reports of the continued veneration of eagles and of the use of eagle feathers in religious ceremonies of tribal rites. The Hopi, Zuni, and several of the Pueblo groups of Indians in the Southwest have 742*742 great interest in and strong feelings concerning eagles. In the circumstances, it is evident that the Indians are deeply interested in the preservation of both the golden and the bald eagle. If enacted, the bill should therefore permit the Secretary of the Interior, by regulation, to allow the use of eagles for religious purposes by Indian tribes.” House Hearings 2-3.

The House Committee reported out the bill.[7] In setting out the need for the legislation, it explained in part:

“Certain feathers of the golden eagle are important in religious ceremonies of some Indian tribes and a large number of the birds are killed to obtain these feathers, as well as to provide souvenirs for tourists in the Indian country. In addition, they are actively hunted by bounty hunters in Texas and some other States. As a result of these activities if steps are not taken as contemplated in this legislation, there is grave danger that the golden eagle will completely disappear.” H. R. Rep. No. 1450, 87th Cong., 2d Sess., 2 (1962).

The Committee also reprinted Assistant Secretary Briggs’ letter in its Report, id., at 3-5, and adopted an exception for Indian religious use drafted by the Interior Department. The bill as reported out of the House Committee thus made three major changes in the law, along with other more technical ones. It extended the law’s ban to golden eagles. It provided that the Secretary may exempt, by permit, takings of bald or golden eagles “for the religious purposes of Indian tribes.” And it added a final proviso: “Provided, That bald eagles may not be taken for any purpose unless, prior to such taking, a permit to do so is procured from the Secretary of the Interior.” Id., at 7. The bill, as amended, passed the 743*743 House and was reported to the Senate Committee on Commerce.

At the Senate hearings, representatives of the Interior Department reiterated their position that, because “the golden eagle is an important part of the ceremonies and religion of many Indian tribes,” the Secretary should be authorized to allow the use of eagles for religious purposes by Indian tribes. Protection for the Golden Eagle: Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Commerce, 87th Cong., 2d Sess., 23 (1962). The Senate Committee agreed, and passed the House bill with an additional amendment allowing the Secretary to authorize permits for the taking of golden eagles that were preying on livestock. That Committee again reprinted Assistant Secretary Briggs’ letter, S. Rep. No. 1986, 87th Cong., 2d Sess., 5-7 (1962), and summarized the bill as follows: “The resolution as hereby reported would bring the golden eagle under the 1940 act, allow their taking under permit for the religious use of the various Indian tribes (their feathers are an important part of Indian religious rituals) and upon request of a Governor of any State, be taken for the protection of livestock and game.” Id., at 3-4. The bill passed the Senate, and was concurred in by the House, with little further discussion.

It seems plain to us, upon reading the legislative history as a whole, that Congress in 1962 believed that it was abrogating the rights of Indians to take eagles. Indeed, the House Report cited the demand for eagle feathers for Indian religious ceremonies as one of the threats to the continued survival of the golden eagle that necessitated passage of the bill. See supra, at 742. Congress expressly chose to set in place a regime in which the Secretary of the Interior had control over Indian hunting, rather than one in which Indian on-reservation hunting was unrestricted. Congress thus considered the special cultural and religious interests of Indians, balanced those needs against the conservation purposes of the statute, and provided a specific, narrow exception 744*744 that delineated the extent to which Indians would be permitted to hunt the bald and golden eagle.

Respondent argues that the 1962 Congress did not in fact view the Eagle Protection Act as restricting Indian on-reservation hunting. He points to an internal Interior Department memorandum circulated in 1962 stating, with little analysis, that the Eagle Protection Act did not apply within Indian reservations. Memorandum from Assistant Solicitor Vaughn, Branch of Fish and Wildlife, Office of the Solicitor to the Director, Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, Apr. 26, 1962. We have no reason to believe that Congress was aware of the contents of the Vaughn memorandum. More importantly, however, we find respondent’s contention that the 1962 Congress did not understand the Act to ban all Indian hunting of eagles simply irreconcilable with the statute on its face.

Respondent argues, and the Eighth Circuit agreed, that the provision of the statute granting permit authority is not necessarily inconsistent with an intention that Indians would have unrestricted ability to hunt eagles while on reservations. Respondent construes that provision to allow the Secretary to issue permits to non-Indians to hunt eagles “for Indian religious purposes,” and supports this interpretation by pointing out testimony during the hearings to the effect that large-scale eagle bounty hunters sometimes sold eagle feathers to Indian tribes. We do not find respondent’s argument credible. Congress could have felt such a provision necessary only if it believed that Indians, if left free to hunt eagles on reservations, would nonetheless be unable to satisfy their own needs and would be forced to call on non-Indians to hunt on their behalf. Yet there is nothing in the legislative history that even remotely supports that patronizing and strained view. Indeed, the Interior Department immediately after the passage of the 1962 amendments adopted regulations authorizing permits only to “individual Indians who are authentic, 745*745 bona fide practitioners of such religion.” 28 Fed. Reg. 976 (1963).[8]

Congress’ 1962 action, we conclude, reflected an unmistakable and explicit legislative policy choice that Indian hunting of the bald or golden eagle, except pursuant to permit, is inconsistent with the need to preserve those species. We therefore read the statute as having abrogated that treaty right.

B

Dion also asserts a treaty right to take bald eagles as a defense to his Endangered Species Act prosecution. He argues that the evidence that Congress intended to abrogate treaty rights when it passed the Endangered Species Act is considerably more slim than that relating to the Eagle Protection Act. The Endangered Species Act and its legislative history, he points out, are to a great extent silent regarding Indian hunting rights. In this case, however, we need not resolve the question of whether the Congress in the Endangered Species Act abrogated Indian treaty rights. We conclude that Dion’s asserted treaty defense is barred in any event.

Dion asserts that he is immune from Endangered Species Act prosecution because he possesses a treaty right to hunt and kill bald eagles. We have held, however, that Congress in passing and amending the Eagle Protection Act divested Dion of his treaty right to hunt bald eagles. He therefore has no treaty right to hunt bald eagles that he can assert as a defense to an Endangered Species Act charge.

We do not hold that when Congress passed and amended the Eagle Protection Act, it stripped away Indian treaty protection for conduct not expressly prohibited by that statute. 746*746 But the Eagle Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act, in relevant part, prohibit exactly the same conduct, and for the same reasons. Dion here asserts a treaty right to engage in precisely the conduct that Congress, overriding Indian treaty rights, made criminal in the Eagle Protection Act. Dion’s treaty shield for that conduct, we hold, was removed by that statute, and Congress’ failure to discuss that shield in the context of the Endangered Species Act did not revive that treaty right.

It would not promote sensible law to hold that while Dion possesses no rights derived from the 1858 treaty that bar his prosecution under the Eagle Protection Act for killing bald eagles, he nonetheless possesses a right to hunt bald eagles, derived from that same treaty, that bars his Endangered Species Act prosecution for the same conduct. Even if Congress did not address Indian treaty rights in the Endangered Species Act sufficiently expressly to effect a valid abrogation, therefore, respondent can assert no treaty defense to a prosecution under that Act for a taking already explicitly prohibited under the Eagle Protection Act.

III

We hold that the Court of Appeals erred in recognizing Dion’s treaty defense to his Eagle Protection Act and Endangered Species Act prosecutions. For the reasons stated in n. 3, supra, we do not pass on the claim raised by amici that the Eagle Protection Act, if read to abrogate Indian treaty rights, invades religious freedom. Cf. United States v. Abeyta, 632 F. Supp. 1301 (NM 1986). Nor do we address respondent’s argument, raised for the first time in this Court, that the statutes under which he was convicted do not authorize separate convictions for taking and for selling the same birds. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed in part, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

[*] Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were filed for the Environmental Defense Fund, Inc., et al. by Michael J. Bean; and for the International Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies by Paul A. Lenzini.

[1] The jury verdict at trial did not conclusively establish that Dion is a member of the Tribe or that the killings took place on the reservation. See 752 F. 2d 1261, 1270 (1985) (indicating that those questions remain open for determination on remand). Both parties, however, agree in this Court that Dion is a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe. Brief for United States 10; Brief for Respondent 2. Dion testified at trial that the birds were all killed on the reservation, the Eighth Circuit assumed that fact for the purposes of its opinion, and we shall do the same.

[2] The court held that tribal members have no treaty right to sell eagles, or to hunt eagles for commercial purposes. 752 F. 2d, at 1264-1265. Dion does not challenge that holding here, and its validity is not before us.

[3] On remand from the en banc court, an Eighth Circuit panel rejected a religious freedom claim raised by Dion. Dion does not pursue that claim here, and accordingly we do not consider it.

A statement made by the panel in rejecting that claim, though, casts some doubt on whether the issue of whether Dion had a treaty right to kill eagles for noncommercial purposes is squarely before us. The panel stated: “The record reveals that Dion, Sr. was killing eagles and other protected birds for commercial gain . . . .” 762 F. 2d 674, 680 (1985). Notwithstanding its statement that Dion’s killings were for commercial gain, apparently inconsistent with the en banc court’s refusal to pass on that issue, it issued a judgment vacating Dion’s convictions for shooting bald eagles “pursuant to the opinion of this Court en banc.” Id., at 694.

We find that this case properly presents the issue whether killing eagles for noncommercial purposes is outside the scope of the Eagle Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. The Eighth Circuit panel did not disturb the en banc court’s holding that Dion cannot be convicted absent a jury determination of whether the killings were for a commercial purpose, and vacated his convictions for shooting bald eagles because the jury made no such finding. The Solicitor General argues that Dion’s convictions should have been affirmed whether the killings were for commercial or noncommercial purposes. The correctness of the holding below that killing for noncommercial purposes is not punishable, therefore, is squarely before us.

[4] Such treaty rights can be asserted by Dion as an individual member of the Tribe. See United States v. Winans, 198 U. S. 371, 381 (1905); Kimball v. Callahan, 590 F. 2d 768, 773 (CA9), cert. denied, 444 U. S. 826 (1979); see also United States v. Felter, 752 F. 2d 1505, 1509 (CA10 1985).

[5] We therefore do not address the Solicitor General’s argument that Dion’s hunting is outside the scope of the treaty right because that right does not protect hunting “to extinction.”

[6] See also Wilkinson & Volkman, Judicial Review of Indian Treaty Abrogation: “As Long as Water Flows, or Grass Grows Upon the Earth” — How Long a Time Is That?, 63 Calif. L. Rev. 601 (1975) (hereinafter Wilkinson & Volkman).

[7] Various witnesses, during the course of the Subcommittee hearings, gave testimony relating to the effect of the proposed ban on Indian tribes. See House Hearings 15, 20, 29, 34, 35, 39, 47.

[8] Respondent’s argument that Congress in amending the Eagle Protection Act meant to benefit nontreaty tribes is also flawed. Indian reservations created by statute, agreement, or executive order normally carry with them the same implicit hunting rights as those created by treaty. See Cohen 224; Antoine v. Washington, 420 U. S. 194 (1975).

Supreme Court Citations to Indian Law Scholarship

In light of recent commentaries about the value (or lack thereof) of legal scholarship (here) and new scholarship about the frequency the Supreme Court Justices cite to legal scholarship (it’s rather a lot), we thought it would be fun to list some findings about the Supreme Court’s citations of Indian law scholarship going back to 1959.

We’ll look later at the frequency of citations overall in later work.

Treatises and Casebooks

First, let’s get the Cohen Handbook out of the way. We have a liberal definition of legal scholarship (no pun intended). The numbers in parentheses are number of cases, and number of citations):

Cohen 2005 — 2 cases, 11 citations [U.S. v Jicarilla Apache had 10 cites alone -- guess the Court is finally reading the thing]

Cohen 1982 — 31, 72

Cohen 1958 [actually, Dept. of Interior rewrite] — 20, 40

Cohen 1940/1940/1942/1945 — 15, 29

Overall, the Handbook of Federal Indian Law in all its incarnations has been cited in 68 cases, for a total of 152 citations.

Law and the American Indian/American Indian Law

Price, 1973 edition — 3 cases, 4 citations

Price & Clinton, 1983 edition — 1 case, 1 cite

Clinton, Newton, and Price, 1991 edition — 1 case, 1 cite

Getches, Wilkinson, and Williams on Federal Indian Law – 1 case, 1 cite

Canby Nutshell — 1998 edition – 1 case, 1 cite

Mills, Oklahoma Indian Land Laws (1924) – 1 case, 1 cite

Law Review Article/Book Authors

Leading Repeat Players: There aren’t very many of these. Most articles or books cited are one and done. Here are the top repeat players,  their articles, and the opinions that cite them:

Robert Clinton: 6 cases, 7 citations (3 different articles)

Clinton, Isolated in Their Own Country: A Defense of Federal Protection of Indian Autonomy and Self-Government, 33 Stan. L.Rev. 979, 1002-1003 (1981)

* United States v. Navajo Nation, 537 U.S. 488 (2003) – 1 time in Souter dissent

Clinton, Criminal Jurisdiction Over Indian Lands: A Journey Through a Jurisdictional Maze, 18 Ariz.L.Rev. 505 (1976)

* Duro v. Reina, 495 U.S. 676 (1990) – 1 time in majority (Kennedy)

Clinton & Hotopp, Judicial Enforcement of the Federal Restraints on Alienation of Indian Land: The Origins of the Eastern Land Claims, 31 Me. L.Rev. 17, 23–38 (1979)

* City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation, 544 U.S. 197 (2005) – 1 time in majority (Ginsburg)

* Idaho v. Coeur d’Alene Tribe, 521 U.S. 261 (1997) – 1 time in Souter dissent

* South Carolina v. Catawba Indian Tribe, 476 U.S. 498 (1986) – 2 times by dissent (Blackmun)

* County of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation, 470 U.S. 226 (1985) – 2 times by majority (Powell)

Felix Cohen — 6 cases, 7 citations (3 different articles, not to mention the Handbook)

Cohen, Original Indian Title, 32 Minn.L.Rev. 28 (1947)

* South Carolina v. Catawba Indian Tribe, 476 U.S. 498 (1986) – 1 time by dissent (Blackmun)

* County of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation, 470 U.S. 226 (1985) – 1 time by majority (Powell)

* United States v. Dann, 470 U.S. 39 (1985) – 2 times by majority (Brennan)

Cohen, Indian Rights and the Federal Courts, 24 Minn.L.Rev. 145, 153 (1940)

* Organized Village of Kake v. Egan, 369 U.S. 60 (1962) – 1 time by majority (Frankfurter)

Cohen, Spanish Origin of Indian Rights, 31 Geo.L.J. 1 (1942)

* United States v. Dann, 470 U.S. 39 (1985) – 1 time by majority (Brennan)

* Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe, 455 U.S. 130 (1982) – 1 time by majority (Marshall)

Carole Goldberg – 4 cases, 13 citations (1 article)

Goldberg, Public Law 280: The Limits of State Jurisdiction over Reservation Indians, 22 UCLA L.Rev. 535, 540-544 (1975)

* Three Affiliated Tribes v. Wold, 476 U.S. 877 (1986) – 3 times by majority (SOC)

* Three Affiliated Tribes v. Wold Engineering, 467 U.S. 138 (1984) – 2 times by majority (Blackmun)

* Washington v. Confederated Bands and Tribes of the Yakima Indian Nation, 439 U.S. 463 (1979) – 3 times by majority (Stewart); 1 time by dissent (Marshall)

* Bryan v. Itasca County, 426 U.S. 373 (1976) – 4 times by majority (Brennan)

Charles Wilkinson – 3 cases, 4 citations (3 different articles/books)

G. Coggins & C. Wilkinson, Federal Public Land and Resources Law 434 (1981)

* Amoco Production Co. v. Village of Gambell, 480 U.S. 531 (1987) – 1 time by majority (White)

Wilkinson & Biggs, The Evolution of the Termination Policy, 5 American Indian L.Rev. 139 (1977)

* South Carolina v. Catawba Indian Tribe, 476 U.S. 498 (1986) – 1 time by dissent (Blackmun)

Wilkinson & Volkman, Judicial Review of Indian Treaty Abrogation: “As Long as Water Flows, or Grass Grows Upon the Earth”-How Long a Time Is That?, 63 Calif.L.Rev. 601 (1975)

* United States v. Dion, 476 U.S. 734 (1986) – 2 times by majority (Marshall)

Other Repeat Players

Joseph Burke – 2 cases, 2 citations

Burke, The Cherokee Cases: A Study in Law, Politics, and Morality, 21 Stan.L.Rev. 500 (1969)

* United States v. John, 437 U.S. 634 (1978) – 1 time by majority (Blackmun)

* Choctaw Nation v. Oklahoma, 397 U.S. 620 (1970) – 1 time by majority (Marshall)

Reid Chambers & Monroe Price: 2 cases, 2 citations

Chambers & Price, Regulating Sovereignty: Secretarial Discretion and the Leasing of Indian Lands, 26 Stan. L.Rev. 1061, 1061-1068 (1974)

* United States v. Navajo Nation, 537 U.S. 488 (2003) – 1 time in Souter dissent

* Mountain States Telephone & Telegraph Co. v. Pueblo of Santa Ana, 472 U.S. 237 (1985) – 1 time by dissent (Brennan)

Gerald Gunther – 2 cases, 6 citations

Gunther, Governmental Power and New York Indian Lands—A Reassessment of a Persistent Problem of Federal–State Relations, 8 Buffalo L.Rev. 1, 4–6 (1958–1959)

* City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation, 544 U.S. 197 (2005) – 4 times in majority (Ginsburg)

* Oneida Indian Nation v. County of Oneida, 414 U.S. 661 (1974) – 2 times by majority (White)

William Hagen – 2 cases, 2 citations

W. Hagan, Indian Police and Judges 104-125 (1966)

* Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49 (1978) – 1 time by majority (Marshall)

* Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 435 U.S. 191 (1978) – 1 time by majority (Rehnquist)

Most-Cited Student Authored Paper – 2 cases, 4 citations

Comment, Tribal Self-Government and the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, 70 Mich.L.Rev. 955, 959 (1972)

* Northern Cheyenne Tribe v. Hollowbeast, 425 U.S. 649 (1976) – 1 time by majority (Brennan)

* Mescalero Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U.S. 145 (1973) – 3 times by majority (White)

The Most-Cited Organizational Author — National American Indian Court Judges Association – 4 cases, 8 citations (3 reports)

National American Indian Court Judges Assn., Indian Courts and the Future (Getches, ed. 1978)

* Nevada v. Hicks, 533 U.S. 353 (2001) – 1 time by Souter concurrence

National American Indian Court Judges Association, Native American Tribal Court Profiles (1984)

* Duro v. Reina, 495 U.S. 676 (1990) – 1 time by majority

National American Indian Court Judges Assn., Justice and the American Indian: The Impact of Public Law 280 upon the Administration of Justice on Indian Reservations 6–13 (1974)

* Washington v. Confederated Bands and Tribes of the Yakima Indian Nation, 439 U.S. 463 (1979) – 4 times by majority (Stewart); 1 time by dissent (Marshall)

* Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 435 U.S. 191 (1978) – 1 time by majority (Rehnquist)

Honorable Mention — Father Prucha

Not a legal scholar (and not always terribly friendly to tribal interests, either), but Father Prucha merits a mention for his 8 cases and 9 citations (three books, plus another he edited):

F. Prucha, The Great Father (1984)

* Hagen v. Utah, 510 U.S. 399 (1994) – 1 time by dissent (Blackmun)

* South Carolina v. Catawba Indian Tribe, 476 U.S. 498 (1986) – 2 times by dissent (Blackmun)

Prucha, American Indian Policy in the Formative Years (1962)

* United States v. Lara, 541 U.S. 193 (2004) – 1 time by majority (Breyer)

* South Carolina v. Catawba Indian Tribe, 476 U.S. 498 (1986) – 1 time by dissent (Blackmun)

* County of Oneida v. Oneida Indian Nation, 470 U.S. 226 (1985) – 1 time by majority (Powell)

* Wilson v. Omaha Tribe, 442 U.S. 653 (1979) – 1 time by majority (White)

Prucha, Andrew Jackson’s Indian Policy: A Reassessment, 56 J. of Am. Hist. 527 (1969)

* United States v. John, 437 U.S. 634 (1978) – 1 time by majority (Blackmun)

Otis, The Dawes Act and the Allotment of Indian Lands (Prucha ed. 1973)

* Hagen v. Utah, 510 U.S. 399 (1994) – 1 time by dissent (Blackmun)

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7 Responses to Supreme Court Citations to Indian Law Scholarship

1. James Oberly

August 16, 2011 at 10:23 am

Prof. Fletcher– Thank you for this post. Your question caused me to re-read the opinion and dissents in *Minnesota v. Mille Lacs* (1999). Neither the opinion, written by Justice O’Connor, nor the dissents by Chief Justice Rehnquist and by Justice Thomas, cite a single scholarly secondary source. There were no footnotes or parenthetical cites to law reviews, and none to history books. However, the opinion did cite many times the research reports prepared for trial by anthropologists and historians, especially those of Charles Cleland and Bruce White. They later published those reports as *Fish in the Lakes, Wilde Rice, and Game in Abundance* (Mich. State U. Press, 2000), edited by James McClurken. That leads me to ask: can you include in your tally the number of times scholarly research reports submitted at trial are cited by the Court?
Thanks,
–Jim Oberly
History Department, Univ. of Wisconsin-Eau Claire

Reply

• • Matthew L.M. Fletcher

August 16, 2011 at 10:26 am

Probably. Hopefully. It’s part of a broader research project.

Reply

2. James Oberly

August 16, 2011 at 10:51 am

Thanks, and good luck on the broader project. The McClurken-edited volume may be instructive–the scholars wrote their reports for trial, and only after the Supreme Court ruled, did they publish their work.

Reply

3. Lori WIndle

August 16, 2011 at 12:14 pm

Looking for Stephen Pevar’s book, “The Rights of Indians and Tribes” – is there a reason this is not included? Is it because it is more of a layman’s handbook on Federal Indian law? Perhaps in a later article?
thanks-

Reply

• • Matthew L.M. Fletcher

August 16, 2011 at 12:29 pm

It just wasn’t cited. Should be, perhaps, but it wasn’t.

Reply

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5/8/2014 11:00:37 AM

 The Project Gutenberg eBook of Half-Century Of Conflict, by …

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Project Gutenberg’s A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I, by Francis Parkman This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no …

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5/8/2014 11:00:54 AM

As Long as Grass Grows

The original idea of Indian removal to the West was devised under Thomas Jefferson, based on voluntary consent. The following quote has become infamous for representing the failure of a long succession of U.S. presidents unable to fulfill their promises to American Indians:

“You are now in a country where you can be happy; no white man shall ever again disturb you; the Arkansas [River] will protect your southern boundary when you get there. You will be protected on either side; the white shall never again encroach upon you, and you will have a great outlet to the West.

As long as water flows, or grass grows upon the earth, or the sun rises to show your pathway, or you kindle your camp fires, so long shall you be protected from your present habitations.”

- President Monroe, 1817

It is impossible to know when humans first came to this region. Before the coming of the white man, bronze-skinned men and women from northern Asia had been exploring and settling in the Americas for anywhere from ten to fifty thousand years ago. Archeological clues give evidence of giant mastodons and other primeval animal life, but also of foraging hunter bands, prehistoric pole-and-thatch villages, and great burial mounds. The indigenous Spiro Mound builders flourished in Oklahoma from 500 to 1300 A.D..

The Spanish were the first European explorers to record their observations of the area as early as 1541, noting at the time that tribal boundaries were unclear.  The Spanish and French recorded their observations of the Caddo, Wichita, Quapaw, Osage and Plains Apache tribes that were traveling through the region using resources of the abundant plains to provide for their families.

 In the late seventeenth century, Comanches adapted Spanish horses to buffalo hunting and pushed their territorial range as far east as the Cross Timbers. Their superior war resources enabled them to subdue all tribes in their way and by 1725 they had mastered the southern Great Plains.

Following vast herds and establishing early economies, seeking shelter, establishing boundaries and putting down roots created alliances and inter-tribal wars as more tribes came to the area by the start of the nineteenth century.

Indian removal from the eastern United States began in earnest in the 1830′s and continued until the 1870′s. In the 1830′s the Federal Government began moving the Indians, including the Five Civilized Tribes, to Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. In 1854, many of these Indians were moved onto the plains of Oklahoma which were ideal for roaming buffalo herds. The Indians hunted the buffalo for food, clothing, shelter and fuel. With the introduction of white settlement into Indian Territory, the buffalo supply quickly became depleted. 

There is no indication that Indians lived in Edmond at the time of settlement, however, there are accounts of Indians coming to Edmond to trade. According to a February 13, 1891,Edmond SUN article ”The reservations that were located east of Edmond included: 10 miles to the Iowa Reservation, 10 miles to the Kickapoo Reservation, 15 miles to the Pottawatamie Reservation and 30 miles to the Sac and Fox Reservation.”

Our Special Thanks to Harvey Payne, Wildlife Photographer and the Nature Conservancy

for the donation of the image “Tall Grass Prairie Autumn” photograph featured on our Native Mural Wall.

Click Here to go to our “Links” page for Tribal Websites of the area

Search the Dawes Final Rolls at the Oklahoma History Center

Crowder, Historic Edmond, Hoig, Beyond the Frontier, Nabokov, Native American Testimony, Oklahoma Encyclopedia of History & Culture

http://www.edmondhistory.org/exhibits/as-long-as-grass-grows/

The original idea of Indian removal to the West was devised under Thomas Jefferson, based on voluntary consent. The following quote has become infamous for representing the failure of a long succession of U.S. presidents unable to fulfill their promises to American Indians:

“You are now in a country where you can be happy; no white man shall ever again disturb you; the Arkansas [River] will protect your southern boundary when you get there. You will be protected on either side; the white shall never again encroach upon you, and you will have a great outlet to the West.

As long as water flows, or grass grows upon the earth, or the sun rises to show your pathway, or you kindle your camp fires, so long shall you be protected from your present habitations.”

- President Monroe, 1817

http://rotinonshonnionhwetkanatahere.wordpress.com/untold-history/covenants/two-row-wampum/

Two-Row Wampum

The Two Row Wampum treaty, also known as Guswhenta or Kaswhenta, is an agreement such as that made between representatives of League of Great Peace (Five Nations) and  representatives of the VOC / Dutch government in 1613 in what is now upstate New York. This treaty is considered by the Ka-nyen-geh-ha-kah to be the basis of all subsequent treaties with European and North American governments, including the Covenant Chain treaty with the British in 1677.

The original idea of Indian removal to the West was devised under Thomas Jefferson, based on voluntary consent. The following quote has become infamous for representing the failure of a long succession of U.S. presidents unable to fulfill their promises to American Indians:

“You are now in a country where you can be happy; no white man shall ever again disturb you; the Arkansas [River] will protect your southern boundary when you get there. You will be protected on either side; the white shall never again encroach upon you, and you will have a great outlet to the West.

As long as water flows, or grass grows upon the earth, or the sun rises to show your pathway, or you kindle your camp fires, so long shall you be protected from your present habitations.”

- President Monroe, 1817

Lakota Grandmothers to file U.N. Genocide Charges Against US, South Dakota

Human Rights Abuses on Native Lands
by JEFF ARMSTRONG

Lakota Grandmothers to file U.N. Genocide Charges Against US, South Dakota

In April, a grassroots movement led by Lakota grandmothers toured the country to build support for a formal complaint of genocide against the United States government and its constituent states. Though temporarily overturned, the recent conviction of Efrain Rios Montt for genocide against indigenous Guatemalans should give US officials, particularly members of the Supreme Court, pause before dismissing the UN petition as a feeble symbolic gesture.

The tribal elders’ 12-city speaking tour culminated in an April 9 march on United Nations headquarters in New York and an April 18 press conference in Washington, D.C., where the Supreme Court had just heard arguments in a challenge to the landmark 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA). Attracting support from Occupy Wall Street and other non-Native allies in the New York march, the Lakota Truth Tour delegation was physically blocked by UN security officers from presenting Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s office a notice of charges against the U.S. under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

An excerpt from the complaint, still being refined into its final, legal form, reads: “This letter serves notice as complaint, that the crime of genocide is being committed, in an ongoing manner, against the matriarchal Tetuwan Lakota Oyate of the Oceti Sakowin, an Indigenous First Nation people whose ancestral lands comprise a large area of the Northern Great Plains of Turtle Island, the continent known as North America.” As evidence, the Lakota cite systematic American usurpation of their land and sovereignty rights, imposition of third-world living conditions on the majority of Lakota, US assimilation policies that threaten the future of their language, culture and identity, and environmental depredations including abandoned open uranium mines and the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline slated to invade the Pine Ridge Reservation. The Lakota grandmothers and their allies in the Lakota Solidarity Project have even produced a powerful, full-length documentary, Red Cry, available on DVD or online at:
www.lakotagrandmothers.org/media/.

But the UN complaint is just one facet of a multi-pronged legal, political and educational movement within the indigenous Lakota (Sioux) nation to stop the state removal of Native children from their families into white foster homes and institutions, arguably the most salient and best-documented evidence of ongoing US violation of the genocide convention. Article 2 of the convention defines acts of genocide as follows:

“…any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

Historically, one could make a case for the applicability of most, if not all, of the above provisions to official US policies over more than two centuries. Certainly the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Wounded Knee massacre (of which the perpetrators have yet to be stripped of their Medals of Honor) and Sand Creek slaughter perpetrated by the US military in the latter part of the 19th century, the General Allotment Act of the same time period, the Termination/Relocation policy of the 1950s, the FBI’s war on the American Indian Movement, and the cumulative legal decisions validating the above on explicit or implicit grounds of racial or cultural superiority, come to mind as constituting violations of contemporary international standards of crimes against humanity, if not genocide per se.

Indeed, the ink was scarcely dry on the Genocide Convention before the US deliberately set out to violate Article 2(e) by arbitrarily removing Native children from their families as part of a comprehensive strategy of abolishing reservation boundaries and absorbing indigenous peoples into the states that surround and besiege them. In 1950 President Truman appointed Dillon S. Meyer, fresh from his experience administering the Japanese internment camps with an iron fist, as Indian Commissioner to carry out the final solution to the Indian Problem (i.e., their stubborn refusal to fade into the mists of history, itself a genocidal concept) that has haunted this nation since its inception. It was the formal policy and procedure of the United States at the time to forcibly transfer indigenous children to white homes and boarding schools as a component of a strategy to “terminate” tribes as distinct peoples, meeting the essential threshold of intent under the Genocide Convention. It would have been embarrassing to say the least if the Soviet Union or its allies would have initiated legal genocide charges against the self-avowed fount of human liberty at the United Nations. So it was that the US celebrated its victory over genocidal Nazi imperialism by rebranding the practice in Indian Country as emancipatory individualism and refusing to ratify the 1948 convention until nearly 40 years later.

Ironically, it was the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 that enabled the US to ratify the Genocide Convention by manifesting its intention to stop the wholesale removal of Native children from their families and tribes. ICWA established minimal protections of due-process rights for indigenous parents and recognized the exclusive jurisdiction of existing tribal courts to adjudicate child welfare cases within reservation boundaries, also allowing tribes to intervene in state cases. Ratified by the US in 1986, the Genocide Convention was not implemented until 1989, and then only after denying universal jurisdiction and limiting prosecutions under the act to a five-year statute of limitations for violations of the federal crime of genocide. As a measure of the government’s commitment to punishing the ultimate international crime, the federal offenses of arson, art theft, immigration violation and some crimes against financial institutions all carry a statute of limitations period longer than five years. Rios Montt himself would be immune from prosecution under the federal genocide act.

A remarkable 2011 National Public Radio series, Native Foster Care: Lost Children, Shattered Families, revealed that the federal government not only fails to enforce the baseline standards of ICWA against the states. but actually underwrites the removal of Native children in some cases with additional funds, adding an economic incentive to the racial and cultural ones. Focusing on South Dakota, a yearlong investigation by NPR reporters Laura Sullivan and Amy Walters found that 90% of the 700 Native children taken from their homes yearly in that state were placed in white foster homes or group homes, in blatant violation of ICWA provisions mandating that any Indian child taken into foster care be placed with a family member, tribal member, or other Native family in the absence of “good cause” to the contrary.

Far from punishing states for violations of ICWA, despite its finding that 32 states systemically violate its terms, the federal government effectively promotes the legal abduction of children by offering a $12,000 bounty to the state for permanently removing “special needs” children from their natural families to adoptive placement, a designation the state of South Dakota applies to all indigenous children, according to NPR. Foster families in South Dakota receive as much as $9,000 annually for each child. While the federal government also provides ICWA workers for each reservation, these typically serve as flunkies for the states, at most tepidly attempting to shift federal funds to tribal coffers. The NPR report quoted Crow Creek ICWA Director Dave Valandra saying, “I get along real good with the state and I have a good rapport with them.” This fraternal relationship is unhindered by the fact that none of the 13 cases Valandra is working on involve placement in Native homes, which apparently never occurred to the ICWA director before being confronted by a reporter: “”Of my cases right now, I think they’re all…right now, the placement of the children right now are…boy that’s, huh,” he said.

Perhaps the most damning revelation of the NPR report, however, is its tracing of South Dakota’s kidnapping for profit scheme to the state’s highest official:

“Critics say foster care in South Dakota has become a powerhouse for private group home providers who bring in millions of dollars in state contracts to care for kids. Among them is Children’s Home Society, the state’s largest foster care provider, which has close ties with top government officials. It used to be run by South Dakota’s Gov. Dennis Daugard. An NPR investigation has found that Daugard was on the group’s payroll while he was lieutenant governor — and while the group received tens of millions of dollars in no-bid state contracts. It’s an unusual relationship highlighting the powerful role money and politics play in South Dakota’s foster care system.”

If the federal government were to uphold its obligations under ICWA and the Genocide Convention, Gov. Daugaard would seem a fit candidate for the first indictment of a US-born citizen under the federal genocide statute. Thwarted by the five-year limitation, the US Justice Department indicted former Rwandan official Lazare Kobagaya in 2009 for allegedly lying about his participation in genocide on his application for citizenship, but the government failed to prove his involvement in the 1994 bloodbath and eventually dropped the charges. At a May 15-17 Great Plains Indian Child Welfare Act Summit, Daugaard declined to attend, despite a personal invitation from US Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn, the top federal Indian bureaucrat. So Daugaard is not only aware, thanks to the NPR report, of the genocidal effects of policies from which he personally profited, but is unwilling to meet with the victims toward rectification of the crimes of his Department of Social Services, which include the coverup of cases of sexual assault in white foster homes and extensive pharmaceutical drugging of children without parental consent. Following the governor’s lead, no South Dakota officials attended the historic meeting, in which nine tribes and top federal officials participated, along with more than 200 aggrieved tribal members.

The tribal summit and the NPR series were spearheaded by the Lakota People’s Law Project (LPLP), which has relentlessly challenged the state legally and politically and is bringing increasing pressure on the federal government to act. Dan Sheehan, chief legal counsel for the LPLP and director of the Romero (formerly Christic) Institute, said South Dakota officials are “into a total dialectical, confrontational stance. They’re feeling like they’re under siege from the tribes, so they’re circling the wagons and getting ready to fight.” Sheehan said the South Dakota legislature recently appropriated $2.3 million to defend the state from an imminent class-action federal civil rights lawsuit.

Sheehan traced the institutionalization of state kidnapping of Native children back to the late William Janklow, a former South Dakota congressman, governor, and attorney general notorious for his role in what the the Lakota refer to as the “Reign of Terror” on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the years following the American Indian Movement-led occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973. According to Sheehan, members of the George W. Bush administration tipped off Janklow on a Texas strategy to grab millions of dollars in federal subsidies by administering a psychological test devised by the Eli Lilly pharmaceutical corporation to children taken into protective custody. Replicating the strategy, South Dakota developed a mental health test failed by 98% of Native children, who then become “special needs” cases under federal law, with the state receiving up to $79,000 for each Indian child and the child being placed involuntarily on psychoactive drugs.

“They ask questions like ‘do you feel like people are staring at you when you go out in public’ in racist Rapid City, or ‘do you feel you’re treated unfairly’ to a child who’s just been uprooted from his home and placed with strangers,” said Sheehan.

The immediate priorities of the LPLP, Sheehan says, are to effect the transfer of South Dakota child protection services to the tribes and to persuade the US Justice Department to serve as lead plaintiff in its civil rights suit against the state. The latter is currently on hold pending the Supreme Court’s decision in the atypical “Baby Veronica” case, which challenges the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act.

Sheehan says tribal officials have yet to determine whether they will support the Lakota Grandmothers’ UN genocide petition, suggesting their decision may hinge on whether the Justice Department exercises its responsibility to take up their cause domestically. And while it is exceedingly unlikely that President Obama or Chief Justice Roberts (who termed the minimal protections of ICWA placement standards “extraordinary rights” in oral arguments) will ever be called to account by an international tribunal for complicity in genocide so long as the US refuses to accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, they may wish to consider the potential damage to their personal reputations and that of their nation that even an unenforceable international verdict could bring.

Just ask Lazare Kobagaya.

Jeff Armstrong is a longtime journalist and activist in Fargo, North Dakota. He can be reached at armstrong@i29.net

From: Lakota to file UN Genocide Charges Against US, South Dakota » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

1 417 320 6480 
(Words & music by mark james)
We’re caught in a trap
I can’t walk out
Because I love you too much baby

Why can’t you see
What you’re doing to me
When you don’t believe a word I say?

We can’t go on together
With suspicious minds
And we can’t build our dreams
On suspicious minds

So, if an old friend I know
Drops by to say hello
Would I still see suspicion in your eyes?

Here we go again
Asking where I’ve been
You can see these tears are real
I’m crying

We can’t go on together
With suspicious minds
And be can’t build our dreams
On suspicious minds

Oh let our love survive
Or dry the tears from your eyes
Lets don’t let a good thing die

When honey, you know
I’ve never lied to you
Mmm yeah, yeah
Songwriters: Francis Zambon
March 26, 2013
 
 
Clarity Recovery & Wellness (formerly Sigma House)
800 S. Park Ave., Springfield, MO 65802
417-862-3339
Clarityrecovery.org or sigmahouse.org
 
 
March 25, 2013
 
For Immediate Release
Contact: Dawn Erickson, 417-335-5946 or dawn.erickson@sigmahouse.org
 
 
Sigma House becomes Clarity Recovery & Wellness
 
(Springfield, Mo.)      A branding process of nearly two years culminated Friday in the adoption of a new identity for an addiction recovery center based in Springfield.
 
Sigma House of Springfield was renamed Clarity Recovery & Wellness after a branding process that involved grants, contests and a great deal of research. The change affects Sigma House facilities in Springfield and Nixa; however, the Branson facility will still be called the Simmering Center after the late Larry Simmering, its benefactor and supporter.
 
The internationally accredited agency began a branding process after determining that few people recognized it as an addiction center when they heard its name.
 
“The general public was more likely to think we are a fraternity or sorority than a recovery center,” said the agency’s president, Merna Eppick. “We chose Clarity because clients in recovery begin to see how much better their lives can be without drug or alcohol dependency.”
 
The new identity was announced March 22 with a gala reception at the Mansion at Elfindale in Springfield. Special guest speaker was the Rev. Dorsey Levell, who founded and named Sigma House in 1977 as executive director of the Council of Churches of the Ozarks. He assured Sigma House’s present leadership that the original name had no special meaning or significance and that he supported the rebranding effort.
 
Other special guests were Branson Mayor Raeanne Presley, Senator Bob Dixon, Representative Sonya Anderson, and representatives of Senator Roy Blunt’s and Congressman Billy Long’s offices. The Rev. Mark Struckhoff, current executive director of the Council of Churches, also took part in the presentation.
 
Clarity Recovery & Wellness campuses are located at 800 S. Park Avenue and 1016 W. Battlefield Road in Springfield, 360 Rinehart Road in Branson, and 301 E. Highway CC in Nixa. The agency’s 80 staff members provide detoxification services, residential and outpatient addiction treatment, family support and parenting services to about 12,000 clients per year. Clarity’s service area includes Greene, Christian, Taney, Stone, Barry, Lawrence, Dade, Polk, Dallas, Webster and Douglas counties in Missouri. 
                                                                      
Contact:
Dawn Erickson
dawn.erickson@sigmahouse.org, 417-335-5946