The Fleeing Value of the Reservation

Before continuing with the notes from Rosier, I want to emphasize the value offered by the Blackft reservation and the failure by the tribe to capture it because of schisms that prevent political unity.

1. The first value came from the buffalo, which were killed into oblivion. But in this case the Blackft, by supplying dry meat and tanned hides to traders and other entrepreneurs such as Cree willing to trap, did capture some value.

2. When the buffalo were gone and the government was shipping in commodities as treaty payments and compensations, all the profit of shipping contracts went to off-rez contractors, while the materials didn’t always make it through, transformed in transit, or were dismally substandard though full price was paid.

3. The third value came from the grass, once the buffalo were gone and the prairie was clear for the big open range herds coming up from Texas. Though the tribe theoretically had cattle and horses, they rarely got much out of them, while the cattle barons trespassed at will. Later, the Blackft got lower leasing fees than other reservations, though their grazing was much bettter.

4. The next value came from the railroad right-of-way along the High Line (indeed, CREATING the term “high line”) which James J. Hill needed in order to keep the Canadians from draining shipping. The best pass in the north, Marias Pass, opened onto the Blackfeet reservation. The whole railway hinged on it.

5. Besides right-of-way grants, the railroad took more than they were granted, used Blackft timber, water, and gravel, sometimes without payment and sometimes with “special” prices.

6. Prospectors searched everywhere on the rez with no payment for permission. The Sweetgrass Hills were taken because of Gold Butte, where there really was a productive gold mine. Luckily, they didn’t find much more.

7. On the southern land a million-dollar irrigation system was built that the Blackft didn’t want, didn’t use, and didn’t work properly anyhow. In the St. Marys Valley there was diversion and damming of water that benefited people all along the High-Line clear to the Dakotas.

8. Moving the boundary of the reservation was a great source of speculation. Whites occupied and used reservation land, then arranged to get ownership by moving the boundary.

9. Agents treated Blackft money and assets like their own and sold cattle or hay to their friends in “sweet deals.”

10. Glacier National Park was sold to save the People from starving. It also helped James J. Hill keep his railroad busy and his big hotels hopping, esp. through the Prohibition years. The “romantic” tourist potential of Blackft land was concentrated on Glacier Park, where Indians camped on the lawn in return for eating the restaurant leftovers in the kitchen after supper.


All this was possible because of the many conflicts and complexities of the population:

1. A split developed early between full-bloods and mixed-bloods.

2. This split was emphasized by the generational differences, since most full bloods were older and had had quite different life experiences.

3. Whites used mixed-bloods as means and access, either by marrying Indians or by operating through the entitlements of their children, which they supplemented with their own resources.

4. Therefore the full/mixed blood split was aggravated by prosperity among the mixed bloods but poverty to the point of starvation in the full-bloods.

5. Also, the mixed bloods tended to live in the settlements, so they picked up ideas and made networks. The full bloods tended to live in outlying areas where they just weren’t told what was going on -- even when it was time to vote or attend meetings.

6. Campbell, in his fondness for the full-bloods and his insistence on the necessity of subsistence farming, drove the split even deeper. After his trick of taking votes among his small grange groups and obeying them instead of the tribal council, being in dispersed “districts” was always seen as opposed to centralized management through the Tribal Council and agency.

7. Because Campbell ignored the development of oil resources while Cut Bank drillers sucked money out of the ground, probably out from under the reservation, the craving for oil development became ever stronger. But even then there were splits: between those who wished the tribe to drill for oil with their own companies and those who would rather lease to off-rez companies (like James J. Hill), between those who felt the Blackft should manage such resources as a corporate entity or those who thought it was better for individuals with patented land to make oil drilling contracts of their own.

8. At this point some wanted to return to ownership of land in common, repealing the Dawes Act, but others noted that the mixed bloods -- who had encumbered their allotments by borrowing and had even lost some of their land to nonpayment of debts -- would unjustly benefit when the full-bloods -- who had hung onto their land -- put their allotments back in.

9. The United States government technically held all unpatented land in trust for individual Indians. (Like George W. Bush’s idea for Social Security.) This was done in such a confused and negligent way that they have remained hopelessly snarled ever since. Now, of course, there is a lawsuit forcing reform.

10. No matter what the supposedly independent Blackft Tribal Business Council did, the Agent had the power to override them. There were very few agents who lasted more than a year and many lasted only months, while another large proportion spent many months “away.” No one could predict what the Agent would say and, in any event, he was at the mercy of his bosses back East, who never understood or cared what the realities were so far away from Washington, D.C.

Modern tribal members are now awakened to the value of the many rights-of-way across the reservation for electrical lines, electronic transmission towers, oil pipelines, fiberoptic lines, highway improvements, and other infrastructure. They are also alarmed and vigilant about water rights, since global warming and drought are shrinking what once seemed an inexhaustible supply of water from the Rocky Mountain snowpack. But they are probably even more divided amongst themselves than before. About half of the tribal members don’t live on the reservation anymore and are anxious to have profits today rather than re-investment in the future. The potential of tribal taxes and casinoes are controversial.