Notes from Rosier Chapter 4

Rosier's sub-heading for this chapter is “Contours of the Blackfeet Economy, 1934-1940.” It could be equally well “be awful careful what you wish for -- you’re liable to get it.” Self-government was harder than it looked.

Indian New Deal organizations and programs seemed to work well. The Big Claim payout of 1936 was not dissipated carelessly by most people, who needed such basics as furniture and clothes for their children. But the “magic” of oil wells was more problematic. Given permission to lease, the Tribe had to learn how to negotiate a lease agreement that would protect the tribe and motivate the lessor to drill. (A constant problem was a signed lease followed by no drilling, which meant that no payments followed either.) Felix Cohen was largely responsible for teaching the Council how to design a lease.

At first there was great hope that cattle raising would turn out to more-or-less like buffalo raising, but this couldn’t happen. The weather swings were too violent and cows were dependent on humans to buffer them with shelter and grass. The hard winter and dry summer of 1919-1920 wiped out tens of thousands of cattle. Sorting, calving and maintaining cows is labor-intensive work. Some folks had big vigorous families or enough money to hire help and managed to reach critical mass with their herds. Others just ended up eating or losing the cows. A few were aggressive enough that they ignored restrictions and succeeded that way.

Government infusions of cattle always went to the already successful -- but why give them to those who didn’t understand cattle? Some moved over to sheep, where there were two payouts a year: once for meat and once for wool. The animals were a little easier to manage. The Lamb and Wool Producers Association was organized in 1937.

Government people were sent in to try to understand the situation and see what could be done. David Rodnick, an anthropologist, warned of the dangers of creating a two-tier reservation where the “whiter” people dominated the wealth and the old Indians became ever more angry as they ended up on the bottom again and again. Politics split open over questions of whether tribal assets should go to infrastructure and loans to help the already self-sufficient, or whether it should simply go to per capita payouts and welfare to those in need. There was no question that the need was real. “Full-blood” equalled old and often sick, as well as the handicap of not being able to cope with a paper rule-ridden world.

John Krall was the tribe’s extension agent, trying to sort out what had been good about Campbell’s programs and continue with new organizations. He was constantly frustrated and claimed between half and a third of the population were just lazy -- simply wouldn’t try. Krall’s strong suit was that he had served as state director of rehabilitation and resettlement, so he knew how to use the federal Resettlement Administration and Distribution of Surplus Commodities.

Too often the Tribal Council would see something (maybe too many people dissipating their herds through sales), enact a regulation which caused an outcry which was addressed with contradictions from the Office of Indian Affairs which made everyone angry and brought in a protesting group. (When counselling alcoholics, one is taught to fear triangles which too often lead to strategies like blaming, rescuing, and sinking into victimhood in a way that traps all three corners.)

The Recommendation Committe on Loans (later the Credit Committee) was supposed to supervise the Revolving Credit Fund. The Tribal Council composed a two hundred thousand dollar plan for economic rehabilitation. They were thinking in terms of relocating young families out onto the irrigated flats to raise crops. Of course, they were more likely to be mixed blood, but they had to be young in order to do the necessary work. This was the Two Medicine Irrigation Project. Not everyone understood that a loan had to be repaid. And, as Rosier remarks, if one compares the efforts of the Tribe in these years with the efforts of Montana counties to support their populations, it’s clear that times in general were very hard. Drought had created a dustbowl that crept farther and farther north into Indian country.

Full bloods felt left out -- H. Scudder Mekeel, another anthropologist reported “the constant and growing problem of keeping Indians fed and alive.” As starving people moved to Browning in the same way that rural starving people always move to towns in search of food, the slum worsened on Moccasin Flats.

These are the years in which “arts and crafts” began to be promoted as a way for Indians, especially old-timers, to make money. Some people were aware than water rights had to be guarded, since small surrounding dryland towns were feeling thirsty.

In 1938 ten of the thirteen Tribal Council members were voted out, including Joe Brown who had worked so hard and intelligently. Hazlett was installed by a landslide. The people had been restless over the many changes, especially the ones they didn’t understand or that cut against them, and Stuart Hazlett knew how to take advantage of this. One-eighth Indian, he lived in Choteau and worked for the newspaper. He was a Carlisle graduate but he was tainted by being fired as agency lease clerk for his part in slipping Blackfeet fee patents for land to whites in 1919. His strategy continues to the present day: written attacks on the standing order through long eloquent letters to the newspaper and promises of reform. The Blackfeet Indian Welfare Association also became one of his useful connections. (Mae Coburn Williamson was elected to the Tribal Council at this time. She was the first female Tribal Council member, quite wealthy by marriage to a white lawyer in Cut Bank. She is the center figure in the sculpture by Bob Scriver that is called “Transition.”)

Accusations of both imagined and real corruption, theft, and diversion of funds flew in every direction for the next while until everyone was discredited and besmirched. The damage has continued ever since. “Majority rule” meant “winner take all.” Finally Joe Brown was restored to office but not before the Indian Office was very much hardened against the Blackft. They became willing to accuse tribal leaders, which they had not done before, and they began to deduct the costs of many services (education, hospital) from any Blackft monies they had. By this time, all thoughts of cattle had been overwhelmed by the potential of oil profits as war began.