THE MERIAM REPORT: Becoming citizens was not the only major change in 1928. On the national level, the Meriam Report hit hard, criticizing the results of the Dawes Act (allotment of tribal property to individuals) and the failure of the BIA to develop the tribes economically. [This report is easy to find with a search engine and enlightening to read in its entirety.] The report concluded that “great natural resources cannot be economically administered or developed in small allotments” so “consideration should be given to the possibilities of using the corporate form of organization,” which they considered to be a “modern business device.”
THE LIGGETT REPORT:
Senators Frazier, Burton Wheeler, and W.B. Pine of Oklahoma arrived in Browning on July 24 to hold hearings. [Recently much of the report has appeared as a series in “The Glacier Reporter.”] The most scandalous finding was “that between 1912 and 1929 more than two hundred thousand of the Blackfeet’s most valuable acres had been sold after the Indian owners were given fee patents.” The culprits were identified as Agent Horace Wilson, Lease Clerk Stuart Hazlett and a little circle of whites including “the Sherburne Mercantile Company, which acquired forty thousand acres of Indian land.” No records were kept by the Agency. Likewise, grazing and livestock was casually handled to say the least.
By 1929 there were 2,510 mixed bloods (1,452 in 1914) and
1,130 full-bloods (1,189 in 1914.)
The Five Year Industrial Plan system of granges still stood as an alternative to the Blackft Tribal Business Council. A “third force,” the State of Montana, began to look attractive for medical, educational and agricultural services.
THE BLACKFEET GET A NEW DEAL
The issues did not change, but the personnel did. Hoover is the President of the US, Harold Ickes became Sec of the Interior, John Collier became the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and Joe Brown took leadership of the Tribal Council. The conclusion of the 1933 final hearings was that the Blackfeet were ready to run their own affairs. Liggett had written that they were woefully uneducated. Rosier concluded the truth was probably in between. Anyway, reform was underway.
THE FIRST BLACKFEET DEBATE
700 Blackfeet assembled to discuss reform. Not much enthusiasm for putting all assets into a common fund. Oil distracted everyone. The consensus was “no deal.”
THE GREAT PLAINS CONGRESS
March 2, 1934; Rapid City, SD; 60,000 Plains Indians, 18 Blackfeet.
A lively topic was the “checkerboarding” of reservations, not on purpose, but because of patented allotments being sold to whites, which made it hard to manage the reservation as a unit. In fact, the Blackfeet gave Collier the name “Spotted Eagle” to represent checkerboarding! No clear consensus developed among the Plains Indians.
THE SECOND BLACKFEET DEBATE
More power was to be given to the Tribal Council, taking it from the Agency and the granges. The grange idea was given up. Bird Rattler, Many Hides, Weaselhead, Oldchief and John Ground all finally pled for one community. 88 voted for one corporation. 24 opposed. Brown insisted on the right of the tribe to determine the definition of tribal membership.
THE BLACKFEET AND THE SENATE DEBATE
Wheeler and Collier argue the limits of tribal self-governance. Brown pointed out that there were Indians on the school board and they could run for the state senate. He claimed they dominated Glacier County. Wheeler held the Blackfeet up as a great example of success.
THE BLACKFEET AND THE HOUSE DEBATE
Brown advocated and admired the education help and Indian preference for BIA jobs. He praised Collier, even when critics attacked.
THE INDIAN REORGANIZATION ACT
June 5, 1934, Brown and Leo Kennerly (as Secretary of the Tribal Council) sent unanimous approval of the Wheeler-Howard Indian Bill to congress. Collier’s original 48 page bill was cut down to 5. The Court of Indian Affairs was dropped. All the labor had brought forth a mouse. As usual, politics reduced a major new creation to near-ineffectiveness.
THE BLACKFEET VOTE
This document was supposed to be ratified by the tribes. On the Tribal Council, 12 of the 13 voted in favor. In the every-member vote on October 27, 823 voted in favor with 171 voting against. There was a bad winter storm, but 994 of eligible voters out of 1785 got there to vote. Of the mail vote, 114 of 148 voted in favor. All went forward full of optimism.
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It was in 1929 that the last of the Sign Talkers were gathered to make a silent film recording their eloquent hand gestures. At that event the footprints of each participant were recorded -- Indians in moccasins and white men in boots. The bronze castings of the prints became the focus of an effort to create some kind of shelter to protect and honor this record of early days. Adrien Voisin, a fine Paris-trained sculptor whose wife was a sign-talker, was in Browning in that time period, sharing a studio with John Clarke, the deaf/mute sculptor grandson of the original Malcolm Clarke whose murder had such terrible consequences. John, of course, “spoke” both American Standard Language signs and Plains Indian sign talk. Voisin made a series of busts of Blackft people, including John Clarke and his mother. These are now in the Denver Art Museum. Two other sculptors were in and out of the Voisin/Clarke studio: one was Charlie Beil, who finally established his studio in Banff where he did a series of small Blackft busts, focusing on Canadian Blackft, and supplied the Calgary Stampede with trophy bronzes.
The other was a fourteen year old boy named Bob Scriver, but at that point called “Robert.” He made a little riverbank clay horse with its rider seated on the ground in front of it. The rider was his cousin, Margaret MacFie, about the same age. He built a little carrier for the figures so she could take them back to Montreal with her. In 1956 Charlie Beil came back into Scriver’s life as one of the judges of the contest to choose an heroic statue of Charles M. Russell, and they were close friends from then on.
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