A Story Dying to Be Told

When Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch took a shellacking in the world of high finances last week, many leaders of Indian tribes were hot on the phone lines to their brokers and money managers. I wonder how many of them will relay the information of their financial losses to their tribal members?

Because of extreme secrecy it's hard to determine how much money was lost by the Indian nations particularly to those tribes with rich casino operations, but you can place one sure bet on this fiasco: if they played the market they lost.

On July 31, 2008 the money in the interest bearing accounts of the tribes involved in Black Hills Settlement Claim, Docket 74B, was at $815,616,678.20 and the money invested in the Docket 74A account was at $113,193,512.73. If you combine the totals of these two accounts they come to $928,810,190.93 million. Now that is about as close to $1 billion as you can get. How many members of the Great Sioux Nation knew what was in their accounts or how much money was lost on Wall Street?

My sources tell me that millions of dollars of the Black Hills money was lost and the hope is that the recovery after the announced federal bailout may help to recoup some or most of it.

It strikes me as amazing that in the 1980 U.S. Census, four of the top 10 counties listed as the "Poorest Counties in America," were located on Indian reservations in South Dakota, with Shannon County, the seat of the Pine Ridge Reservation, taking the number one spot as the single poorest county in America. That was nearly 30 years ago and this is the time the original awards of $105,994,430.52 for Docket B, and $40,245,807.02 for Docket 74A, were handed down by the Court of Claims to the tribes of the Great Sioux Nation. As you can see, after nearly 30 years, the interest-bearing accounts have grown considerably, but in those years there have been ups and downs as the market fluctuated.

Docket 74B was for the illegal taking of the Black Hills and Docket 74A for the taking of lands east of the Hills. For all of the of gold, silver, uranium, timber, water and other natural resources taken from the stolen lands until this very day, the monetary award offered to the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people was less than puny. It was an insult. The people of the Great Sioux Nation have not received a single shilling for the theft of their homeland.

For all of those who boldly stand up on their hind legs and ask, "What about all of the money the Indians got for hospitals, schools, government and welfare?" the answer is for them to look into their own back yards at the millions they have received from the federal government for much of the same opportunities with one exception: They did not have to give up millions of acres of land to receive those benefits. All of the supposed gifts to the Indian people that non-Indians complain about were negotiated between two sovereign nations for the most part, or decided unilaterally by the federal government after it had consolidated its power over the Indian people. When the enemies of the United States became defenseless, that is when the outright theft of their lands began.

When the poorest people in America turn up their noses at nearly $1 billion dollars, what does that tell you? And why is this one of the least-reported stories in this country? When a Lakota family is struggling to put food on the table or trying to find money to pay for a ride to the Indian hospital or grocery store or is looking at ways to survive another South Dakota winter with a premium on heating expenses, don't you believe that they think about what they could do with the money sitting in a money market on Wall Street?

And yet they refuse to accept the money. This is one of the major stories of the century and yet it continues to go unreported in the mainstream media and even in the American-Indian media. Why?

I would truly like for someone at CNN, MSNBC, FOX Network News or CBS, NBC and ABC or the New York Times, to give me and the Indian people an answer to that question.

If the news was about a takeover of a village, a violent confrontation, or worse, the MSM would be here in droves, but this story is apparently of no interest to them. Not violent enough? Not shocking enough? Too bad because it is a story that is begging to be told in all of its entirety.

If nothing else, the money lost by the Indian people of South Dakota by the money market collapse should be news. If it rocked America, it certainly rocked the "poorest of the poor."

Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, was born, raised and educated on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He was the founder and first president of the Native American Journalists Association and the founder and publisher of Indian Country Today, the Lakota Times, and the Dakota/Lakota Journal. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard in the Class of 1991. He can be reached at [e-mail]

Comments

[larry278]

The white man doesn't like to be told that he has found yet another way to rob native Americans. I think it has something to do with the myth that it was the white man's manifest destiny to take over indian land to make the USA a super power among nations. We whites go on a guilt trip when the story of us stealing indian land, killing indians, keeping indians out of sight by penning indians in isolated reservations gets out. Murdering helpless people & abusing those who survived by starving them & making them into chronic drunks, aka alcoholics, isn't a heroic tradition. The white race is a race of heros, not. It is embarassing when indians don't join whites in thievery; it shows that indians are a moral, honest nation despite the wretched examples white people show to indians. While indians are no longer savages, indians persist in being a noble & honest people. That puzzles us whites.

[Podcast]

To Redbow: My weekly column appears in many of the Native American outlets and often draws many comments from the Indian readers, but I have found that the readers of Huffingtonpost, for the most part, have very little knowledge of Indian America and in my estimation, do not respond to the things I write because they do not want to show their ignorance. I have also found that 90 percent of white Americans do not give a damn about the First Americans. Out of sight, out of mind is the attitude I run into, but I hope that by continuing to write a weekly post for Arianna I can begin the tedious educational process that will be required to educate mainstream America that there is another side to this country that really needs to be told and taught to them. Tim

[redbow40]

Well Tim, all I can say is you're getting the information out. The stories and experiences you have shared here are priceless. I look forward every week to your blog. So a big thank you to you for doing what you do. I would like to challenge every American Indian that reads the Huffington Post to make a weekly contribution to Tim's blog. He takes the time to write for us, this medium doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. I would also like to challenge the Huffington Post censors to please try and help us a little more in the area of posts. I know you're busy, but waiting 24 hours to have a post posted makes it impossible to have a consistent and meaningful dialogue. THANKS TIM GIAGO AND MISS HUFFINGTON!!!!

[Artos]

I notice that there haven't been a lot of comments on this editorial and I can only guess why. I myself don't really know where to begin or what to think. I am of mixed heritage, a real mess, my Dad was of Spanish/ Mestizo/ Native American ancestry and my mother is a recent immigrant (1950s )of German ancestry. I was brought here at an early age from Germany without any say so on my part. Personally I would have liked to stay there. I don't like what was done to Native Americans and I certainly do not like the idea that this meltdown may have yet another angle to it that hasn't been seen heretofore and that is the total theft of all the money that was in the Bureau that they have for dealing with Native Americans. It seems suspicious to me that firs they have no good records of what is owed and where it went and now in order to coverup those losses once and for all use this Wall Street Scam as a way to hide those thefts. I wouldn't put it past them since you can't trust these buzzards any further than you could throw them and boy would I like to throw them into the Grand Canyon except then that would pollute the river and that would be a worse shame.

[Yermammy]

I feel for you. I've had monikers on this site such as titonwan and napewaste. I've followed the plight of your people for many years and think it's a shame what's been done. I'm Chickasaw, and can't directly relate, but my grandfather was killed in Poplar Bluff, Mo because he had the best land for logging and the whites couldn't wrest control of it. So he was killed. That is America. We see now, where this greed is going and I, for one, don't know how I feel. One dog wants to see total destruction and the other dog wants to see reconciliation... I guess it will depend on which dog I choose to feed. Take care and know I help when I can for NA's. I'm not rich, but I hope what I do, will help in some way.

[lejman]

516 yearsof genocide, theft, trespass. my ancestors had czars and hitler to thank for such gifts. i feel your pain.

[TRYKER]

Thank you so much for bringing out this information . My heart goes out to the tribes. And you're right, nobody cares what happened to the Native Americans, no matter how egregious.

[redbow40]

Great article Tim, no one (besides you) in the media is talking about this. I asked my wife a question. What if every Indian casino was to fail at the same time. How would the American people respond if the government said we (America) had to bail these casinos out? Answer: White people would riot. When it comes to taking care of elite white people the sky is the limit. I was already somewhat familiar with the Black Hills story and the Lakota people. The Black Hills isn't sacred to the Lakota only. We Northern Cheyenne love it just as much. If you look around at people, it paints an interesting picture. In California it has become common to see people walking with their head down. People feel cheated, disrespected and helpless.They also have become afraid of their government. I think they have gotten a little taste of what it is like to be an Indian.

[Podcast]

tbone99 - The land was stolen from the Siioux people. They were awarded money without their consent. It would be like someone stealing your house and then more than 80 years later offeriing to pay for it. The Sioux consider the Black Hills to be their Mecca and have refused to accept money for it. They say in one voice, "The Black Hills are Not for Sale." But since the money was awarded something had to be done with it so it was invested by the Department of the Interior and as any investment, it goes up and down with the market fluctuations. The Sioux are asking for a return of National Forest Service land in the amount of 1.3 million acres and the land would not include towns, state owned land, or private land, only NFS land. The Hills total 7.5 million acres so they are not asking for a whole lot for the theft of their sacred Black Hills. Tim

[tbone99]

Sorry, I am so bad with grasping financial concepts- are you saying that the Sioux were awarded the money for the taking of their land and they refused to take it (When the poorest people in America turn up their noses at nearly $1 billion) since their land was not negotiable and so it was put in an interest bearing account til they would decide to accept? And that account has now gone down with the rest of the market.

was this decision made consensually or by tribal leaders?

[oldpotsmuggler]

Excellent information here. Thank you.