Reflections
from the Ahnishinahbæótjibway (We, the People)
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June 1, 1988
Elections
The
tribal elections in Red Lake this year were very
quiet. Not only was campaigning
subdued, but also there weren’t any of the large ads in the Pioneer,
“WARNING,” “ARSONISTS,” etc., that the B.I.A. and their puppets
usually
pay hundreds of dollars of our money for.
The
Red Lake Tribal Chairman was quoted in the Bemidji Pioneer
the day after the referendum as saying that Indians were the first
conservationists. But, when the Indian
Reorganization Act was fraudulently brought onto Red Lake Reservation,
the
moratorium on cutting was lifted. The
jackpine have almost all been cut down, oak and aspen are being
clear-cut, and
many square miles of good timber have been wasted by the
Government—either
burned or piled and left to rot. If the
concern of the referendum was conserving wildlife, there should have
been a
prohibition on clear-cutting, on destroying wildlife habitat; not a
blank check
for the B.I.A., through their puppets the Tribal Council, to abrogate
Treaty
hunting and fishing rights.
In
interviewing one unsuccessful candidate for councilman, we
asked by the hunting and fishing rights referendum was not a part of
his
campaign literature. He stated that he
did not know that the referendum was on the ballot until he went to
vote. The issue of the Treaty Rights
Referendum
was never discussed, nor even made public,
prior to the election.
We
feel that the issue goes much deeper than “protecting
nursing fawns and keeping people from killing bears for their claws
only,” which is how the Bureau explained
the
referendum on election day. No
Traditional Indian would ever do either of these things.
No Traditional Indian would clearcut the
forests, or deliberately plant sheephead in the lake, either.
In
1959, another orchestrated “Referendum” was held on Red
Lake Reservation: the B.I.A. wrote in one internal memorandum that it
was not
advisable to create factions, quite yet, and then later in a second
memorandum
advised the Red Lake Agency Office not to inform the Red Lake Indian
people
that the proposed constitution was a 1934 I.R.A. boilerplate
constitution,
because if that became knowledge it would not pass.
Indian people were told that the Constitution of the old Chiefs
Council was being revised, when in reality the Bureau was playing a
sleight of
hand trick, using the members of the “Constitution Committee” as pawns,
and
entrenching their power by slipping a 1934 I.R.A. Constitution onto Red
Lake. The B.I.A.’s “federally
recognized” colonial “chief” was among the very few people who knew
what was
really happening. When an Indian
complains to the Bureau about something, we are told “you voted for it.”
Also,
the acculturated Indians and almost-whites that the
B.I.A. has packed onto the tribal Rolls (and thus also onto the voter
registrations) and onto the Reservation as a part of their colonial
administration are the ones who have been killing more deer than they
needed
and taking them to the dump, wasting bears, fishing with 50 nets, and
clear-cutting. These people do not have
traditional Indian values, and because of the colonial government, the
traditional Indian community is powerless to make them abide by
Traditional
Indian values. Maybe the people who do
not belong here don’t care if they destroy what isn’t theirs.
— Francis Blake, Jr.
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