July 26, 1997, Metro Edition
After a 50-year legal battle, the U.S. government has offered seven bands of Minnesota Chippewa almost $ 50 million to settle claims that white frontiersmen and the government cheated the Indians in 19th-century land deals.
At issue in the disputes was whether the government properly handled the sale of lands it received from the Chippewa in the late 1800s, and whether it properly administered a trust fund set up for the Indians with the proceeds from the sales. Last month the tribal council of the Red Lake band voted to accept $ 27 million from the U.S. Justice Department to settle five of 13 claims it filed in 1951 with the Indian Claims Commission. Tribal officials hope to negotiate more money for the other eight claims.
The six other Chippewa bands are currently seeking members' opinions on whether to accept a separate $ 20 million offer for similar old claims involving land on their reservations, from White Earth in western Minnesota to Grand Portage at the tip of Minnesota's Arrowhead country.
The land, some 2 million acres at Red Lake and another 650,000 acres scattered across the other reservations, is now national or state forest, farmland, timber land or other private property. It's divided into more than 100,000 parcels.
The settlements stem in large part from how the 1889 Nelson Allotment Act was carried out by the federal government. Under the act, some reservation land was allotted to individual Indians and other reservation land was ceded to the United States and sold to non-Indians. The proceeds from the sales went into a trust fund that was supposed to benefit the Chippewa.
"For many years after 1889, Minnesota Chippewas alleged that the land sold under the Nelson Act was sold for less than it really was worth . . . and that therefore more money was owed to the trust fund," according to a written explanation of the settlements being distributed on reservations.
Started with Nelson Act
"There was mischief going on there big-time," said Bobby White feather, chairman of the Red Lake band. "We found evidence that land was sold as agricultural when it contained valuable timber, and that some of the timber cruisers [who assessed the land's value for the government] were on the payroll of the big timber companies."
The Indians brought suit over such evidence in the 1920s and '30s but lost the cases in court. Then, in 1948 and 1951, the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe filed complaints with the newly formed Indian Claims Commission.
More than four decades of motions, discovery and delays followed. Among other issues addressed in the massive case files were the Indians' demand for a full accounting of how the $21 million Chippewa Trust Fund was spent.
"In some cases the government used it for day-to-day expenses," said Lenee D. Ross, executive director of the Leech Lake band. "An example would be the Bureau of Indian Affairs buying tires for the Model Ts they drove. They justified it by saying their jobs were to benefit Indian people."
The cases even outlasted the Indian Claims Commission, which dissolved in 1978 and transferred the cases to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.
A new era
Lawyers who worked on Chippewa land claims say that before 1990, Minnesota Chippewa received $ 29 million to compensate for underpayment for land sold through treaty, and in 1986 the federal and state governments approved a $ 22 million settlement with White Earth Chippewa for land taken illegally from individuals in the early 1900s.
Whitefeather said Red Lake stepped up negotiations about three years ago
after sensing a change in the political climate.
"The Department of Justice said, 'Yes, we agree with you - this has gone on
too long,' " White feather said. "We decided that now we have a good atmosphere
for an honorable and just settlement. So we went to Washington and started
talking."
Pamela West, a Justice Department attorney who helped negotiate the settlements, said she didn't want to comment on them while they were still pending.
The Tribal Executive Committee that oversees the six bands, excluding Red Lake, asked for and received a six-month extension of the $ 20 million settlement offer in April to give each band a chance to poll its members through referendum or other means. While some Chippewa want the return of land instead of money and are urging rejection of the settlement, some tribal leaders say the prevailing opinion is that reclaiming the land would be a much more difficult if not impossible fight, and that the money would correct an injustice while giving the reservations an economic boost.
If the settlements are accepted, the U.S. Department of Interior and
Congress must approve tribal plans for distributing the money. Historically, the
federal government requires that at least 20 percent of such settlements be used
for governmental purposes to benefit the entire tribe, rather than distributing
all of the money to members.
"Hopefully we'd invest the money wisely and there would be a perpetual
distribution of the investment [to tribal members]," said Whitefeather of Red
Lake.
Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN) July 26,1997.
Copyright 1997 Minneapolis Star Tribune.
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