Ms. Mary Ann:

Thanks for covering another controversial subject on Indian matters.  It has always been said in this Country “no one cares about Indian issues.”

During treaty making days when our Indian leaders signed them under duress to save their people from being killed under failed economic conditions, these treaties promised hope.  Sound familiar?  Then, for our lands and Indian-only future, we agreed to be removed from our homelands to places better than home so they promised.  The U.S. promised health, education, welfare and protection from intruders except from the federal government.  This is where our terrorism started.

The U.S. realized by forcing us from large homeland bases onto smaller reservations and 80-acre allotments would be a slow antagonizing death and they did it anyway.  These conditions left by federal footprints, outdated and ambiguous Indian laws causing political and public havoc instead of Indian independency is what Tribes and/or their casinos are now dealing with.

Indian Casinos.  We already paid for them with centuries of attacks of extermination causing generations of holocaust thereafter.  They replace and dump the failed federal governments responsibilities onto Tribes in lieu of their U.S. treaty promises.  Although I am grateful for the Casino profits we have opportunities to overturn our federal problems.  Conditions we endure today are not the “Indian problem” you read about but actually federal problems from their historically weak unprotected and failed federal programs of removal.

Our casino provides benefits to enrolled members and we support surrounding non-Indian organizations daily.  We don’t outsource our jobs to foreign countries and our job force does consist of non-Indians.  Depending on casino locations, it increases the residential and commercial business and that increases tax revenue. So states should not complain about losing taxes to lands placed into trust, they increase.  Our condition exists because we are Indian owners and cannot make business or campaign contributions to those elected officials in local jurisdictions.  We cannot participate in the “Pay-for-Play” elections game.  We are unable to bid for the Ebay elected officials up for grabs. That is why we need improved federal protection and the only competitive edge that we have.

The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs and National Congress for American Indians are organizations created because of these federal failures.  Their birth arrived shortly after the U.S. termination era of Indian tribes around 1950’s.  Again, I am grateful for them but their public hearings and success exposes continued mismanagement and corruption in federal agencies administering federal services to Indians.

What this article does not say is that our federal Indian laws are not updated to compete with current business competition.  With our recognized inherent tribal sovereignty, the U.S. should have taken their paternalistic attitude to automatically update these laws for our protection and theirs.  Instead, we engage in expensive and time-consuming political badgering and elected lip service to fix these problems.  In the meantime, racial business discrimination, Indian favoritism, business unfairness to non-Indians or why should they be above the law angers to public awareness.  Then to calm another Indian war, we are federally regulated and forced silently under State jurisdiction.

In Cobell v Salazar, court proof is provided that the U.S. would rather spend billions defending their historical mismanagement of our resources instead of aiding Indian business independency.  There are no political reward or campaign contributions for elected officials defending Indians. Because of federally inflicted attitudes placed upon Indians, they lose favor and votes for re-election. 

The federal budgets have probably been on a sliding scale since the Snyder Act of 1921.  So tribal community damage is consistent with federal appropriations.  If one was to really analyze the one-time stimulus funding its kind of a make-up call from previous administrations.  If this Country were not in the financial condition it is in, Indian Country probably would have not received this funding.

The stimulus funding will help fill gaps where the inadequate federal budgets have failed.  Annually, decreasing federal funds with termination efforts only increased the liability and damage on health, education and welfare in Indian country.

With the multi-billions that were taken from our own land and unaccounted for, the U.S. fiduciary Trust, Indian Treaty agreements and the federal trust responsibility along with tribal sovereignty instead of the “turn them into white farmers or exterminate them” attitude, we could have been a progressive and independent national business partner. 

The President, Congress, Courts and Tribes must all agree in a financial settlement of past damages and loss.  An all-inclusive Indian Trust Policy establishing the Nation-to-Nation relationship, adequate funding to repair the societal and economic damage.  Independency for each Tribe, depending on his or her own resources, to become a competitive partner in our Nations economy.  This is the business effort we should of had from the start and we would have seen that the U.S. was an honorable Nation in their treaties, not ours, with us.

U.S. citizens need to know the real story of what they did to us.

Thomas M. Wabnum

Prairie Band Potawatomi

Former Federal Programs Relocation survivor

Former Indian Boarding School survivor

Former Tribal Councilperson

U.S. Navy Viet Nam Veteran

BIA/OST retired