-Caveat Lector- >>>So, ladies and gentlemen, this is an example of *why* the Israeli-Palestinian issue is so popular with the Eastern elites (Ee_s). In a very similar fashion, the Ee_s, those who pontificate on the fates of the lesser advantaged, especially those who have been indigenous to their regions (more or less, taking into account the rape, pillage and plunder of the Cherokees' and others' lands, the reservations' establishment, and so on)(Trail of Tears, Jackson vs Marshall, et cetera), the Ee_s obviously view the Middle Eastern situation in the same light. It's early American history redux. Bad early American history redux.
Now, I've seen *Urban Cowboy* and watched all the city slickers (and the movies of the same name) turn in their wingtips and tweeds for ostrich-skin pointy-toed foot cripplers, snap pocket shirts, and half-pint hats. And we can't forget them crotch crampin' Wranglers, and we? One time "bein' " Disco Dux, they sashay'd on to Mickey Gilley. They wanted "to be". So, we see some other imperialising colonials attempting "to be" by emulating "Old Hickory" 's ways and means to carve out their place in history. Only they're a hunnert and some years too late. Although it may work in the short run, unfortunately, it's to few's advantage in the long run. And to a few, a much lesser advantage. And, still we see casualties of the Ee_s' "benevolence" toward those in whom they've placed their trust and on whose side the law has been and still is. I would have hoped that, as Americans, we would have outgrown this mentality of disregard, disrespect, and disgusting treatment of proud peoples, one of whom gave their name to a helicopter. But there are those who are still In Search of Justice. Here and there, here and there. A<>E<>R <<< >From http://www.boulderweekly.com/coverstory.html }}}>Begin In search of justice Indians vs. the cavalry once more - - - - - - - - - - - - by Pamela White ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Christmas didn't come to Louise James' home this year. Earning less than $2,500 a year, James needs every dime she receives from the Department of the Interior for the oil lease on her land in order to live. But she, like tens of thousands other American Indians who receive royalties for mineral extraction and timber leases on their property, hasn't gotten a check since November. The utility company has turned off her electricity, and, unless a check arrives soon, she and her six children and two grandchildren will lose their home. "Indians are losing their homes all over the country," says Keith Harper, an attorney with Native American Rights Fund (NARF), a Boulder-based non- profit. The interior department cut off checks to royalty recipients on Dec. 5 after receiving a court order to upgrade security on their computer system. Rather than disconnecting from the Internet, as the judge reportedly intended, interior officials shut the entire system down without having any backup plan for cutting checks. Now, four months later, many families still have not received their checks, and some are facing hunger. The royalty-check scandal is only the latest controversy to surface in NARF's lawsuit against the federal government. NARF, which provides legal help to American Indian individuals and nations, is in the sixth contentious year of its epic court battle against the Department of the Interior. The class- action suit alleges that government has mismanaged the trust accounts of about 500,000 American Indians for more than a century and seeks to force the government to account for an estimated $10 billion in missing royalties for grazing, mineral extraction, and timber operations. At stake, however, is far more than money or land-use issues. Observers say the trust-fund lawsuit gets to the heart of centuries of mistreatment of Indian people by the U.S. government. "It's an equal-protection issue," says Harper, who works full-time on the case in Washington, D.C. While many believe it's a case NARF can win-the government has admitted to mismanaging the money-the small non-profit lacks anything close to the volume of money and staff enjoyed by federal authorities who are fighting it. As the interior department continues to draw out litigation, some fear NARF might win a Pyrrhic victory, winning in court, but losing its shirt in the process. Government behaving badly Since it was filed in 1996, the lawsuit has cost NARF millions. "It has been the most expensive case we have done in our 31 years, but it's one we knew that we had to try because what was going on in Washington was ridiculous," says NARF founder and executive director John Echohawk. With a $7-million annual budget, NARF has had to step up fund-raising efforts to keep pace with expenses. While NARF's budget is limited to its fund-raising abilities, the interior department has access to countless millions in taxpayer money. By July 2001, the federal government had already spent in excess of $50 million fighting the lawsuit. "We've always known this case was there. Raising the money has been the challenge." says Echohawk. "We hoped we'd be able to keep this going for a few years, which is all we thought it would take... We never anticipated the government would do what it has done, which is resist at every turn." The government's tactics have included shredding documents; destroying electronic files; presenting arguments in court based on statutes they know to be irrelevant; refusing to provide requested documents; offering false testimony; and retaliating against government employees who cooperated with the courts. In one incident, the government's attorneys told the court they could not produce requested documents because the documents were either located on high shelves and could not be retrieved safely or were covered with rodent droppings and would put workers at risk of contracting hanta virus. "It's so absurd that it would be humorous if not for the fact that each time they delay this way, it means a longer time before these trust beneficiaries get their money," says Harper. "We're talking about the poorest of the poor." U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, who is presiding over the case, declared the conduct of government officials to be "fiscal and governmental irresponsibility in its purest form." Lamberth found Babbitt, together with former Assistant Secretary of the Interior Kevin Grover and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, in contempt of court for their department's repeated delays in producing requested documents, for destroying documents, and for lying to the court in sworn testimony. NARF attorneys have filed several contempt motions against current Interior Secretary Norton, and the court is expected to find her in contempt as well. Last week, Lamberth sanctioned Norton and other federal officials for their handling of the case. Alan Balaran, the court-appointed special master in the case, said the government's actions had resulted in "unnecessary delays," and the judge ordered the government to pay 75 percent of NARF's attorney costs relating to those delays. "We have this pattern of highly problematic litigation tactics and obstruction of justice," Harper says. "The court is going to find them in contempt. I don't think there's any doubt." The situation is so extreme that the Wall Street Journal has compared the actions of interior officials to that of Enron executives. Observers say stalling is a useful tactic for the government to use for two reasons. First, it drains NARF's coffers and ties up its resources. NARF has only three attorneys working full-time on the case, while the government has more than 30. Second, it increases the likelihood that the case won't be settled before the next administration steps in. "They don't care if the hammer comes down on the next administration as long as they get out of town," Harper says. "If they delay, they win. That's how they see it." Perhaps the most controversial move on the part of the interior department occurred last year when the court learned that the trust-fund computer system was easy to hack. Ordered to shut down all computer-based communications on Dec. 5, the interior department took the extreme measure of shutting down the entire computer system. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Indian families stopped receiving checks just before Christmas. "When non-Indians hear that people haven't received a $400 check, they think, 'What's the big deal?' But when you're making $2,500 a year, that's a damn big deal." Lamberth was outraged by the government's response to his order and says Interior officials did not warn him how far they would go to comply. Harper says he thinks Interior's actions were deliberate. By not paying Indians and claiming they were only following court orders, government officials have eroded support in Indian Country for the lawsuit. Worse, they've hurt the people NARF is trying to help and tried to shift the blame from their own shoulders. "If the tribes aren't getting checks, they've got something to hang over our heads," Harper says. A system that never worked "We here at the Department of Justice think there are grave problems," says a justice department official who doesn't really want to talk about the case. The justice department had spent more than $8.7 million litigating the trust- fund lawsuit as of July 2001. "I prefer not to think of it as 'fighting' the lawsuit," she says, adding that the Department of Justice wants to see resolution in the case. Everyone involved in the lawsuit agrees that the Indian trust-fund system has never worked well. The system was created more than a century ago after reservation land was broken up and parceled out to individual Indians, a move that allowed greater access to Indian land by non-Indian settlers and mining and timber companies. Ideally, the government receives money from oil and gas companies, mining companies and timber operations operating on Indian land and passes the money along to the appropriate individuals. But in practice, the system is easy to abuse. The oil company that leases James' land, like all resource-extraction companies, operates without supervision. It self-reports both the quality and quantity of oil it takes from the land and sends payments to the government based on its own unverified reports. That money is supposed to make its way to James in a monthly check. However, the interior department has never had an accounts receivable or payable system for the trust accounts and isn't even certain how many individuals have trust accounts. Interior officials have told the court that there is no way to determine exactly how much money is missing from the accounts. They have also acknowledged that interior's two lists-one of landowners and one of trust-fund recipients-don't match. In some cases, the government is sending royalty checks to people who aren't recorded land- owners. "They have no way of determining whether money is owed to a particular beneficiary," Harper says. "People are literally getting away with stealing resources on Indian land, and they have been for generations. On each and every level, it's very unorganized. The lack of information is an amazing story in and of itself." As a result, much of the money never reaches recipients. Checks from oil companies are lost. Money goes to the wrong people or lingers unpaid in accounts. There are other problems, as well. When a trust beneficiary dies, it often takes decades before his or her heirs begin to receive royalty checks. As Indian people are among the poorest in United States, the impact on families can be devastating. "There are people who died in the 1960s and 1970s who are still waiting to have their land probated," Harper says. NARF has taken the unusual tactic of suing not only the government, but holding individual employees responsible by filing contempt motions against them. More than 40 officials and staff at the interior department face contempt motions, prompting an exodus from the agency and a flurry of interest in personal liability insurance. "To task (employees) to do this and then to make them financially liable is ridiculous," says Rep., Norman Dicks, D-Wash., quoted in the Legal Times. Dicks has suggested that the government foot the cost of insurance for any employee working in the trust system. While some government officials say holding individuals responsible is counterproductive, NARF attorneys believe it's the only way the case will be able to move forward. "If it's only the government that you're going to hold responsible, it will motivate the staff to wait it out," Harper says. "There's little doubt in my mind-the record is clear- there is a disaster here, and all the evidence points to the fact that for a long time they've hidden that disaster so they wouldn't be held accountable for it from administration to administration. That's why we see all these delay tactics. They know they've been caught with their hands in the cookie jar." Says Echohawk: "It's just despicable." The case no one wanted People in the Indian community have always suspected they weren't receiving their due from the government. Eloise Cobell, a banker from the Blackfeet nation of Montana, decided to do something about it. Cobell grew up with her seven siblings in a one-room house on the Blackfeet reservation without electricity-a luxury many in Indian country still lack. She heard adults complaining about not getting paid for the mineral extraction and grazing operations taking place on their land. She went on to college and became a banker and found that she could not reconcile statements given to the Blackfeet nation by the interior department. When she complained to government officials, they were less than helpful. "They said, 'Oh, you don't know how to read reports.' I think they were trying to embarrass me, but it did the opposite-it made me mad," Cobell says. "I got fed up. (A lawsuit) was the only way to get the government's attention." Armed with a solid understanding of accounting, Cobell tried to find an attorney to take the case, but was turned down repeatedly. Then she turned to NARF. "I think it's really a question of money and expense," Echohawk says. "And nobody really had the money to cover all the expenses associated with such a lawsuit." Echohawk founded NARF in 1970 in California and moved the operation to Colorado when it became clear that extensive travel to Indian country would be necessary. "Most of our clients are poor and not able to come to meetings at lawyers' offices, so we have to travel to them," he explains. Today the non-profit boasts a full-time staff of 40 with 14 attorneys. Echohawk went to law school on a scholarship during the federal war on poverty. "I found myself starting with the first group of Native American law students in the country under this program," he recalls. "When I and the other Indian law students started to study these treaties and laws, it just opened our eyes." Echohawk and his colleagues reached the conclusion that Indian people had rights they didn't know about-rights that were not being enforced. "Really you don't have rights unless you have lawyers, and our people were the poorest of the poor and couldn't afford lawyers," he says. They realized they were going to have to take the initiative to provide legal counsel to Indian people, and NARF was created. The result was a sudden increase in litigation and the reformation of Indian law. "This litigation explosion helped change federal Indian policy," Echohawk says. "Until then, policy was one of termination, of ending rights, benefits, and treaties." The response of non-Indian attorneys and non-Indians in general was not always supportive, Echohawk says. People called them crazy and told them that assimilation was the best hope for Indian people. "They didn't know the law, and they didn't know our people," Echohawk says. "They're Native people, and they don't want to assimilate. The future includes tribes forever. What's a tribe? A tribe is a sovereign nation." Most successful tribes are those who've made use of litigation and exercised sovereignty the most, he says. "These days, all of the tribes have legal counsel," Echohawk says. "(But) there's still a lot of work left for this organization." Echohawk says NARF is prepared to continue its case against the federal government, despite the costs. "It's conceivable that we could be challenged here in coming years, if fund- raising isn't as successful as it needs to be," he says. "It's an expensive case to bring. It has cost us literally millions of dollars." Echohawk says the honorable thing for the government to do at this point is settle the case. NARF has sat through a couple of settlement discussions, most recently this past summer, but felt the government was not serious. "They have an endless supply of money," says Harper. "They're always going to be able to litigate. There will be tough choices for this organization. "There's a reason why people were reluctant to take this case for a long time. It comes at a cost. One of the reasons why we are pursuing settlement discussions is because it does cost so much and we can't be bled dry." NARF insists that anything less than a $10-billion settlement is grossly unfair to Indian people, but the government claims the true amount of missing funds is much less than that. Some non-Indians have said $10 billion is too high a price tag for taxpayers to handle. "When a terrorist bomb ran into the World Trade Center, nobody said, 'We should not set aside millions to compensate the victims,'" Harper says. "If that's the right thing to do, then certainly for a people who've spent 100 years being abused by the federal government and had money stolen by the government, the right thing to do is pay them. To say these people shouldn't get paid is to say Indians shouldn't get paid." Although the case revolves around money, the real issue is centuries of exploitation of American Indians, Harper says. "If this case says anything it's that we have to fundamentally change the way that non-Indian society deals with Indians," says Harper. "If we don't change that, we will have failed." Donations to help fund the lawsuit against the federal government can be mailed to: Native American Rights Fund, 1506 Broadway, Boulder, CO 80302. Or call (303) 447-8760. Respond: [EMAIL PROTECTED] © 2002 Boulder Weekly. All Rights Reserved. End<{{{ http://www.cherokee-chamber.org/history.htm }}}>Begin Cherokee County Chamber of Commerce Centre, Alabama "Crappie Capital of the World" Home HISTORY - part 1 In 1836 they saw Halley's Comet, Texans fighting Santa Ana at the Alamo, the first Colt revolver, and the invention of the phosphorous match. Andrew Jackson was President. The Alabama state capitol was in Tuscaloosa, and ... on January 9, 1836 Cherokee County, Alabama was created by the state legislature. THE EARLY INHABITANTS The Cherokee Indians inhabited an area which included what is now north Alabama, north Georgia, a large part of Tennessee and eastern North Carolina. In Cherokee County, Alabama, at a city on the Coosa River (near the present day city of Cedar Bluff), DeSoto first met with the Cherokees in 1540. He camped at McCoy's Island for 30 days, and fought a skirmish with indians at Seven Springs. Many believe a site in Cherokee County was the site of the legendary Cherokee Indian town of Coosa. In 1816, in Turkey Town, Andrew Jackson met with representatives of the Cherokee, Creek and Chickasaw nations to settle the peace ratify a treaty to establish territorial boundaries. Among early Cherokee visitors to this area were Major Ridge, John Ridge, Elias Boudinot, John Ross, Double Head, Tarkagee, and Pathkiller. Pathkiller operated a ferry on the Coosa River near present day Centre, Alabama. The Cherokees had, in the first three decades of the 19th century, become a strong agrarian society, cultivating land, raising grain and livestock. They had built homes and schools. They fought with Andrew Jackson at Horseshoe Bend against the Creeks in 1814, and had established themselves as valuable allies to the white settlers. Sequoyah (George Guess or Gist) had developed the Cherokee Alphabet and Elias Boudinot had published the first bi-lingual newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix. In 1826, the Cherokee had formed a democratic government with a written constitution with two representative assemblies, regular elections and a sophisticated court system. Many in the Cherokee Nation had become Christian, and missions and schools had been established. They had been successful in emulating the white man's culture. By 1835, the white man had signed more than 30 treaties with the Cherokees, and had broken all of them. As early as 1802, President Jefferson had sealed the fate of the Cherokees. In order to get Georgia to sell the territories of Alabama and Mississippi, Jefferson had agreed to remove the Cherokees to the west. John Ross and others tried in vain to prove the Cherokees had a longer and more legitimate claim to their lands than did the U. S. government. In 1835, J. F. Schermerhorn, a missionary and agent of the U. S. Government, entered into an agreement with a group of Cherokees, not legally empowered to act, to draw up an treaty ceding all Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi River, and to migrate to the Oklahoma Territory. In a vote at Red Clay (Tennessee), this treaty was rejected by ninety-five percent of the voting Cherokees, but was ratified anyway by the United States Senate. With the help of Samuel Worchester, a missionary in the Cherokee Nation, Chief John Ross fought this treaty - even carrying it to the U. S. Supreme Court, in the case of The Cherokee Indians vs. the State of Georgia. John Marshall, first Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, ruled in favor of the Cherokees in practically all their contentions, ruling that the Indians who entered into the treaty were not legally empowered to do so. Ironically, this treaty was forced on the Cherokee by their old ally, President Andrew Jackson, who made this statement concerning the Supreme Court ruling, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it!" With no policing powers, the Supreme Court could not do so and the illegal treaty prevailed. In 1838, just two brief years after the Alabama County bearing their name was created, the U. S. Army forcibly removed the Cherokees from their homes and put them into fenced collection camps, then marched them west on the infamous "Trail of Tears." Thousands of these Cherokees, mostly the sick, the old, the women and the children died along the way. And a great heritage was lost to Alabama. >>>Article continues ... <<< End<{{{ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Forwarded as information only; no automatic endorsement + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men. 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