The Blackfeet Forced Patent claims cover 293,000 acres of the grazing and farm lands of the reservation that were stooen by white men in 1918-1922, and are the subject of THE STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS EXTENTSION HEARINGS, Monday, December 17, 1979, U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Indian Affairs, Washington D.C. The 2415 Indian claims program and Public Law 96-217, Section 2, were laws passed by Congress to establish title to Indian lands. Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior, Forrest Gerard testfied under Before the Select Committee on Indian Affairs:" Our claims program has affected a significant number of our [white] citizens in this country. In many instances we are dealing with regaining title to property under circumstances in which defendants [white men] through no fault of their own are holding by void title. The title issues in these claims are not subject to the statute of limitations as are the tort issues. A great majority of Indian claimants are heirs of deceased allottees or trust patentees. We are unable to locate many of them. The United States, of course, has a [trust] responsibility to them just as ot does to recognized tribes, bands or groups." 

The local BIA has a list of 1,200 Blackfeet forced patents cases, which are Blackfeet allotments that were stolen by the local white men such as Joe Sherburne, the agency trader, and Blackfeet Agency Superintendents Horace Wilson, F.C. Campbell, and T.C. Power who served as superintendents in rapid succession during 1917-1922 when 293,000 acres of Blackfeet allotments were stolen by the "agency ring' a criminal conspiracy. We tried to get the list of Blackfeet Forced Fee Patents from the BIA superintendent but he wanted over $7,000 for copying costs and the tribal council refused to pay the costs, so we were once again stonewalled from our claims. The frustration is that Chairman Old Person blocked our claims since 1980 and the new tribal council members are following his moccassins. Now the Blackfeet land fraud claims have gone over 500,000 acres and are growing each year. We have all of the research on the claims and it was dubbed a "deliberate conspiracy" by the senate investigator, and he blamed Joe Sherburne and local white men for defrauding the Blackfeet allottees in Glacier County courts. It is deception for Forrest Gerard to testify in Congress that the white men sitting on the stolen Blackfeet allotments "through no fault of their own" because it was a deliberate conspiracy of the BIA and local white men to rob the Blackfeet Indians, and the BIA very well knows where the descendants of the Original Blackfeet allottees are residing because we are all on the reservation and on general assistance thanks to the white men robbing our grandma's. The white ranchers and farmers in Glacier County profit $61,000,000 each year in crops and livestock sales on the stolen Blackfeet allotments, and the Department of Agriculture gives them another $6,000,000 in federal farm subsidies for a total of $67,000,000 on our stolen allotments. That is our land and our money they stole from us. The Blackfeet Indians were successful cattle ranchers by 1896 and their success is written into the 1896 Agreement/Articloe Five which reserved the entire reservation for the support of the Blackfeet cattle ranchers. The allotment act gave the white men the opportunity to rob the illiterate Indians one by one as they were called into the agency office and forced to accept patent in fees on their allotments in violation of the law. We need the tribal council to support our forced patent claims, and we need to send the President a message to open up the Indian claims. We brought the claims to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee in 1980 and 2001 and again in 2005 but all that time chairman Old Person was telling THE SENATE LAWYER THE BLACKFEET WERE NOT INTERESTED IN PURSUING THE CLAIMS! He was even kicked off the Cobell case claims for secretly giving the information to his BIA masters! The white ranchers and farmers and Glacier County are white apaertheid territory set up on the Blackfeet Reservation on the stolen Blackfeet allotments. The best reservation grazing and farm lands were taken by whites, including oil wells, gas, coal, and the water holes and water courses so that the Blackfeet landowners are forced to lease their dry lands to white ranchers and farmers. This is called the "prisoners dilemma" whereby the disorganized, illiterate Blackfeet allottees are unable to prevent the white men and Glacier County from imposing "collateral or unresolved" conditions on the continued use of their property. This is state coercive power over our private property rights because of the creation of county monopoly power over the treaty rights of the Blackfeet Indians to tax free lands and freedom from state laws on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. The resultant economic damages to the Blackfeet heirs is displayed in the poverty of the Blackfeet Indians and the rich white men sitting on stolen Blackfeet allotments. The only way to break the forced patents conspiracy of the white man, Glacier County and the BIA is public exposure of their crimes against the Blackfeet Indians.  There is the added burden of tribal councilmen and tribal members who are state senator and county commissioners who are fighting against tribal sovereignty, and the passive tribal chief and tribal council in these claims. We have written a history book outlining the Blackfeet claims and have tried for 30 years to get the support of the tribal council. I see the county is suing the tribe for $600,000 in county taxes-that is ridiculous, but understandable because they pushed Old Person around when he was chairman. All we need to do is bring our claims to Congress and the white man will be removed from the reservation by government condemnation payments and ordered off the reservation, and we estimate a billion dollars or more to tribal members in compensation payments to the heirs of the original Blackfeet allottees and trust patentees, but most of all we will have our reservation to ourselves as our ancestors willed it to us. Bob J.