The Descendants of Freedmen of the FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES will DEMONSTRATE at the MUSKOGEE Bureau of Indian Affairs

Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Seminole and Chickasaw) and their supporters will demonstrate outside the Muskogee Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) building at 3 p.m. Friday. The building address is 3100 W. Peak Blvd.

The focus of the demonstration is to highlight BIA refusal to enforce 1866 treaty rights of Creek Freedmen by litigating on behalf of the freedmen in federal court. The BIA has a legal responsibility to protect the rights of individual tribal members and descendants of tribal members protected by treaties between their tribe and the U.S. government.

Creek freedmen descendants' ancestors were enslaved by tribal law solely due to their race prior to the Civil War but were granted citizenship in the tribe in 1866 by treaty agreements between the U.S. government and the tribes. The freedmen after the Civil War were registered as tribal members by the U.S. government Dawes Commission approximately 110 years ago when tribal lands owned in common by all tribal members were divided into individual allotments. In prior years, Freedmen not only voted but held tribal political offices and served as tribal judges.

For Xavier Becerra, CASINO INDIAN'S MONEY Provides MARCHING ORDERS Against Card Clubs

Like a good lackey, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra Took Nearly $300,000 From Tribal Casinos, Now His Agency is Paying Them Back Even human and civil rights violators are OK 
with XAVIER

Photo courtesy of NBC NEWS

Brian Hews of Hews Media group has the story

Since 2000, when California voters passed Proposition 1A allowing Native Americans to operate gambling casinos on their reservations, no Attorneys’ General has brought action against the card rooms based on their allegations.

Bill Lockyer (1999-2007) refused, Jerry Brown (2007-2011) refused, and even Kamela Harris (2011-2017) refused.

Cue Xavier Becerra, who was appointed attorney general by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2016, the job coming open when Kamala Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate.

Becerra’s Department of Justice oversees the Bureau of Gambling Control (BGC), established along with the California Gambling Control Commission (Commission), under the Gambling Control Act.

Most people think the BGC and the Commission perform the same duties, but they are quite different.

Pechanga gave $45,000, including $14,600 in 2018.   Pechanga is a KNOWN civil rights violator and practices APARTHEID on their reservation.

INTIMIDATION and STALKING of NATIVE AMERICAN Women at NOOKSACK Tribe, By the POLICE CHIEF?

Hey, let me do a little target practice around your house. Rather than a firing range like all responsible gun owners.   The NRA would want you to be responsible, the Nooksack Tribe, apparently is okay with shooting guns around homes, as long as it's the home of someone suing their police.

On her Facebook page, Carmen Tageant has a picture of Ashby tailgating her for SEVEN MILES, this attempt at intimidation is STAGGERING.  But with the Nooksack Tribe exterminating 306 of their own people, can we expect any action on their part?  WHY are you laughing?

Yes, this is a THREAT

In March 2018 we wrote|

 Nooksack Police Chief Michael Ashby SUED for Assault On Nooksack Tribal Council Member   

Tageant alleges that Ashby, formerly a police officer with the Ferndale Police Department, physically assaulted and battered her in Deming as she attempted to file for reelection to the council a few months ago. “As Ms. Tageant approached the front door of the Elections Board Office, defendant Ashby saw her, with application materials in hand, and locked the front door,” court documents state

According to the documents, Tageant then knocked on the door, and Ashby let her in. She said she was there to file for reelection, and then election superintendent Katrice Rodriguez told her she was too late for that. Then, Tageant alleges, Ashby forcefully grabbed her arms and pushed her back.She protested and evaded him and left the building.In this era of #MMIWG  Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women  and Girls we hope that Nooksack Police Chief Ashby won't be contributing to the number and his threatening actions point to.

Margretty Rabang v Robert Kelly Jr. 9th Circuit: Can Court Rule On Intra Tribal Dispute

Rabang Family with Attorneys from Galanda Broadman

Attorney's argue whether there is RICO jurisdiction on intra tribal dispute.  The Nooksack Tribe's attorney argues RICO shouldn't apply. GB attorney Anthony Broadman argues that it should because Nooksack tribal election was NOT legitimate.

The attorneys both agree this issue is separate from pending cases on enrollment.  you can watch the video on YOUTUBE here  beginning at the 6 minute mark.

Read more on RABANG here  and a Rabang victory here

Native America Calling Celebrates 24 years ON THE AIR CONGRATULATIONS

Congratulations to NATIVE AMERICA CALLING for 24 years on the air today. Proud to have been a caller on a couple of their shows on disenrollment.   We have a story below from April 2016, including a link to the show.

Good to hear that NAC will be doing a show on disenrollment.  Sad to hear that it's still an issue a couple of years after doing the show.  Great commentary by Chairman Greg Sarris of the Graton Rancheria and my friend Cathy Cory of Picayune Rancheria of Chukchansi Indians.

 To Listen to the show, now available: go to this link:Native America Calling on DISENROLLMENT SHOW   Please tell your family and friends about this show and ask them to look in.  Show NAC that a LOT of natives care about this issue.

Nooksack 306 Protesting Disenrollment Action
by Bob Kelly led faction

Tribes have the power to determine their own membership. But with great power comes a great controversy in the form of disenrollment. A new group is speaking out against the practice of eliminating members. They say it is literally tearing tribes apart. One California tribe,

Indian Child Welfare Act Pits 573 Tribes Against Texas Couple

Photo: Allison V Smith for the NYTimes

From the NEW YORK TIMES

The 3-year-old boy who could upend a 40-year-old law aimed at protecting Native American children barreled into the suburban living room, merrily defying his parents’ prediction that he might be shy. He had a thatch of night-black hair and dark eyes that glowed with mischievous curiosity. As he pumped a stranger’s hand and scampered off to bounce on an indoor trampoline, his Superman cape floated behind him, as if trying to catch up.

The Indian Child Welfare Act DOESN'T protect Native Children from Tribes which HARM THEM via Disenrollment  

Zachary, or A.L.M. as he is called in legal papers, has a Navajo birth mother, a Cherokee birth father and adoptive parents, Jennifer and Chad Brackeen, neither of whom is Native American. The Brackeens are challenging a federal law governing Native American children in state foster care: It requires that priority to adopt them be given to Native families, to reinforce the children’s tribal identity.
The Indian Child Welfare Act, developed to protect Native children from the horrors of the past when Indian children were taken from their families, has come between a child and her foster family. Ostensibly designed to protect Native children, to ensure they are kept with Native families, this case of Lexi, a foster child in CA is making news.

BREAKING! FIRE Forces EVACUATION of PECHANGA RESORT AND CASINO, Injures THREE

A fire Monday afternoon forced evacuation of the Pechanga Resort and Casino.  This is a breaking story, fire crews on scene.

UPDATE IV:  Pechanga Fire Department Chief Jason Keeling said the fire started on the first floor in the elevator.  Neither the fire alarm nor sprinklers activated, Keeling said.
UPDATE V:  3 of six elevator's still out of commission according to #Pechanga FB  page.

Quick response from local Fire Departments.  Stay tuned for more.

The Pechanga Resort and Casino is located in Temecula, CA.  Since getting a casino, the tribe has wiped out 25% of its tribe via tribal disenrollment.  Learn more about disenrollment, by clicking on the pictures on the sidebar.

 “At approximately 11:30 a.m., a fire broke out in a hotel elevator portal in the original tower of the Pechanga Resort Casino,” spokeswoman Ciara Green said in an email. “The Pechanga Fire Department immediately responded and knocked the fire down.”
 
UPDATE:  One person was seen being taken away on a stretcher, via a twitter video.

UPDATEII:   Mutual aid has been assisted from Hemet, Corona, Morongo Fire, Soboba Fire, Murrieta and more.
UPDATEIII :  Press conference shortly. Injuries include THREE people...

May 28, 1830 Andrew Jackson Signs Indian Removal Act HOWEVER TRIBES are NOW REMOVING INDIANS

Andrew Jackson

With the Indian removal Act in place, Jackson and his followers were free to persuade, bribe, and threaten tribes into signing removal treaties and leaving the Southeast.

With DISENROLLMENT, we have TRIBES REMOVING their OWN PEOPLE. Here's the Pechanga Band Of luiseno Indians story:

The Pechanga Indian Removal Acts: Violations of Civil Rights

The Pechanga Indian Removal Acts

Posted on January 16th, 2008 by Original Pechanga

The explosion of Indian Gaming in California has lead to some acts that tribes such as Pechanga Band of Temecula would like to keep as “family secrets.” Removing Indians from tribes, pronouncing them non-Indians, had the same effect as Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Acts had in 1830’s America. Get the Indians we don’t want or like out of the way.

In 2004 and 2005, as part of the Concerned Pechanga People’s Indian Removal Policy, members of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Mission Indians were forced to give up their membership in the tribe whose reservation is in Temecula, CA. Life-long members, who have had land on the reservation for centuries were forcibly expelled from the tribe. This act of paper genocide has had devastating effects on 25% of the Pechanga people.
Elders no longer qualify for the health care that they lobbied the tribe to provide for all its members. The young are not allowed to attend the reservation’s school, being forcibly blocked and told to leave, much in the manner of the white racists who blocked black children from integrating schools in Little Rock in the 1950’s.

Those who were removed, face an unsecured financial future. Many worked for the tribe, were part of all events, meetings, have their dead buried in the Pechanga Cemetery. Now, that has ended. In order to increase the per capita ($15,000 per month at the time of the first removal) some of the descendents of Pablo Apis, the family of Manuela Miranda were terminated from the tribe. Per capita grew to $20,000 per month (plus bonuses) for those remaining, members of the Concerned Pechanga People initiated a misinformation campaign, one that has successfully terminated over 300 Native Americans of Pechanga descent at the time of the second removal (the descendents of Paulina Hunter.) The per capita is now reportedly $40,000 per month.

Blood relatives are banished from the reservations, families who are no longer in the tribe, but live on the reservation property that they’ve owned since the late 1800’s live in fear that the tribe will take away their water, which has been threatened by some of the remaining tribal members. Will Pechanga really turn off their lifeblood, as easily as they took away their civil rights? It’s not difficult to think so, after the atrocities that the CPP have already committed.

The Concerned Pechanga PeopleThis is the group of people that let the blackness of greed take over their hearts and minds.

The Splinter Group

This group is an offshoot of the 1980’s Splinter Group, led by Russell Murphy and assisted by Frances Miranda and Ihrene Scearse (later on the enrollment committee and committed to removing tribal members). Non-enrolled members of Pechanga, they started attending meetings and disrupted the regular goings on of the business. They announced that they were separating from the band and forming their own Tribe. They petitioned the BIA to recognize them, but the BIA refused.
With few exceptions, no member of the splinter group applied for membership because they knew they could not meet the constitutional requirements established by the Pechanga Band.
The actions of the splinter group raise legitimate questions: Are they really Pechanga? Are they able to document their lineal descent from an Original Pechanga Temecula Person as the Pechanga Bands Constitution and Bylaws require? Did they figure that disruption of tribal matters was the way to go?
This is not the portrait of a tribe in need, asking the people of California to allow tribes to have Las Vegas type gaming such as portrayed in the Prop. 1A and Prop. 5 television commercials of the 1990’s. This is about power, greed and violations of civil rights, voting rights, and elder abuse. It’s about tribal governments wielding sovereignty like a club and it’s about individual Indians that have nowhere to turn for justice.
I’ll explore this more in future posts, with thoughts on expanded gaming in California and what it feels like to be told you aren’t who you know you are.

Muscogee Creek Freedmen Lawsuit DROPPED by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly

A federal judge has rejected a lawsuit from the descendants of black slaves who were once owned by members of the Muscogee Creek Nation and who are seeking citizenship in the tribe, saying that they should go through the tribe’s own legal process first.

The Tulsa World reports that U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, D.C., dismissed the Muscogee Creek freedmen descendants’ lawsuit this week seeking citizenship in the Creek Nation.

The Okmulgee-based tribe is the fourth largest in the country, with over 86,000 enrolled citizens.

The descendants filed a lawsuit last July against the Creek Nation and the U.S. Department of the Interior seeking full tribal citizenship and to have the tribe’s constitution declared in violation of the Treaty of 1866.

The Cherokee Nation faced a similar lawsuit that was resolved (OP: With a RESOUNDING victory in COURT) last year.

Cherokee Freedmen Attorney Jon Velie had this to say on his Facebook page:

The Cherokee Freedmen and Seminole Freedmen cases were resounding decisions with very strong language affirming Freedmen citizens equality in their respective Tribes. This case was dismissed on a technicality.

National Park Service Gives HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS to Tribes for BONES, but IGNORE What they DID TO THE LIVING.

The National Park Service announces grants in the millions to preserve their history. But they give money to tribes that abuse the LIVING, and have disrespected their own dead via Tribal Disenrollment

ELEM, PALA, PECHANGA, PICAYUNE, PINOLEVILLE, SAN PASQUAL and SHINGLE SPRINGS among the recipients of grants of $50,000 or more in order to "locate and preserve artifacts".  We just wrote about Pechanga usurping the Gabrieleno Tongva people's ancestor's remains.    Perhaps these disenrolling tribes should worry about preserving their most valuable resource--their Indian PEOPLE--first. It wouldn't take much time, energy, or money to locate the thousands of living indian people, from whom their corrupt tribal governments have stolen their very birthright through disenrollment and moratoriums.  BONES shouldn't be more important than people

Here is a list of disenrolling tribes at the amounts our government granted:

Assistant Secretary Indian Affairs Tara Sweeney Names Darryl LaCounte Director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs

Darryl LaCounte

Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Tara Mac Lean Sweeney today announced that she has appointed Darryl LaCounte to the position of director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in the U.S. Department of the Interior. LaCounte, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians in North Dakota, has served as acting director since 2018. His appointment is effective April 28, 2019.

Assistant Secretary Sweeney is committed to providing consistent and focused leadership for the BIA, as well as to actively collaborate with the Department’s senior managers. Among her top priorities is to fill all of the bureau’s leadership positions with highly qualified managers who will provide continuity and expertise in trust management in accordance with its mission.

“Ensuring that key leadership positions are filled is important for Indian Affairs’ success and the Department’s relationship with Indian Country,” Sweeney said. “Mr. LaCounte has done a superior job over this past year as the acting director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. He is clearly committed to the trust responsibility and the further development of our vital workforce, which is the foundation for our ability to deliver services to the tribes.”

“When I was asked to step in to be the BIA’s acting director, I felt a strong responsibility to the people behind the work – the Indian Affairs employees, the tribes, and the Indian and Alaska Native people we serve,” LaCounte said. “In accepting this appointment as BIA director, I want to thank Assistant Secretary Sweeney for her confidence and support. Because I believe in our mission, I am committed to improving the way we accomplish it and to upholding the federal trust responsibility now and for future generations.