August 18, 1996
The July 21, 1996 edition of the Eureka Times-Standard newspaper (Eureka,
Calif.) reported that the Hoopa Valley Tribe is seeking return of part
of the Six Rivers National Forest to the Hoopa tribe's reservation. Hoopa
is the largest rreservation in California and was originally intended to
be a 12 X 12 mile (144 square miles) reservation. The reservation is home
to the second largest tribe in California. Hoopa tribal chairman Dale Risling
Sr. stated that rectifying a reservation boundary involving 2,641 acres
"would right a wrong committed 121 years ago."
The Hoopa tribe has worked with Rep. Frank Riggs, R-Windsor (CA), to
request legislation "to straighten the dogleg" in the rreservation's southeast
boundary. The Hupa people have struggled for years to have the disputed
acreage returned to their tribe. The contested lands were fraudulently
sliced off the south boundary in 1875 by federal surveyors. Local white
settlers insisted that the deletion be made, with the assumption being
that gold was on the strip.
Chairman Risling states that the return of the land will help the tribe
to maintain its cultural integrity and assist both the tribe and the nearby
non-Indian community economically. To this there can be little doubt. The
disputed parcel holds the remains of the members of the Tish-tang band
of the Hupa.
Forest Service Director of Lands, Eleanor Towns, states that the current
southeast boundary "was proper under the laws and instructions at the time."
She states the administration would not oppose the transferring of the
lands if the Hupa are "willing to pay 'fair market value.'" Towns expressed
concern that the conveyance of "lands without compensation would provide
a precedent for reopening long-settled land title issues."
The issue brings to mind the racist, exploitative U.S. record of dealing
with Indian tribes across the U.S. The Indian Claims Commission, created
in 1946, documented that the title to over 60 per cent of the aboriginal
American Indian lands were obtained fraudulently.
Comments by Ms. Towns, Forest Service Director of Lands for the Six
Rivers National Forest, demonstrates the extreme arrogance, and/or dogmatic
pattern of denial exhibited by U.S. officials about past fraud perpetrated
against California Indians and other tribes across the country. This pattern
of behavior, denial, is part and parcel of the systemic white wash of the
historical record of abuse toward the Indian land base. I'd like to refresh
Ms. Towns' memory with the record that within 43 years after the passage
of the General Allotment Act (1887) that Indians had lost 100 million acres
of the 150 million they owned before passage of this grievious act. After
Indians were essentially forced to accept individual ownership of parcels
of land on or near their reservations, the U.S. government declared unallotted
lands as surplus, then open for white settlement. Miners, ranchers, railroad
people and attorneys with attorneys lined up to commit fraud against Indians
who didn't suspect the myriad ways a human being could be cheated. These
included the Burke Act of 1906 which shortened the 25 year trust period
whereby an Indian could not be alienated from the title to their allotment.
Competency commissiers wreaked havoc....