Who’s responsible for water debacle?
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Editor,
Darn it, fellow irrigators, it appears to me that the tribe is still trying to get control of the use of all waters flowing through, existing on, and underneath all lands located west of the Continental Divide, which we know as Western Montana.
Originally, these lands were utilized by the tribes for the hunting of buffalo, elk, deer and grouse, which was their sustenance. However, at the time of the treaty in 1855, these resources were rapidly disappearing and the tribes, according to their own testimony at the treaty negotiations and signing, said they desperately needed the assistance of the United States to survive.
I quote from the minutes taken by interpreters of the treaty negotiators as recorded in files at the National Archives and Records in Washington, D.C. These statements were recorded of the tribal chieftains to Gov. Stephens:
Flathead Chief Victor: “(Gov. Stephens is) the only man who has offered to aid us … I believe you wish to assist me to keep my children here so that they have plenty to eat …”
Pend d’Oreille Chief Alexander: “I am poor; I am an Indian … We are poor, we Indians.”
Pend d’Oreille Chief Big Canoe: “I am very poor, (Gov. Stephens) is a chief. If we tell him we are very poor, he will keep us …”
Kootenai Chief Michele: “We are poor; we need help …”
In answer to these pleas of poverty, Gov. Stephens is recorded as saying: “We wish your tribes to live on one tract of land, a reservation large enough for your animals and farms … The first year (you will have) a large amount of clothing, of cooking utensils, and everything to start your farms, and you will have an addition of the same thing every year for 20 years.”
In 1908, the United States purchased the unused lands from the tribes and sold it, together with the water thereon, to its citizens, homesteaders and settlers, describing the lands as being in the “former” Flathead Reservation.
Our big question now is: Who’s responsible?
Lloyd Ingraham
Ronan
