Coyote Warrior

by Paul Van Develder

  Marshall had hoped that the Trilogy would encourage the best of human nature to prevail until the Indians were assimilated into white society. Yet by 1952, assimilation of the two cultures was no closer to a reality than it was a century before. The Three Affiliated Tribes’ new attorney, James Curry, regarded P.L. 437 as proof that Marshall’s dim view of the common man had been well informed. The takings act of 1949 was a poignant reminder of Cherokee philosopher John Ross’s disarming insight: “The perpetrator of a wrong never forgives his victims.”

  In a letter to Chairman Cross in February 1952, Curry argued that P.L. 437 needed to be scrapped and rewritten from the beginning. With the construction of the dam proceeding at a furious pace, both men knew the odds of that happening were next to zero. With the help of Senator O’Mahoney, Curry instead demanded that Congress address the biggest problems in the act with new amendments. Senator O’Mahoney agreed and guided two new bills through the Senate which sought to restore rights and privileges that had mysteriously disappeared in Senator Watkins’s committee. Hearings on O’Mahoney’s amendments were scheduled for the first week of April 1952. Commissioner Myer would be present, and Senator Clinton Anderson would preside. Anderson was a fierce champion of banking, mining, and timber interests, and regarded the Indians as a legal nuisance and a blight of barnacles on the ship of state. As the new chairman of the powerful Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, the senator from New Mexico made it his personal mission to convert Indian Country’s “communal holdings into individual ownership by siphoning off tribespeople into the mainstream.”

  While Senator Anderson was taking center stage, in the wings Watkins and Myer were carefully coordinating their respective policies to converge on Indian Country simultaneously. All the fuss over Pick-Sloan, the Hoover Commission report, and the takings act would vanish like so much political vapor as soon as termination kicked into high gear. Congressman Beck’s original termination bill had been spiked in committee in 1949, but by 1952, Beck’s offspring had looped back under a different name and with renewed vigor. Republicans now controlled congressional committees, and the protermination forces were taking no chances with freshman legislators. Beck’s newly resurrected bill was now sponsored by Watkins himself. Known as Public Law 280, this far-reaching law would formally open the door to the larger, carefully choreographed termination movement by initiating the transfer of jurisdiction over Indian Country from the federal government to the states. This time the bill would be attended by anxious midwives on Capitol Hill, in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and in the Department of the Interior. In a confidential letter from the assistant secretary of the interior, Orme Lewis, Senator Watkins was assured that Interior wanted to get out of the Indian business once and for all. “Federal responsibility for administering the affairs of individual Indian tribes should be terminated as rapidly as the circumstances of each tribe will permit.”

  Dillon Myer, meanwhile, had identified the first sixty tribes that would disappear in the initial wave of termination. The Three Affiliated Tribes were at the top of the list, along with the Menominee of Wisconsin and the Klamath tribe of southern Oregon. Leaders such as Martin Cross and Robert Yellowtail would learn of this at the same time as department bureaucrats. Someone inside the agency leaked a secret letter sent by Myer to all of his area directors. This epistle, dated August 5, 1952, outlined the government’s new strategy for bringing about the termination of federal trust. A clandestine carbon copy of the letter was slipped through the mail slot at 1345 Connecticut Avenue N.W. in Washington, D.C., where it landed on the desk of N. B. Johnson, the new president of the National Congress of American Indians.

  Johnson immediately alerted the NCAI membership to the government’s plan. Myer and Watkins had concocted a multipronged strategy that was designed to immediately implement the fifteen new termination bills moving through Congress. Myer was seeking to “dispose of tribal lands, tribal funds, tribal water rights, irrigation systems, or other tribal property at his own discretion, without tribal consent.” The commissioner had quietly petitioned Congress for the blanket authority to terminate trusteeship of land, to remove tax-exempt status from Indian Country, and to veto any tribal expenditure of funds. Most egregious of all in Johnson’s view was Myer’s request that Congress exempt the BIA “from review or correction in any court in all the foregoing activities.” In other words, the commissioner was asking his friends in Congress to put his agency above the law.

  None of the news in Johnson’s bulletin caught Martin Cross by surprise. Yet as Myer’s motives became better known to an unsuspecting public, Cross saw an opportunity for a counteroffensive and sent a carefully worded declaration to newspapers around the country by Western Union telegraph: “The Government of the United States first dealt with our tribal governments as sovereign equals,” he reminded white audiences. “We have never asked anything except that this protection be continued and these benefits be provided as agreed, in good faith. . . . These proposals, if adopted, will tend to destroy our tribal governments. From our point of view, if these laws are passed, they will be a new monument to the white man’s persistent efforts to force native people of this continent to vanish or become like himself.”

  At the end of World War II, Myer “reintroduced” more than 100,000 Japanese internees into mainstream society by loading them onto buses and dropping them off in urban centers. Ethnic slums blossomed overnight in a dozen western cities. Nevertheless, Myer’s plan was hailed in Washington as a great success. Now, the commissioner proposed to do the same thing with Indians. This new policy, called “relocation,” was officially unveiled at the end of 1951. Its objective, explained Myer, was “to liberate the Indian into mainstream society.” With relocation successfully launched to coincide with Congress’ termination legislation, the long-awaited end to the nation’s ongoing Indian problem now seemed within reach.

  At the same time Myer was launching his relocation campaign, he submitted a new bill to Congress—“A Bill to Authorize the Indian Bureau to Make Arrests Without Warrant for Violation of Indian Bureau Regulations”—that would empower the agency director to act as judge and jury over Indians suspected of committing crimes. If the bill was approved, the director would also wield the authority to deny Indians independent access to legal representation. For example, if Martin Cross got into a fight with a fellow tribe member over damages incurred by an errant cow, this new law would give Dillon Myer the right to decide the chairman’s fate. The stealthlike fashion in which this bill was introduced when the McCarthy hearings were distracting the national media suggests that Myer and his partners in Congress were advancing their agenda with great confidence. Yet Myer’s newest initiative was so bold that even the white media lifted its eyebrows. “Could it be that those who propose such legislation still think of Indians as savages without rights?” asked the Great Falls Tribune. This was echoed in the Houston Post with, “The Indian bureau is asking for gestapo power. . . . This is one bill Congress would do well to file and forget pronto.”

  Meanwhile, as these new initiatives were being debated in the press, a diplomat at the United Nations in New York City named Raphael Lemkin joined the root of the Greek word genos, or race, to the Latin suffix cide, to kill, and coined the word genocide. Still in shock over the horrific atrocities committed in World War II, the United Nations General Assembly convened the first international conference on genocide in 1950, a decision which ultimately led to the passage of a formal resolution that recognized genocide as a “crime against humanity.” Genocide, said the congress of nations, was the act of denying people the right of existence, in whole or in part, by undermining the foundations underlying their national or ethnic identity, with the aim of destroying that group. Virtually every member nation of the UN endorsed the sweeping new addition to the formal body of international law.

  As details about termination began leaking onto the pages of eastern newspapers, former Indian commissioner Collier openly charged Commissioner Myer a
nd members of Congress with committing acts of genocide against the Indian people of North America. Termination, said Collier, was nothing more than a sanitized euphemism for genocide. Under Collier’s own watch, the BIA sought to end the “forced atomization, cultural prescription, and administrative absolutism” over the tribes that had characterized a century of abuse. The Roosevelt administration had reshaped federal Indian policy to recognize the importance of tribal culture, native languages, customs, and religious ceremonies. Collier asked, “How could so much have changed in ten short years?”

  Given the feverish loyalty mania of the early 1950s, an atmosphere in which every liberal was viewed as a quasi communist, Myer easily deflected Collier’s accusation as left-wing hysteria. In his own defense, he pointed to the fact that the United States had abstained from joining the United Nations’ resolution on genocide. As these charges and countercharges passed one another in the nation’s newspapers, Martin Cross and Councilman Ben Youngbird boarded the train in Minot for another three-day trip to Washington.

  Before the gavel opened the hearings in April 1952 on a new slate of amendments to P.L. 437, Senator Anderson knew what to expect from the Three Affiliated Tribes’ attorney. Curry and Anderson had locked horns on previous occasions. In the days leading up to the hearings, Curry told the press that he was after big game, both literally and figuratively. He wanted the historic rights of the Three Affiliated Tribes to “hunt, gather, and fish,” and their mineral rights, restored immediately. Also, in Curry’s opinion, the $12.5 million Congress approved for the tribes was an insult. This sum did not begin to address the Fifth Amendment issues swamping this case. If lawmakers missed this opportunity to correct their errors, they would only be inviting a constitutional crisis. Clocks were ticking. Construction was moving swiftly, the power tunnels were being cut for the hydroelectric turbines, yet not one Indian holding a title to land had seen the first dime of compensation. Curry was not shy when it came to laying his cards on the table. Congress’ Fifth Amendment obligations to landowners were not negotiable. As things stood, P.L. 437 was a criminal breach of the tribes’ constitutional guarantees, not to mention their treaty rights. Either Congress would clean up the mess or the tribes would take their case to the courts.

  The first questions put to Curry made it clear that many of the committee members were confounded by the array of issues before them. Senator Morris wanted to know how, and why, the guarantees had been stripped in the first place.

  “Frankly, sir, we’d like to have an answer to that ourselves, but we’re not holding our breaths,” said Curry, glancing at Senator Anderson.

  “You’re telling us that the original bill that came to this committee provided for restoration of mineral rights?”

  “Yes, sir. If you have any doubts about that, I urge you to discuss it with Congressman Lemke.”

  “And we provided for harbor rights on the lake?”

  “Exactly,” agreed Curry.

  “And fishing rights?”

  “Yes, fishing and hunting rights were intact. We are asking for nothing that your committee did not give us in the original bill, which stated, if I might . . .”

  “Please.”

  “To paraphrase, the contract that the Corps made with the Indians permitted them to continue making use of the waters behind the dam. Congress cannot meet its obligation to make these Indians whole unless these rights and guarantees are restored.”

  Sensing a reversal in sympathies in favor of the tribes, Anderson jumped in with bristling indignation.

  “This was all resolved in the last Congress to the satisfaction of the Indians!”

  “Not the Indians I represent,” shot Curry.

  “Mr. Curry, I remember distinctly, Senator Kerr came back from conference and declared it was all settled. In fact, his very words were, ‘Well, that should take care of the Indians once and for all.’ Does anybody else remember that?”

  “That’s what he said,” agreed Senator Langer.

  “So, I don’t understand why we’re back here.”

  “I thought we’d made that clear, Senator. The Indians never agreed that they would give up these rights. When they objected, they were told by Senator O’Mahoney, in writing, that they could reclaim them after the bill was passed. That’s what we’re doing.”

  “Did he really say that?” asked Senator Ecton.

  “Yes, he did, Senator,” said Chairman Cross. “We have it in writing. If I may, Senator . . .”

  “Please, Mr. Cross, go right ahead.”

  “Aside from restoring our mineral rights, and providing irrigation and electricity, which was promised to us when we negotiated this contract way back when . . . for some reason, the final draft of the bill forbids us to use our money to hire attorneys or agents to represent us. It seems to me that the Indian should be as entitled to legal counsel of his own choice as a white man . . .”

  Dillon Myer immediately rose in defense of Indian bureau policy. His brow furrowed, but his gray-green eyes were unblinking behind the steel-rimmed spectacles. “We do not believe it is essential, or in the tribes’ best interest, to use this money for attorneys, since there are other moneys available for paying attorney’s fees. We’re simply trying to do our duty by protecting the interests of the tribe. We do not agree with your reading of this, Mr. Curry.”

  “The act, as it is written, forbids the Indians to use these funds to hire attorneys to represent them. Surely you don’t intend to leave that in there.”

  “I don’t think that it would be wise to revisit this,” offered Myer. “We’re quite happy with it the way it is.”

  Myer was playing his cards from strength to weakness. He knew he had enough friends in Congress to make his policy stick. Following the hearing, as the Three Affiliated Tribes’ petition languished in committee, Myer sent a telegram to Chairman Cross ordering him to make a final payment to James Curry for services already rendered. Once made, Cross was ordered to formally sever the tribes’ relationship with Curry. Reading and rereading the telegram, Cross and the council concluded that the commissioner left them no choice. Curry agreed to let the tribe out of its contract, provided the council could pay him the balance owed. He assured Cross that he would always be available pro bono if the tribe needed help in Washington.

  Despite Cross’s reputation as a visionary leader of his people, every time he went to Washington, his troubles back home grew increasingly dire. By the time Martin Cross’s oldest son, Crusoe, turned eighteen, the young man knew in his bones what no one in the family was willing to say out loud at the evening dinner table. Martin Cross was wearing out the railroad tracks to Washington, D.C., but the only thing he ever brought home was more bad news, more disappointments, more frequent and long-lasting bouts with alcohol. As he watched his father’s decline, Crusoe began to suspect that Dorothy and Martin’s marriage had entered its final act. By the time he graduated from high school in 1951, all that remained to play out now, in the final days of Elbowoods, were the ugly details of their own personal endgame.

  “It didn’t help their marriage that Dad was in Washington almost every spare minute,” remembers Marilyn. “By then, things had gotten to the point where I think Mom and the older boys felt it was a relief when he was gone.”

  The sooner their mother got out of Elbowoods, the better off she would be. For ten years she had worked eighteen hours a day, keeping hearth and home intact. Without the simple conveniences of running water, electricity, a phone, or refrigeration, she was feeding and clothing nine children, her husband and his friends, and a small army of in-laws. From Crusoe’s vantage point, Dorothy’s tireless sacrifices had only earned her endless fights with her husband and ever-deepening isolation from the Indians in her midst.

  “In the last years we were in Elbowoods, from 1950 until 1953, nobody talked in that house,” says Bucky. “We were prisoners of our own thoughts. That was the way people dealt with their angst back then.”

  “My Dad and I were mortal enemie
s throughout my high school years,” says Crusoe. “I just wanted to escape.”

  Two weeks after he graduated from high school, Crusoe got his chance. On a beautiful June morning, his friend Russell Gillette pulled up behind the house and yelled out his car window. “Hey, Crusoe, I’m off to join the Air Force. You want to come?”

  After his father wrote him a check for twenty dollars, he gave his mother a kiss good-bye and walked out the kitchen door. “That was the last time I saw Elbowoods. We drove out State Road Number Eight, hung a right at Garrison, and drove nonstop to Fargo. I had the clothes on my back. That was it. The recruiters bought us a meal and put us on the bus to Lackland Air Force Base for basic training. The next time I walked into that house, four years later, it was in Parshall. It sure was strange. Same door, different town. I’d come home, but I was completely lost.

  “Elbowoods was a beautiful little village,” says Crusoe. “All the people in the outlying communities came into town once a month. They gathered on the big main square, beneath the monument to the chiefs who went to the Treaty of Horse Creek. The women would sit on the porch of the agency with their shawls pulled around their shoulders and talk for hours. The men would sit in circles on the ground and smoke and talk and tell stories, and they had a different, tobacco smell that was very strong in young nostrils. You knew everybody in the world by their first name, what clan they belonged to, who their ancestors were, which societies they belonged to, who had the medicine bundles. My grandfather was a Water Buster and a member of the Fox society. Our grandmother’s family had been in the Prairie Chicken clan, long before Cherry Necklace took Sakakawea as his sister. It’s difficult for outsiders to understand the complexity of these relationships, how they formed us. The clans, all the religious rites and ceremonies and rituals of passage, developed over many centuries. You learned these things as a kid, the way you learned language, how to track a fox, or plant a hill of beans. There was nothing easy about that life. It was tough, but we laughed and we sang and we never stopped dancing. When people say ‘Elbowoods,’ they’re not remembering the actual place as much as a state of being and spiritual peace. When you mention Elbowoods to the old people, they turn their heads away. They go off by themselves and weep.”