| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Next | Part 6 |
| Table of Contents |

Brian moved in a way that suggested he had remembered something he had meant to say earlier but had forgotten to do so. "David, just so that we can finish off the Indian Reorganization Act aspect of the discussion, there is one further point which should be made.

"Once the Tribal Councils came into existence, they became a major source of division and hostility within the Native community. This was true not only within a given tribe or nation, but this also was true with respect to the relationship between tribes and nations. Conflict, antagonism, stress, strain, political in-fighting, and rivalries began to dominate a great deal of the day-to-day lives of Native people."

Brian made a crumpling motion with his hands, as if he had been fashioning a ball-like object from a piece of paper. He, then, tossed the imaginary ball of paper back over his shoulder. Presumably, he was finished with the topic of the Indian Reorganization Act.

After he had thrown away the 'garbage', Brian asked: "Do I have your permission to proceed to the penultimate act of our tawdry little drama concerning American history? This chapter is much, much shorter than the previous two instalments, if that should be a concern of yours."

I said: "My time is your time." But, as I said this, I remembered where I was. I quickly looked at the walls and told him: "At least, up to a certain point, my time is your time."

I'm sure he was all too well aware of what I meant. However, he didn't appear to be offended by my rather clumsy, if not thoughtless, effort at humor.

Having received the go-ahead signal from me, he said: "In 1946 the U.S. Congress passed a bill known as the 'Indian Claims Commission Act'. This Act was very straightforward.

"According to the provisions of this Act, there was only one procedure open to Native peoples for redressing grievances concerning land claims. Native people could negotiate with the federal government for a cash payment of some sort in relation to disputed lands. However, Native peoples would not be able to seek the return of any land that had belonged to them previously, irrespective of whatever the treaty rights may have indicated in this regard.

"In addition, lawyers who appeared before the Land Claims Commission were to receive an entitlement of 10% of the negotiated fee. Therefore, these lawyers had a vested interest in dissuading Native groups from seeking any other method of grievance resolution such as through the International Court of Justice at The Hague, or the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, or political action. Consequently, these lawyers were, and are, more like agents of the government than people interested in serving the best interests of their supposed clients- namely, Native peoples.

"Incidentally", David," he said, "you might be interested in the way the Indian Claims Commission arrives at its 'fair' assessment value for disputed lands. They work on the basis of what the land would have been worth in the 1800s, rather than modern market values.

"The government really has Native peoples coming and going. Unfortunately, at the present time, there doesn't appear to be anything much we can do about the situation."

Brian scratched his nose, grimaced slightly and proceeded on with his account. "The intent of the Indian Claims Commission Act was to provide the federal government with a so-called legal means of gaining control of the lands of all those tribes and nations who, up to that point, had been able to resist the formation of Tribal Councils. Irrespective of the wishes of these tribes and nations, lawyers were appointed to negotiate settlements on their behalf.

"There are approximately twenty tribes or nations which have refused to accept the sums that have been negotiated for them. A number of other tribes have accepted the arrangements."

Brian was silent. I waited for a moment, and when nothing more was forthcoming, I asked: "Is that it?"

"Yup," he said, "I told you this chapter was going to be pretty short."

He had a mischievous look on his face when he said: "Your sentence is almost up."

I laughed. Somehow, this kind of humor sounded better coming from him than from me.

"The last stop on our journey is Alaska," he indicated. "The time is no longer 1946. We are now in the year 1973.

"Congress has passed a bill called: 'The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act'. The bill has been ushered into existence through the lobbying efforts of a variety of oil, mining, fishing and other corporate concerns.

"However, in order to place this Native Claims Settlement Act in a proper historical context, we really need to go back to 1867. In that year America paid a sum of $7.2 million to the Russian government in exchange for rights of dominion over the lands of Alaska.

"One of the interesting features of this transaction is that Alaska was not really Russia's to sell. With certain exceptions, such as the visits of Russian fur traders to the Aleutian Islands, as well as a few of their excursions along certain portions of the south coast of Alaska, Russians had virtually nothing to do with Alaska.

"Furthermore, there already were a variety of different Native peoples inhabiting the lands of Alaska- tribes such as the Inupiat, Aleut, Athabascan and Yupik peoples. Therefore, even if the Russians had explored and established themselves in Alaska, the land still was not theirs to own or sell.

"Sixty-four years prior to the selling of Alaska, in 1803, something very similar had happened. For $15 million dollars, the American government negotiated the Louisiana Purchase with French Colonials.

"This transaction covered a huge tract of land running through west central North America. The boundaries of this purchase ran from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains, on the east and west, and from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, on the south and north.

"As was the case with the selling of Alaska, the essential qualities that made the Louisiana Purchase possible were: arrogance, ignorance, presumption, prejudice and arbitrariness, on the part of both the seller and buyer. Like Alaska, the lands encompassed by the Louisiana Purchase already were inhabited by a variety of Native tribes and nations.

"Today, when someone buys something, even if that person should do so in good faith, nonetheless, if the property involved in the transaction turns out to be stolen, the person who purchased the property does not get to keep it. That property must be returned to the rightful owner.

"Unfortunately, for hundreds of years, governments all over the world have been conducting these sorts of criminal transaction for their own selfish ends. These activities aren't called criminal. They are referred to as diplomacy or international relations or foreign trade. But, 'a rose by any other name'...."

Brian did not finish the statement. Whether he did this by design or for other reasons, I do not know.

| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Next | Part 6 |
| Table of Contents |