Racism and Wildlife
http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2011/08/racism-and-wildlife/
By Dr. Dean Chavers
August 24, 2011
After the acquisition of Alcatraz Island in November 1969, the first phone call
we got came from Billy Frank Sr. He called our headquarters at the American
Indian Center in San Francisco that first night after he had seen me on
television. Frank was the long time leader of the fish-ins in Washington State.
The tribes in Washington finally won back their treaty right to hunt and fish,
years later, in the Boldt decision (U.S. v. Washington).
“Hey, Dean, what are you guys doing down there?” he asked me in his booming
bass voice.
“We’re taking back some Indian land,” I told him. “We’re starting with
Alcatraz, but we are going to take back some other places.”
“Good for you,” he said. “It’s about time. A couple of carloads of us are
coming down tonight.”
Sure enough, they showed up the next day. Frank’s son-in-law Al Bridges, who
would ultimately be arrested more than 50 times, and his wife Maiselle showed
up ready to help. Their daughter Suzette and her husband, Sid Mills, were with
them when they came into the Indian Center. Sid had just got back from fighting
in Vietnam, where he had been critically wounded. His welcome home was to be
arrested for fishing on the Nisqually River.
The actions of the fish-in people, including the ideological leader Hank Adams,
the Bridges family, the Mills family, the Don and Janet McLoud family, the
Frank family, and others, had sparked the revolution of standing up for Indian
rights in Washington State. According to the treaties they had signed in 1854,
they had the right to hunt and fish in the usual and accustomed places.
However, beginning in the early part of the twentieth century, the state game
wardens began to enforce state laws on Indian lands. The BIA, which should have
stood up for the Indian people, looked the other way. The BIA never sent any
law enforcement people or attorneys to help the beleaguered Indians. They were
mostly on their own, although the actor Marlon Brando and the Black comedian
Dick Gregory both joined ranks to show their support by getting arrested with
them. Gregory and his wife both pulled prison terms after being arrested in the
fish-ins.
The Boldt decision in 1974 affirmed the right of the Indians to 50 percent of
the salmon and steelhead runs. That decision soon ended the fish-ins and led to
the creation of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission (NWIFC). For a
quarter of a century, the Commission, made up of Indians and non-Indians, has
regulated the fishing industry in a manner that has helped the fish to recover.
Where the runs of both fish had diminished greatly in the previous several
decades, the runs have begun to build up to much higher levels. Maiselle’s
brother Billy Frank Jr. is the head of the Commission.
However, the court decision started a reaction by commercial and sport
fishermen in the Northwest that is still having serious consequences today. The
decision was prompted by the actions of the “fish-in” people from several
tribes in the state of Washington. Several of them had been arrested dozens of
times when they fished the old Indian way at Frank’s Landing.
The 1983 Voigt decision (Lac Court Oreilles Band of Chippewa Indians v. Lester
P. Voigt) affirmed the treaty rights of the Chippewa tribes to harvest
off-reservation natural resources in parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and
Michigan. The decision affirmed the treaties of 1837, 1842 and 1854. It
immediately set off a chain of events that are still causing problems today.
By 1987 the anti-Indian groups were very active. The leading groups were Equal
Rights for Everyone (ERE), the Wisconsin Alliance for Rights and Resources
(WARR), and Protect Americans Rights and Resources (PARR).
The state of Wisconsin also spawned the development of “Treaty Beer.” A pizza
parlor owner, Dean Crist, started an anti-Indian group in the 1980s. He called
the group Stop Treaty Abuse. He organized anti-Indian demonstrations around the
state, mainly on the issue of Indians asserting their right to spearfish
walleyes. The state had passed a law in 1908 outlawing the practice, but the
law did not apply on reservations. Indians, however, had complied with the law
almost from the beginning. When they started asserting their right to spearfish
again in the 1980s, they became the object of hatred.
When the Anishnaabe (Chippewa) people started to fish the way they had been
guaranteed by the treaties, and which the courts had just re-affirmed, they
were assaulted on a daily basis. The locals called them timber niggers, welfare
warriors, and spear chuckers. They carried signs such as the following, which
were also made into bumper stickers:
• Save a Walleye – Spear a Squaw
• Save Two Walleyes – Spear a Pregnant Squaw
• Too Bad Custer Ran Out of Bullets
Hate groups in South Dakota put out a poster in 1999 labeled “Indian Hunting
Season. Hunting fees free to first 7,883 hunters/$1.00 thereon (sic).” It said
Indians were worthless red bastards, dog eaters, gut eaters, prairie niggers,
and F— Indians. It said 1999-2000 would be an open season. The poster was the
work of a hate group, but it reflected the extreme prejudice Indians have to
live with in the Mississippi of the North.
Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell asked Attorney General Janet Reno to order an
investigation into the poster. “This hate-filled propaganda exhorts hunters to
murder human beings,” he said in his letter. Senator Tom Daschle of South
Dakota joined Ben in condemning the poster. It apparently did not lead directly
to any murders, but it inflamed racist passions.
There are many kinds of hatred of Indians expressed by many kinds of people.
Racist teachers intimidate and ignore Indian students. Landlords refuse to rent
to Indian tenants. Health clinics refuse to serve Indian patients.
But Indians perhaps bring about more racist actions by Indian haters with our
insistence on standing by the terms of treaties that promised hunting and
fishing rights. Treaties are in perpetuity; Slade Gorton, county commissioners,
sports hunters and sports fishermen have to live with this reality.
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This column is adapted from “Racism in Indian Country,” published by Peter Lang
in 1999. Dr. Chavers is Director of Catching the Dream, a nonprofit
organization in Albuquerque, New Mexico. CTD provides scholarships to
high-potential Native college students and provides grants and technical
assistance to Indian schools to help them improve. Write to him at
[email protected].
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