Backed by Sitting Bull’s Kin : Newport Man Splits Sioux in Bid for Sacred Lands

Phil Stevens, the California millionaire who only wanted to help, never dreamed things would get so out of hand.

A Newport Beach engineer who is part Sioux Indian, Stevens wanted to lead the Sioux nation in its 111-year-old quest to reclaim the Black Hills, which the Indians regard as sacred.

After all, nobody else had been able to do it and Stevens certainly had the expertise. He was the East L.A. street kid who made good, the mixed-breed who rose above poverty to own a posh home in Newport Beach, drive a Cadillac and dine at The Ritz.

If only things were so simple.

“I guess you could say he’s caused a real mess out on the reservation,” said David Miller, a professor at Black Hills State College. “He has really upset the apple cart. He came blundering in like the bull in the china shop.”

Stevens is in South Dakota this week to assume the title of “Itancankel,” or special chief. An elaborate ceremony will be staged this evening on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in southern South Dakota and Stevens will ascend to special chief--a ceremonial but important central position.

He’ll get there with the support of only one of eight tribes that make up the 68,000-member Great Sioux Nation. The title is not one he has gained through an election but will be bestowed upon him by the Sioux, thanks in large part to the influence of Oliver Red Cloud, chief of the Oglala tribe. Red Cloud said he conceived the idea of getting a title for Stevens as a way of giving him some legitimacy for his work on the Indians’ behalf.

The goal is to regain 1.3 million acres of Black Hills land that was taken by the federal government more than a century ago. Stevens is also seeking $3.1 billion for the tribe in compensation for gold mined from the land. Stevens, who recently sold his Irvine-based engineering company, Ultrasystems Inc., for $89 million, sees himself as something of a corporate white knight who will wage war to reclaim the Black Hills like a takeover battle.

But he is being depicted by some Sioux as the “man who would be chief,” derided as a smooth-talking interloper and lambasted in an Indian newspaper as a self-promoting dilettante who would be better off if he just packed his bags and went home to California.

‘East L.A. Street Kid’

“Phil Stevens is a hustler. He is an East L.A. street kid who has hustled his way up the ladder, and a man who seems very impressed with himself. But he’s doing us no good whatsoever,” said Charlotte Black Elk, an Oglala Sioux and tribal historian.

“That’s just not true,” snapped Red Cloud. “He’s a good man and we’re going to win this battle. And when he wins, we’re going to give him a feather or a war bonnet.”

As Stevens led a group of 35 reporters on a tour of the Black Hills and the reservations to the south this week, he remained defiant.

“There are always factions within the Indian nation, but I feel the majority support me,” Stevens said.

“I am neither a messiah nor a meddler. I am just responding to requests from the Sioux people for help.”

But if there was one thing that was clear, it seemed that few in South Dakota knew exactly what to think of this 59-year-old Southern Californian who had taken such an interest in Indian affairs.

“What is it that Phil Stevens wants?” asked the influential Indian weekly The Lakota Times, in an editorial that ran the day Stevens arrived in Rapid City. “Does he want to help the Sioux or does he want to put on a war bonnet so he can play Indian.”

“We are just a little sick and tired,” the editorial continued, “of this whole Phil Stevens episode.”

That “episode” started about two years ago during a stay in Rapid City.

Stevens, who is three-sixteenths Indian and claims to be the great-grandson of the warrior chief Standing Bear, said he awoke in a cold sweat with the realization that he must lead the Sioux fight to regain the Black Hills.

“Nothing has been the same since then,” Stevens declared.

Stevens said he empathized with the poverty of reservation life, where the jobless rate tops 90% and alcoholism runs rampant.

Growing up in East Los Angeles, he learned salesmanship at an early age by peddling flowers, using sleight of hand to make the bunches appear bigger than they actually were.

His street sense served him well. He earned a master’s degree in engineering at UCLA, then rose quickly through the ranks of Hughes Aircraft Co. and TRW Inc., gaining the reputation as an aggressive self-promoter who could get things done. He eventually rose to become manager of the Minuteman III missile program, a position that put him into contact with influential government defense specialists.

His real knack, however, seemed to be in understanding how to attract government contracts.

“Phillip Stevens,” said a recent profile in Forbes, “has a talent for exploiting government programs for all they are worth.”

Founded Ultrasystems

In 1969, Stevens founded Ultrasystems, which builds electric power plants and has benefited from its share of defense contracts. He recently sold it to an Oklahoma City corporation.

Stevens, who has three grown children and has been married to his wife, Joan, for more than 30 years, said he will continue to live in Newport Beach but will devote the rest of his life to helping the Sioux regain the Black Hills. He began by organizing a fund-raising event in Orange County last year for an Indian school in Pine Ridge.

He said he plans to play on the national guilt of the white man and enlist Hollywood celebrities to the cause.

An unabashed publicity seeker, Stevens rarely returns to the South Dakota reservations without first notifying or inviting the press, and in the days before his induction as special chief this week, Stevens gathered news crews for the motorcade through the Black Hills.

Reporters were given glossy press packets with pictures of Stevens dressed in full Indian regalia, and the motorcade wound through the Black Hills with all the hype of a presidential campaign.

Dressed in black jeans, a matching black Indian shirt and wearing a black bone choker, not to mention black designer sunglasses, Stevens led the entourage through Bear Butte State Park and the Mt. Rushmore National Memorial, stopping at each site to allow “photo opportunities.”

In a short speech to about 20 Sioux supporters the night before, Stevens likened the event to a holy crusade and said he would not be surprised “if someone tries to arrest me.”

“Now if I get arrested, I just don’t want anyone else to get hurt,” he said. “Just remember that the federal marshals are only doing their jobs. I don’t mind going to jail if I have to.”

A short time later, Stevens told aides that he would spend most of the tour with the “Good Morning America” crew.

There were never any indications that Stevens might be arrested.

“Publicity is important,” he said recently. “Once the American people hear about the unjustices, there is no doubt in my mind that they will want to right this terrible blight on our history.”

Despite the opposition of South Dakota’s entire congressional delegation, and the majority of the state’s white residents, who make up 90% of the population, Stevens wants the government to return 1.3 million acres of the Black Hills to the Sioux, in addition to $3.1 billion in compensation for allegedly stealing the land in 1877.

Stevens has said that the money would serve as back rent and mineral royalties for Black Hills land that was seized 111 years ago.

The entire Black Hills, as well as most of western South Dakota, was given to the Sioux in an 1868 treaty. Gold was discovered in the area just six years later, and by 1877 the tribe had been forced into surrendering the land.

Following a 60-year legal battle, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1980 that the federal government had “breached its treaty obligations” and was guilty of “starving the Sioux to get them to agree to the sale of the Black Hills.” The court noted that a “more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealing will never, in all probability, be found in our history.”

Refused Settlement

The Sioux Nation was awarded $105 million but refused to accept the settlement, calling it inadequate because it did not involve the return of the Black Hills, which the Sioux hold sacred.

The money is sitting in an escrow account collecting interest. It now totals about $191 million.

Since the court ruling, the eight Sioux tribes scattered throughout the state have been working to find a way to get some of the Black Hills returned.

They found a sympathetic ear and willing sponsor in Sen. Bill Bradley, the New Jersey Democrat and former professional basketball player who was moved by the poverty he saw while holding a basketball camp in Pine Ridge in 1975.

The Bradley bill provides for the return of the 1.3 million acres of the Black Hills National Forest, carefully excluding the Mt. Rushmore memorial, Ellsworth Air Force Base and all privately held land in an area that totals 7.3 million acres.

Enter Phil Stevens.

Had he merely lent his support to the Bradley bill, Stevens might have been just one more sponsor of the legislation.

But Stevens did not stop there. In addition to the land, Stevens chose to demand the $3.1 billion, creating a firestorm of controversy on the reservations.

The Stevens’ proposal has split the Sioux nation, pitting tribal councils against one another and disrupting the carefully constructed unity that had been forged to support the Bradley bill.

Some Sioux leaders say that Stevens has hurt the chances of the Bradley proposal by making outlandish monetary demands that most certainly will be rejected by a budget-conscious Congress.

Others are alienated both by Stevens’ self-promotion and the concept that money, even $3.1 billion, could compensate the Sioux for the loss of the Black Hills.

‘Give Us the Land First’

“Why should we negotiate for something that is already ours?” said Louis Whirlwind Horse, a Sioux leader. “It’s like if you have a car stolen from you and then you had to negotiate to get it back. Let them give us the land first and then we’ll talk about compensation.”

They also worry that Stevens’ involvement will only serve to stiffen the already strong opposition among white Dakotans to the Bradley bill. “That is the real tragedy in all this,” said Gerald Clifford, chairman of the Black Hills Steering Committee, a Sioux leadership organization that has been working with Bradley on his bill for the past five years.

Another effect of Stevens’ involvement, Clifford said, has been renewed feuding among the eight Sioux tribes.

“The Indian community has always had to deal with unanimity before anyone would take us seriously,” he said. “We finally got all eight tribes to agree and we put together this credible piece of legislation . . . and then suddenly this guy from California comes along.”

Clifford said that by demanding the cash settlement, Stevens was trampling on the real issue--the sacredness of the land.

“He has completely missed the underlying soul of this whole effort, and that is that the land is sacred. His bottom line is profit. Our bottom line is getting the land back.”

Bradley himself looks upon Stevens as something of an interloper apparently more concerned about publicity than progress.

“Let’s just say that Sen. Bradley doesn’t think Mr. Stevens’ efforts are helpful,” said Nick Donatiello, a spokesman for the senator. “Sen. Bradley has made it clear that he will not amend his bill to provide for additional monies. It is the land that is of primary interest to the Sioux. The courts have already spoken on the issue of money.”

Some Dakotans Fearful

As for long-range plans, Stevens said the Sioux envisioned establishing a Sioux National Forest in the Black Hills to preserve the land and keep it open to all Americans. In addition, he said the $3.1 billion would allow the Indians to develop a strategic, five-year economic recovery plan to provide jobs and more sources of income.

Many Dakotans fear that Congress, in a gesture to the collective guilt of the white man, will “sacrifice” part of the Black Hills and return it to the Sioux.

“The truth is that the Indians used to have the whole continent, so a lot of people wonder why would it happen here,” said Peter Stavrianos, a spokesman for Sen. Tom Daschle (D-S.D.). “Some fear they will be sacrificed out of some sense of satisfying the national conscious to pay a debt to the Indians.”

Along the dusty, wind-whipped streets of Pine Ridge, where garbage blows between the dilapidated houses and the young men hang out near the tribal office drinking for lack of work, skepticism and apathy run high.

“Yes, I have heard of this Stevens,” said Freddie Pack, a 43-year-old unemployed laborer from Kyle. “But I have heard stories about the Black Hills, and how we’re going to get them back, for years. This man Stevens is just the latest to come around.”

Yet Stevens does have his supporters, including many who look on him as a hired gun who possesses the kind of corporate savvy and expertise to pull off what no other man has been able to do.

“I have good feelings about Stevens and I think he can deliver,” said Gremaine Tremmel, the great granddaughter of Sitting Bull, one of the leaders of the victory over Gen. George Armstrong Custer at the Little Big Horn in 1876. “You can’t say it will succeed, but at least give him the benefit of the doubt and see how far it goes.”

Radio Bulletins

So hot is the issue on the desolate reservation that the lone Indian radio station interrupted regular programming throughout the week to report on developments of the Stevens story.

There was a controversy on the special chief ceremony itself, what kind of war bonnet he should wear, whether a traditional Indian pipe should be smoked and, finally, over who would be invited.

“Some people say that what he wants is unreasonable,” added Edd Charging Elk, a traditional leader of the Rosebud Sioux. “But we have already fought 111 years for this, and I have no fear of fighting another 100 to get what we deserve. He (Stevens) seems to be demanding what we deserve.”