30-Year-Old Road Across Indian Land Leads to Legal Battle

Indian heirs to more than 55 acres in the Sierra Nevada foothills watched without questioning as Madera County road crews paved a road that bisected their land nearly 30 years ago.

“They just leveled the ground, and they started blacktopping it without even talking to anybody,” recalls Margaret Hammond, who reared four children on the parcel granted by the U.S. government to Frank Hammond, a Chukanchansi Indian.

“We didn’t ask any questions and they didn’t tell us,” she said.

It would be almost 20 years until Frank Hammond’s heirs began getting answers to why a county road cuts through their land, and that was after the question was posed in court.

A lawsuit filed by the Hammonds in 1981 and settled in 1986 determined that public use of the road amounted to trespassing, according to the Hammonds’ lawyer, Larry Stidham. But the bigger issue of settling the right-of-way claim and any damages due the Hammond heirs remains under litigation.

The Hammonds, exasperated by the lengthy process, say they will close the road and access to the nearby town of Oakhurst for 100 homeowners if that is what it takes to get compensation.

‘Just Take It Over’

“I guess to me it’s the basic thing that white men used all along, that Indians don’t own the land and it would be easier not to pay for the land and just take it over,” said Harry Hammond, Margaret Hammond’s son.

Lawyers for California Indian Legal Services, which has handled this and many similar land disputes during the last 20 years, say the story is not uncommon in California.

“Land issues are major issues for Indian people because their survival as Indian people is tied very close to the land. Land is sacred to Indians, and you are taking something that is sacred,” said Steve Quesenberry, director of litigation for the legal services unit.

Sometimes the disputes arise out of ignorance of special procedures for assuming rights to Indian land, he said.

“I also think that an attitude has developed over many years that if it’s Indian land that you don’t have to worry, that it’s just like other public land,” Quesenberry said.

During the years between the building of the road and the first lawsuit, several of Frank Hammond’s heirs left the land and its seldom-traveled road to earn better livings.

Only Access Road

By the time they returned, that road was the only access to Highway 41 for 100 homeowners in a new development.

“When I left, it was only a dirt road and it served only a few families. They were good people and we let them go back and forth on the land. They did things for us like (paying) for the use of the road,” Harry Hammond said.

“Then when I came back to the land, everybody was using it and the county thought it was theirs,” he said. “Our dogs were getting run over, and the people were polluting the land, throwing cans and trash. It bothered me.”

County officials believed until the 1981 lawsuit was filed that they had legal access to the road, based on an agreement with one of Frank Hammond’s heirs, said County Counsel Jeff Kuhn.

But settling claims for Indian land needs more than the consent of one heir, Stidham said. Because the land technically belongs to the federal government, negotiating for right-of-way with any allotment holders is a criminal offense.

Furthermore, Stidham contended, the Bureau of Indian Affairs notified the county in 1969 that it lacked the right-of-way.

Kuhn said that the information never made it past the right-of-way agent.

“I thought it was interesting, just the history of it, how we got to this stage,” said Kuhn, who has been working for the county about six months. “I think most litigations could be avoided if persons were well-informed and interested in solving problems.”

In the current round of court battles, the Hammonds are seeking compensation for what they say is the county’s disregard of their rights to the land.

At a court hearing next month, a judge will decide the validity of an agreement the county says it made with the family several years ago to pay $6,545 for rights to the land.

The Hammonds say they made no such a deal and that the amount offered is only a fraction of the land’s worth.

If the court rules in the county’s favor, the only issue remaining would be the damages for trespassing for the years up until the county receives legal title, Kuhn said.

Whatever the outcome of the court cases, the Hammonds say they are resigned to the road’s existence, even while disapproving of the methods used to build it.

“If they are going to win, we’ll make use of the road,” Margaret Hammond said.

“We’ll probably capitalize on the road-front property ourselves and build businesses for our people,” Harry Hammond said.