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Landless Montana Tribe Gains Preliminary Federal Recognition

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BILLINGS GAZETTE / ASSOCIATED PRESS

As a Little Shell Indian growing up in a tarpaper shack along Montana’s Hi-line in the 1940s, Ed Lavenger was part of a landless, scattered tribe on the bottom rung of the economic ladder.

Lavenger’s father found seasonal work on cattle ranches, but in winter, the family of seven would return to the 12-by-15-foot shack with a sod floor in an area of Chinook known as Moccasin Flats.

Winters were brutal--”especially when you’re living in a tar-paper shack and you get that cold wind from the north,” said Lavenger, who now lives in Billings.

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Lavenger grew up part of a tribe whose heritage goes back four centuries, when French trappers in the wilderness that would become Canada married Cree women. Their offspring eventually migrated south, to the area now covered by northern Minnesota and North Dakota, where marriages were made with the Chippewa. Through it all, the Little Shell tried to stay together, but poor timing and rotten deals caused the tribe to lose its land.

The Little Shell’s loss of nation status can be traced to 1892, when an Indian agent came to the tribe’s home at North Dakota’s Turtle Mountain Reservation. Chief Thomas Little Shell was away in Montana with 112 other families on a hunting trip. In their absence, tribal rolls were cut and 1 million acres of the tribe’s land were sold for $90,000. When he returned, Little Shell refused to take part in the deal. With no land, the tribe scattered.

In 1896, 600 of the landless Little Shell were captured by soldiers, put into boxcars and dropped off at the Canadian border. That winter they walked back, living in squalid shacks outside towns along the Hi-line and the eastern front of the Rocky Mountains.

Although Lavenger knew his people’s history well--he is related to former Tribal Chairman Joe Dussome, who held the tribe together for four decades--he doubted he would live to see the day when his tribe was finally recognized.

“Because we are not full blood, we were not claimed by the other tribes,” he said. “We were not claimed by the government either.”

That all changed in May, when after 109 years the Interior Department granted preliminary federal recognition of the tribe, which has about 4,000 members. The preliminary ruling required a six-month probationary period before the recognition is final. Recognition would mean access to federal health, education and housing services.

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It would also mean respect and equal status with Montana’s other 11 tribes.

“I was beginning to doubt it,” Lavenger said. “But I’m a great believer in the Constitution of our country. It does guarantee us certain rights. There should be no questions whatsoever. We should be recognized.”

Now is a critical time for the Little Shell.

More research is being done on the tribe’s members in the early part of the 20th century, said John Gilbert, of Chinook, who is chairman of the federal recognition committee for the tribe. Records are scant from the late 1890s through the 1930s, when the tribe was nomadic. The government wants assurance that the tribe remained intact during this time.

“We did keep in touch during that time. We had our ways of communicating with each other,” Gilbert said.

There were basket socials, dances and celebrations. A tribal council and chairman met occasionally.

Gilbert and others from the tribe met with Interior Department officials in October to discuss the tribe’s on-hold recognition.

“They were very, very professional, very, very helpful,” Gilbert said. “We all came away from there that these people are in our corner.”

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A final decision was scheduled to be made in January, but the Little Shell Council decided to ask for a six-month extension to gather additional records.

“That extension is necessary for us to get more documentation, more information to shore up some of the criteria that we’re weak in,” Gilbert said.

“I’m very optimistic about this,” he added. “The Little Shell people’s attitude is that we’ll never quit. They’ve been hanging us out there for 109 years. This has been a travesty and this is duly owed to us, and we’re not going to quit.”

Since pending federal recognition of the Little Shell was reported, the tribe has been deluged with phone calls and letters from around the country.

“We have a lot of people calling to see if they have connections with us and to see if they are eligible for enrollment,” said Pat Maki, office manager and enrollment officer for the tribe.

The greatest concentration of tribal members is in Great Falls, Helena, Havre and Browning. According to tribal records, 56 Little Shell live in Billings. An estimated 1,000 Little Shell live outside Montana.

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“I do believe if we do get recognized it depends on who becomes president,” Lavenger said. “There are also still active Indian haters in our Congress and government. I don’t see how they can deny us, though. We are descendants of people who are indigenous to this continent.”

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