On May 7, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that Congressman Jim Gibbon's Western Shoshone Claims Distribution bill has been "stalled by criticism from House Democrats." In an April 28 letter to Richard Pombo, Chairman of the House Resources Committee, Gibbons said he is now willing to support Senator Reid's version of the Western Shoshone bill. Reid's bill, which has already passed in the Senate, would not tax Western Shoshone recipients on the distribution of over $140 million dollars now sitting in an Indian Claims Commission (ICC) judgment fund account. What the recent news article failed to point out, however, is that other issues other than taxation have been holding up Gibbons' Western Shoshone bill. I would characterize the most serious issue as a lack of transparency on the part of the Bush administration. A second issue is the lack of documentation to prove any "taking" of Western Shoshone lands. First, let me address the issue of transparency. At a House Resources Committee hearing last June, the Interior Department testified that a "vast majority" of Western Shoshones favor distribution of the I.C.C. monies. Congressman Tom Udall of New Mexico responded to this testimony by requesting "for the record" whatever documentation Interior had used as the basis for its testimony. Ten months later, Interior has still not honored Congressman Udall's request. Such stonewalling leads to at least two questions. What is the Interior Department hiding? What did it base its testimony upon? On April 28 Western Shoshone representatives of the Western Shoshone National Council and representatives of all but two of the Western Shoshone Tribal Councils met with Congressman Gibbons' staff. When asked whether Interior had responded to Congressman Udall's June request for documentation, Gibbon's point person reportedly became quite agitated.
By the strangest coincidence, Gibbons' letter telling House Resources Chairman Pombo to go ahead and accept Senator Harry Reid's version of the Western Shoshone Claims Distribution Act legislation was also dated April 28. In the past forty years, some $26 billion dollars in gold has been extracted from Western Shoshone lands described in the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. Yet the Indian Claims Commission judgment amount would pay an average of a mere 15 cents per acre to the Western Shoshone people.
This truth is hidden behind news reports that Western Shoshone "individuals could receive about $30,000 apiece," a number reached by adding the interest that has accumulated on the judgment amount. Despite the incredible unjust disparity between pennies per acre for Western Shoshones and billions of dollars for some of the world's largest gold mining companies operating on Western Shoshone lands, representative Gibbons pretends his bill is motivated by a heartfelt desire to serve the financial needs of the Western Shoshones. Neither Congressman Gibbons nor Senator Reid wants to address Western Shoshone land rights based on the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. After personally researching the Indian Claims Commission records in the Western Shoshone case, I could not find one shred of historical documentation to support the "finding" that Western Shoshone lands described in the Ruby Valley Treaty were ever "taken" by "gradual encroachment." The attorneys that originally filed a claim on behalf of the Te-Moak Tribe with the Indian Claims Commission in 1951 never specified in their brief which lands they claimed had been "taken" from the Western Shoshones. Nor did they ever say what specific historical events had resulted in a "taking" of Western Shoshone lands. In 1961, the federal attorneys and the attorneys supposedly representing the Te-Moak Tribe got around this thorny factual issue by stipulating (agreeing) that July 1, 1872 would be the "date of valuation." This action was taken without Western Shoshone consent. The Court of Claims later referred to the date agreed to as a "magic date." In fact, no "date of taking" is found anywhere in the record of the Indian Claims Commission in the Western Shoshone case, only a "date of valuation." The Western Shoshone Claims Distribution Act represents the false claim on the part of the United States that Western Shoshone lands were taken from them at some unspecified time in the past. It represents a gross violation of the vested treaty recognized rights of the Western Shoshone nation, and a land swindle involving some 24 million acres of land.
Thanks to the efforts of Gibbons and Reid it also represents a continuation of the gold mining bonanza that corporations have realized over the past forty years. The Western Shoshone Claims Distribution bill deserves to be soundly defeated. Urgent action is needed to oppose the bill. The only way to solve this protracted conflict is through negotiations between the United States and the Western Shoshone nation on the basis of the Ruby Valley Treaty.
Steven Newcomb (Shawnee/Lenape) is co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute and a columnist with Indian Country Today.