Shoshones stake their claim

By Ed Vogel
Review-Journal

      CRESCENT VALLEY -- On a perfect afternoon in an empty part of rural Nevada, Shoshone Indian sisters Carrie and Mary Dann complain about the government as they wander in the sagebrush.
      For 25 years, these aging grandmothers have been symbols of the American Indian resistance to the rule of the United States government. That defiance may culminate in a showdown this spring.
      "To the government, we are something out there like the deer, the coyote and the fox," said Carrie Dann, the more talkative of the sisters. "That's how they picture us, animals to be removed and placed where they want us to be."
      The federal Bureau of Land Management on Feb. 19 issued trespass notices to the Danns and Raymond Yowell, chief of the Western Shoshone Nation. They were ordered to remove 300 cows and 450 horses from public lands in Eureka County. If the livestock is not removed, the BLM could impound and eventually sell the animals.
     

See the entire Treaty of Ruby Valley of 1863. Page 1 Page 2 Related stories: Documents supporting the Western Shoshone Nation's claims Decisions supporting U.S. Bureau of Land Management District Manger Helen Hankins finds herself in the uncomfortable position of trying to uphold federal regulations against Mary and Carrie Dann. Photos by Ed Vogel/Review-Journal Shoshone Chief Raymond Yowell considers cattle "warriors" in his tribe's battle to regain public lands it believes are Shoshone under an old treaty. One cow that wouldn't be fighting is Betsy, a 10-year-old pet of Yowell's.

Six years ago, the BLM showed its threats were not idle. The agency hired wranglers in February and November 1992 and confiscated more than 700 horses owned by the Danns.
      "They are out to destroy the little living we have," Carrie Dann said. "It is the collision of two worlds. The white society wants us not to have anything. Why can't they leave us alone?"
      The Danns vow it will not be easy to remove their livestock this time. The war will be fought using the Internet, phones and fax machines.
      Both the Shoshones and BLM have set up Web sites explaining their positions: The Shoshone sites are http://www.planet-peace.org/wsdp/ and http://www.alphacdc.com/wsdp/. The BLM site is http://www.nv.blm.gov/Danns/Dann_History.htm. The Shoshones also have a staff of three non-Indian volunteers who have sent newsletters to a list of 3,700 people for several years. If the BLM dares take the Danns' livestock, they will call in troops of supporters from across the country.
      Within 12 hours, several hundred protesters could be sitting in the fields, blocking the roundup.
      "The United States will have to face all the world's population," Carrie Dann said.
      But any protest will be peaceful, Yowell insisted. The Indians will try to win in the court of public opinion.
      "It won't be done quietly," said Yowell, chief of the 10,000-member Western Shoshone Nation since 1985. "The United States will be pictured as the villain."
      To head off the BLM, Yowell has fired off letters to U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and other political leaders. He wonders if they are aware of the BLM's actions.
      At bureau headquarters 65 miles away in Elko, District Manager Helen Hankins expresses consternation over the impasse in Crescent Valley.
      "One reason we haven't moved more quickly was to allow us to understand the situation," said Hankins, who became district manager three years ago.
      She and Robert Abbey, the new BLM state director, visited the Danns in November.
      Hankins won't speculate when the government will round up the Dann livestock. But she does say the government will be prepared. Security officers will be on hand.
      To prevent protesters from interfering with wranglers during the 1992 livestock seizure, officers blocked roads into Crescent Valley and Beowawe.
      "I respect Carrie and Mary as individuals," said Hankins, who grew up just down the road in Twin Falls, Idaho. "But I am also responsible to other public lands users. The bottom line is they are not in compliance with federal law."
      Hankins points to a 1985 U.S. Supreme Court decision that found Shoshone claims to public lands were extinguished by an Indian Claims Commission decision. That 1979 decision awarded $26 million to tribal members.
      But the Shoshones have never claimed the money, now gathering interest in the U.S. Treasury.
      In 1991, U.S. District Judge Bruce Thompson of Reno authorized the BLM to round up Dann livestock if excess animals were not removed from the range.
      "They just think the Supreme Court is an opinion that can be thrown out," Hankins said. "The Claims Commission and the U.S. Supreme Court said those lands were ceded to the United States and they are public lands."
      To the sisters, U.S. laws or court decisions do not apply here in their homeland, 400 miles north of Las Vegas. This is the sovereign Western Shoshone Nation. Nevada is Newe Sogobia, or the Land of the People of the Earth Mother.
      "We have a treaty with the United States," Carrie Dann said. "Treaties are only made between nations. If the United States does not follow treaties, what right does it have to condemn other nations that don't follow its treaties?"
      Since they were girls, the Danns were told by their grandmother that the lands in Nevada were guaranteed to the Shoshone. They are reluctant to give their exact ages, but Carrie is in her 60s and Mary is in her 70s.
      In the Treaty of Ruby Valley of 1863, the United States named the mountains and deserts that were boundaries of the Shoshone country.
      These lands consist of 24 million acres -- or about a third of Nevada -- along with parts of California, Utah and Idaho. Today the cities of Elko, Tonopah and Ely, Death Valley, the Nevada Test Site, Yucca Mountain and North America's most valuable gold reserves rest within the boundaries mentioned in the old treaty.
      But rather than hoarding riches, the Danns struggle to earn a living. There is no telephone at their ranch. A generator supplies electricity for their refrigerator and freezer.
      Cigarette in her mouth, Carrie Dann steers the sisters' beat-up Toyota truck over ruts in a dirt road leading to their ranch. She talks enthusiastically on a variety of subjects -- her support for President Bill Clinton in his troubles with women, her disgust for the American Olympic hockey team and the damage caused by the gold mine down the road.
      "How can they get away calling a football team the Washington Redskins?" she asks. "What if we called ours the Crescent Valley Whiteskins?"
      Mary Dann chuckles at her sister's jokes and soliloquies but remains quiet. Someone in the media once laughed at something she said. Another reporter misquoted her. So she lets her sister do the talking.
      "I used to be a good voter," Carrie Dann said. "I was a good American citizen. 1973 was the last year I was a good American citizen. I am Western Shoshone."
      That year, Mary Dann was minding her own business in a field when a BLM officer suddenly showed up and informed her that their cattle were trespassing on public lands.
      "Mary said, 'How can that be?' This is Western Shoshone land. How can we trespass on ourselves?' " Carrie Dann said.
      Hankins insists the Danns have not been singled out for unfair treatment. Last year her staff cited 14 ranchers for violations of grazing regulations.
      "This is a situation not unique to the Danns," she said. "What we hear from other livestock operators is that we should enforce grazing laws equally."
      The Dann sisters live on an 800-acre ranch homesteaded in 1923 by their father, Dewey.
      BLM records show that when grazing regulations were established in 1935, Dewey Dann followed the rules. He paid grazing fees entitling him to keep 21 cows and 79 horses on the public ranges. He died in 1971.
      Hankins says the Danns may be seeking to save face in a battle they cannot win.
      In the last year, she said, some Shoshones have shifted from resisting the BLM to a position of accommodating the agency.
      Tribal leaders on the Duckwater and Yomba reservations have agreed to follow grazing regulations, pay fees and keep livestock at levels designated by the federal agency.
      "A precedent has been set," Hankins said. "Not all Native American people think the way the Danns do."
      In addition, Hankins said the U.S. government does not recognize the Danns or the Western Shoshone National Council as official Indian tribes.
      Yowell accuses the BLM of using a "divide and conquer" strategy to cause dissension among the Indians and ultimately rid them of their ancestral lands.
      He theorizes that two reservations agreed to follow the regulations because the BLM threatened tribal members with huge lawsuits for past grazing violations.
      As part of a ruse to cheat Indians, Yowell charged the U.S. government recognizes only tribal governments set up by the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. He calls these governments "IRA governments" and considers them puppets of the American system.
      "They were drawn into the U.S. system," said Yowell, a cattle rancher on the South Fork Reservation, south of Elko. "From them, the U.S. gained control of the tribes."
      Yowell remembers his grandparents were highly afraid of the United States. They had heard stories of Shoshones being marched at the end of bayonets to a reservation at Duck Valley in the 1870s.
      Until the 1970s, Yowell said, most Indians had fifth-grade educations and were continually duped by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
      "They really didn't understand the system," he said. "They relied on the BIA to tell the truth."
      But education has increased and most Indians have "wised up" to the motives of the American government, he said.
      "People became aware and the resistance started," Yowell said.
      The Western Shoshone National Council was founded in 1982 as some Shoshones' alternative to the Indian Reorganization Act governments. Members come from clans throughout Nevada and California.
      "In our system, church and state are together," Yowell said. "Our religious belief is you don't sell the land."
      His overriding goal has been to fend off moves by some tribal members to accept the Indian Claims Commission money, now at about $100 million. Any acceptance would end Shoshone assertions that the treaty remains in effect.
      "I'd like the money," Yowell said. "I'm poor. But I'm not going to sacrifice my respect by selling my ancestors' bones."
      Yowell insists the Shoshones do not want to uproot private property owners who live on the lands they claim in Nevada. With 85 percent of the property managed by the federal government, he favors negotiations to turn at least some of that land back to the Shoshones.
      Because he insists he leads an independent nation, Yowell wants negotiations carried out at a national level -- face-to-face meetings with the Interior Department secretary or the president.
      "We might come to an agreement if more land is made available for the tribes," he said. "Now there is not enough land for our children to ranch. They have to go away to cities."
      Hankins wants to meet with Yowell and the Danns and reach an agreement.
      But she sees the issue as one of overgrazing, of the Danns running seven times as much livestock as the range can support, not as a matter of Western Shoshone land rights.
      No matter what happens this spring, the Dann sisters plan to remain on their ranch miles from nowhere.
      "This is our home, and hopefully it will be home for future generations of our people," Carrie Dann said. "We have no place to go."