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Thursday, December 03, 1998
WITHOUT RESERVATION
A Western Shoshone official challenges the U.S. government's authority over tribal claims and refuses to let a treaty be ignored.
By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal
For John Wells, living in the Las Vegas Valley or any part of a wide swath of Nevada known as Newe Sogobia means being one of the leaders of a nation within a nation.
At 50, Wells is the southern representative to the Western Shoshone National Council, which represents about 10,000 Shoshone people who are spread, primarily, throughout the Southwest. That includes several hundred in the Las Vegas Valley.
Ever since the Treaty of Ruby Valley was forged in 1863 between the United States and the Western bands of the Shoshone Nation, the two nations -- the United States and the Western Shoshone -- have been at odds over claims to what amounts to about one-third of Nevada.
In his language, it is "Newe Sogobia," which translates to "people of Mother Earth."
Last month, Wells told the Community Advisory Board for the Department of Energy's Nevada Test Site that the Ruby Valley Treaty still holds today and the U.S. government violates it through its work in nuclear weapons testing and its effort to dispose high-level radioactive waste in Yucca Mountain.
He said he intends to make his case again when the Nevada Test Site Community Advisory Board meets in January, even though the branch of the U.S. government that deals with other nations -- the State Department -- doesn't recognize the Western Shoshones as a nation.
Reminding the board about the conditions of the treaty "keeps the issue alive with the public," Wells said in an interview this week at his home in southeast Las Vegas Valley.
"Not to go to the board, or not to go out and protest," he said, "is to say, `All right, I'll lay down and you can steamroll me.' "
Despite the fact that the government allocated to the Western Shoshone $26 million in 1973 for land that includes what is now the test site and Yucca Mountain, the national council has not accepted it.
The money and interest, now about $105 million, sits untapped in an Interior Department trust account.
"The council refuses to accept the money as have reservation governments. That will continue to be our policy," he said.
One Shoshone band, the Te-Moak tribe from the Battle Mountain-Elko area, did vote to accept the money this year, but Raymond Yowell, chief of the Western Shoshone National Council, said the vote did not represent the entire nation.
Even if the council decides to eventually accept the money, none of it would be distributed "until everything has been resolved," he said.
And that means, the government would have to negotiate with the council on a wide range of issues including test site activities, mining and grazing.
Wells said the $26 million payment, accepted by the Interior Department on behalf of the Western Shoshone, was an attempt "to make things right."
But, he said, "Could I put money into a bank account in your name and take your home?"
In November, Wells explained to the advisory board that the discovery of gold in California in the 1840s had a dramatic effect on the Western Shoshone way of life.
In 1849 alone, he said, more than 100,000 Americans traveled to California with about 60,000 of them traversing Newe Sogobia.
"Livestock depleted food resources, hunters took more game than nature could replace. Unprincipled travelers used Indians for target practice and sexually abused Indian women," he said.
"The Shoshones refused to take this treatment passively, and retaliated against the American invaders by carrying out raids to take horses and weapons.
"Crossing Newe territory was no longer as safe as it had once been," Wells said.
A treaty was negotiated in 1855 but lost approval from the Office of Indian Affairs and was never ratified by the Senate.
The treaty crafted in 1863 was ratified by Congress and signed by President Ulysses S. Grant because of the need for a safe route to the California gold fields to finance the Civil War.
The treaty, according to Wells, allows U.S. citizens to travel through Western Shoshone territory "unmolested, to mine, ranch and create agricultural settlements.
"It does not imply that the Western Shoshone sold, gave or transferred title of its lands to the United States," he said.
Wells' family and relatives made their homes near Beatty on the outskirts of the test site, where his nearest full-blooded relative, Mary Strozzi, lived. He said the Energy Department's activities near there contradict federal court rulings in 1984 and 1986 that the treaty still has full force and effect.
"In a nutshell, the Department of Energy is doing all this work, including the study of Yucca Mountain, within our territorial boundaries. The treaty states what is allowable. The testing of nuclear weapons and the storage of nuclear materials is not in our treaty," he said.
Western Shoshones have challenged the government's authority over their territory in several legal battles.
The latest was an attempt to intervene in the lawsuit, United States vs. Nye County, the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion case that ended in 1996 when U.S. District Court Judge Lloyd George ruled that the government owns and has power to manage public lands in Nye County.
The issue of Western Shoshone intervention, however, has been continued in an appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has yet to issue a ruling.
In his message to the advisory board, Wells said, "You may have been told, or you will be told, that the Indian Claims Commission determined that the Western Shoshones lost their land through gradual encroachment and were paid $26 million. And you will be told that a taking did occur.
"The commission did not give specifics as to the number of U.S. citizens doing the so-called encroaching. Was it one citizen, 10, 100, 1,000? How many citizens are required for legal taking?" he said.
"I want the United States to recognize and acknowledge there is a treaty in full force and effect, and we have stated over and over that we are ready to negotiate over this treaty.
"If Congress doesn't negate a treaty, then that treaty stands. I think something has to happen. It's up to Congress," he said.
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Western Shoshone National Council representative John Wells said he wants to keep the 1863 Ruby Valley Treaty in the public's eye. Otherwise, it's like saying, "I'll lay down and you can steamroll me."
Photo by John Gurzinski.
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