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The Roseburg News-Review May 25, 2004
This is in response to Commissioner Dan Van Slyke’s guest column in the April 15 News-Review.
The dismal history of the United States Government’s dealings vs. the aboriginal Americans ranges from outright lying, to breaking maybe every treaty ever signed, to a policy of genocide.Regarding the Cow Creek Band of the Umpqua Tribe of Indians: they became landless by ceding their approximately 800 square miles of southwest Oregon to the United States in a treaty ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1854. The proposed 63,000 acres of land (less than 100 square miles) is approximately 12.5 percent of the 800 square mile conquest that deprived the native people of their entire country.
The U.S. Government agreed to pay $2.30 per acre for this land. Did it ever do so? It sold the same land for $1.25 per acre to the pioneer settlers. This treaty was ignored by the U.S. Government until the 1954 Western Oregon Indian Termination Act.
With our present government’s often-stated humanitarian concerns regarding certain foreign government’s’ human rights deficiencies/failures, I can only view the proposed Tribal Land Swap Plan as finally being a bit of justice that is quite late in arriving. I commend Sen. Gordon Smith for his action in this matter.
Mark Eagleton