Churches of the West: Roman Catholic Blessed Sacrament Mission Church, Ft. Washakie Wyoming

Churches of the West: Roman Catholic Blessed Sacrament Mission Church, Ft. Washakie, Wyoming

This is Blessed Sacrament Mission Church in Ft. Washakie, Wyoming. Ft. Washakie is the seat of government for the Wind River Indian Reservation, a very large Shoshone and Arapaho Reservation in Wyoming.

Monday at the Bar: Courthouses of the West: Wind River Indian Reservation Tribal Court

Courthouses of the West: Wind River Indian Reservation Tribal Court:

This is the Wind River Indian Reservation Tribal Court, which also houses various other law related facilities. The court is located in Ft. Washakie, the seat of government for the Wind River Indian Reservation, and serves the Shoshone and Arapahoe tribes on the reservation.

A split of governance on the Wind River Reservation.

I'm a member of the bar of the Tribal Court on the Wind River Indian Reservation.  I'm not a member of either tribe but simply allowed to practice law there.  I've had several cases in Tribal Court and I've tried a civil jury trial there, which is a fairly rare occurrence.  Indeed, at the time I tried the case there, I could find no other lawyers who'd ever taken a civil case to a jury trial there, although later I did find one who had tried a civil jury trial before I had.

That's neither here nor there, but it does give me an opinion about events on the Reservation, and its caused me to be worried about the Arapahoe Tribe pulling out of the Joint Business Council.  I wish they hadn't.

For those who don't follow such things, the Wind River Reservation is the home to two sovereign nations, the Eastern Shoshone and the Northern Araphoe nations.  They share the same reservation and its territorial expanse.

This hasn't always been true.  The Reservation was established, at the request of the Shoshone, in 1868,  The Shoshone under Chief Washakie were allies of the United States and had contributed warriors to campaigns of the Army prior to that, and would do so after that.  The Arapahoes, on the other hand, were allied to the Sioux, but were a very small tribe in numbers.  They fought with the Sioux into the 1870s, but facing a disastrous winter they came to terms with the United States and were allowed on to the Reservation for what was supposed to be a short period of time.  However, the short time became a permanent one, and the Arapahoes have shared the Wind River Reservation since the 1870s.

The two tribes were enemies originally but have lived together since that time, not always on the best of terms.  But in the 20th Century they both came together to create a Joint Business Council to govern the Reservation, which after all is one territorial expanse.  The Joint Business Council was the Tribal Council for purposes of the entire reservation, and was made up of the Shoshone Tribal Council and the Arapahoe Tribal Council.

The Arapahoes just pulled out of the Joint Business Council and have decided to go it more or less alone, although they are taking the position that for certain necessary functions they'll continue to participate.  The Shoshones, which were opposed to their withdrawal, have stated that it isn't possible to withdraw without a vote of a council and therefore the Joint Business Council's role continues on unabated, but without Arapahe representation due to their withdrawal.

There are a lot of governmental functions that this might impact. The Court, for one thing, is a joint court.  There's more or less one system of law, although a few years ago the Arapahoe's drafted an Arapahoe business code.  There are all the functions of local governments that would normally exist, as well as social agencies that need to function.  There's a lot of oil and gas activity on the Reservation, and this needs to be regulated. There's an office that secures employment for Tribal members of both Tribes with those outside employers doing business on the Reservation.  This is a bad development.

What brought this about I can't say, and therefore I can't opine on whatever motivated this action.   But I hope the rift repairs or the decision is reconsidered.  In the last few years we've seen oil and gas exploration expand in the area, the Reservation won its long standing legal battle with the State which allowed casinos to be built on the Reservation, and a decision of the EPA seemed to expand  the territory of the Reservation in to the town of Riverton.  There are a lot of decisions that will have to be made jointly.  This would not seem to be a good time in which for this uncertainty and perhaps duplication to develop.

Postscript

The Casper Star Tribune's editorial for today decries this development, noting much or some of what we've noted here above. 

Watching the Morph. How the news gets spun by the right and left in the age of the unreliable Internet

Wyoming has a very large Indian Reservation, the Wind River Reservation, which is home to part of the Shoshone Tribe* and also home to the Arapaho Tribe. It's also the home to quite a few non Indians as well.

The Wind River Reservation has a fascinating history which includes sort of a smoldering dispute which has run for decades about the proper boundaries of the Reservation. This dispute is complicated, but what it basically surrounds is withdrawals of certain areas from the Reservation by Congress, so that these areas could be opened up for general homesteading outside of Tribal jurisdiction.  I'd note here, and it is very significant, that areas of Reservations could be, and were, opened up for settlement within Tribal boundaries.  Contrary to what is very evidently the general belief, you do not have to be an Indian to own land within a Reservation.  Indeed, the Wind River Reservation includes part of the Midvale Irrigation District, which is a very significant irrigation district which is mostly farmed by non Indian farmers who live within the Reservation. 

One of the areas that have long been disputed by the Tribes is the area around the city of Riverton. Riverton is the county seat of Fremont County, and it is located on lands that were opened up for homesteading in 1905 by the United States.  It's generally been nearly universally believed by all but the Tribes that this event took the area in and around Riverton outside the Reservation, with the Reservation bordering it.  Indeed, the general belief would be that, if you were driving West on the highway, you'd enter the Reservation just outside of Shoshoni, leave it again rapidly, enter the framing belt where Riverton is, and then cross the river back on to the Reservation, and then leave it again just before you entered Hudson.  Prior legal decisions support this view.

Recently, however, the Tribes petitioned the EPA for a status equivalent to that of a State in regards to regulating air quality. The EPA granted this petition, but in so doing it went one step further, for reasons I haven't looked into, and held that the1905 act opening up the land for homesteading did not withdraw the lands from the Reservation.

That decision is contrary to prior court rulings and it came as a surprise to everyone including, in my opinion, the Tribes, which haven't really fully reacted to it yet.  The Tribes are being careful to take this a bit slowly, as they aren't exactly sure what this would mean.  It does have real implications, as it would mean the transfer of some authority in Riverton to the Tribes, such as law enforcement, and potentially taxation. The town is ignoring the ruling, which is probably a solid legal approach to take, and the State of Wyoming is challenging it.  Ultimately the question will end up in Federal Court.

What this in no way means, however, is what is being reported on a right wing news oriented website (one I hadn't heard of before a person sent me the link to it). That site reported, amongst other things:

It appears that Obama’s habitual abuse of his executive action is beginning to rub off on the rest of his administration.  His EPA soldiers are now telling a town in Wyoming that they no longer have the right to live there. And what’s worse? They’re giving away that land that the residents rightfully bought to other people.

No, that's not accurate at all.  Not even close.

You don't have to be an Indian to live on an Indian reservation, and real property on the Reservation works the same way as it does everywhere else in Fremont County.  If you buy property, and anyone can, you record the deed in the County courthouse in Lander.  Riverton is still in Fremont County and still a town in Wyoming no matter what happens.  Just as Ft. Washakie, which has always been a Fremont County town in the Reservation, and Lander which has always been a Fremont County town outside of the Reservation, are.  

This is not to say that there wouldn't be a lot of legal implications to the boundary being reestablished. There certainly would be.  Most particularly questions regarding law enforcement, civil law, and the taxation, would be present. And there might, or might not, be somethings to work out regarding the schools, although I would note that there are Fremont County school districts which are part of the state system that are inside the Reservation.  For some reason, Fremont County has a lot of school districtions.

But what's so interesting here is how quickly this story morphed into a false one in some quarter, and a quarter that apparently had little if any connection with Wyoming.  Somebody must falsely believe that only Indians live on Indian Reservations, which is completely inaccurate.  Indeed, the Wind River Tribal Court doesn't even bother to determine if jurors it calls are enrolled Tribal members or not, and it calls Indians and non Indians in for jury service, just as the Ninth Judicial District calls in people from inside, and outside, of the Reservation for jury duty.

This sort of thing seems common in the Internet age.  Local stories, like the one about New Jersey's George Washington Bridge, get blown up out of proportion as if they are of national importance.  And a story like this, which is full of legal nuances, gets reported in some quarter as if the President has some vague relationship to it, and as if this means non Indians are about to be expelled from their homes. 

Odd how things become told as stories.

 _________________________________________________________________________________

*  The Shoshone were a fairly large Tribe, in releative terms, in the 19th Century and were truly indiginous to the region, unlike the Sioux and Cheyenne which were displaced in the East and moved to the West, becoming Plains Indians in the process of adopting the horse.  For this reason, i.e., immigration, the Cheyenne and Sioux were regarded as invaders, as they really were invaders, by the tribes already present in the region, such as the Shoshone and Crow.

The Shoshone were a very widespread tribe and are known by other names, probably not surprisingly. The Bannock, for example, are Shoshone.  While regarded as a separate tribe, the Comanche are actually Shoshone as well, distinct culturally as they were the early adopters of the horse in the 18th Century, as opposed to the rest of the tribe which only adopted horses some years later.

Tuesday, March 30, 1909. The Army abandons Ft. Washakie.

Today In Wyoming's History: March 30: 

1909. On this day, the U.S. Army abandoned Ft. Washakie. The post had previously been also known as Camp Brown and Camp Augar.. The post had lately been a 9th Cavalry post.

The facilities for the post remain in large part today, having gone over to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Ft. Washakie, the town, is the seat of government for the Wind River Indian Reservation. The structures provide good examples of the period stone construction used by the Army at that time.

Ft. Washakie during a visit by President Arthur in 1883.

Some former cavalry structures at Ft. Washakie now in use as industrial or storage buildings.

Last prior edition:

Monday, March 29, 1909 Nibelungentreue

1900s, 1909, Austro Hungaria, Germany, Politics, Taxes