James Giago Davies. Photo courtesy Native Sun News Today
Pull back the curtain on tribal corruption
But don’t expect people to pay attention
By James Giago Davies
Native Sun News Today Columnist
nativesunnews.today There’s this fictional place I keep sharing, a parallel reality called the Cottonwood Indian Reservation, just east of the Bear Mountains, and what’s amazing about the place is how parallel that reality is, you would swear it was one of our actual Lakota reservations. On the Cottonwood there are families who have land and cattle, and they have dominated the tribal council for decades. They create laws that allow them to legally rob the Tribe blind, not that they don’t work hard scheming, they aren’t lazy, even work hard working, but they just love to create opportunities to enrich themselves and cheat every other tribal member. Here’s one of their oldest, most profitable scumbag schemes. The tribal council sets the lease rate for a tribal member to lease a tribal acre at $2.50 cents, real cheap, considering if you tried to lease that same acre just off the reservation, you’d pay $12.50. That’s ten bucks that tribal member won’t be coughing up to the tribal coffers. People say, so what? Cottonwood Reservation ranchers need a break, they gotta compete with the Wasicu, if they work hard and run cattle on land, and they deserve the money they get. Fine, but they don’t work the land. They sublease it, so they have no overhead, no cattle to buy, or feed, none to get through a tough winter.
Read the rest of the story on the Native Sun News Today website: Pull back the curtain on tribal corruption (Contact James Giago Davies at skindiesel@msn.com) Copyright permission Native Sun News
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