The Glacier reporter. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1953-current, 1960-12-08

me controversy involved IN the
settlement was touched off in
1859 when the Bureau of Indian
Affairs discovered that minerals
lying upon and under the W.
SW-4 Section Is, Township 80
North, Range 6 West were allot-
ted in error to Genevieve Sher-
man. Upon discovery of this err
ror, the Department of the In
terror corrected the trust patents
involved to show that the min
erals were, in fact, the property
of the Blackfeet Tribe.
A further search of title to
these minerals revealed that the
Department of the Interior had
enormously approved an oil and
gas lease covering this land made
by the heirs of Genevieve Sher-
man to Consolidated Gas Co. and
G. S. Frary in January of 1912.
The Interior Department then
notified Frary and other holders
of this lease that the lease was
null and void as it was not grant
ed by the legal owners of the prop
erty, and was subsequently APP
proved in error by the Depart
ment.
In an apparent attempt to
quickly and quietly settle the
matter, the Bureau of Indian AT,
fairs asked the Tribal Council in
1859 to ratify the terms of the
lease declared null and void. The
Council refused to do this, and
on February II, 1860 the General
Counsel of the Tribe was author
lied ito take whatever action is
necessary to recover Tribal prop
erty enormously taken under
Lease No. 213" - the lease made
by the Sherman heirs.
A long period of negotiation
followed until on May 6, 1860,
the General Counsel of the Tribe
asked the Secretary of the In
terror to request the Justice De-
partment to start suit to recover
the full value of Tribal property
which has been wrongfully con-
verted by others" Deadlines for
negotiations set by the Tribe
through its General Counsel were
extended, and reset; until on
November 80, 1860, the Justice
Department of the U. S. agreed
to start suit on behalf of the
Tribe to recover damages for the
oil and gas removed from the
land under terms of the now void
ed lease.
During the long negotiations,
it was brought out that aproxi-
mately 100000 worth of oil was
removed from the land by oper-
ators. 1t was also developed that
approximately $4,000 had been
paid to the Sherman heirs under
the assumption that they were
the legal owners of the minerals
covered by the lease.
The vote taken on December
6 by the council accepting the
settlement was eight for and one
against with two members absent.
The vote offering the settlement
to the Sherman heirs was nine
for and none against with two
members absent.
The settlement agreed upon at
the December 6 meeting appar-
emily is not consistent with the
recommendations of the Tribes
General Counsel in a Washington
DC. According to copies of let,
tiers distributed to councilmen at
the December 6 meeting, the
General Counsel of the Tribe,
on December 2 offered a compro-
mise settlement to the oil oper-
ators. Instead of the original sum
of approximately $4,000 offered
by the operators land later in
creased by them to S104,00O) the
Tribes attorney had asked that
the oil men pay to the Blackfeet
Tribe one-half of the a mount
arrived at by deducting from the
gross value of the oil removed
under the so-called Sherman
lease a sum equal to the actual
costs of removing that oil from
the ground without, of course,
including royalty or overhead"
The dollars and cents such a
settlement would amount to was
not discussed at the December 6
mepfinC