Sac and Fox Nation
[2] The Sac and Fox Nation is headquartered in Stroud, Oklahoma, and their tribal jurisdictional area covers Lincoln, Payne, and Pottawatomie counties.
Under the Dawes Act of 1887, these tribal land holdings were divided into 160-acre allotments for individual households, intended to encourage the Native Americans to establish subsistence farming according to the European-American cultural ways.
Not only did the act not recognize Native American culture, but in many places in this arid land, the allotments were too small to be farmed successfully.
[2] The Sac and Fox tribe had historically occupied large portions of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Missouri, which they gradually ceded to the US by treaties forced by European-American encroachment.
[8] The administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt established what was called an "Indian New Deal", passing a law to encourage tribes to re-establish self-government.
The US Supreme Court ruled in the tribe's favor of its independent sovereignty on May 17, 1993, in Oklahoma Tax Commission v. Sac & Fox Nation.
On May 16, 1989, a tribal representative group that included Elmer Manatowa, Principal Chief; Truman Carter, Treasurer; William Rice, Attorney General; James L. Welsh III, Director of Real Estate; and Curtis Cunard, Petroleum Consultant, testified before the 101st Congress, Special Committee on Investigations of the Select Committee on Indian Affairs, United States Senate.
The testimony examined the federal government's management of water and natural resources of the Sac and Fox Nation.
They testified to the extensive surface damage and permanent contamination of the tribal drinking water, which was destroyed by waterflooding techniques and the injection well process used by the oil companies.
These officers also testified to the lack of federal oversight and trust management responsibilities, including fraudulent real estate appraisals of their lands.
This historic testimony by the tribe's representatives, the result of their internal investigations, revealed the extensive mismanagement of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and its failure in carrying out trust responsibilities.
