Bulletin #3

Trail of Tears Campaign
405 Alfred Ave. Winnipeg Manitoba, R2W1X7

Planting the Seed of Hope

“The children and the ground they walk on will be the ultimate victors in receiving the fruits of everlasting peace.”
Milton Born-With-A-Tooth

A Journey for Our Future

The future of any People, any cultural group, is the children and the grandchildren. Those yet to come will inherit the problems and the solutions we leave behind. Adults have a Sacred Responsibility to pass Hope for the Future onto our Children. Without that, they are lost.

Today far too many of our youth are without hope.

This is a volatile situation. Suicide is the most obvious way some of our youth show the hopelessness they feel about the future. Drugs, solvent sniffing, street gangs, alcoholism, dropping out of school, settling into a life of feeling useless and welfare dependency, imprisonment, domestic violence – these are some of the very common early-warning signs of hopelessness. Our children feel hopeless because of Canada’s 139 year old policies of cultural genocide.

Planting the Seed of Hope

As Leader of the Lonefighters, I – Milton Born-With-A-Tooth – have set out on this Trail of Tears to plant a seed of hope. I ask for your support to address the hopelessness that plagues our youth. Hope will grow in our children’s hearts as light is shed on the Truth of why things are as they are. Hope will grow when our youth see that we adults are working together to do something about these things.

Hope was stolen from our children when our Sacred Water, the Oldman River, was twisted and tortured, and put into prison by dams built to contain the Power of the Water. This was a brutal attack on the culture and way of life of my People. Everything that has happened to us since has further diminished our children’s futures: the silencing of some of our leaders and elders, bribing of other leaders, and mismanagement and fraud of the funds paid to us by Canada’s federal and provincial governments for these acknowledged losses.

The truth about what happened to the Peigan Tribe has much in common with the situation in many of the more than 630 apartheid-style “Indian Reservations” inside this nation called Canada. Bringing out the full truth about what has happened to my People will shed light on what is happening to Indigenous Peoples across this land

Hope can not be found in the declaration of solutions by one leader or spokesperson – not me, and not anyone else. Hope is not found from dressing up in fatigues or gang colours. Hope is not found by taking up a gun. Taking up a gun is only merited in the greatest extremity of self-defence of our children, and then it is called “war” not “hope”.

Hope begins to bloom when Truth is spoken. True solutions are reached in dialogue – when all those affected and all those who have the power to affect outcomes sit down, together, to talk as equals. Together we must talk through the problems, reach conclusions, make decisions, and act on them. A full and fair public inquiry is the best way available to get started on this work.

A public inquiry into the imposition of Third Party Management on the Peigan Nation will shed light on two things: (1) what went wrong that led to Third Party Management; and (2) why Indian Affairs protocols and policies lead to putting First Nations under Third Party Management. Our Truth of what went wrong, why this must not happen again, and how we can act to prevent this happening again, will shed light on many of the root causes of hopelessness amongst our youth – and about the ongoing destruction of our Earth.

“We must be united… We must fight each other’s battles.”
Tecumseh’s speech to the Osages, Winter/1811-1812

I did not suddenly spring, full-grown, into the public role I have had since 1990. When I stood up against global capital and the governments of Alberta and Canada, to protect the Oldman River, I had already spent many years learning how and why it was important to do this.

In 1978, I was one of many young people, from many First Nations, who joined The Longest Walk, which was in Affirmation of Sovereignty for the Indigenous Peoples of the Western Hemisphere. We crossed the continent to develop awareness about the ongoing cultural genocide policies and practices being inflicted on Indigenous Peoples. We brought the world’s attention to the fact that colonial and neo-colonial governments of North America have never abandoned their genocidal goal. They have always found ways to re-invent, reconstitute, and intensify. Their goal is to eradicate our Indigenous cultures, our worldviews, our Peoples – from this Earth.

At that stage in my life, I was a young Blackfoot Warrior. Three respected Elders, from three different Indigenous cultures, were among the teachers who most influenced me: Thomas Banyacya (Hopi), Phillip Deere (Muskogee Creek), and Wallace “Mad Bear” Anderson (Tuscorora, of the Haudenesonne (Iroquois) Confederacy).

Three Perspectives on Unity

Mad Bear had a strong voice that cleared away all the confusion. He said:

“It's a mistake to think of any group or person as an opponent, because when you do, that's what the group or person will become to you. It's more useful to think of every other person as another YOU – to think of every individual as a representative of the universe. Every person is plugged into the whole works. Nobody is outside it or affects it any less than anybody else.”

In speaking of how the prophecies of his People can be understood as a Declaration of Peace, Thomas Banyacya said:

“The True Hopi People Know how to fight without killing or hurting...
Know how to fight with Truth and Positive Force In The Light Of The Great Spirit...
Know how to Educate by clear thoughts... good pictures... and by carefully chosen words...
Know how to show to all the world's Children the True Way of Life by setting an example... by working and communicating in a way that reaches the minds and hearts of all people…”

As we stood outside the national government offices, Phillip Deere said:

“People in this society have been driven away, and have been taken away so far from reality that they will not sit down under a tree and talk to us. They won't even sit down in their office to listen to the Indian. We have experienced this all this time, even in the local offices at home. Those who are holding positions through the government refuse to listen to the grassroots Indians…

their minds are controlled. They can't make decisions for themselves…

“Every tribe has a trail of tears. We wonder when it is going to end. I would like to
see the time come when we can act like human beings and be able to sit around and iron our problems out…

“We are the believers in the truth, and not in facts as this society follows. We believe in the truth. Many times you may want to know how many people I represent. I represent the truth. And I represent the future generations of my people.”

Need for a Full and Fair Public Inquiry

With the power imbalance as it is between Canada and my People, there is only way I see for us to have the dialogue that is needed to reach positive, genuinely hopeful solutions. We must shed bright light to bring out the truth about how we got into the difficulties my People now face. Third Party Management is the mask Canada presently uses to covertly carry out its program of genocide in the current times. Our Peoples have an unalienable right to govern ourselves. No other Nation has the right to interfere with that process.

I, Lonefighter Leader Milton Born-With-A-Tooth, ask for support. I journey on behalf of my People. My community has suffered endless scandals and abuse. We have had enough. I ask every First Nation person, from shore to shore, to join our effort. Demand that a full public inquiry be commissioned to look into Third Party Management policies and the present situation with the Peigan Tribe of the Blackfoot Confederacy. Phone, fax or email the following leaders of the political parties in Canada’s Parliament, to set forth the demand for a public inquiry:

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister
(Conservative Party of Canada)
T: 613-992-4211 ~ Fax: 613-941-6900 ~ E: pm@pm.gc.ca

The Right Honourable Paul Martin (Liberal Party of Canada)
T: (613) 992-4284 ~ Fax: (613) 992-4291 ~ E: Martin.Paul@parl.gc.ca

Gilles Duceppe, M.P. (Bloc Québéçois)
T: (613) 992-6779 ~ Fax: (613) 954-2121 ~ E: Duceppe.G@parl.gc.ca

Jack Layton, M.P. (New Democratic Party of Canada)
T: (613) 995-7224 ~ Fax: (613) 995-4565 ~ E: Layton.J@parl.gc.ca

In God’s name, you came.
In the Great Spirit’s name, we have always been.
Lonefighter Leader Milton Born-With-A-Tooth