ELECTRONICS COMPANY TO TRAIN CROW INDIANS
The newly established U. S. Automatics Corporation plant on the Crow Reservation in Montana has negotiated a $17,475 contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to provide on-the-job training for 35 Crow Indians. The company, which has home offices in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, manufactures electronic components, mainly timing and regulating devices.
BOAT BUILDER TO LOCATE IN PRYOR. OKLAHOMA
Classic Manufacturing Company, builder of fiberglass pleasure boats, has announced that it will open a branch plant in Pryor, Oklahoma, within two months. The company, which has home offices in Santa Ana, California, will lease an 18,000 square foot building from Pryor's Mid-American Industrial District.
Classic expects to negotiate an on-the-job training contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to train an initial group of 15 Cherokee Indians for jobs in the new plant. About 30 Indians will be employed when full operations begin.
LOS ANGELES COUNTY RENEWS TRAINING CONTRACT
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has renewed a $47,150.contract with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to provide on-the-job training for 155 Indian women. The trainees will work toward certificates as nurses' aides and surgical nursing technicians during the contract period from July 1, 1965 through June 30, 1966.
MORE INDIANS IN FORESTRY JOBS
Increasing numbers of Indian workers are employed in forest industries, according to employment surveys conducted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In 1964, Indians accounted for 2,300 of the total 12,900 permanent employees in logging and milling operations on or near reservations. An additional 1,000 or more Indians were employed in seasonal and short-term jobs connected with forestry operations.
In addition to those employed in commercial logging and wood processing operations, there are 110 Indians on the permanent forestry staff of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, comprising more than one-third of the staff.
THREE ACTIONS BY THE INDIAN CLAIMS COMMISSION
Winnebago
The Indian Claims Commission has issued an interlocutory order in a case (Dockets 243, 244, and 245) involving claims by the Winnebago Tribe for compensation for lands in Wisconsin and Illinois that were ceded to the United States under three treaties during the past century. The Commission's order stated the following values for the three parcels of land at the time they were ceded:
2,702,444 acres, ceded under the treaty of January 2, 1830, had a value of $2,025,000;
2,101,455 acres, ceded under the treaty of February 13, 1833, then worth $1,575,000; and 2,981,303 acres, of land ceded under the treaty of June 15, 1838, worth $1,500,000 when ceded.
With issuance of this order, determination of the remaining issues in the case will now proceed.
Cheyenne-Arapaho of Oklahoma
The Indian Claims Commission has approved a compromise settlement of $15 million for claims of the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma (Docket Nos. 329-A and 329-B). The amount represents additional payment for their one-half interest in 51,210,000 acres ceded to the United States by the Indians under various treaties and for 4,608,878 acres of their reservation taken under the Agreement of 1890. The lands concerned are located in the present States of Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, Colorado, South Dakota, and Oklahoma. The funds have been deposited in the Treasury, where they are drawing interest at four percent per annum.
Northern Paiute
The Indian Claims Commission has entered final judgment in the case of the Northern Paiute Indians, Docket No. 87, granting an award of $935,000 as payment for 3,118,000 acres of land in Nevada and California identified as Area I or the Bono Tract; and an award of $15,790,000 as payment for 11,614,726 acres of land in Nevada and California. The lands in California were taken in 1853 and those in Nevada in 1862 and 1863. Previously an award of $3,650,000 had been granted as payment for 11,500,000 acres in Nevada and Oregon identified as Area III or the Snake Tract taken in 1872. The total Paiute judgment is the largest so far to a single tribe. The “Indians of California" -- a group composed of many tribes-- received a previous award of $29.1 million.
COMMISSIONER NASH ADDRESSED NCAl
Commissioner Philleo Nash of the Bureau of Indian Affairs recently urged American Indians to plead their common cause as Indians, not only as tribal representatives. Speaking at Scottsdale, Arizona, before the Annual Conference of the National Congress of American Indians, Commissioner Nash said, "It is my greatest hope that this organization will one day--and soon--become a major focal point for Indian self-expression. I hope that it will grow in wealth and membership to a stature that will make it a mighty force in Indian affairs--a force through which a half million Americans can speak with united purpose.“
