On January 8th, 2023, the California Valley Miwok Tribe met with all tribal citizen’s and families in securing the proper documents for delivery to the tribe’s legal representation, Peebles Kidder Bergin & Robinson LLP.
Once again, the tribe is being threatened by the Bureau of Indian Affairs / Central California Agency. The local BIA is once again hellbent on orchestrating a political overthrow of the tribe, enrolling whomever they want at will and attempting to disqualify the actual citizens of the tribe from being involved in their own fates, hoping to disenroll and leave current actual federal citizens nothing to look forward to but homelessness and despair.
We fully intend to use all legal means necessary in the defense of our sovereignty and to protect our citizen’s young and old alike against the vile, wicked and despicable individuals in charge of the local offices who have no conscience in regards to the crimes and injustices that they continue to perpetrate against our people.
Whatever the current reasoning please read the description accompanying the video posted below for the initial reason that started this odyssey that has gone on for decades.
The sheer lack of decency by the local BIA is even more compounded by the fact that they initiated this new attack against the tribe during Native American Heritage Month and just two days before the White House Tribal Nations Summit of which the tribe was invited to attend by the White House.
In the newest attempt of a never ending cycle of the attempted theft of the California Valley Miwok Tribe by officials of the local Bureau of Indian Affairs / Central California Agency, tribal elder Mildred Burley once again has been subjected to the denigration of having to applying to their processes just to be able to legally challenge this newest attempt to throw her and all her fellow citizens into the streets of homelessness and despair.
This newest attempt to disenfranchise all current citizens of this small tribe is the brainchild of newly appointed Bureau of Indian Affairs / Central California Agency Superintendent Harley Long along with Carol Rogers-Davis long known for her nefarious activities in undermining the rights of the tribes citizens and herself involved in previous multiple attempts to disenfranchise the tribe of its sovereignty over its own rolls.
The BIA once again takes this illegal action in their quest to instill not only more citizens upon the tribe, but to dissolve our duly elected government and form of governance of which they themselves gave technical assistance and were instrumental in helping to create. The newest reasons they give for this right is the manipulation of reinterpretation of the ill-conceived Washburn decision that itself was in deference to federal Indian law and a fabricated leadership dispute that was admitted to being a fraud in 2012 and of which ended with the death of one party in December of 2017.
This whole issue started with the fiasco of Neal McCaleb’s number two man at the BIA, Wayne Smith and his influence peddling friend Phillip Bersinger whose well-documented actions ended in getting Mr. Smith fired. The three tribes that were part of this well known and exposed story were the Chinook Indian Nation, the Buena Vista Rancheria of Mewuk Indians of California and the California Valley Miwok Tribe. After the firing of one of their own the BIA came after these tribe’s with an absolute murderous vengeance. The Chinook Indian Nation previously federally acknowledged in 2001, had that acknowledgement later rescinded in 2002 and still is to this day. The Buena Vista Tribe at the time was chaired by the honorable Chairperson Donna Marie Potts. She was soon disposed due to actions taken by the local BIA superintendent of the time and was replaced by someone equitable to the BIA’s liking.
Then there is the California Valley Miwok Tribe, we are still standing much to the chagrin of the local BIA. We have endured two decades of interference, attempted dismantling of our government, disenfranchisement of services, grants and funding all in an attempt to exterminate our very existence. This current action in just another in a very long line of injustices wrought upon our citizens young and old alike and will not go unanswered.
Like our tribal elder stated, she would be ashamed.
Like our tribal elder stated, she would be ashamed.
Well you have to have a conscious to be ashamed maybe someday someone at the BIA will find one.
