Sisters fight for treaty rights - Shoshone activists Carrie and Mary Dann - On The Line - Brief Article - Interview

Carrie and Mary Dann say the U.S. government is trying to steal their land. And they are taking the government to court.

The Dann sisters are Western Shoshones who have waged a twenty-five-year battle with the federal government. They say the government is disregarding a treaty it made with the Shoshone nation, giving the tribe ownership of rugged terrain in northern Nevada's Humboldt River Basin.

The Danns also claim ancestral rights. "This goes back to the time of our creation," says Carrie Dann. "We believe we were created and put here to take care of the land."

In 1863, the treaty of Ruby Valley acknowledged the Nevada Territory as the property of the Western Shoshones but allowed the building of small U.S. settlements in the area.

The Bureau of Land Management points to a 1962 decision by the Indian Claims Commission. It ruled the Western Shoshones lost ownership of the land when white settlers flooded the area in the late 1800s. The commission offered the Western Shoshones $26 million--the 1872 value of the land--to compensate for the loss. But the money still sits in a trust. The tribe has never accepted payment.

The sisters live with their family on an 800-acre ranch near Crescent Valley. But their animals roam on federal property.

The Bureau of Land Management claims that the Dann family is trespassing and has failed to pay the government rent for grazing privileges. It has imposed hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines on the Danns. In 1992, the bureau confiscated 430 of their horses.

Jo Simpson, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Land Management, says the government is treating the Dann family no differently than it does other ranchers, who must obtain permits before they can graze their animals on federal land. By circumventing the permit system, the Danns are hurting the five ranchers who legally use the land, she says.

"We are concerned about maintaining healthy and productive lands. Their continued trespass results in overgrazing," says Simpson.

In February, the Bureau of Land Management filed a notice of unauthorized grazing use against the Danns and ordered them to pay an $852,000 fee. The Danns and the Western Shoshone National Council responded by filing for an injunction to stop the fine. The case has not yet been decided.

Jim Anaya, a lawyer for the Indian Law Resource Center and counsel to the Danns, says the case is important to Native people everywhere.

"What is at stake is full and equal rights for indigenous people and their lands," says Anaya.

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