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Still Pushing Booze on the
Indians after All These Years

James G. Abourezk

A Brief Legal History of Whiteclay Alcohol Sales



Born and raised on what was then the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, Jim Abourezk served in the U.S. Senate from 1973-79, where he chaired “Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs.” Now a practicing attorney in Sioux Falls, Abourezk has long been interested in the hideous situation at Whiteclay (which he refers to by its original name of “White Clay”). The article below originally appeared in a June 2008 issue of Counterpunch newsletter — a bi-weekly newsletter co-edited by Alexander Cockburn.

White Clay, Nebraska, is a tiny village — population 14 — in the northwest corner of Nebraska. Despite its size, however, it boasts four liquor stores to serve its customers, most of whom come from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation just across the border in southwest South Dakota. White Clay’s liquor stores are there to accommodate the Reservation’s alcoholics, primarily because the Oglala Sioux Tribe has made illegal the sale or possession of liquor on the Reservation. A small amount of the beer, wine and whiskey sold to Indians is consumed in White Clay itself, with most of it being transported back to Pine Ridge by bootleggers, who then sell it to alcoholics living on the Reservation.

The story of White Clay whiskey peddlers selling alcoholic beverages to the Indians is only a continuation of one that began back in the 1800s.

In the 1850s, the U.S. Army tried, without success, to tame the Indian Tribes who objected — violently — to white settlers disturbing their lands in the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana. When the U.S. Army found it could not defeat the Indians, the government decided to negotiate a treaty with them. The resulting 1858 “Ft. Laramie Treaty” signed by the U.S. government and the Sioux Indians set aside the western part of South Dakota as the “Great Sioux Reservation,” promising that the Indians would no longer be bothered by white settlers, who were cluttering up the Indians’ land on their way to the West Coast. The Treaty also provided part of Wyoming and Montana as exclusive hunting grounds for the Indian Tribes in that area.

Not long after the Pine Ridge Agency, housing the Oglala Sioux Tribe, was established prior to 1882, white-owned stores began springing up on the Nebraska side of the border, selling guns, ammunition and, more importantly, whiskey. Valentine McGillicuddy, the U.S. government’s agent in Pine Ridge at that time, described the white squatters as “undesirables,” who “will endeavor to settle on the land” near Big White Clay Creek. McGillicuddy at that time suggested to the Chester Arthur Administration the establishment of a 50-square-mile buffer zone along the Nebraska border as the only way to keep the undesirable whites — and their whiskey — away from the Indians.

It was a historical preview of what is happening today at White Clay. McGillicuddy then described to his superiors the destruction caused by the Indians’ easy access to whiskey in White Clay, Nebraska. He related the story of an interpreter who fell off his horse while drunk, breaking his neck, as well as several instances of deaths resulting from drunken brawls, including the killing of an Indian named “Gray Eyes” and the wounding of his wife in April of 1880. Secretary of the Interior Kirkwood agreed with McGillicuddy ‘s assessment of the situation, and, in January of 1882, he convinced President Chester A. Arthur to sign an Executive Order withdrawing sale of alcohol to the public in a five-by-ten-mile strip of land, situated just across the Dakota border in Nebraska, adding it to the Great Sioux Reservation.

McGillicuddy was able to report to his superiors that after establishment of the new Reservation boundary, there had been little or no trouble involving intoxicating liquor.

In 1889, Congress enacted new legislation, which included a proviso that mirrored President Arthur’s Executive Order, holding that the 50-square-mile tract was to be reserved, “only so long as it may be needed for the use and protection of the Indians receiving rations and annuities at the Pine Ridge Agency.”

But, almost immediately, pressure by white settlers again began to build for a return of the reserved land to the public domain. The buffer zone continued until 1904, when President Theodore Roosevelt was convinced by his Commissioner of Indian Affairs, William A. Jones, that the lands should be returned to the public domain, opening it for white settlement. Acceding to the request, President Roosevelt signed an Executive Order on January 25, 1904, which purported to accomplish what the white settlers wanted. Significantly, the 1904 Executive Order contained no findings by the president, nor did it contain any recitation that the tract was no longer needed for the “protection of the Indians receiving rations and annuities at the Pine Ridge Agency.” Although these omissions made the Executive Order illegal, no one noticed it, which resulted in the tract being opened for settlement, and removed from the Tribe’s jurisdiction.

The need for protection of the Pine Ridge Indians from the liquor peddlers in Nebraska still exists today, to which the grisly modern statistics of highway deaths, spousal and child abuse, crimes of theft and murder, and rampant alcoholism graphically attest. In these modern times, drunken killings still persist, as well as thievery of items sold to the liquor stores in exchange for alcohol, along with spousal and child abuse, all of which are directly attributable to the alcoholism enabled by the White Clay liquor stores. It is legacy of shame that no one in authority wants to put an end to. Despite an ongoing campaign by Nebraskans for Peace, as well as by activist Indians, State of Nebraska officials seem to believe that there’s nothing wrong with a small village of 14 people being allowed to have four liquor stores that sell millions of dollars worth of alcoholic beverages each year to Indian alcoholics.

President Roosevelt’s illegal Executive Order can be overruled by any current president signing another Order, which would transfer jurisdiction over the buffer zone back to the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Under U.S. Supreme Court law, the Oglala Sioux Tribe would then have only regulatory jurisdiction over whiskey sales in White Clay, but not criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians residing within the buffer zone.

During Bill Clinton’s last year in office, I tried to get him to sign such an Executive Order, overruling that of President Roosevelt’s. It was reported to me by his staff that there were a number of meetings held on the question between the Interior Department, the Justice Department and the White House Counsel’s office, but with no ultimate result. Eventually, after I tried calling Vice President Gore to see what he could do on this matter, a member of the White House staff called me back and said that President Clinton would not sign such an Order because he did not want to set a bad precedent. That was about the same time he was busy selling pardons in his last days in office. I thought about the response back then by Clinton’s staff during the 2008 Democratic primary campaign in South Dakota, when Bill, Hillary and Chelsea were practically living on the South Dakota Indian Reservations, promising to do great things for the Indians if elected.

After George W. Bush was sworn into office in 2001, I called Vice President Cheney, asking him to recommend that the president overrule President Roosevelt’s 1904 Order. Saying he didn’t understand the legalities, he referred me to the White House Counsel, a lawyer named Albert Gonzales. After sending Mr. Gonzales all the historical information and legal research I had collected, and asking that the Executive Order be overturned by President Bush, Mr. Gonzales wrote that he did not want to take away the land from the non-Indians who now owned it. I wrote back, telling him he had misunderstood the law, which states that no land would be transferred, but only jurisdiction would go to the Oglala Sioux Tribe, which already has in place a ban on Reservation liquor sales. It would be a repeat of the 50-square-mile buffer zone that prevented liquor sales to Indians over a century ago. Beyond that, I explained, the Tribe would not have criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians, only regulatory jurisdiction over the liquor licenses. Mr. Gonzales never bothered to respond.

Nebraskans for Peace is still campaigning. The group has just completed a film on the White Clay issue, which they hope will help draw attention to the immorality of the situation. Indian activists, including Russell Means, have tried establishing checkpoints at the border to stop the flow of beer and wine, but they get little cooperation from the Tribal police, and none from Nebraska authorities.

I attribute the politicians’ lack of interest in the Indians’ problems with whiskey peddlers in White Clay to the Indians’ lack of money. I have no doubt that, if the Tribe and its member Indians were rich and powerful, there would be presidents, senators and congressmen knocking at their door, wanting to do something for them.

But, obviously, it is poverty that is keeping the Indians poor… and exploited.