Opinion

Alabama-Coushattas seeking fair share of resources taken from their lands

As chairman of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe of Texas, I am responsible for educating others about the history of our tribe and the issues we are facing. The tribe's presence in the Big Thicket region of East Texas dates all the way back to the days of Spanish Texas. Since then, we have contributed in various ways to the well-being of our fellow Texans.

During the war for Texas independence, for example, our forebears used the trails and forests of the Big Thicket to help Gen. Sam Houston and his Texian forces elude the advancing Mexican army under Santa Anna. As a gesture of gratitude, Houston later granted our tribe land in East Texas - and promised that our rights would always be respected by Texas.

Members of our community have also fought in the United States military in every conflict since World War II - and some of these tribal members made the ultimate sacrifice fighting for freedom and America. Since the 1960s, our tribe has helped educate kids from the surrounding area through our Head Start program.

Today, however, our tribe is in its own struggle to achieve independence and basic fairness. Recently, we filed a lawsuit against the federal government. Our objective in taking this legal action is straightforward: We seek to stop the federal government from allowing private companies to enter our aboriginal lands and exploit our natural resources for commercial purposes.

The tribe has tried other avenues to obtain what is legally ours. Twelve years ago, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled that the Alabama-Coushatta maintains aboriginal title to more than 5.5 million acres in East Texas. The court also held that the federal government failed in its obligation to protect our land from unauthorized use. Finally, the court recommended that Congress pay $270 million in damages to the tribe for the government's breach of its fiduciary duty. To date, Congress has made no effort to compensate the tribe.

Meanwhile, the federal government continues to exercise control over our land, and continues to give others the right to mine and exploit other resources. Added to that, these outside interests retain all lease payments, royalties and profits generated from their activities.

More recently, courts and congressional inaction have denied the tribe the right to use our lands as other federally recognized communities are entitled to do under the law. Deprived of this basic fairness and excluded from the benefits of development activities on our lands, the tribe is facing an uphill battle to maintain basic services for its members.

Regrettably, many years of good faith efforts to resolve these various issues in Austin and in Washington, D.C., have yet to yield a positive result. Which is why, earlier this year, we were compelled to file our complaint in federal court.

It is critical to note that although the government's breaches of fiduciary duty have inflicted, and continue to inflict, harm on our tribe, the relief we are seeking in this complaint is quite modest. We are not seeking to recover possession of our ancestral lands.

Rather, if we prevail in court, it simply means that the federal government will be required to take the tribe's interest into account when it issues future permits or leases for the extraction of resources from our lands. In addition, the government will be required to provide us with a full accounting of the revenues it has collected by selling timber and issuing permits for oil and gas exploitation from our lands.

As we have throughout our long history, the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe takes pride in its relationships throughout East Texas. We have always strived, and always will strive, to be good neighbors.

After so many years of frustration and futility over this land rights issue, however, we were compelled to take this legal action.

We simply could not continue to stand back and watch our property rights be ignored while federal agencies and their commercial partners exploit our land and resources.

The complaint filed earlier this year seeks to force the federal government to follow the law. This, in turn, will help improve the quality of life for tribal members.

Williams is chairman of the Alabama-Coushatta Tribal Council.