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In Memory
of Mary Dann
Carrie, left, and Mary Dann pose together on Oct. 3, 2002 on their
ranch near Crescent Valley.
The two Western Shoshone sisters have battled the federal government
for 30 years over their
tribe's claim to aboriginal lands.
Shoshone activist dies; sister vows to fight on
Staff and Wire Reports RENO GAZETTE-JOURNAL
4/24/2005 12:42 am
American Indian activist Mary Dann, who with her sister helped
represent the
Shoshone Nation in its effort to reclaim millions of acres they
claimed as their
ancestral land, has died in an accident on her rural central Nevada
ranch.
Dann apparently had an accident on an all-terrain vehicle while
she was
repairing fence on the Crescent Valley ranch Friday night, according
to Julie
Fishel of the Western Shoshone Defense Project.
Fishel said Dann was in her early 80s but had never disclosed
her exact age.
Patricia Paul said her aunt "died as she would have wanted
- with her boots on
and hay in her pocket."
For more than a quarter century, Dann and her sister Carrie were
at the
forefront of efforts to reclaim a vast tract of land spreading
across four states.
They claimed it was their aboriginal land, which was seized by
the United
States under the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley. Contending the treaty
allowed
white settlers to cross Shoshone territory but did not give the
U.S. title to or
authority over the land, the sisters ran livestock on the open
range, ignoring
federal regulations and refusing to pay grazing fees.
The BLM claimed jurisdiction over the range as public land, and
said in 2003
that the Danns owed $3 million in fees and penalties.
In 2002, the BLM seized 277 head of Dann cattle. In 1992, the
agency rounded
up 250 Dann horses after a six-day standoff during which Mary
and Carrie's
brother Clifford doused himself with gasoline and threatened to
light it.
"Just leave us alone," is what Mary Dann said when asked
what she'd like from
federal range managers in the 21st century.
The Dann sisters, who grew up on the 800-acre ranch established
by their
father Dewey Dann in the early 1900s, made a story good enough
for movie
screens.
The sisters took their case to the United Nations and attracted
the attention of
Hollywood celebrities such as Robert Redford.
"It's human struggle against enormous odds," said Joel
Freedman, a
Connecticut-based filmmaker who shot documentaries on the Danns
and the
Western Shoshone. "It's a heroic struggle."
But some tribal members considered the Dann sisters adversaries
because their
cause and its publicity foiled years of attempts to distribute
federal money to
members under a land-claim award. She and her sister opposed distribution
of
the money and refused to pay to graze livestock on a federal allotment
near
their ranch.
Though "traditional" tribal members such as the Danns
rejected the notion of a
claim, another Shoshone band did file for settlement. In the late
1970s, the
Indian Claims Commission awarded the Shoshones $26 million, deciding
the
tribe had lost the land by the "gradual encroachment"
of white settlers.
However, the money went untouched because a majority of Shoshones
could
never agree to accept it. With interest, the amount of the payment
has grown to
more than $140 million, said Raymond Yowell, chief of the Western
Shoshone
Nation.
While the claims panel was one front in the battle, a pasture
near the Danns'
ranch became another.
In 1974, the Bureau of Land Management filed suit against the
Danns, claiming
they were trespassing by allowing their cattle to graze on federal
land and
refusing to pay grazing fees. The case went through the courts
to the U.S.
Supreme Court, which ruled in 1985 that the tribe had lost title
to the land when
the $26 million was deposited as payment - even though the money
was never
collected.
Mary Dann usually sat quietly alongside more vocal Carrie in scores
of public
appearances and court hearings.
"Mary was quite a strong person. We're trying to absorb the
suddenness of it
happening," Yowell said on Saturday.
Carrie Dann said her sister would not want her death to interrupt
the continuing
court challenges over their land.
"This was Mary's life work," she said. "All these
years we've been fighting and
the courts still haven't done anything. As far as we're concerned
we will live up
to our spiritual beliefs and nothing will change that. Mary believed
that and lived
by it and so do I."
http://www.wsdp.org/
Western Shoshone Defense Project
P.O. Box 211308
Crescent Valley, NV 89821
(775) 468-0230 Fax: (775) 468-0237
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