Free Republic

The Western Shoshone have been litigating the rights to their homeland since at least 1951 ... Raymond Yowell's land, from which BLM seized his cattle, is within the ancestral territories of the Western Shoshone Nation recognized in the 1863 Treaty of Peace and Friendship signed at Ruby Valley . The Western Shoshone have never ceded or relinquished their fundamental indigenous relationship to these territories. They continue to hunt, fish, gather, graze, and live on the lands in accordance with laws and instructions given to them by the Ah-Peh (Father). In 1995, Mr. Yowell was Chief of the Western Shoshone National...

Long before Cliven Bundy faced down federal agents in his dispute with the Bureau of Land Management over grazing rights, fellow Nevada rancher Raymond Yowell, an 84-year-old former Shoshone chief, watched as the BLM seized his herd. Adding to that, since 2008 they've taken his money as well -- in the form of a piece of his Social Security checks. Yowell's 132 head of cattle had grazed for decades on the South Fork Western Shoshone Indian Reservation in northeastern Nevada until 2002, when the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) -- the same agency at odds with Bundy -- seized them....

Long before Cliven Bundy faced down federal agents in his dispute with the Bureau of Land Management over grazing rights, fellow Nevada rancher Raymond Yowell, an 84-year-old former Shoshone chief, watched as the BLM seized his herd. Adding to that, since 2008 they've taken his money as well -- in the form of a piece of his Social Security checks. Yowell's 132 head of cattle had grazed for decades on the South Fork Western Shoshone Indian Reservation in northeastern Nevada until 2002, when the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) -- the same agency at odds with Bundy -- seized them....

The federal government seized Raymond Yowell’s cattle — all 132 head — and hauled them across the state and sold them at auction. Then the U.S. Bureau of Land Management sent Yowell a bill for $180,000 for back grazing fees and penalties, and later garnished part of his Social Security benefits. Now, nearly a decade later, the 81-year-old former chief of the Western Shoshone National Council is fighting back. He’s suing the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the Treasury Department and others for $30 million. Yowell claims the government violated his constitutional rights, broke an 1863 treaty and saddled him...