Westpex Retrospective
Chapter Five: Indian Reservation Waterfowl Stamps and Usages
Licenses and stamps that were issued by tribal governments are a part of the story whose importance grew rapidly at the end of the 20th Century. Most are familiar with how the Native Americans were treated in the late 1800s. They had their land taken from them and were confined to reservations. What many don’t know is that non-Indians’ predilection for gambling is making it possible for the Native Americans to buy their land back, at an accelerating rate. In most states gambling is illegal. However, since tribal governments are recognized as sovereign nations, they are not subject to such laws and it has become a tremendous source of revenue in certain parts of the county.
For example, in South Dakota, where the most grievous land grabs took place, there is a time-honored tradition of auctioning land (specifically farms and ranches) to the highest bidder. Revenue from Indian casinos in South Dakota has made it possible for tribal governments to be the successful bidder in a high percentage of such instances over the last 30 years. At the end of the day, Native Americans will have bought much of their land back. Accompanying land stewardship is a responsibility to manage wildlife resources. Tribal governments take this obligation very seriously. After the number of tribal governments that required waterfowl stamps decreased to zero during the turbulent 1970s (see 1979 Rosebud small game stamp below), the last two decades of the 20th Century saw that number increase from one to 21. In general, licenses and stamps issued by tribal governments prior to 1980 have a high difficulty of acquisition. Highlights:
1919 Yakima County (Washington) Game License. This is an interesting license. Although issued by the state of Washington, the county of Yakima was predominantly an Indian Reservation in 1919. Therefore, it is considered the earliest recorded hunting license for Native Americans in the U.S. (see Figure 62).
Figure 62. 1919 State of Washington Game License for Yakima County. During this time the majority of the County was an Indian reservation.
1959 Rosebud Tribal Game Bird Stamp. In 1959, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe made philatelic history by becoming the first tribal government to issue fish and game stamps, including a Tribal Bird stamp that was required to hunt waterfowl. The same stamp was used through the 1960s. After 1959, the year date was manually filled in with a pen or typewriter. Three of the undated (first year of issue) stamps have been recorded (see Figure 63). All of the stamps are unused and I have traced the original purchasers back to three pioneer revenue stamp collectors, Mrs. Robert Powell, David Strock and E. L. Vanderford. This is the Powell example. Arguably the third most important stamp in the exhibit, following the 1937 Pymatuning and the 1941 Marion County.
Figure 63. 1959 Rosebud Tribal Game Bird License stamp, the first tribal fish and game stamp issued in the U.S.
1961 Rosebud Tribal Game bird stamp on license. This is an exceptional license that combines social history portent. After the Rosebud Sioux began licensing hunters there was a great deal of confusion among hunters and even tribal and state game wardens as to who had jurisdiction and where (for decades South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks had regulated hunting on the reservations). This hunter should have purchased a separate tribal license and affixed his Rosebud stamp to it. Instead he got away with affixing it to his state hunting license (see Figure 64). At least he bought the tribal stamp. For years non-Indian hunters attempted to continue hunting on the reservations with only their state license and stamp(s). This led to a huge backlog of court cases that continued into the 1980s.
Figure 64. 1961 Rosebud Tribal Game Bird stamp used on a South Dakota state hunting license.
1962 Crow Creek and Lower Brule stamps. Following the lead of the Rosebud tribal government, the nearby Crow Creek and Lower Brule Sioux Tribes started requiring hunters to purchase stamps to hunt waterfowl on their lands in the early 1960s (see Figure 65). The three tribes issued stamps yearly until Native American unrest culminated in the incident at Wounded Knee in 1973. The bloodshed curtailed non-Indian hunting on reservations in South Dakota and the tribes stopped issuing stamps.
Figure 65. The earliest recorded stamp from the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe (left) and the first Lower Brule waterfowl stamp (right). Note the Lower Brule stamp, similar to Rosebud, had a place for the year to be filled in. In this way, the same stamps were used throughout the 1960s.
1979 Rosebud Small Game Stamp. In 1979, The Rosebud Sioux Tribe once again made history, becoming the first tribal government to welcome non-Indian hunters back to their reservation. New stamps were printed and issued and this exhibit includes the only example recorded to mark this important development (see Figure 66).
Figure 66. 1979 Rosebud Small Game stamp. Formerly in the Charles Hermann collection, it is the only example recorded.
1990 Crow Creek Non-Resident Waterfowl with Serial Number Missing. In 1989, the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe became the first tribal government to start printing and issuing pictorial license stamps. To look at them, it would seem the tribe had philatelists in mind. Rather, the tribe contracted the stamps out to the State Publishing Company in Pierre, South Dakota, and the printers simply made the stamps conform to the state stamps they had been printing for years. It is well known among collectors of fish and game stamps that the State Publishing Company had a long running problem with the machine used to number the stamps they printed. If the print run was sizable enough, the machine would occasionally malfunction, resulting in a pane of stamps (invariably a single pane of five) missing the serial numbers. Such an instance happened in 1990, when a single pane of Crow Creek non-resident waterfowl stamps was printed with the serial numbers missing (see Figure 67).
Figure 67. 1990 Crow Creek Non-Resident Waterfowl stamp with the serial number missing.
1977 Fort Peck Tribal Bird, Block of Four. The Fort Peck Indian Reservation is one of the most remote in the continental U.S. It is located in north central Montana, just below the Canadian border. In the 1970s, it was difficult for collectors to obtain their stamps. To put it simply, they had no interest in dealing with stamp collectors. For this reason, it is not known when fish and game stamps were first issued on the reservation. Pioneer revenue collector Burt Hubbard was able to obtain carbon copies for two different stamps from 1973, however, not the stamps themselves. The earliest stamps recorded are from 1975. With the exception of normal stamps from 1976, early stamps from Fort Peck (1970s) have a high difficulty of acquisition. The block of 1977 Tribal Bird stamps shown in this exhibit contains four of the ten examples recorded. These stamps were required to hunt waterfowl (see Figure 68).
Figure 68. 1977 Fort Peck Tribal Game Bird License stamp block of four.