U.S. bungling deprives Indians of oil royalties
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09/03/1999
If she could out her window, Mary Fish Basquez would see the ground that was given to her family long ago, land now being hollowed for oil that was supposed to mean a better life for Muscogee Indians. The oil is pumped just steps from the house where Mrs. Basquez lives. But for all the Oklahoma sweet crude that comes from six wells on her family's 40 acres, Mrs. Basquez receives only a few dollars a year. Being poor and Indian and locked in a fight over some scrap of land are not unusual circumstances in this part of Oklahoma, where tribes from the Southeast were forced to live in the last century. But if the land itself is rich, and the manager of it is supposed to be making money from it is Indians, that boils the blood of people beyond the rage over historic slights.