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PGE Aide Says Indians' Eviction Protected Employes' Interests

McClatchy Newspapers Service

BIG BEND, Shasta Co. — Riot-garbed law officers accompanied by police dogs swept in at dawn to thwart Indians who attempted to claim a campground they say was taken from them in Gold Rush days.

A PGE spokesman said the eviction of the Indians from the quiet Sierra Meadow "was based primarily on the desire to protect employe interests." Officers said the arrests were made on complaints signed by the utility company. 

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Booked for investigation of trespassing yesterday were 34 of a band of about 125 men, women and children who took over a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. campground alongside the Pit River. There is no violence. 

The Indians occupied 15 wooden bungalows there after authorities turned them away Friday at Lassen Volcanic National Park 80 miles away. Most of them were members of the Pit River tribe but leaders of the Indian occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco were among the group.

The raid was conducted by about 50 men from the California Highway Patrol, the sheriff's office and Anderson and Redding police departments.

The Pit River Tribe, about 1,000 in number, is laying claim to lands in Shasta, Lassen and Modoc counties which the Indian Claims Commission has said was taken illegally from the Indians during the Gold Rush in 1853.

But the government counters that the tribe agreed to give up rights to the lands in return for its share of a $29 million settlement for 64 million acres of former Indian lands. 

The money, now $35 million with interest, still is unpaid because of delays involved in verifying claims of some 80,000 persons who claim to be Indians of more than one-quarter descent. 

When the Indians set up the camp, they vowed to make it a beachhead in their drive to reclaim a 5,000-square-mile area in Lassen, Shasta, Modoc and Siskiyou Counties. 

Deputies hauled away a 4-by-16 foot sign proclaiming the Indian Nation and propped against a tree.


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