Sioux may get part of historic lands back

The National Park Service is looking at turning the southern half of Badlands National Park over to the Oglala Sioux.

The change would require congressional approval and the process is in its earliest stages, with officials still to decide whether the south section should be handed over solely to the tribal government, become a separate park run by the tribe with help from the park service, or left as is.

Tribal members seem torn. Some say they should be able to build homes there. Others push for a pristine nature preserve. Still others want more development to draw tourists to the massive fossils that remain.

The park service recently held several forums on the reservation and elsewhere in the region to gauge public support for these options. At a forum at Crazy Horse School in Wanblee, S.D., William La Mont, 44, was one of several who argued that the tribe would still need the service's help. "The tribe's not ready," he said. "The tribe's in the red."

Keith Janis, 48, one of the activists who staged the 2000 occupation, believes the land should be returned to its original owners or their descendants to do with as they please.

Unfortunately, Janis still is living by some mythical ideas:

“That’s not respecting the rights of the people who have nothing,” Janis said of the proposal that the land remain a park. “The whole national park system is environmental racism against the Indian people of this country.”

While the original takings of the land often did have a racist background, the creation of national parks decades after the original takings was not itself racist.

That said, you can’t blame Janis for his feelings, especially given failed promises by NPS:

The confiscation of the land that is now the south end of Badlands National Park is fresher in locals' memories. In 1942, the military gave more than 800 people a week to move out.

Legally, the land remained tribal property. But the government continued to oversee it after the war.

Control of it was handed to the National Park Service and the area was incorporated into Badlands National Monument, which became a national park in 1978.

Under an agreement signed in 1976, the park service operates the south unit jointly with Oglala Sioux park officials.

But the tribe has complained that the service has never lived up to many of its promises.

The government said it would build a cultural/visitor center to draw tourists to the southern half of the park, about 40 miles southeast of Rapid City. Instead, the only visitor center in the south is a converted trailer along an isolated stretch of blacktop. Until recently, Oglala Sioux rangers complained that the park service barely gave them any support, making it impossible to patrol the area and giving fossil poachers free rein.

What’s happening now?

NPS figures this is probably a way to save a few dinero out of its always-strained budget, so it’s dumping this land. And I hope that Congress makes sure the NPS doesn’t actually do this.