Let us say that the United States Government admitted the error of its ways on the Black Hills.
Let us ALSO say, though, that it knew the Sioux were no newer to the Black Hills than Lewis and Clark going up the Missouri.
So, it gave joint custody to the Sioux (Lakota, Dakota) and the Crow.
Let us say that the US Government kept a form of trusteeship for a few years of transition.
Let us then say that this was not acceptable to the Sioux. That Sioux leader Crazy Bull, considered a terrorist by the US Government, put a bomb in the Roosevelt Inn. The government expedited its pullout.
After the Sioux attacked the Crow, let us say that the Arapaho, Shoshone and Pawnee rallied to the side of the Crow. And that the, say, Arapaho eventually annexed the Crow land.
Twenty years later, the Arapaho, after first thinking better, joined the Shoshone, Pawnee and Winnebagos in a new war against the Sioux. And lost the Crow lands to the Sioux.
Fifty years later, the Crow were fighting for their independence from the Sioux.
Let us then say that some Sioux accused all non-Sioux and non-Crow of Crow-splaining.
That's where we're at.
For those who don't get it, substitute Great Britain and League of Nations Palestine mandate for the US and work forward.
Showing posts with label Oglala Sioux. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oglala Sioux. Show all posts
March 01, 2019
December 16, 2016
American Indian myth and reality vis-a-vis #DAPL and #NoDAPL
It is true that Anglo America/official America broke many Indian treaties, including with the people we call the Sioux. But, some context is needed.
Before oh, about 1800, the Black Hills were not Sioux land. They were only moving west of the Missouri, at least in any number, about the same time Lewis and Clark were moving up that river. The map on page 5 of this PDF, also reproduced at left by screen capture, demonstrates that for the Teton (Lakota) Sioux, the most western branch, pretty clearly. (Note the 1785 line, and how it's almost entirely east of the Missouri. As of Lewis and Clark time, they had finally started moving west of the Missouri in more numbers. They were regularly visiting the Black Hills, but the Black Hills were not yet part of "their territory."
That said, why the move? They were doing so, moving west, because the Ojibwe (Chippewa) had kicked their butts out of western Wisconsin and other areas closer to the Great Lakes. As documented on Ojibwe history (Wiki is really uneven in its articles about different Native American peoples), this happened at the end of the 1600s and in the 1700s. Before 1500 CE, they seemed to have lived in Ohio, and from there, migrated northwest. Then the Ojibwa, who got guns from the French before the Sioux got as much in the way of white man's goods, shoved them further westward.
Before that, the Black Hills are best described as an American Indian neutral ground, before 1800 or so, and possibly before 1820 or so. This map, which purports to be around 1800 for inland tribes, but has a lot of vacant space, has a bit more detail. Ergo, per one factoid of American history, while the Black Hills may have become Sioux religious ground, it most certainly is NOT ancient Sioux religious ground.
Otherwise, many so-called "tribal maps" are temporally static and diachronic to boot. In other words, they may show where one tribe was located at, in 1800, but where another was already located at in 1600. And, please, do note cite me back a Vine DeLoria, who loved to put on and off his Ph.D. hat at will.
And, the area of the Missouri River of the Dakota Pipeline? Mandans and other American Indians lived there before the Sioux pushed them out. Or the Arikara. Or the Hidatsa. See here. Indeed, the town of Mandan sits across the Missouri River from Bismarck and is the county seat of Morton County of recent infamy over the Dakota Pipeline.
I don't know if any Mandans, or Arikara, or Hidatsa, were at the #NoDAPL protests or not. If they were, I don't know if they got overlooked by the mainstream media, shunted aside by the Sioux, a combination of both, or what.
All of this ignores that American Indians generally didn't think in terms of land possession, of course. Nor did they, in terms of talking about despoiled graves, bury their dead European-style, in most cases, before the Columbian contact.
That said, there's still plenty of good ancient Mandan, Arikara and Hidatsa, and not-so-ancient Sioux, reasons to scrap this sucker.
As for polluting their land? Yes, we did it. They did it to their own land, too. Don't buy the myth of American Indians as proto-environmentalists. And, don't buy a rebuttal myth that white America corrupted them. We did, with our technology, give them the power to be worse at this, yes.
We as a nation need to do our best to right our wrongs. We don't need to do that by, in part, pretending that American Indians were living in some quasi-Edenic Rousellian state of nature before 1492.
They weren't.
Most American Indians, like the Sioux, even without signed treaties, had agreements with other peoples — that they broke. Many of them committed wars for the primary purpose of seizing slaves and forced tribal members. Many of them, to the limited degree their technology allowed, overused the land. Some had homemade alcohol pre-1492, as well. American Indian religious belief, in many tribes, was far from enlightened. Witness the barbarism of the Sioux's Sun Dance.
In short, American Indians aren't savages, but they're not angels either. They're people. We do them no real service by viewing them as either angels or savages rather than as people. I've overcome some bad fatherly thinking from my childhood. I don't want to replace one stereotype with another.
And, they're different people. A Sioux, or Dakota, isn't a Hopi, who isn't a Navajo, who isn't a Cherokee. That said, to the degree that assimilation continues, and legally, they're all Americans.
That said, why the move? They were doing so, moving west, because the Ojibwe (Chippewa) had kicked their butts out of western Wisconsin and other areas closer to the Great Lakes. As documented on Ojibwe history (Wiki is really uneven in its articles about different Native American peoples), this happened at the end of the 1600s and in the 1700s. Before 1500 CE, they seemed to have lived in Ohio, and from there, migrated northwest. Then the Ojibwa, who got guns from the French before the Sioux got as much in the way of white man's goods, shoved them further westward.
Before that, the Black Hills are best described as an American Indian neutral ground, before 1800 or so, and possibly before 1820 or so. This map, which purports to be around 1800 for inland tribes, but has a lot of vacant space, has a bit more detail. Ergo, per one factoid of American history, while the Black Hills may have become Sioux religious ground, it most certainly is NOT ancient Sioux religious ground.
Otherwise, many so-called "tribal maps" are temporally static and diachronic to boot. In other words, they may show where one tribe was located at, in 1800, but where another was already located at in 1600. And, please, do note cite me back a Vine DeLoria, who loved to put on and off his Ph.D. hat at will.
And, the area of the Missouri River of the Dakota Pipeline? Mandans and other American Indians lived there before the Sioux pushed them out. Or the Arikara. Or the Hidatsa. See here. Indeed, the town of Mandan sits across the Missouri River from Bismarck and is the county seat of Morton County of recent infamy over the Dakota Pipeline.
I don't know if any Mandans, or Arikara, or Hidatsa, were at the #NoDAPL protests or not. If they were, I don't know if they got overlooked by the mainstream media, shunted aside by the Sioux, a combination of both, or what.
All of this ignores that American Indians generally didn't think in terms of land possession, of course. Nor did they, in terms of talking about despoiled graves, bury their dead European-style, in most cases, before the Columbian contact.
That said, there's still plenty of good ancient Mandan, Arikara and Hidatsa, and not-so-ancient Sioux, reasons to scrap this sucker.
As for polluting their land? Yes, we did it. They did it to their own land, too. Don't buy the myth of American Indians as proto-environmentalists. And, don't buy a rebuttal myth that white America corrupted them. We did, with our technology, give them the power to be worse at this, yes.
We as a nation need to do our best to right our wrongs. We don't need to do that by, in part, pretending that American Indians were living in some quasi-Edenic Rousellian state of nature before 1492.
They weren't.
Most American Indians, like the Sioux, even without signed treaties, had agreements with other peoples — that they broke. Many of them committed wars for the primary purpose of seizing slaves and forced tribal members. Many of them, to the limited degree their technology allowed, overused the land. Some had homemade alcohol pre-1492, as well. American Indian religious belief, in many tribes, was far from enlightened. Witness the barbarism of the Sioux's Sun Dance.
In short, American Indians aren't savages, but they're not angels either. They're people. We do them no real service by viewing them as either angels or savages rather than as people. I've overcome some bad fatherly thinking from my childhood. I don't want to replace one stereotype with another.
And, they're different people. A Sioux, or Dakota, isn't a Hopi, who isn't a Navajo, who isn't a Cherokee. That said, to the degree that assimilation continues, and legally, they're all Americans.
June 13, 2008
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.
Unfortunately, Janis still is living by some mythical ideas:
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:
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.
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.
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