sosyalsavas.org: Pine Ridge Indigenous Autonomy: ‘We love
being Lakota’ By Peterson Rasamny & Malek Rasamny (tr)
In December 2014, we visited the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in what is now South
Dakota. We chose to begin our project at the archetypal site of struggle for land,
sovereignty and autonomy among natives in the United States. It was the Lakota people,
including warriors Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, who put up some of the most historic
fights against the US military forces in the nation’s expansion westward. ---- In the
1876-1877 Black Hills War, the US intervened militarily on behalf of settlers searching
for gold in the Lakota’s most sacred site, now known as the Wind Cave National Park. It
was in this context that the Battle of Little Bighorn took place, when the Lakota famously
defeated George Armstrong Custer’s Battalion of the 7th Cavalry. Pine Ridge was later the
site of the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre, in which that same 7th Cavalry killed hundreds of
Lakota in its struggle to disarm and forcibly relocate them to the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation.
In 1973, Wounded Knee was the site of a 4-month standoff and occupation organized by the
American Indian Movement (AIM) against both the federal government and local tribal
council. In 1975, two federal agents were killed in a shootout at Pine Ridge, for which
AIM member Leonard Peltier remains held as a prisoner at the US Penitentiary Coleman in
Florida. To add insult to injury, the presidential monument Mount Rushmore currently
stands within what’s called the Black Hills National Forest.
The traditional Lakota territory includes parts of North and South Dakota, Nebraska,
Montana and Wyoming. The Lakota historically were a semi-nomadic tribe that would follow
herds of buffalo for food. In order to force them onto reservations, the US military
encouraged the wholesale slaughter of buffalo in the Great Plains, resulting in their
almost complete extinction.
It was through the destruction of their food supply — and not through any victories in
battle — that the United States was able to force the Lakota into a position of economic
subservience and dependence. Through a series of treaty violations, the borders of “Great
Sioux Reservation” declared by the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty were reduced to the present
situation in which the Lakota are now spread out over a number of non-contiguous
reservations including Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Cheyenne River, Standing Rock and Crow Creek.*
The current unemployment rate on Pine Ridge is between 80-90%, and life expectancy is 50
years. Despite being one of the poorest areas on the continent, the Lakota refuse to
accept a 1980 government settlement now totalling $1.3 billion in compensation for the
theft of the Black Hills. They insist that no amount of money can be exchanged for the
return of their sacred land to its rightful inhabitants. They are currently leading the
resistance against TransCanada’s proposed Keystone Pipeline, which would be built directly
through Lakota territory.
The histories and particularities of the Native American and Palestinian struggles are
indeed quite different, but what they share is the experience of settlers moving to take
over and control their traditional lands, later assisted by a military force which
facilitated and justified the resulting displacement. The reservation and the refugee camp
then become the essential sites to locate this history, identity, and struggle for land
and sovereignty.
We met with veteran members of the American Indian Movement, and Owe Aku, Bring Back the
Way to hear about the present situation on Pine Ridge, and to discuss their horizon for
autonomy.
http://sosyalsavas.org/2015/04/pine-ridge-yerlilerine-ozerklik-lakotali-olmayi-seviyoruz/#more-26604
