Exclusive Truthout Interview: Sioux Spiritual Leader Speaks Out on Land Sale at Sacred Site [View all]
"Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children." Chief Sitting Bull, 1877
The sacred lands of the Lakota are up for sale - again. A grassroots effort led by the Oceti Sakowin, or Great Sioux Nation, is underway to get them back.
On August 25 at 10 AM, nearly 2,000 acres of land, known as Pe' Sla to the Lakota people and situated in the Black Hills of South Dakota, will be put up for public auction and sold to the highest bidder. The state of South Dakota has expressed interest in using eminent domain to pave one of the roads that runs through it. The land is currently known as the Reynolds Prairie Ranches. Other than the potential road-paving project, it is unclear for what type of development the land would be most sought after, although the manager of one local business expressed his hope that all five tracts up for sale would go to a rancher.
The land has been in the Reynolds family since 1876, the year of Custer's Last Stand at the Battle of Little Big Horn. During this time, the Lakota have been able to access their sites. The whole of the Black Hills fall within the Fort Laramie Treaty lands of 1851 and 1868, which are guaranteed under the US Constitution to belong to the Lakota. The Fort Laramie Treaty ended the Powder River War of 1866-1867, led by Chief Red Cloud protecting earlier treaty lands against illegal white occupation. (The defeated 7th Calvary was commanded by a Col. Joseph J. Reynolds who some believe may have been the original owner of the homesteaded Reynolds land). The Treaty assured the Black Hills to be part of the Great Sioux Reservation spanning several states, where the Sioux Nation, which is made up of the Lakota, Nakota and Dakota people, were to have "the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation" of the land.
http://truth-out.org/news/item/11035-exclusive-truthout-interview-sioux-spiritual-leader-speaks-out-on-land-sale-at-sacred-site
= new reply since forum marked as read