Statue of war criminal whose name appears on South Dakota town, county, park could be removed in Michigan

This blogger has been arguing for Lakota names on South Dakota's geological features for over thirty years so now that the mountain renamed for Nicholas Black Elk, a holy man who rejected the Roman Church, should be in the Lakota language loosely translated as Paha Heȟáka Sápa.

After successes by tribal nations renaming places in Alaska and South Dakota Yellowstone National Park could see at least two name changes. Hayden Valley memorializes Ferdinand V. Hayden who advocated for “extermination” of tribal people and Mount Doane is named for Lieutenant Gustavus Doane who led a massacre of the Piikani, part of the Blackfoot Confederacy.

A state park, a peak, a county and a town in the Black Hills, a county and national forest in Montana are named after a murderer. George Custer, Phil Sheridan, George Crook and William Harney all committed crimes against humanity yet their names still besmirch numerous government and geographical features. Crook City near Whitewood and Crook's Tower, one of the 7000 footers in the Black Hills, were named after a war criminal. Revisionist history turned the Wounded Knee Massacre into a battle now Senator Mike Rounds (NAZI-SD) said he won't vote for the Senate companion to the Remove the Stain Act that would rescind Medals of Honor for twenty war criminals responsible for the slaughter of children, women and men in 1890 at Wounded Knee in occupied South Dakota. But he and the South Dakota Republican Party are hardly the only racists in the colonized American West.

Tribal nations and pueblos in New Mexico are mulling changes to events and geographical places that glorify Spanish colonizers like Don Juan de Oñate who ordered his troops to cut off the right feet of at least 24 Indigenous men.

During the Battle of Greasy Grass on the banks of the Little Bighorn River in Montana George Custer attacked the encampment where the elderly, women and children were hidden and during the Washita Massacre he held a similar contingent as hostages and human shields. Crow Peak just outside Spearditch or Paha Karitukateyapi is translated as "the hill where the Crows were killed" stemming from a battle between the Lakota and Crow Nations. The Crow allied with Custer and the United States Army believing they would reclaim the Black Hills. Custer’s name is on a peak in the Black Hills National Forest and should be removed. It's time to strike his name from the Custer National Forest, too.

Posted by Katybeth Davis, a resident of Monroe, the petition reads: “I am requesting the removal of the General Custer statue that is centered in downtown Monroe, MI. This statue represents a man who was glorified by using mass genocide of Native Americans. It does not represent what our town stands for in 2020.” [Levi Rickert, Native News Online]