Tribes at crossroads meet for Black Hills Land Claim Conference

The United States' longest war wasn't in Afghanistan; it was against Indigenous Americans and ran from about 1785 to at least 1973. Leonard Peltier is a prisoner of that war. 

Despite the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 President Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Act in 1862 that distributed unceded lands in the public domain to raise funds for colleges. The Morrill Land-Grant Acts are directly linked to the Native American Genocide so after the defeat of the 7th Cavalry at Greasy Grass in 1876 and the Great Sioux War Congress abrogated that treaty in 1877 then the Utes, Lakota, Arapaho, Cheyenne and others who migrated, lived and hunted all along the Front Range were driven into concentration camps. 

Conservatism did not always mean authoritarianism and intolerance, and was not generally expressed through bigotry and xenophobia. American conservatism has gone so far right it is dangerously close to becoming unapologetic totalitarianism. [Tribes must chart an independent course]

In 1980 attorney Mario Gonzalez filed the federal court case stopping payment of the Black Hills Claim award to the Oglala Lakota Nation. Gonzalez contends that the commission charged to make peace with tribes inserted language into the Fort Laramie Treaty signed in 1868 that Red Cloud had neither seen nor agreed to in negotiations.

On June 29-30, there will be a two-day conference at Prairie Winds Casino, and according to OST President Kevin Killer, the purpose of this conference is to educate the next generation of Lakota leaders about the history of the Black Hills claim, a history shared by the men who lived and made that history, at least those who are still with us. It will do no good to protest this meeting as trying to sell the Black Hills. Ironically, the meeting is to educate misinformed people so they won’t believe and act on anything so foolish. [Important conference about Black Hills could educate the misinformed]

Every tribal council is different. A cannabis dispensary selling to all adults just opened on the Pine Ridge so stand-alone clinics on tribal land where pregnancy ending medications would be administered are just a matter of time.

This is a kind of precedent.

"Use anti-abortion instead of pro-life and abortion rights instead of pro-abortion or pro-choice. Avoid abortionist, which connotes a person who performs clandestine abortions." — AP Stylebook https://t.co/Oqm1n75BxJ

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) May 6, 2022