Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

[Wolfgirl]

I agree WestLib, many reservations is not in areas that would be suitable for a Casino, and those areas are also the ones I think that suffers the most poverty and health crisis and educational difficulties.

I would like to see the tribes that do have the casino's take some of their grant money and charity money's and help other tribes in less fortunate areas. Keep it amongst Native Peoples for the most part all across the nation.

Here is the thing on the lineage thing, I think to a certain degree some tribes have been forced to have people show true lineage and proof if at all possible because other wise any body and their brother can say they are a decendent of a Cherokee Princess, you hear that crap all the time. So once the casino's and the money starts being shared, all sorts of people come out of the wood work looking for their cut. Cherokees were screwed before in history, I am glad to see they are being a little more careful this go round and not so free and gullible to any body and their brother. I can't really blame them.

I am of Cherokee decent, I know this not because it is on my birth certificate, but because it was handed down to me from my grand parents and so on. Many Cherokee gave up their indian names and religion and married the Irish and Scotch and German settlers in the mountains of NC in an effort to integrate and to become full Americans and not have their lands taken from them. Many had farms, some even had plantations and even owned slaves. When they were rounded up for the removal, their slaves were rounded up with them, and all marched west to Oklahoma. Leaving everything they owned and worked for here for other people to claim and take over.

What they have left is due to a renegade who took his family and many others to the caves and woods to not be rounded up and removed. He paid with his life and two of his sons lives so the rest could stay and live on that reservation. So there they are now, making it work for them and their people, and I am happy for them. I think they deserve all the good they can make happen for them and their children and their childrens children.

And I hope all the tribes with casino's reach out to other Native People across this country and offer them a helping hand and guidance in setting up a better life for them all. That would be the ideal thing to do.

I do hope that for people with actually lineage and do wish to be included in any benefit that may bring them they are able to so so. Here is a start in how they can began tracing their history and also finding documents to prove their anscestry.

http://www.doi.gov/ancestry.html

But as I said, many were lost in an effort to integrate into the white world and not be discriminated against. Like I have said before on this blog, what happened to the Native Americans was Genocide and some tribes have recovered and some haven't. But hopefully they all will work together to help one another so that all Native Peoples can prosper and have better lives.

[Wolfgirl]

Also I would like to add that the Cherokees have also been able to invest in other businesses on their reservation. All Cherokee owned and operated. One place I know for sure is a Bottled Water company, also many small shops, and businesses. Plus I know at one time they had a printing plant as well. So they have invested in other businesses, educated their kids, and have given grants to start new businesses. So it is more diverse than it sounds generally. The casino was just the catalyst to let them be able to expand and reinvest into all areas that needed to be improved. And I am proud of them.

Before the removal these people had all of these things, their own government, their own businesses, their own language and syllabary. Their own religion and customs. But it was taken from them due to greed. I think now that they are once again able to have these things, they have to be more careful in who they allow to take part in what they have overcome and done. Because I think we all know that there is still plenty of people who are opportunist in this country and if given half the chance, would take everything they own again and not even bat an eye while they do it.

[IBEW]

The Lakota Indians have announced secession from the U.S. The Lakota Freedom Movement cites the U.S. violation of treaties as grounds to start their own, independent country, and plans on issuing new passports and driver’s licenses to residents in areas of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Montana and Wyoming.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzz/Lakota_Nation

"We are no longer citizens of the United States of America and all those who live in the five-state area that encompasses our country are free to join us," said Russell Means, a longtime Indian rights activist. "This is according to the laws of the United States, specifically Article 6 of the Constitution," which states that treaties are the supreme law of the land.
http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/12/lakota-withdraw.html

WASHINGTON, DC - December 20 - Lakota Sioux Indian representatives declared sovereign nation status today in Washington D.C. following Monday's withdrawal from all previously signed treaties with the United States Government. The withdrawal, hand delivered to Daniel Turner, Deputy Director of Public Liaison at the State Department, immediately and irrevocably ends all agreements between the Lakota Sioux Nation of Indians and the United States Government outlined in the 1851 and 1868 Treaties at Fort Laramie Wyoming.


"This is an historic day for our Lakota people," declared Russell Means, Itacan of Lakota. "United States colonial rule is at its end!"
http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/1220-02.htm

[Wolfgirl]

This is pretty interesting IBEW, but I wonder if they did it more as a statement rather than an actual seperation from the US.

Because I am wondering by doing this if they will lose the government assistance that they get on the reservation. Granted it probably sucks and it is abused, but if it is taken away, what happens then?

If you see more on this, post it, because I am interested in how this is gonna turn out favorably for them. Maybe they can gain rights to their own oil or mineral reserves or something like that, and also the businesses that are there would have to pay taxes to them or become their property, kind of like Iminant Domain or something.

Interesting though, I might dig around and see if I can find some more on this.

Thanks for the post. 

[IBEW]

MARTY, S.D. - On the morning of April 22, Charles Mix County police arrested 15 Yankton Sioux tribal members, including adult men and women, and teens as young as 16, for blocking construction of a hog farm on privately held land within the reservation boundaries. By afternoon, bail had been set at $500 each, and the tribe had secured their release, said Frances Hart, Ihanktowan Dakota, secretary of the Yankton Sioux Tribal Business and Claims Committee, an elected group.

The arrests came on top of 23 tickets the South Dakota Highway Patrol issued to tribal members the week before when they obstructed construction equipment traveling toward the proposed farm via a BIA-owned road.

The protests began April 14 - the day the tribe approved a resolution to exclude Longview Farms, an Iowa firm. The company reportedly has the necessary permits to produce 70,000 pigs a year at the site, though the permissions appear to have been obtained in a manner that blindsided the tribe. On April 15, a tribal judge upheld the exclusion order.

The number of protesters has ranged from 50 to 150, according to Gary Drapeau, Ihanktowan Dakota, a member of the Business and Claims Committee. A tipi has been set up on tribal land as a permanent protest camp.

All of the citations and arrests took place along a BIA road, where county and state police don't have jurisdiction, according to tribal lawyer Charles Abourezk.

''In 1994, the county transferred the road to the BIA,'' explained Drapeau, adding that when the BIA's Aberdeen office clarifies ownership, the citations and arrests will likely be dismissed.

Whether BIA jurisdiction over the road keeps the farm's builders off the site is unclear. Hart said that on the afternoon of April 15, cement trucks were observed using back roads to bypass the BIA route.

Environmental effects

Hog farms typically generate vast amounts of air, land and water pollution, according to many sources, including the nonprofit Humane Farming Association. Places near the planned site that could be affected include the towns of Marty and Wagner, two Sun Dance grounds, five sweat lodges, homes, churches, a cathedral, a Head Start center, schools, hospitals, the tribe's casino-hotel, the tribal hall, a college, and much more, according to Drapeau.

''The farm site is near Seven Mile Creek, which empties into the Missouri River a few miles away, and two wetlands. We also sit on the Ogallala Aquifer, a major water source for the Plains,'' Drapeau added.

''In all of creation, they couldn't have picked a worse spot,'' according to Faith Spotted Eagle, Ihanktowan Dakota.

''What environmental regulations are they running from in Iowa?'' asked Ellsworth Chytka, Ihanktowan Dakota. ''Do they have rules there protecting quality of life? Don't Indians deserve the same?''

Safeguarding the waters of the United States is a responsibility of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, so Spotted Eagle asked it to consider getting involved. This could kick off a search for historic and traditional cultural properties that must be preserved.

Police response

The protests have been described as peaceful by many sources, including Mitch Krebs, press secretary for South Dakota Gov. Mike Rounds. Nevertheless, on April 15, the police chief of Charles Mix County, where the reservation is located, requested state officers, Krebs said.

By April 16, 50 officers, each in separate cars, had arrived - reportedly more than are normally on patrol at any one time in the state. A former police commissioner went on television to ask who was watching over the rest of South Dakota.

''Sending 50 cars and lining them up at the site was about intimidation,'' Chytka said. ''There are plenty of non-Native protests around South Dakota - about abortion, missile silos, high fuel costs - but you don't see all that police presence.''

Both Krebs and U.S. Attorney Marty Jackley denied that race was a factor. Jackley claimed that from his office's perspective, protests by non-Indian groups would garner the same response.

''Federal, state and local authorities have been in communication to maintain order.''

Abourezk disagreed. ''It was an attempt to provoke the protesters.''

However, they didn't rise to the bait, Spotted Eagle said. ''I am so proud of our people. Our elders told us to be good relatives, and we were.''

Back in the day

This is not the first time the county and state have overreacted to peaceful protest by Yanktons. In May 2002, construction workers building bathrooms for a state recreation area struck an ancient burial ground. Artifacts and the remains of two children and a woman in a shell-embroidered cape were unearthed. Yankton families sat in to stop construction until the situation could be resolved in court. Again, armed officers were called in, creating a frightening face-off.

Two films with documentary footage of the pig farm vigil can be seen on YouTube (search for ''Yankton Sioux''). One opens with two young Indian boys walking down ''a lonely road'' to join the protesters. ''Just like back in the day,'' the older one says. ''Which, by the way, was a Wednesday.''

That sly joke aside, the films may remind viewers of South Dakota's history of racially charged confrontations, including the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre and the Wounded Knee siege and FBI shootings of the 1970s. Inequities continue to this day. In a report issued in 2000, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission tallied uninvestigated murders of Natives in South Dakota, arrest and sentencing disparities, reservation unemployment rates as high as 85 percent and more.

In a radio address, William Janklow, South Dakota's governor at the time, called the report ''garbage,'' while claiming he hadn't read it.

Yanktons are not strangers to this animosity.

''The Yanktons had an early treaty,'' Abourezk said. ''They've had a tough fight since 1858.''

An unlikely coalition

In this context, the pig farm has created unexpected alliances. White area residents and citizens from around the state joined tribal members in expressing antipathy for the farm at a public meeting in Wagner April 21.

''White people thanked us for protesting,'' Spotted Eagle said. ''This isn't an Indian-versus-white issue. It's a common-people issue - all of us protecting our children and their future.'' 
 
http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096417162

[IBEW]

Indian Health Care: A National Tragedy

Mycole James Ferguson and Leah Page will never grow up to find their potential in life. Both infants were stillborn one week apart on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

Sadly, this is not an uncommon occurrence on this vast Indian reservation. It is to the shame of America that its indigenous populations are at the bottom of the ladder when it comes to adequate prenatal health care.

The families of Mycole and Leah are still suffering from the loss of their children. And yet week after week, month after month and year after year, the names of stillborn Native American infants will be listed on the obituary pages of local newspapers.

Sharon Begley wrote in Newsweek Magazine that, "In international comparisons of health care, the infant mortality rate is a crucial indicator of a nation's standing, and the United States' position at No. 28, with seven per 1,000 live births -- worse than Portugal, Greece, the Czech Republic, Northern Ireland and 23 other nations not exactly known for cutting-edge medical science -- is a tragedy and an embarrassment."

Most Americans believe that the United States has the best medical care in the world, but that is clearly not the case. One has to wonder that if America rates number 28 in the world in infant mortality rates, how do the poor and uninsured rate or the Native Americans on the Indian reservations rate? There is a gap so wide that it might as well separate the poor and the Native Americans from the rest of America by an ocean's width.

In a letter last week to the Senate and House Budget Committee, Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) wrote, "The Contract Health Services Program of the Indian Health Service has an unmet need of over $1 billion dollars. This program allows for medical care and urgent health care services to be purchased when the Indian Health Service or tribal health facilities are not able to provide it. This is the program that has given rise in Indian country to the saying, "Don't get sick after June," because it is common for the Indian Health Service to run out of funding for Contract Health Services after June."

Sen. Johnson said, "I have worked with my colleagues to correct President Bush's budget proposal for the Indian Health Service which grossly neglects the needs of Indian country." Sen. Johnson is a member of the Indian Affairs Committee.

Among the very poor Indian tribes in America there is a crisis in health care and let me be very clear about that. Diabetes, Type 2, is epidemic. The infant mortality rate is staggering. The average life expectancy is lower on Indian reservations than in any other area of America. On many reservations from the Navajo Nation to the Pine Ridge Reservation, deaths by cancer are starting to reach epidemic proportions. Death by heart disease has never been higher and it is still climbing.

And we were considered wards of the United States government? I think we were better off when we were considered the enemies because we at least had the opportunity of taking care of our own health problems. The benevolent eye of big brother looking over our shoulders has been more of a curse than a blessing.

The hardworking doctors and nurses of the Indian Health Service are not to blame. They can do only so much with the money they are allocated each year. And it seems that every year senators like Tim Johnson and Congress women like Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD) have to fight tooth and nail to squeeze out every single dollar. And oftentimes it is a losing battle for them, but the real losers are the Indian people. Earmarks? Why not?

Indian nations gave up millions of acres of land in exchange for the right to an education and adequate health care. These two provisions are a part of nearly every treaty signed between the United States of America and the Indian nations. It is not welfare the US is providing, but an obligation in fulfillment of treaty rights.

Dr. Leroy Clark is one of the doctors at the Sioux San Indian Hospital in Rapid City, SD. He is Native American and he talked about some of the things the hospital and staff is trying to do for their patients with little money, but with a lot of enthusiasm. And there is no finer bunch of people than you will find staffing any hospital in any city. Most of the staff at the Sioux San is Native American and they are kind, gentle and genuinely concerned for their patients and that is a big plus when one is in poor health.

If America can spend $1 billion dollars a day fighting a war in Iraq, surely it can find the compassion to spend an equal amount so that babies like Mycole and Leah will have a chance to be born into this world. Prenatal care on the Indian reservations should not be so strapped for money that babies are dying because of it.

Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, was born, raised and educated on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. He was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard in the Class of 1991. He can be reached at najournalist@msn.com

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-giago/indian-health-care-a-nati_b_97666.html


Make a Difference
There are many ways you can be a Friend and help our neighbors on Pine Ridge Reservation. As you will discover, quite a few of them cost little or no money!

Whether you want to recycle an empty toner cartridge, buy a book or crochet an afghan, you will find a variety of ways to help on these pages, some as simple as saving a soup can label.
http://friendsofpineridgereservation.org/difference/

[Jazziette]

So let me get this straight.  Some tribes are actually seceding from the Union and therefore the reservations they live on will not be a part of the United States?

This is very interesting!  Actually they were here first!  I don't know why they shouldn't be allowed to do whatever they want to do as this is really their land to begin with.

Being a quarter Cherokee Indian myself, although I have never really been involved with the tribe, I feel a deep empathy for their plight.

Here in Arizona we have mostly Navajo, Apache and Pima Tribes.  The Pima reservation is where most of the Casinos are in the Phoenix area and they are jam-packed 24/7.  When you go up north into the mountainous sections of Arizona you find the Apache and Navajo Casinos.  Again, jam-packed!  People want to ****. 

Another thing here in Arizona is that they have passed a statewide no-smoking law.  You can't smoke in any public establishment.  Except you can smoke on the reservations.  So people love to go to the Casinos where they can smoke and drink without worrying.

We had an interesting thing happen here in Scottsdale not too many years ago that had to do with the Pimas and their reservation, which is where so many of the Casinos are located.  They are mostly off Pima Road, which is the dividing line between Scottsdale and the reservation and extends for about 25 to 30 miles. 

Pima road is a main thoroughfare and is very heavily trafficked by residents of Scottsdale.  It's a four lane hiway.  The city of Scottsdale has leased part of the road for years now and depends on it for their city traffic plan.  A few years back Scottsdale got the notion they were paying too much for their lease and tried to strong arm the natives.  The Pimas didn't buy into it.  They stayed firm.  Scottsdale insisted they would have their way, after all Scottsdale is a high and might affluent city.  Right?  The Pimas tried to negotiate and appease Scottsdale but noooo.....it was going to be Scottsdale's way or the hiway! (no pun intended LOL)

Speaking of their way or the hiway.....one day the Pimas just blocked off their entire side of Pima Road, the entire length of the hiway, leving only one lane for access.  Everyone went crazy! LOL

It wasn't long before Scottsdale antied up and Pima opened back up again.  Hoooooray for the Indians!!!!

Sometimes justice really is served!

 

[Wolfgirl]

Thanks IBEW for being so diligent on letting folks know what is happening on that reservation and many others across our nation. You are right there are many things we can do that cost little but will help many!! 

[Jazziette]

Yeah IBEW!!!!

Thank you for getting the information out.  I forgot to call my friend Jon with the Casinos.  I will do that today!

I have his Cell number!

 

[blue boy]

Here's something else to add to this mix: Indigenous languages. The many Indian languages are fading fast as they are around the world but nowhere faster than here in the USA. There are English only laws  being passed in  areas that will make it harder for preserving the many indigenous languages.
Here is a link to a youtube video of my cousin speaking before the United Nations at the Un Youth Caucus: Intervetion on Language. I think he made a pretty good argument.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=60Gc5F_VJQ0

[Wolfgirl]

Say it my Brother say it!!! 

Excellent job!! 

He's cute toooo!! 

[blue boy]

Insert Quote
Say it my Brother say it!!!  

Excellent job!!  

He's cute toooo!!  

**********************
Mvto! ( thanks) I will tell him --he hee!

[Jazziette]

Yes!  Good job he did!!

And Wolfie is right....he's very cute!

[destiny]

I am not George Bush I actually understand the term sovereign nation and to me that means the reservations do not need to secede, they never were part of the United States, they are and always have been sovereign nations.

[IBEW]

Former president campaigns on Pine Ridge Reservation:\
http://indiancountrynews.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3489&Itemid=1

Former President Bill Clinton told about 800 people on the Pine Ridge Reservation May 14 that his wife will fight for the “overlooked” and “mistreated” if she is elected president.

In a 25-minute speech, he also said Hillary Rodham Clinton will wage a war on diabetes among American Indian youth.

Clinton said his wife knows more about Indian Country than any other candidate.

“It’s easier to make a promise than it is to make progress,” Clinton said. “You have lived with that for decades.”

On his way to the reservation, the former president swept through Chadron, Neb.

Crowds lined some streets about 2 p.m. as the motorcade passed through the Panhandle town.

On the evening of May 14, the motorcade came back through to the Chadron airport so the former president could fly to his next campaign stop.

Bill Clinton paused briefly at the airport to chat with some well-wishers.

Hillary Clinton is the first candidate to present an agenda for American Indians, the former president said in his speech at the reservation. The agenda will restore respect for tribal sovereignty, end the No Child Left Behind law and improve Indian Health Service funding and services, Clinton said.

The Indian Health Service initiative would include a campaign to reverse increasing diabetes among Indians nationwide, he said.

“It is disgraceful that there is no serious effort to reverse the explosive growth of diabetes among Native American people when they are young,” Clinton said.

He said gains in aid to Indians during his administration have faltered under George W. Bush and that his wife would reverse the trend.

He urged the crowd to believe his wife can win the Democratic nomination and the general election. “Don’t tell me she cannot win this election,” Clinton said.

Clinton also had visited Pine Ridge on July 7, 1999.

“It was a historic moment,” Leatrice “Chick” Big Crow said of that visit. “It was also hot. I remember sitting in the sun, getting burned. The people I know remember his visit. They remember that he took time to come to Pine Ridge.”

Big Crow is director of a boys and girls club dedicated to the memory of her daughter, SuAnne, a star athlete and honor student who died in an automobile accident in 1992.

The new SuAnne Big Crow Boys and Girls Club at Pine Ridge was built because of Clinton’s 1999 visit and the subsequent federal grants that he directed to the project. The center opened in June 2001.

“It’s because of him. It was a presidential initiative,” Big Crow said Wednesday morning. “The club is doing really great things for the kids. A lot of times something gets built for the kids and it turns into an adult place. But we’ve made sure that doesn’t happen.”

“It’s good to see him again,” Nick Piper, a 17-year-old Pine Ridge High School senior, said. “Last time, there were lots of metal detectors, snipers on the roof, lots of security guards and everything. But I shook his hand and my mom got his autograph.”

Sadie Janis, 97, a granddaughter of Chief Red Cloud, shook the former president’s hand May 14. She also shook his hand on May 10, when Clinton campaigned in Rapid City.

“She still hasn’t washed that hand,” said Tom Shortbull, Janis’s son-in-law.