AMERICA - The Sioux Nation to U.S., "the Land Was Never for Sale"

"For Great Sioux Nation, Black Hills Can't Be Bought for $1.3 Billion" PBS Newshour 8/24/2011

Excerpt from transcript

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): Next, a very different challenge for the federal government, this one in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Hari Sreenivasan tells the story.

HARI SREENIVASAN: It's August on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in western South Dakota, and the annual powwow is in full swing. The celebration is a highlight for the Oglala Sioux tribe, bringing together thousands of Native Americans to sing, dance and honor their traditional culture.

Tonight's good cheer, however, is in stark contrast to everyday life in one of the most difficult places to live in the United States. Few people in the Western Hemisphere have shorter life expectancies. Males, on average, live to just 48 years old, females to 52. Almost half of all people above the age of 40 have diabetes.

And the economic realities are even worse. Unemployment rates are consistently above 80 percent. In Shannon County, inside the Pine Ridge Reservation, half the children live in poverty, and the average income is $8,000 a year.

But there are funds available, a federal pot now worth more than a billion dollars. That sits here in the U.S. Treasury Department waiting to be collected by nine Sioux tribes. The money stems from a 1980 Supreme Court ruling that set aside $105 million to compensate the Sioux for the taking of the Black Hills in 1877, there an isolated mountain range rich in minerals that stretched from South Dakota to Wyoming.

The only problem: The Sioux never wanted the money because the land was never for sale.

Hay, lets screw the savages again. {sarcasm off}

More excerpts

MARIO GONZALEZ, Oglala Sioux: The Black Hills are very important to the Sioux Indian tribes because they are the spiritual center of the Sioux people.

HARI SREENIVASAN: For tribal attorney Mario Gonzalez, the compensation fund is the embodiment of Indian mistreatment by the U.S. government, and the taking of the Black Hills was the gravest sin of all.

MARIO GONZALEZ: The Sioux tribes have always maintained that that confiscation is illegal and that the tribes must have some of their ancestral lands returned to them.

HARI SREENIVASAN: Compared to the natural resource-rich Black Hills, the reservations the Sioux were relegated to are mostly dry, desolate landscapes. Shannon County has one of the lowest per capita incomes in the United States.
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HARI SREENIVASAN: Gonzalez says the tribes have formed a reparations alliance and are aiming to finalize a proposal to be submitted to Congress by the end of the year. He hopes that proposal will give the Sioux shared ownership of over one million acres of federal land within the Black Hills, along with financial compensation.

But he quickly points out that the Sioux are not seeking any private property and knows that popular tourism attractions will be off the table.

When will our U.S. Government stop doing this to the real Native Americans? (stealing their lands)