Videos of the protest went viral and so did the “#landback” hashtag along with NDN’s demands for returning the Black Hills and closing Mount Rushmore, which the group described as “an international symbol of white supremacy”. No physical violence broke out but the assembly was deemed unlawful by the county sheriff and 20 activists were arrested. Indigenous activists wore eagle feathers, beat drums and faced off with a line of air national guard who were dressed in riot gear. NDN Collective organized a protest that blocked the road to the park, claiming the rallygoers were trespassing on sovereign lands of the Great Sioux Nation. That effort suddenly accelerated when Donald Trump showed up at Mount Rushmore on 3 July last year for a fireworks-studded re-election rally. Decades later, the busts of four US presidents – two slave owners and two who were hostile toward Native Americans – were chiseled into the holy mountain the Lakota called “Tunkasila Sakpe”, the Six Grandfathers.īased in Rapid City next to the Pine Ridge reservation, the social media-savvy NDN Collective was energized by last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests and resolved to launch a similar campaign promoting the return of indigenous lands. Members of the Great Sioux Nation were forced to surrender most of their territory and move to much smaller reservations on what was deemed useless land by the US government. Rather than abide by its treaties, which the US constitution calls the “supreme law of the land”, the federal government allowed gold prospectors and settlers to overrun the Black Hills and surrounding area. Photograph: Benjamin Rasmussen/The Guardianīut in 1874, Lt Col George Armstrong Custer led a survey party into the Black Hills without permission from the tribes and discovered rich gold deposits. The agreements established a sovereign 35m-acre “permanent home” for the Plains tribes called the Great Sioux Nation that occupied the entire western half of South Dakota, including the Black Hills.īlack Hills national forest. After decades of fighting to keep European immigrants out of their homeland, the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people reached a settlement with the US government and signed the Fort Laramie treaties of 18. The Black Hills is the place they call “the heart of everything that is”. Mount Rushmore is located in the Black Hills, a nearly 2m-acre expanse of fertile forests, creeks and rocky outcrops that is sacred to the Lakota. Returning our land is the first step toward reparations.” “It opens the door for beginning the healing process. “Having Haaland heading up the Department of Interior is a game changer,” said Krystal Two Bulls, who is Oglala Lakota and Northern Cheyenne and director of NDN Collective’s Land Back campaign, an initiative demanding that governments honor their treaties with Indigenous people. As the first Native American to hold a US cabinet position, Haaland oversees 450m acres of federal land – all of it indigenous territory and much of it stolen through broken treaties. Yet while Native Americans have been fighting to get their lands back for centuries, indigenous activists say real progress finally seems possible now that Deb Haaland, a member of Laguna Pueblo, is secretary of the interior. And ground zero for the movement is Mount Rushmore. He is part of a growing indigenous movement across the US and Canada that is demanding the return of Native American territory seized through broken treaties. He directs the tribe’s treaty council office which fights to claim sovereignty over lost homeland. Two Eagle is Sicangu Lakota and a member of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. Photograph: Benjamin Rasmussen/The Guardian
Phil Two Eagle on his family’s land on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota.
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