Tribes Buy Back Land Where Ancestors Lived - Tim Giago: 'Bury My Heart' Turns 40
Indian Tribes Buy Back Thousands Of Acres Of Land
By Timberly Ross, Associated Press Writer – Sun Dec 27, ‘09
OMAHA, Neb. – Native American tribes tired of waiting for the U.S. government to honor centuries-old treaties are buying back land where their ancestors lived and putting it in federal trust.
Native Americans say the purchases will help protect their culture and way of life by preserving burial grounds and areas where sacred rituals are held. They also provide land for farming, timber and other efforts to make the tribes self-sustaining.
Tribes put more than 840,000 acres — or roughly the equivalent of the state of Rhode Island — into trust from 1998 to 2007, according to information The Associated Press obtained from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs under the Freedom of Information Act.
Those buying back land include the Winnebago, who have put more than 700 acres in eastern Nebraska in federal trust in the past five years, and the Pawnee, who have 1,600 acres of trust land in Oklahoma. Land held in federal trust is exempt from local and state laws and taxes, but subject to most federal laws.
Three tribes have bought land around Bear Butte in South Dakota's Black Hills to keep it from developers eager to cater to the bikers who roar into Sturgis every year for a raucous road rally. About 17 tribes from the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana and Oklahoma still use the mountain for religious ceremonies.
(Tribes Need To Buy Bear Butte Land - Native Unity: 08-15-06
This suggestion has been made in past articles and editorials. So, it is time for the Bear Butte Indigenous Tribes to join together in “native unity”, launch a public relations campaign, solicit financial aid from the casino tribes throughout the country and buy the surrounding land. Because if you don’t, someone else will! - Bobbie)
Emily White Hat, a member of South Dakota's Rosebud Sioux, said the struggle to protect the land is about "preservation of our culture, our way of life and our traditions."
"All of it is connected," White Hat said. "With your land, you have that relationship to the culture."
Other members of the Rosebud Sioux, such as president Rodney Bordeaux, believe the tribes shouldn't have to buy the land back because it was illegally taken. But they also recognize that without such purchases, the land won't be protected.
No one knows how much land the federal government promised Native American tribes in treaties dating to the late 1700s, said Gary Garrison, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The government changed the terms of the treaties over the centuries to make property available to settlers and give rights-of-way to railroads and telegraph companies.
President Barack Obama's administration has proposed spending $2 billion to buy back and consolidate tribal land broken up in previous generations.
The program would pay individual members for land interests divided among their relatives and return the land to tribal control. But it would not buy land from people outside the tribes.
Today, 562 federally recognized tribes have more than 55 million acres held in trust, according to the bureau. Several states and local governments are fighting efforts to add to that number, saying the federal government doesn't have the authority to take land — and tax revenue — from states.
In New York, for example, the state and two counties filed a federal lawsuit in 2008 to block the U.S. Department of Interior from putting about 13,000 acres into trust for the Oneida Tribe. In September, a judge threw out their claims.
Putting land in trust creates a burden for local governments because they must still provide services such as sewer and water even though they can't collect taxes on the property, said Elaine Willman, a member of the Citizens Equal Rights Alliance and administrator for Hobart, a suburb of Green Bay, Wis. Hobart relies mostly on property taxes to pay for police, water and other services, but the village of about 5,900 lost about a third of its land to a trust set up for the state's Oneida Tribe, Willman said.
So far, Hobart has been able to control spending and avoid cuts in services or raising taxes, Willman said. Village leaders hope taxes on a planned 603-acre commercial development will eventually help make up for the lost money.
The nonprofit White Earth Land Recovery Project has bought back or been gifted hundreds of acres in northwestern Minnesota since it was created in the late 1980s. The White Earth tribe uses the land to harvest rice, farm and produce maple syrup. Members have hope of one day being self-sustaining again.
Winona LaDuke, who started the White Earth project, said buying property is expensive, but it's the quickest and easiest way for tribes to regain control of their land.
Tribal membership has been growing thanks to higher birth rates, longer life spans and more relaxed qualifications for membership, and that has created a greater need for land for housing, community services and economic development.
"If the tribes were to pursue return of the land in the courts it would be years before any action could result in more tribal land ... and the people simply cannot wait," said Cris Stainbrook, of the Little Canada, Minn.-based Indian Land Tenure Foundation.
Thirty to 40 tribes are making enough money from casinos to buy back land, but they also have to put money into social programs, education and health care for their members, said Robert J. Miller, a professor at the Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Ore., who specializes in tribal issues. "Tribes just have so many things on their plate," he said.
Some tribes, such as the Pawnee, have benefited from gifts of land. Gaylord and Judy Mickelsen donated a storefront in Dannebrog, Neb., that had been in Judy Mickelsen's family for a century. The couple was retiring to Mesquite, Nev., in 2007, and Judy Mickelsen wanted to see the building preserved even though the town had seen better days.
The tribe has since set up a shop selling members' artwork in the building on Main Street.
"We were hoping the Pawnee could get a toehold here and get a new venture for the village of Dannebrog," Gaylord Mickelsen said.
Brown's Classic 'Bury My Heart' Turns 40
By Tim Giago
When Dee Brown wrote his book “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” he could not have known that it would become a classic.
This year, an illustrated 40th anniversary edition was published in hardback. It is a beautiful book and the photos add so much to the stories that made the book great. There are photos of a young Black Elk, Sitting Bull, Hollow Horn Bear, Short Bull and Kicking Bear.
The 543 page book is truly a collector’s treasure.The history of Wounded Knee is not such an ancient one to the Lakota people of 2009. Many Lakota living today had grandparents at Wounded Knee and some of them died there. My grandmother and grandfather lived at Kyle, just skip and a hop from the massacre site at Wounded Knee. My grandmother was just a teenager then, but she vividly remembered that day of Dec. 29, 1890.
Just six days after the massacre, L. Frank Baum, an editor at the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, wrote an editorial calling for the genocide of the Sioux people. He later wrote the children’s book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”
An excerpt from Brown’s book describes the aftermath of the massacre. “When the madness ended, Big Foot and more than half of his people were dead or seriously wounded; 153 were known dead, but many of the wounded crawled away to die afterward. One estimate placed the final total of dead at very nearly three hundred of the original 350 men, women and children. The soldiers lost 25 dead and 39 wounded, most of them struck by their own bullets or shrapnel.
“After the wounded cavalrymen started for the agency at Pine Ridge, a detail of soldiers went over the Wounded Knee battlefield (I resent the use of the word ‘battlefield’ here and would prefer ‘massacre site’ instead) gathering up Indians who were still alive and loading them on wagons. As it was apparent by the end of the day that a blizzard was approaching, the dead Indians were left lying where they had fallen.
“The wagonloads of wounded Sioux (four men and 47 women and children) reached Pine Ridge after dark. Because all available barracks were filled with soldiers, they were left lying in the open wagons in the bitter cold while an inept Army officer searched for shelter. Finally the Episcopal mission was opened, the benches taken out, and hay scattered over the rough flooring.
“It was the fourth day of Christmas in the Year of Our Lord 1890. When the torn and bleeding bodies were carried into the candlelit church, those who were conscious could see Christmas greenery hanging from the open rafters. Across the chancel front above the pulpit was strung a crudely lettered banner: Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men.”
Perhaps prematurely, Black Elk said, “I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream ... the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer and the sacred tree is dead.”
This year, as in years past, Lakota men, women and children will mount their horses, and in the bitter cold of the South Dakota winter, they will begin a ride that starts at the site of Sitanka’s (Big Foot) trail that led to Wounded Knee.
When they reach the mass gravesite they will dismount and hold a religious ceremony to commemorate and honor those men, women and children that lie buried there. Their prayers will ceremoniously “Wipe away the tears” and they will pray that they can find it in their hearts to forgive.
The Lakota have never forgotten that tragic day because it very nearly ended their way of life. But just like the Phoenix that rose again from the ashes to begin a new life, so have the Lakota.
Dee Brown never knew that his book would, in a small way, contribute to that cultural and spiritual revival.
Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is the founder and first president of the Native American Journalists Association and is now the publisher of the Native Sun News. He can be reached at editor@nsweekly.com.
TO SUBMIT an ARTICLE, OPINION PIECE, COMMENTS to the Native Unity Digest, e-mail bobbieo@digitaldune.net.
NATIVE UNITY - A place for Native American Peoples to solidify their tribes to make a positive impact on the cultural, social, economic and political fabric of American society and a place for non-Natives to better understand the ways of the American Indian.
ATT: NEW - News Blog - American Indian Report - AIR BLOG
http://falmouth-air.blogspot.com
THE BUFFALO POST - Missoulian Montana's Native News Blog about Native People And The World We Live In.
http://buffalopost.net/
Check Out NATIVE PRIDE- It's a great site!
http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com
PATHOLOGY.ORG - Up-to-date informmational database on general health and disease information, medical schools and medical resources.
http://www.Pathology.org
FOR ANNIE'S NATIVE CELEBRITY NEWS - go to www.nativecelebs.com
CATCH COLORADAN PETER JONES AT:
http://indigenousissuestoday.blogspot.com
SUPPORTING NATIVE AMERICAN/FIRST PEOPLE - ARTISTS, FILM MAKERS, ENTERTAINERS, ETC. http://www.krystynmedia.blogspot.com.
By Timberly Ross, Associated Press Writer – Sun Dec 27, ‘09
OMAHA, Neb. – Native American tribes tired of waiting for the U.S. government to honor centuries-old treaties are buying back land where their ancestors lived and putting it in federal trust.
Native Americans say the purchases will help protect their culture and way of life by preserving burial grounds and areas where sacred rituals are held. They also provide land for farming, timber and other efforts to make the tribes self-sustaining.
Tribes put more than 840,000 acres — or roughly the equivalent of the state of Rhode Island — into trust from 1998 to 2007, according to information The Associated Press obtained from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs under the Freedom of Information Act.
Those buying back land include the Winnebago, who have put more than 700 acres in eastern Nebraska in federal trust in the past five years, and the Pawnee, who have 1,600 acres of trust land in Oklahoma. Land held in federal trust is exempt from local and state laws and taxes, but subject to most federal laws.
Three tribes have bought land around Bear Butte in South Dakota's Black Hills to keep it from developers eager to cater to the bikers who roar into Sturgis every year for a raucous road rally. About 17 tribes from the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana and Oklahoma still use the mountain for religious ceremonies.
(Tribes Need To Buy Bear Butte Land - Native Unity: 08-15-06
This suggestion has been made in past articles and editorials. So, it is time for the Bear Butte Indigenous Tribes to join together in “native unity”, launch a public relations campaign, solicit financial aid from the casino tribes throughout the country and buy the surrounding land. Because if you don’t, someone else will! - Bobbie)
Emily White Hat, a member of South Dakota's Rosebud Sioux, said the struggle to protect the land is about "preservation of our culture, our way of life and our traditions."
"All of it is connected," White Hat said. "With your land, you have that relationship to the culture."
Other members of the Rosebud Sioux, such as president Rodney Bordeaux, believe the tribes shouldn't have to buy the land back because it was illegally taken. But they also recognize that without such purchases, the land won't be protected.
No one knows how much land the federal government promised Native American tribes in treaties dating to the late 1700s, said Gary Garrison, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The government changed the terms of the treaties over the centuries to make property available to settlers and give rights-of-way to railroads and telegraph companies.
President Barack Obama's administration has proposed spending $2 billion to buy back and consolidate tribal land broken up in previous generations.
The program would pay individual members for land interests divided among their relatives and return the land to tribal control. But it would not buy land from people outside the tribes.
Today, 562 federally recognized tribes have more than 55 million acres held in trust, according to the bureau. Several states and local governments are fighting efforts to add to that number, saying the federal government doesn't have the authority to take land — and tax revenue — from states.
In New York, for example, the state and two counties filed a federal lawsuit in 2008 to block the U.S. Department of Interior from putting about 13,000 acres into trust for the Oneida Tribe. In September, a judge threw out their claims.
Putting land in trust creates a burden for local governments because they must still provide services such as sewer and water even though they can't collect taxes on the property, said Elaine Willman, a member of the Citizens Equal Rights Alliance and administrator for Hobart, a suburb of Green Bay, Wis. Hobart relies mostly on property taxes to pay for police, water and other services, but the village of about 5,900 lost about a third of its land to a trust set up for the state's Oneida Tribe, Willman said.
So far, Hobart has been able to control spending and avoid cuts in services or raising taxes, Willman said. Village leaders hope taxes on a planned 603-acre commercial development will eventually help make up for the lost money.
The nonprofit White Earth Land Recovery Project has bought back or been gifted hundreds of acres in northwestern Minnesota since it was created in the late 1980s. The White Earth tribe uses the land to harvest rice, farm and produce maple syrup. Members have hope of one day being self-sustaining again.
Winona LaDuke, who started the White Earth project, said buying property is expensive, but it's the quickest and easiest way for tribes to regain control of their land.
Tribal membership has been growing thanks to higher birth rates, longer life spans and more relaxed qualifications for membership, and that has created a greater need for land for housing, community services and economic development.
"If the tribes were to pursue return of the land in the courts it would be years before any action could result in more tribal land ... and the people simply cannot wait," said Cris Stainbrook, of the Little Canada, Minn.-based Indian Land Tenure Foundation.
Thirty to 40 tribes are making enough money from casinos to buy back land, but they also have to put money into social programs, education and health care for their members, said Robert J. Miller, a professor at the Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Ore., who specializes in tribal issues. "Tribes just have so many things on their plate," he said.
Some tribes, such as the Pawnee, have benefited from gifts of land. Gaylord and Judy Mickelsen donated a storefront in Dannebrog, Neb., that had been in Judy Mickelsen's family for a century. The couple was retiring to Mesquite, Nev., in 2007, and Judy Mickelsen wanted to see the building preserved even though the town had seen better days.
The tribe has since set up a shop selling members' artwork in the building on Main Street.
"We were hoping the Pawnee could get a toehold here and get a new venture for the village of Dannebrog," Gaylord Mickelsen said.
Brown's Classic 'Bury My Heart' Turns 40
By Tim Giago
When Dee Brown wrote his book “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” he could not have known that it would become a classic.
This year, an illustrated 40th anniversary edition was published in hardback. It is a beautiful book and the photos add so much to the stories that made the book great. There are photos of a young Black Elk, Sitting Bull, Hollow Horn Bear, Short Bull and Kicking Bear.
The 543 page book is truly a collector’s treasure.The history of Wounded Knee is not such an ancient one to the Lakota people of 2009. Many Lakota living today had grandparents at Wounded Knee and some of them died there. My grandmother and grandfather lived at Kyle, just skip and a hop from the massacre site at Wounded Knee. My grandmother was just a teenager then, but she vividly remembered that day of Dec. 29, 1890.
Just six days after the massacre, L. Frank Baum, an editor at the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, wrote an editorial calling for the genocide of the Sioux people. He later wrote the children’s book “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”
An excerpt from Brown’s book describes the aftermath of the massacre. “When the madness ended, Big Foot and more than half of his people were dead or seriously wounded; 153 were known dead, but many of the wounded crawled away to die afterward. One estimate placed the final total of dead at very nearly three hundred of the original 350 men, women and children. The soldiers lost 25 dead and 39 wounded, most of them struck by their own bullets or shrapnel.
“After the wounded cavalrymen started for the agency at Pine Ridge, a detail of soldiers went over the Wounded Knee battlefield (I resent the use of the word ‘battlefield’ here and would prefer ‘massacre site’ instead) gathering up Indians who were still alive and loading them on wagons. As it was apparent by the end of the day that a blizzard was approaching, the dead Indians were left lying where they had fallen.
“The wagonloads of wounded Sioux (four men and 47 women and children) reached Pine Ridge after dark. Because all available barracks were filled with soldiers, they were left lying in the open wagons in the bitter cold while an inept Army officer searched for shelter. Finally the Episcopal mission was opened, the benches taken out, and hay scattered over the rough flooring.
“It was the fourth day of Christmas in the Year of Our Lord 1890. When the torn and bleeding bodies were carried into the candlelit church, those who were conscious could see Christmas greenery hanging from the open rafters. Across the chancel front above the pulpit was strung a crudely lettered banner: Peace on Earth, Good Will to Men.”
Perhaps prematurely, Black Elk said, “I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream ... the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer and the sacred tree is dead.”
This year, as in years past, Lakota men, women and children will mount their horses, and in the bitter cold of the South Dakota winter, they will begin a ride that starts at the site of Sitanka’s (Big Foot) trail that led to Wounded Knee.
When they reach the mass gravesite they will dismount and hold a religious ceremony to commemorate and honor those men, women and children that lie buried there. Their prayers will ceremoniously “Wipe away the tears” and they will pray that they can find it in their hearts to forgive.
The Lakota have never forgotten that tragic day because it very nearly ended their way of life. But just like the Phoenix that rose again from the ashes to begin a new life, so have the Lakota.
Dee Brown never knew that his book would, in a small way, contribute to that cultural and spiritual revival.
Tim Giago, an Oglala Lakota, is the founder and first president of the Native American Journalists Association and is now the publisher of the Native Sun News. He can be reached at editor@nsweekly.com.
TO SUBMIT an ARTICLE, OPINION PIECE, COMMENTS to the Native Unity Digest, e-mail bobbieo@digitaldune.net.
NATIVE UNITY - A place for Native American Peoples to solidify their tribes to make a positive impact on the cultural, social, economic and political fabric of American society and a place for non-Natives to better understand the ways of the American Indian.
ATT: NEW - News Blog - American Indian Report - AIR BLOG
http://falmouth-air.blogspot.com
THE BUFFALO POST - Missoulian Montana's Native News Blog about Native People And The World We Live In.
http://buffalopost.net/
Check Out NATIVE PRIDE- It's a great site!
http://letstalknativepride.blogspot.com
PATHOLOGY.ORG - Up-to-date informmational database on general health and disease information, medical schools and medical resources.
http://www.Pathology.org
FOR ANNIE'S NATIVE CELEBRITY NEWS - go to www.nativecelebs.com
CATCH COLORADAN PETER JONES AT:
http://indigenousissuestoday.blogspot.com
SUPPORTING NATIVE AMERICAN/FIRST PEOPLE - ARTISTS, FILM MAKERS, ENTERTAINERS, ETC. http://www.krystynmedia.blogspot.com.
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