“When we need help, they say we are sovereign,” said Mossett. “But when it comes to development of our resources—oil, gas, coal, uranium, water—then they step in see how much money the state can get.”
The only note of standoffishness I detected at Seven Councils was a settlement in a grove of cottonwoods called Red Warrior Camp that had erected a fence around itself and hung signs that read: NO MEDIA. NO TOURISTS. CHECK IN WITH SECURITY. An organizer told me the camp was trained in direct nonviolent action. “Whatever happens in Red Warrior Camp stays in Red Warrior Camp,” she said. When they held an open mic outside the gate, their rhetoric included the same message of togetherness and spirit but with a more militant tone. Its people were younger, quite a few of them white, some wearing camo fatigues and bandannas over their faces. I was told that many of the activists came from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, home to the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 and uprising in 1973, still bearing a stamp of badassery from the days of the American Indian Movement. Unlike the Standing Rock Tribe, which courted mainstream reporters, Red Warrior pumped out its own message on Facebook. I didn’t attempt to penetrate the place but met some young native guys staying there. “For a place calling itself Red Warrior Camp,” one of them quipped, “there sure are a lot of white warriors.”
Nonetheless, in five days I witnessed no violence, lawlessness, alcohol, or even hostility. A couple speakers even welcomed “European relatives” such as myself. The days were filled with peaceful marches and prayers at the idle construction site, ceremonial welcoming of newly arrived tribes, and as afternoon temps rose to the nineties, flinging ourselves into the cool waters of the once-mighty Cannonball. “River” is the incorrect word to describe this body of water. With its currentless murk and silty mud, the thing is a reservoir, an arm of the man-made lake impounded by the Oahe Dam.
I met Nick Estes, a Lower Brule Sioux from South Dakota who remembered that when he was a child, his grandparents told stories about the wonderful Missouri River. “But after the 1940s, the stories stopped.” The Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program authorized nine dams—five on Indian land, displacing those who lived along the banks. Standing Rock lost 55,000 acres, while adjacent Cheyenne River Reservation lost 150,000 acres.
“If Dakota Access kills this river,” said Estes, “it will be its second death.”
According to historian Michael Lawson, author of Dammed Indians, “The Oahe Dam destroyed more Indian land than any other public works project in America.” Estes said his elders “died of heartache.”
Indian nations, with their ample resources and limited political power, have often borne the brunt of resource extraction. For the Lakota, the “Black Snake,” as many call the Dakota Pipeline, feels like just one more case of whittling away of their land—which is to say, breaking their treaties. And Indians can’t help but notice that although the reason they keep getting screwed is never acknowledged to be racism, the victims of the various ecological catastrophes through the decades are often members of their race. Between dams, toxic dumps, fracking, oil spills, and atomic bomb tests, the list of injustices against native communities could fill pages.
In 2014, the proposed route of DAPL went through Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, with roughly 61,000 residents, 92 percent of them white. After the Corps determined that the pipeline could contaminate drinking water, it was rerouted to pass by Standing Rock. “That’s environmental racism,” said Kandi Mossett, of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation in North Dakota and an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network.
This type of outrage is not limited to activists. Jetting in from Arizona was Russell Begaye, president of the 360,000-member Navajo Nation, by far the country’s largest. As the only man on the grounds in a coat and tie (a giant turquoise bolo, to be precise), he looked every bit like the most politically powerful American Indian in the country. When I asked if he thought the placement of projects like DAPL on native land were evidence of racism, Begaye said, “Of course, because they could put this further north, but they are not going to do that because the population up there is not Indian.” He cited the 2015 Gold King Mine wastewater spill on the Animas River in Colorado, which polluted Navajo water and farms.
Much of this debate hinges on a concept to which most non-Native Americans give little thought: sovereignty. According to the treaties, Indians were to be treated as autonomous nations and dealt with diplomatically, like foreign governments. That didn’t happen. Reservations were ruled by unelected white agents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, who outlawed native language and religion. But in past decades, reservations have established their own governments and, with bands of lawyers, have fought for—and, in many cases, won back—their treaty rights. The Standing Rock lawsuit may hinge on the definition of sovereignty. The law required the Army Corps of Engineers to consult with the tribe before it permitted the pipeline, but it didn’t require that the tribe approve. So Standing Rock contends that its wishes were overruled.
“When we need help, they say we are sovereign,” said Mossett. “But when it comes to development of our resources—oil, gas, coal, uranium, water—then they step in see how much money the state can get.”
The United Nations appears to agree. On Wednesday, its Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues released a statement that the failure to consult with the Sioux on DAPL violated the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a resolution President Obama signed in 2010.
The only note of standoffishness I detected at Seven Councils was a settlement in a grove of cottonwoods called Red Warrior Camp that had erected a fence around itself and hung signs that read: NO MEDIA. NO TOURISTS. CHECK IN WITH SECURITY. An organizer told me the camp was trained in direct nonviolent action. “Whatever happens in Red Warrior Camp stays in Red Warrior Camp,” she said. When they held an open mic outside the gate, their rhetoric included the same message of togetherness and spirit but with a more militant tone. Its people were younger, quite a few of them white, some wearing camo fatigues and bandannas over their faces. I was told that many of the activists came from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, home to the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 and uprising in 1973, still bearing a stamp of badassery from the days of the American Indian Movement. Unlike the Standing Rock Tribe, which courted mainstream reporters, Red Warrior pumped out its own message on Facebook. I didn’t attempt to penetrate the place but met some young native guys staying there. “For a place calling itself Red Warrior Camp,” one of them quipped, “there sure are a lot of white warriors.”
Nonetheless, in five days I witnessed no violence, lawlessness, alcohol, or even hostility. A couple speakers even welcomed “European relatives” such as myself. The days were filled with peaceful marches and prayers at the idle construction site, ceremonial welcoming of newly arrived tribes, and as afternoon temps rose to the nineties, flinging ourselves into the cool waters of the once-mighty Cannonball. “River” is the incorrect word to describe this body of water. With its currentless murk and silty mud, the thing is a reservoir, an arm of the man-made lake impounded by the Oahe Dam.
I met Nick Estes, a Lower Brule Sioux from South Dakota who remembered that when he was a child, his grandparents told stories about the wonderful Missouri River. “But after the 1940s, the stories stopped.” The Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program authorized nine dams—five on Indian land, displacing those who lived along the banks. Standing Rock lost 55,000 acres, while adjacent Cheyenne River Reservation lost 150,000 acres.
“If Dakota Access kills this river,” said Estes, “it will be its second death.”
According to historian Michael Lawson, author of Dammed Indians, “The Oahe Dam destroyed more Indian land than any other public works project in America.” Estes said his elders “died of heartache.”
Indian nations, with their ample resources and limited political power, have often borne the brunt of resource extraction. For the Lakota, the “Black Snake,” as many call the Dakota Pipeline, feels like just one more case of whittling away of their land—which is to say, breaking their treaties. And Indians can’t help but notice that although the reason they keep getting screwed is never acknowledged to be racism, the victims of the various ecological catastrophes through the decades are often members of their race. Between dams, toxic dumps, fracking, oil spills, and atomic bomb tests, the list of injustices against native communities could fill pages.
In 2014, the proposed route of DAPL went through Bismarck, the capital of North Dakota, with roughly 61,000 residents, 92 percent of them white. After the Corps determined that the pipeline could contaminate drinking water, it was rerouted to pass by Standing Rock. “That’s environmental racism,” said Kandi Mossett, of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation in North Dakota and an organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network.
This type of outrage is not limited to activists. Jetting in from Arizona was Russell Begaye, president of the 360,000-member Navajo Nation, by far the country’s largest. As the only man on the grounds in a coat and tie (a giant turquoise bolo, to be precise), he looked every bit like the most politically powerful American Indian in the country. When I asked if he thought the placement of projects like DAPL on native land were evidence of racism, Begaye said, “Of course, because they could put this further north, but they are not going to do that because the population up there is not Indian.” He cited the 2015 Gold King Mine wastewater spill on the Animas River in Colorado, which polluted Navajo water and farms.
Much of this debate hinges on a concept to which most non-Native Americans give little thought: sovereignty. According to the treaties, Indians were to be treated as autonomous nations and dealt with diplomatically, like foreign governments. That didn’t happen. Reservations were ruled by unelected white agents from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, who outlawed native language and religion. But in past decades, reservations have established their own governments and, with bands of lawyers, have fought for—and, in many cases, won back—their treaty rights. The Standing Rock lawsuit may hinge on the definition of sovereignty. The law required the Army Corps of Engineers to consult with the tribe before it permitted the pipeline, but it didn’t require that the tribe approve. So Standing Rock contends that its wishes were overruled.
“When we need help, they say we are sovereign,” said Mossett. “But when it comes to development of our resources—oil, gas, coal, uranium, water—then they step in see how much money the state can get.”
The United Nations appears to agree. On Wednesday, its Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues released a statement that the failure to consult with the Sioux on DAPL violated the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, a resolution President Obama signed in 2010.
About Stand with standing rock
Stories about the indigenous leaders protecting land and water, building fair economies, and standing up for racial justice in North America and beyond.
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