Mni Wiconi: Water is Life.
Dear Assistant Secretary Darcy & The Army Corps of Engineers, I am writing this letter to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline. My great grandparents are originally from Cannon Ball, North Dakota where the pipeline will cross the Missouri River. They lived along the Missouri River all their life. They raised gardens, chickens and horses. I want to be the voice for my great grandparents and my community and ask you to stop the building of the Dakota Access pipeline. If the pipeline breaks the oil will spill on the ground and into the water. Grass, crops, trees and animals will not be able to grow and live because of the oil. People will not be able to drink from the river or use the water. The time and the cost to clean up oil spills will take years and probably millions of dollars. Water to Native American people is the first medicine. Mni Wiconi: water is life. SAY NO TO THE DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE AND SIGN OUR PETITION. Anna Lee, "Mni Wiconi," Rezpect Our Water, April 2016 Social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter were critical to generating support for the movement. Youth groups organized petitions and wrote letters to their government leaders to initiate change.
view original hand-written letter Original hand-written letter. Courtesy of Anna Lee Rain and Stephanie Yellowhammer
Discussion Questions
What opportunities and challenges come with using social media as a platform for taking action? How might personal connections to place, family, and community inspire an individual to take informed action?
This inquiry explores the legal and ideological frameworks that underscore the treaty making process and the history that unfolded between the expanding United States and Native Nations. Treaty-making, like most other aspects of U.S. Indian policy in the 19th century, was solidly rooted in the worldview of the Europeans who colonized the Americas. Implicit in the concept of the Doctrine of Discovery was the "right" of the discovering nations to gain title to Native lands. And, as the Europeans and, later, the Americans desire for more land grew, the concept of Manifest Destiny evolved and was embraced as inevitable progress. This worldview contrasted starkly with Native philosophy and political ideology. The Horse Creek Treaty of 1851 involved the Oglala Sioux, Brule Sioux, Cheyenne, Assiniboine, Mandan, Gros Ventre (Hidatsa), Arapaho, Crow, Hidatsa, Arikara, Snake, and Shoshone, although the Shoshone were uninvited attendees. The United States wanted permission from Native nations to build roads and outposts on Native lands. The government was also seeking assurances for unhindered travel for European settlers heading west. At the time of the treaty, however, some roads and outposts had already been established. So, seeking Native agreement to be able to build more roads and outposts on Native lands, while simultaneously saying the government did not want any land from Native Nations, made the United States government's stated intent appear disingenuous. Furthermore, by decreasing the proposed annuity payment for the land from 50 years to 10 years, the Horse Creek treaty was then actually violated even before its ratification. The desire for Native land continued once gold was discovered in Montana. The building of the "Bozeman Trail" to make access to the gold easier brought scores of settlers through Native territories. Native people began resisting those incursions into their territory. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 sought to bring an end to the conflicts and to definitively determine territorial boundaries for the Oglala, Miniconjou and Brule bands of Lakota, Yanktonai Dakota, and the Arapaho Nations. Assurances were given to those Native Nations that they would have "absolute and undisturbed use and occupation" of their lands. But, the treaty was violated eleven years after it was signed when the U.S. government took the gold-rich Black Hills, an area that had been designated as unceded Sioux Nation lands. The taking of the Black Hills remains a major controversy today. A treaty is a formal agreement between two or more sovereign nations about something of mutual interest and importance. Thus, making treaties with Native Nations reflected a clear recognition by the United States government of the inherent sovereignty of the Native Nations with whom they treated. Although Article VI of the United States Constitution declares treaty law as the supreme law of the land, Native Nations found out that treaty promises—solemn legal obligations—would not always be honored by the United States government.
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Stone marker with a plaque for the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 (Horse Creek Treaty) NPS Image
NPS image Present TreatySite The Horse Creek Treaty Roadside Marker is located one mile west of Morrill, Nebraska, on Highway 26. Beyond the treeline about 2 ¾ miles in front of the marker, Horse Creek flows into the North Platte River. There the treaty was signed on September 17, 1851
Last updated: August 5, 2021 |