Why the sioux are refusing

That goes pretty fast. That type of plan is unacceptable to the Sioux tribes, because when you give out per capita payments, the money is gone in a year or two, and then the tribes still end up with nothing to show for their ancestral lands. After more than years of standoff over what the U.

I am absolutely committed to moving forward with you and forging a new and better future together. The president said he would meet with the Sioux tribes on the Black Hills land claim, the first to do so. Obama said the nine tribes must first agree unanimously on a proposal among themselves. That is a problem, says Native American journalist Tim Giago, who has covered this story for more than 30 years.

There have been meetings taking place in the past year-and-a-half, two years on the different reservations in which a lot of the people are coming together and they're sitting down and actually discussing the whole prospects about where we're going to go. Theresa Two Bulls is a former Oglala Sioux president who helped organize the efforts to restart the Black Hills talks following Obama's election.

She agrees with Giago that there are serious divisions, but says that the tribes are making progress. And, believe me, it's hard to unite people. It's hard to stay positive. But you have to. I'm tired of this poverty.

I'm tired of this rut that we live in. 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.

The tribes are trying to be realistic. When the Sioux tribes are asking that all the federal lands be returned to them, that doesn't include Mount Rushmore, post offices, or any property that is being used by the government for government purposes.

And what Gonzalez and the Sioux are asking for does have precedent. And although recent polls show the younger generation of the Sioux more willing to accept the Black Hills money, some of the poorest people in the country have thus far remained steadfast in their opposition to taking it. It's a tough group up there. I'm amazed that they have been willing to sit on the money, so to speak, this long without taking the money.

We accept the money, then we don't have the treaty obligations that the federal government has with us for taking our land, for taking our gold, all our resources out of the Black Hills. Sioux leaders say they will take up the Black Hills issue again at tribal meetings in the coming months. Icon: Music Through the Lens.

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Other Ways to Give. Yet what the Sioux are asking for has precedent. I worked on one decade-long battle to help the Salish and Kootenai in Montana co-manage the National Bison Range, which is in the middle of their reservation.

The Sioux see Obama as the first president in a long time to understand their problems. He has made good on promises to hire Indians throughout the federal government, and the administration recently signed Indian-affairs bills settling long-standing issues, including law enforcement, water rights, and Indian trust accounting.

Gonzalez is pressing for a solution in the next two years. We feel that this is our country, too; we have a duty to try to resolve this issue in an honorable manner. The Black Hills are an easy minute drive west of Rapid City. The air smells of butterscotch from the thick stands of ponderosa. You can look out over green valleys rimmed with aspen and laced with lakes, or over hills made of cathedral-like stone spires—reasons enough for the area to be sacred to the Sioux.

Then too, you can hardly miss, carved into the granite cliffs, the faces of four American presidents who presided over the dismantling of Indian lands. Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic.