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To: Sopater
Wouldn't the Kiowa have a prior claim on the Black Hills? Historians have established that the Lakota moved out of the Upper Midwest onto the plains when they acquired horses. By sheer force, the Lakota took what they wanted and drove away tribes like the Kiowa who lived in the Black Hills region. If the Lakota can claim the land by driving out another tribe, why can't the U.S. government do the same thing?

BTW, I'm all in favor of allowing the Native Americans to keep as much of their culture as they can while they integrate into society. They have to realize that a lot of the Lakota lifestyle died 150 years ago and it's not going to return.

135 posted on 12/20/2007 8:08:03 AM PST by CommerceComet
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To: CommerceComet
Historians have established that the Dakota moved out of the Upper Midwest onto the plains when they acquired horses.

The Chippewa pushed them out of the rich fishing and game laden woods of the upper Midwest. There are several remnants of battlegrounds between the Dakota and the Chippewa archaeologists know of.

And so it went for eons.

147 posted on 12/20/2007 8:31:07 AM PST by Last Dakotan (All my tools are hammers, except screwdrivers which are chisels and punches.)
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To: CommerceComet
If the Lakota can claim the land by driving out another tribe, why can't the U.S. government do the same thing?

The Lakota had no treaty with the Kiowa, it was an act of conquest.

However, the US Government promised the Lakota the Black Hills to the Lakota "until the sun no longer rises in the east" as part of a treaty of peace with the Lakota.

The ink was barely dry when gold was discovered in the Black Hills and troops sent there to keep the peace did not uphold the treaty, but defended those who were in violation of the treaty on land sacred to the Lakota. That violation has been ongoing, and Kevin Costner has (had) a casino in Deadwood while the Lakota are in the badlands and scrub of Pine Ridge.

Wikipedia on Pine Ridge

Also Trails and Grasslands.org Pine Ridge Reservation. WHile I am in agreement that the US has reneged its ttreaty obligations to the Lakota and almost from day one, I am at a loss to postulate adequate compensation for that violation.

I seriously doubt that, given the state of affairs on many Reservations, a disbursal of money which will get caught in the swirl of tribal politics will do a great deal to alleviate the problems of more than a few residents. Overall, nothing will be substantially improved in a lasting way. What is broken is deeper than that, and the Lakota, individually, and as a people have to find their solution to their problems. You cannot give someone a functional lifestyle any more than you can give them an education. They have to grasp those and want them enough to get them when the opportunity is presented.

Presenting opportunity to the unwanting or unwilling is often a waste of time and resources. Until the fomenters of racial bias stop doing their people the disservice of regarding education, a functional lifestyle, and financial success as "being white", as if it were wrong for the Lakota, or any other people to be successful in a different paradigm, there will be little improvement.

When the Lakota (and the rest of the Sioux) were kicked out of the lake country by other tribes, they acquired horses and became one of the most potent warrior tribes on the plains.

...and now? They whine like women and wait for scraps from the casino tables, when they could be arming themselves with an education and counting coup in the world of business, science, medicine, the arts, music, and literature. To their credit the warrior paradigm is still found in those who serve in the Military. For the others, instead of embracing a new opportunity to excel, they have decided to refuse it for being too "white"...unlike the horses brought here long ago by the white man.

321 posted on 12/20/2007 11:41:53 PM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly.)
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