If there was even the smallest doubt before, it's been eradicated now. The Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota, where Crazy Horse and Black Elk went on vision quests, must be returned to the Lakota Sioux for its own survival.
In 1868, the federal government signed a treaty with the Lakota Sioux granting the tribe ownership of most of western South Dakota, including the majestic Black Hills. Six years later, the US tried to coerce the tribe, under threat of starvation, to cede the Black Hills back to government so that they could be ravaged for gold. The tribe wouldn't yield, thus prompting Custer's rampages against the Sioux and eventual demise at Little Big Horn. Eventually, the government seized the land anyway, assassinated Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, and confined the Sioux to the enforced poverty of the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations, which functioned for years as little more than concentration camps to house some of the most destitute communities in the United States.
In 1868, the federal government signed a treaty with the Lakota Sioux granting the tribe ownership of most of western South Dakota, including the majestic Black Hills. Six years later, the US tried to coerce the tribe, under threat of starvation, to cede the Black Hills back to government so that they could be ravaged for gold. The tribe wouldn't yield, thus prompting Custer's rampages against the Sioux and eventual demise at Little Big Horn. Eventually, the government seized the land anyway, assassinated Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, and confined the Sioux to the enforced poverty of the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations, which functioned for years as little more than concentration camps to house some of the most destitute communities in the United States.