Americas native prisoners of war Aaron Huey
[Music]
[Music]
I’m here today to show my photographs of
the Lakota how many of you may have
heard of the Lakota or at least the
larger group of tribes called the Sioux
the Lakota are one of many tribes were
moved off their land to prisoner of war
camps now called reservations the Pine
Ridge Reservation the subject of today’s
slideshow is located about 75 miles
southeast of the Black Hills in South
Dakota it is sometimes referred to as
prisoner of war camp number 334 and is
where the Lakota now live now if any of
you have ever heard of aim the American
Indian Movement or of Russell Means or
Leonard Peltier or the standoff at
Oglala then you know that Pine Ridge is
ground zero for Native issues in the
u.s. so I’ve been asked to talk a little
bit today about my relationship with the
Lakota and that’s a very difficult one
for me because if you haven’t noticed
from my skin color I’m white and that is
a huge barrier on a native Reservation
you’ll see a lot of people in my
photographs today and I become very
close with them and they’ve welcomed me
like family they’ve called me brother
and uncle and invited me again and again
over five years but on Pine Ridge I will
always be what is called washi Jew and
while she Jue is a Lakota word that
means non-indian but another version of
this word means the one who takes the
best meat for himself and that’s what I
want to focus on the one who takes the
best part of the meat
it means greedy so take a look around
this auditorium today we are at a
private school in the American West
sitting in red velvet chairs with money
in our pockets and if we look at our
lives we have indeed taken the best part
of the meat
so let’s look today at a set of
photographs of a people who lost so that
we could gain and know that when you see
these people’s faces that these are not
just images the Lakota they stand for
all indigenous people
on this piece of paper is the history
the way I learned it from my Lakota
friends and family the following is a
timeline of treaties made treaties
broken and massacres disguised as
battles
I’ll begin in 1824 what is known as the
Bureau of Indian Affairs was created
within the War Department setting an
early tone of aggression in our dealings
with the Native Americans 1851 the first
Treaty of Fort Laramie was made clearly
marking the boundaries of the Lakota
nation according to the treaty those
lands are a sovereign nation if the
boundaries of this treaty had held and
there is a legal basis that they should
then this is what the US would look like
today ten years later the Homestead Act
signed by President Lincoln unleashed a
flood of white settlers into native
lands 1863
an uprising of Santee Sioux in Minnesota
ends with the hanging of 38 Sioux men
the largest mass execution in US history
the execution was ordered by President
Lincoln only two days after he signed
the Emancipation Proclamation 1866 the
beginning of the transcontinental
railroad a new era we appropriated land
for trails and trains to shortcut
through the heart of the Lakota Nation
the treaties were out the window in
response three tribes led by the Lakota
chief Red Cloud attacked and defeated
the US Army many times over I want to
repeat that part the Lakota defeat the
US Army 1868 the second Fort Laramie
Treaty clearly guarantee is the
sovereignty of the Great Sioux Nation
and the lakotas ownership of the sacred
Black Hills the government also promises
land and hunting rights in the
surrounding states we promised that the
Powder River country will henceforth be
closed to all whites the treaty seemed
to be a complete victory for Red Cloud
in the Sioux in fact this is the only
war in American history in which the
government negotiated a peace by
conceding everything demanded by the
enemy 1869 the Transcontinental Railroad
was completed
began carrying among other things large
numbers of hunters began the wholesale
killing of Buffalo eliminating a source
of food clothing and shelter for the
Sioux 1871 the Indian appropriation Act
makes all Indians Ward’s of the federal
government in addition the military
issued orders forbidding Western Indians
from leaving reservations all Western
Indians at that point in time were now
prisoners of war also in 1871 we ended
the time of treaty making problem with
treaties is that they allow tribes to
exist as sovereign nations and we can’t
have that we had plans 1874 General
George Custer announced the discovery of
gold in Lakota territory specifically
the Black Hills the news of gold creates
a massive influx of white settlers into
locota nation Custer recommends that
Congress find a way to end the treaties
with the Lakota as soon as possible
1875 the Lakota war begins over the
violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty
1876 on July 26th on its way to attack a
Lakota village Custer’s seventh Cavalry
was crushed the Battle of the Little
Bighorn 1877 the great Lakota warrior in
chief named Crazy Horse surrendered at
Fort Robinson he was later killed while
in custody
1877 is also the year we found a way to
get around the Fort Laramie treaties a
new agreement was presented to Sioux
chiefs and their leading men under
campaign known as seller starve signed
the paper or no food for your tribe only
10% of the adult male population signed
the Fort Laramie Treaty called for at
least three-quarters of the tribe to
sign away land that clause was obviously
ignored 1887 the Dawes Act communal
ownership of reservation lands ends
reservations are cut up into 160 acre
sections and distributed to individual
Indians with a surplus disposed of
tribes lost millions of acres the
American dream of individual land
ownership turned out to be a very clever
way to divide the reservation until
nothing was left the move destroyed the
reservations
making it easier to further subdivide
and to sell with every passing
generation most of the surplus land and
many of the plots within reservation
boundaries are now in the hands of white
Ranchers once again the fat of the land
goes to wash you to 1890 a date I
believe to be the most important in this
slideshow this is the year of the
Wounded Knee Massacre on December 29th
US troops surrounded a Sioux encampment
at Wounded Knee Creek and massacred
chief Bigfoot and 300 prisoners of war
using a new rapid-fire weapon the fired
exploding shells called a Hotchkiss gun
for this so-called battle twenty
congressional medals of Honor for valor
were given to the seventh Cavalry to
this day this is the most medals of
Honor ever awarded for a single battle
more medals of Honor were given for the
indiscriminate slaughter of women and
children than for any battle in World
War One World War two Korea Vietnam Iraq
or Afghanistan the Wounded Knee Massacre
is considered the end of the Indian Wars
whenever I visit the site of the mass
grave at Wounded Knee I see it not just
as a grave Lakota or for the Sioux but
as a grave for all indigenous peoples
the holy man Black Elk said I did not
know then how much was ended when I
looked back now from this high hill of
my old age I can still see the butchered
women and children lying heaped and
scattered all along the crooked gulch as
plain as when I saw them with I is still
young and I can see that something else
died there in the bloody mud and was
buried in the blizzard a people’s dream
died there and it was a beautiful dream
with this event a new era in Native
American history began everything can be
measured before Wounded Knee
and after because it was in this moment
with the fingers on the triggers of the
Hotchkiss guns that the US government
openly declared its position on native
rights they were tired of treaties they
were tired of sacred Hills they were
tired of ghost dances they were tired of
all the inconveniences of the Sioux so
they brought out their cannons you want
to be an idiot now they said finger on
the trigger
1900 the US Indian population reaches
low point less than 250,000 compared to
an estimated 8 million in 1492
fast-forward 1980 the longest-running
court case in US history the Sioux
Nation versus the United States was
ruled upon by the US Supreme Court the
Court determined that when the Subaru
settled on two reservations and 7
million acres of their land were opened
up to prospectors and homesteaders the
terms of the second Fort Laramie Treaty
had been violated the court stated that
the Black Hills were illegally taken and
at the initial offering price plus
interest should be paid to the Sioux
Nation as payment for the Black Hills
the court awarded only a hundred and six
million dollars to the Sioux Nation the
Sioux refused the money with the
rallying cry the Black Hills are not for
sale 2010 statistics about native
population today more than a century
after the massacre at Wounded Knee
revealed the legacy of colonization
forced migration and treaty violations
unemployment on the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation fluctuates between 85 and 90
percent the housing office is unable to
build new structures and existing
structures are falling apart
many are homeless and those with homes
are packed into rotting buildings with
up to five families 39 percent of homes
on Pine Ridge have no electricity at
least 60% of the homes on the
reservation are infested with black mold
more than 90% of the population lives
below the federal poverty line the
tuberculosis rate on Pine Ridge is
approximately eight times higher than
the u.s. national average the infant
mortality rate is the highest on this
continent and is about three times
higher than the u.s. national average
cervical cancer is five times higher
than the u.s. national average the
school dropout rate is up to 70% teacher
turnover is 8 times higher than the u.s.
national average frequently Graham
parents are raising their grandchildren
because parents due to alcoholism
domestic violence in general apathy
cannot raise them 50% of the population
over the age of 40 suffers from diabetes
the life expectancy for men is between
46 and 48 years old roughly the same as
Afghanistan and Somalia the last chapter
in any successful genocide is the one in
which the oppressor can remove their
hands and say my god what are these
people doing to themselves they’re
killing each other they’re killing
themselves while we watch them die this
is how we came to own these united
states this is the legacy of manifest
destiny prisoners are still born into
prisoner of war camps long after the
guards are gone these are the bones left
after the best meat has been taken a
long time ago a series of events was set
in motion by a people who look like me
by washi Jew eager to take the land and
the water and the gold in the hills
those events led to a domino effect that
has yet to end as removed as we the
dominant society may feel from a
massacre in 1890 or a series of broken
treaties 150 years ago I still have to
ask you the question how should you feel
about the statistics of today what is
the connection between these images of
suffering and the history that I just
read to you and how much of this history
do you need to own even is any of this
your responsibility today I have been
told that there must be something we can
do there must be some call to action
because for so long I’ve been standing
on the sidelines content to be a witness
just taking photographs because the
solution seems so far in the past
I needed nothing short of a time machine
to access them the suffering of
indigenous peoples is not a simple issue
to fix it’s not something everyone can
get behind the way they get behind
helping Haiti or ending AIDS
we’re fighting a famine the fix as it’s
called may be much more difficult for
the dominant society than say a $50
check or a church trip to paint some
graffiti covered houses or a suburban
family donating a box of clothes they
don’t even want anymore
so where does that leave us shrugging
our shoulders in the dark the United
States continues on a daily basis to
violate the terms of the 1851 and 1868
Fort Laramie treaties with the Lakota
the call to action I offer today my Ted
wish is this honor the treaties give
back the Black Hills it’s not your
business what they do with them
[Applause]
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