Taia Coleman

Staying True to Your Word:

Making The Battle of Ownership of Native American Land Equal

Introduction

Imagine having to travel over 30 miles for fresh water and the only time you get electricity is when you hook your tv cables up to your car. Welcome to Pine Ridge, a Native American Reservation located in southwestern South Dakota, Pine Ridge is one of the poorest counties in the US. Now home to almost 40,000 people, the 2.8 million acres of land hold women, men, and children that are living in dangerous conditions that cut their life expectancy almost in half.[1] Most live without running water, a job, and food, and sadly most without a home. To the people living on the reservation, this is just day-to-day life, for generations they have lost more parts of their culture to issues that aren’t easily solved. The reservation’s history starts in 1868 with the second Treaty of Fort Laramie being signed it marked the boundaries of the sovereign Lakota Sioux Land. It included most of South Dakota where the now Pine Ridge reservation lies but treaties began to be disregarded with train tracks being built right across the reservation land. The government even in the beginning had already started to go back on its word to Native Americans and impede upon their land like it was their own.[2] The Lakota War saw bloody massacres of Native American people on their land and used the money from pushing them onto reservations and selling their land to build Mt Rushmore. Now the land stands as the home to people who are losing more and more of their land every day to the government, not being forced off the land but pushed by factors they don’t have the resources to fight against.

The people of Pine Ridge aren’t being pushed off the land literally but through the slow buying of what is meant to be protected land by non-natives that start to live on the reservations and disturb the communities. Treaties, acts, and promises are all broken throughout Native American history with the US government. Land that is meant to be sacred has malls and oil rigs sitting on top of it. The systems and government organizations like the Bureau of Land Management, that are supposed to be supporting the Native American Reservations contribute to the gaining loss of Native American land to non-natives. Native Americans are losing what is supposed to be protected land through existing policies that make fighting for their land inaccessible and almost impossible to do. The loss of Native American land in Pine Ridge and many other reservations is forcing Native Americans into poverty and homelessness giving away to the rising death count of Native Americans in America. To prevent the unneeded and undeserved death that is happening in Pine Ridge, huge changes in existing policies of land ownership to a shift of supporting Native Americans in day-to-day life need to happen.

Historical Background: Native American Land

(a timeline of the loss of Native American land in the US)

The history of the loss of Native American land in America goes back to the early days of colonization in the 14 to 17^th centuries with Christopher Columbus discovering America to the Seven Years’ War that pitted many Native American tribes against each other and the Spanish as they helped France in the war itself.[3] Native Americans have always been forced to be involved in many wars, arguments, and battles that weren’t their own just for the promise of keeping and protecting their sacred land. One of the first treaties to be signed to protect Native land was in 1785 the Treaty of Hopewell which protected Cherokee land. What followed in the years after was a series of battles against Native Americans breaking the many treaties and promises established during wartime. Andrew Jackson and US Forces attacked Creek Native Americans who refused American expansion onto their territory which ended in the loss of 20 million acres worth of Native American land to the US.

Not just land was lost in the many battles over native American land but so were lives. After Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act and began forcefully removing Native Americans from their land many were dying in the process. From disease on the road to the horrible conditions of their removal, more than 4,000 Native Americans from the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, and Muscogee tribes died on the Trail of Tears.[4] Land acquisition in the US has always been harmful, dangerous, and sometimes lethal to the people of the land, and yet it continued with even more policies being put in place that only harm Native Americans. Policies like Indian Appropriations Act prevented Native Americans from leaving the reservations they were forced to have, leaving many having to find other ways to survive. It also declared that indigenous people weren’t members of a ‘sovereign’ nation and that the US government couldn’t establish treaties with them anymore.[5] It was the front door to many policies that allowed the federal government more power and control over Native land.

The contradictions don’t end there as the discovery of gold in the Black Hills non-native miners, and settlers began living on Native land and disturbing the environment. Even after the Treaty of Fort Laramie, People constantly invaded protected land violating every treaty, and treating the land like it was their own. Native American Land has been disregarded, looted, taken, disgraced, and used for gain throughout history and to this very day. Knowing the history of how reservation land got to the condition it is in now is important. Issues like land ownership and the poverty problem directly correlate with how their land is being treated and given away despite there being policies in place to stop that from happening.

Existing Policies on Native American Reservations

Native American land is either one of two types of land; trust land is land that is owned by the federal government, but beneficial interest remains with a Native American tribe or individual and then there is fee land. Most of the Native American reservations are trust lands, with trust lands that are in the hands of an individual called allotments.[6]

One of the biggest policies that jump-started the loss of indigenous land to the government was the General Allotment Act of 1887 or the Daws Act. With this act, the federal government allotted a specific number of acres to each tribal member. The allotments were held in trust for about 25 years till the trust status is gone and allotment fees to the title of the land. Thousands of acres of land were lost as the trust status was lifted and the land became subject to state taxation. Native American people are already living in very small, poverty-ridden, and harsh environments where keeping a steady job isn’t an option. Most were never going to be able to pay the allotment fee and keep the land that was supposed to be promised to them. If the land wasn’t allotted, then it was considered ‘surplus’ land and was easily lost to non-native homesteaders who bought up the land, and the allotment land that was left in the hands of Native Americans was scattered throughout the country. As they died their land was split up between their descendants and over time this fractionation limited economic development on reservations with only a few cents coming back from the land. Native Americans barely own the land that is left now most of it still being sold to nonnatives all the time. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 (IRA) pushed tribes to shift to a more self-government tribe but didn’t account for the policies that would overlap or even contradict this present day.

Present-day Pine Ridge sees the mixing of nonnatives that have bought the land and are now hunting on native land and natives that are struggling to live from day-to-day conflict with each other. Right now, the Bureau of Land Management is selling what is supposed to be protected Native land without letting the natives know and get to chance to even fight for their land. Auctions are held in unreachable places from the reservation, and no one informs the natives about when the auctions happen. The land is even sold for low prices to nonnatives looking for land to hunt on, but the prices change if a Native American person were to beat all the odds and be at the auction. The internet is far away with there being no power or telephone cables anywhere near reservations. The acquisition of Native land in the past is directly correlated to the economic and living status of Native American people now which prevents them from being able to fight for their land even with policies in place that are meant to support them.

The Impact on Native Americans in Pine Ridge

Present Day Harms

The battle of landownership and the subsequent loss of Native land has left reservations economically ruined. The Natives had been pushed and pulled off and, on their land, were given no support in trying to live in climates that didn’t benefit them. They couldn’t make enough money to buy their land back and to this day don’t make enough money to live.

Donald Morrison is a 60-year-old Native American resident on the Pine Ridges reservation. He lives in a small, tiny home at the edge of the reservation and has no working power or running water. Though he only lives a few miles away from electricity no authority has ever tried to provide him with access to the internet or running water and he lives off food stamps that only last him the first two weeks of a month. Donald can’t work because of an injury and owes money he will never be able to pay back in hospital bills. He doesn’t even hold out hope for actual help,

“I eventually gave up,” he recalls. “They just say they can’t help me. It’s a waste of time.”[7]

This is the trend with many Native Americans and especially on the Pine Ridge reservation. “The unemployment rate of Pine Ridge hovers around eighty percent, with a majority of the population living under federal poverty standards.”[8] Many Native Americans can’t attend school because all their efforts need to be put into finding or working their job. Even when they do have a job, they aren’t making enough money off the land to make a living fighting the other impacts of existing policies. Hospital bills, taxes, and just finding food to live off are prohibiting Native Americans from moving to just barely surviving to live. The other external harms like alcoholism, the suicide rate, police brutality, and the increasing crime rate only serve to fully stop Native Americans from not only trying to fight/buy their land back but also from coming together as a community.

The reservation needs any support it can get but even with policies like ones that provide only specific people with food stamps or nonprofits that hand out noodles and spam is not enough to make life worth living for a lot of Native Americans on the reservation. In fact, the Pine Ridge reservation had to declare a state of emergency when a spree of suicides happened with 14-15-year-olds killing themselves one after the other.[9] This is just one harmful effect like the diabetes crisis can give us a direct look at how existing policies are not just ineffective but harming the population. The diabetes rate is 8 times the national average and won’t be going down as food programs that provide food stamps to the people of reservations last so long until they have no choice but to rely on food donations not by the government but by non-profit organizations that provide food only once a month. The food options themselves are great being spam, or some type of canned meat, and paired with the rampant alcohol use it is only one more way that the Pine Ridge reservation is losing this battle against the federal government.

Policy Focus: External and Internal Support

There are existing policies that have recently been put into place in response to the Covid-19 crisis, that supposedly will put some money into reservations’ health insurance to keep them afloat during the pandemic. The American rescue plans invest $1.75 billion to help alleviate the stress and death that covid caused. Though it isn’t specifically for Native Americans and hasn’t seemed to help the problems that reservations are facing. It more covers the problem than directly addresses the harms and issues on Pine Ridge and other Native American reservations. To truly support reservations, policies that directly address issues like job opportunities, education system, food availability, and the loss of land will only be the start to giving back to Native Americans what historically the federal government has taken away from them.

The issue of Native American land being bought and slowly lost to nonnatives who are using it to hunt and build on can be directly addressed by a policy that attacks existing policies that are in place. The Bureau of Land Management has a policy called the Indian Preference Policy that uses Native American preference in the hiring process but only in Indian affairs, not overall job opportunities. This policy could be very effective if shifted a bit. Move the focus from incorporating Native American representation in Indian affairs to incorporating them in just American affairs. Supporting Native Americans as they search and get a job would allow the pressure of having to survive besides that to be diminished slowly. A steady income isn’t the overall solution but can help change the policy to focus on the indirect issues causing the loss of Native land is a start. The Indian Preference Policy can become a support system that could provide steady food, water, and maybe even a monthly stipend for Native Americans that are looking for or just beginning a job.

[1] “Our Story – the Reservation – Red Cloud Indian School.” n.d. Www.redcloudschool.org. https://www.redcloudschool.org/reservation.

[2] “Single Post | Truesiouxhope.” 2015. Truesiouxhope. True Sioux Hope Foundation. January 27, 2015. https://www.truesiouxhope.org/single-post/2015/01/27/HISTORY-OF-THE-PINE-RIDGE-OGLALA-LAKOTA-SIOUX.

[3] History.com Editors. 2019. “Native American History Timeline.” History. A&E Television Networks. January 15, 2019. https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/native-american-timeline.

[4] “The Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears | National Geographic Society.” n.d. Education.nationalgeographic.org. https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/indian-removal-act-and-trail-tears/.

[5] yongli. 2020. “Indian Appropriations Act (1871).” Coloradoencyclopedia.org. March 13, 2020. https://coloradoencyclopedia.org/article/indian-appropriations-act-1871.

[6] “Native American Lands | Ownership and Governance.” n.d. Revenuedata.doi.gov. https://revenuedata.doi.gov/how-revenue-works/native-american-ownership-governance/.

[7] Strickland, Patrick. 2016. “Life on the Pine Ridge Native American Reservation.” Www.aljazeera.com. November 2, 2016. https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2016/11/2/life-on-the-pine-ridge-native-american-reservation.

[8] Williams, Matthew. 2016. “What Life on a Native American Reservation Really Looks Like.” Huck Magazine. September 12, 2016. https://www.huckmag.com/art-and-culture/photography-2/native-american-reservation-pine-ridge-photography/.

[9] (Williams 2016)

(This my rough draft, I still need too add the conclusion though.)

My group’s topic for the deliberation was, “Accessibility of Student Health Care at Penn State.” We wanted to deliberate on a topic that was close to us and what we go through in our everyday lives while also being a type ll problem. The problem that we wanted to address was the fact that “Students are at risk for having harmful diseases and injuries go untreated unnecessarily because Penn State student health care is inaccessible, unaffordable, and alternatives are not readily available.” We approached this problem with three solutions, the first being the changing/expansion of UHS hours, the second, being alternative transportation, and the third promoting online health services. I think during the start of the presentation it was a bit harder to get everyone to start to talk and bounce off one another. Being the first group to go we had to find a way to get people to participate. As we went through approaches 1 and 2 though people started to have more things to deliberate on. Though approach 2 wasn’t favored it was what made everyone start to talk more and question the solution compared to approach 1. Even in the responses to our after-deliberation survey people still had strong opinions on the topic with 85.7% of the class agreeing that it was not effective as a solution. Other people might have even slightly liked approach 2 with someone saying, “I find the approach fairly effective but in terms of resources available I don’t know if this is feasible” I think my group did well with pairing our videos for each solution with our discussion being able to put up certain slides to get the conversation going. When we got to approach three everyone was hoping in and talking about different aspects of the presentation as we wrapped it up. Approach three was everyone’s overall favorite with 92% of the class agreeing it was the most effective solution. Though we did lack criteria for the class to judge I still think we did a good job as a group with our deliberation. 

Nothing more vivid can strike a memory than seeing the Disney channel logo be drawn out in front of your eyes right before your show starts. Your favorite character now lives outside of your beloved show and the excitement your body feels is almost overwhelming. For me that experience didn’t always ring true as I was a skinny, tall, shy black girl and only saw someone like me when I looked in the mirror. Representation was few and far between with movies like Princess and the frog being promoted as much as it could be. My voice shook on every syllable that left my mouth, anxious as anyone could ever be. I wasn’t outgoing and seeing myself being confident was as much as a dream as seeing a black girl on screen as often as other races. I believe that representation in the media is the starting point for self love. Being able to watch That’s so Raven and just see a black girl in the spotlight introduced me to the confidence I had not known I had before. So much so I wanted to share that with everyone in any shape or form I could, including public speaking.

My voice is as loud as I want it to be. It shrinks in front of too many people, when I have to stand up for myself, or when I am reading alone in my room. It grows in volume when someone hurts, when someone needs help, and when I am passionate. I don’t think my voice would have gotten above this, if not for the influence of certain shows and movies like, That’s So Raven that showed me I could be as loud as I wanted to be. Raven Braxter is an extroverted, exuberant, and passionate girl. Taking on every challenge that comes her way and not caring who sees her. I remember, eyes gleaming with awe, at such confidence wishing for myself that I could have a bit of hers to talk to the person who was bullying my best friend. I was only nine, a string bean whose voice squeaked when she talked and this eclipsing shadow of a fifth grader was the challenge I knew I needed to take on. I didn’t have supernatural powers like Raven, but I did know which lunch time the bully ate in so I knew where I needed to be. Sucking in a deep breath, squeezing my hands together, and remembering how this girl who looks like me was so sure of herself, I marched right up to the bully and stood on my tippy-toes before demanding they leave my best friend alone. I had never stuck up for myself let alone someone else before and even though I was shaking, my glasses foggy, the bully had gotten quiet and I had grown a foot taller. 

(Its definitely not finished but I got to the second subpoint)

For my Civic Blog I did decide to have it be about environmental issues that impact minorities. I think Its a really important topic that can be looked at microscopically being its a blog. I want to just shed light on things that are happening in the world when it comes to the environment that might not be acknowledged all of the time.  For my passion blog it was really hard for me to choose between the two of them but I am going to review different animes and decide if they’re something I would recommend to someone else or if they’re horrible and the reasons why.

For my blogs it was super hard to come up with new ideas to write about this semester but I really enjoyed writing my Disney blog last semester so I’m hoping that will continue into this semester. For my passion blog my two ideas are either to review and rate Marvel movies. I’m a huge Marvel fan and have been since I was a kid so I’ve almost watched every Marvel movie there is. Some of them are really amazing and have even more amazing actors but not every single one was a hit for me. My second idea is to watch and review different amines. I am a huge nerd and have already see so many amines and would love to share what makes each one of them unique and great or absolutely horrible and something nobody should watch. There are so many types of anime and animation styles I would look more closely at what really makes an anime so captivating to watch instead of a regular tv show. For my civic blog idea I either want to write about the impact of environmental issues on minority groups like tourism/cruises on islands or the public education system and a different aspect of it that needs working on each blog. These civic ideas are really important to me especially the environmental impacts on minority groups as when environmental concerns are brought up they are brought up in a large view which is always important but to examine it even closer to see how the strongly and directly the effects are on certain people is something I want to write about.  Lastly for my this I believe speech ideas I’m still not very sure about either of these but my speech can either about a very specific instance with mental health that I had to overcome. The other idea was to look into how I realized I was gay and the problems and other realizations that came along with this huge part of my identity being uncovered.

These are just a few slides I have found now, I will probably add more or change them later on!

(will have the actual photo later on)

(Tim Urban speaks at TED2016 – Dream, Session 4 – Lifehacks, February 15-19, 2016, This link will take you to the ted talk)

One of my favorite Ted Talks ever is Tim Urban’s “Inside The Mind of a Procrastinator.” I did watch it in class but it really describe my whole thought process I go through when I procrastinate. The way he uses humor and ridiculous images to convey his point makes it even more interesting to watch. He even says he procrastinated making the speech itself for Ted Talk. The fact that someone could describe the mess that my mind is when I procrastinate is amazing to me.

For my evolving ideas, I have a couple I am not sure on but like enough to consider them.

• Courting/dating expectations
• Men’s and women’s fashion
• Parental roles

I like these because I feel like there is a lot to say about all of them, and are interesting to the point that not every single detail of them might not be common knowledge. I can approach all of them in different ways and it would be easy to find ways to display one of the topics for my Ted Talk.

For my speech I definitely recognize my strengths and weaknesses in different areas. When it comes to my delivery I think that was one of my strengths. I think I speak clearly, try to convey emotion in my words, and engage with “the audience” with my hands and the tone of my voice. Another strength I think would be my format of my speech. I think how I set it up with how, what, and why kept all my points clear and helped anyone listening understand my train of thought more easily. With my weaknesses, I feel like the content maybe could have been more wide and that I could have gone in more detail with certain parts of the artifact. I also think my nervousness might have shown a bit, and I might have been talking really fast without realizing it. I watched Spencer’s speech about Dr. Evil and Climate change and I really loved how engaging he was with the topic and even put some of his own opinion in what he was talking about. I already was interested with what the relation could be between Dr. Evil and climate change but through his speech he made it really clear the connection between the two and what commonplaces there are.

While listening to the elevator pitches Richards caught my eye as he presented a topic I had not heard of before with a campaign I wish I didn’t know so much about. He elevator speech was concise and packed with information that left me wanting to know more. He leaves room to address his topic fully in his essay while giving a great general sense of what he will be talking about. He address Donald Trump’s campaign through an ideological lens choosing an artifact that truly fit what he choose to analyze. Without growing into great detail, he explained populism and how it relates to the artifact and Trump gaining so much support so quickly. I liked how, though Trump greatly deserves it, he did not throw shade on Trump but stuck to what the he was trying to convey with his artifact. The pitch made it clear he was focused on looking at populism and its affects with the artifact he chose and not straying from that. When it pertains to the artifact itself I think he choose a really strong one. It has so much he could analyze in it and very clearly relates to what he is pulling from the artifact itself.

(Romain Jacquet-Lagreze: Wild Concrete series, 2014)

What connects us as humans beings to nature? I answer: Endurance.

 Many artists take the subject of nature and use it in their paintings, sculptures, and drawings to convey any sort of message they feel is most important. Artists like Romain Jacquet-Lagreze want to compare the conditions between plants and humans and the tough environment they grow out of.

When looking at this artifact there is many lens I could address it through for example commonplaces, a rhetorical situation, or a social movement study. The topic of nature is so wide but as I close in on it, viewing it as a part of a comparison with us as humans and how though not the same still find a way to endure through hardships. I can narrow down what the impact and influence of this particular artifact creates.

Thinking about this artifact and how it relates to our everyday lives, living in an urban environment ourselves, we can make emotional connections to the art pieces and might even find ourselves wanting to fight for a cause we had not before.

Thank you

Sources:

https://www.boredpanda.com/wild-concrete/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic