#BenAndJerrys have this wonderful post on their homepage 👏
Here it goes:
The #US Was Founded on Stolen #Indigenous Land—This #July4, Let’s Commit to Returning It
Ah, the Fourth of July. Who doesn't love a good parade, some tasty barbecue, and a stirring fireworks display? The only problem with all that, though, is that it can distract from an essential truth about this nation’s birth: The US was founded on stolen Indigenous land.
This year, let’s commit to returning it.
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Here’s why we need to start with #MountRushmore.
The Story of #TunkasilaSakpe
When Indigenous leaders blocked the road to Mount Rushmore before an Independence Day celebration in 2020, it highlighted a #conflict that most #Americans probably know little about.
Long before #SouthDakota had become a state, long before the faces of four American #presidents were blasted into the side of Mount Rushmore,
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that mountain was known as Tunkasila Sakpe, the #SixGrandfathers, to the #LakotaSioux—a holy mountain that rises up from the #BlackHills, land they consider sacred.
“The Heart of Everything that Is”
The Black Hills are known to the Lakota as “the heart of everything that is.”
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After decades fighting to keep #colonizers off their land, the #Lakota and other #tribes signed the #FortLaramieTreaties of 1851 and 1868, establishing a 35-million-acre “permanent home” for them that included the #BlackHills.
What’s your definition of “permanent”? Well, to #US officials at the time, it apparently was something along the lines of “until gold is discovered.”
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The government broke those treaties only a few years later, when gold prospectors and #settlers flooded in and carved up the land for themselves.
Insult to Injury
The #GreatSiouxNation, as the tribes in the area were collectively known, was forced to surrender its land and relocate to smaller #reservations on land that the #government considered “useless.”
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From there, in 1927, they watched as their holy mountain, now located on land known as #SouthDakota, was desecrated and dynamited to honor their #colonizers, four white men—two of whom #enslaved people and all of whom were hostile to #Indigenous people and values.
This Sacred Land Is Not For Sale
In 1970, Indigenous activists climbed #MountRushmore and occupied it for months, demanding that land be returned to the #Sioux.
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Ten years later, the #USSupremeCourt ruled that #MountRushmore and the #BlackHills had indeed been stolen, saying “A more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings will never…be found in our history.” They awarded the #Sioux $105 millions in damages, but the #tribes refused the payment. Why? Because this #SacredLand is theirs—and it’s not for sale.
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Stewards of the Land
That money has been held in trust since 1980 and now is worth about $2 billion (with interest). The tribes still refuse it, despite living in some of the poorest communities in the #US.
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"We are poor because our resources were stolen from us…But our connection to the #BlackHills is not a monetary one. Our main concern is that the land not be desecrated and we be allowed to resume our role as stewards of the land—that is our purpose as #Lakota."
- Red Dawn Foster, Oglala Lakota, #SouthDakota state senator
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The #LandBack Movement
Why are we talking about this? Because on the #FourthOfJuly many people in the #US celebrate #liberty and #independence—our country’s and our own.
But what is the meaning of #IndependenceDay for those whose land this country stole, those who were murdered and forced with brutal violence onto #reservations, those who were pushed from their holy places and denied their #freedom?
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The faces on #MountRushmore are the faces of men who actively worked to destroy #Indigenous cultures and ways of life, to deny Indigenous people their basic rights.
The Indigenous-led #LandBack movement is all about restoring the rights and freedoms of Indigenous people. It’s about dismantling #WhiteSupremacy and systems of #oppression and ensuring that Indigenous people can again govern the land their #communities called home for thousands of years.
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/unreserved/indigenous-land-back-movement-1.6704611
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Land Back is a movement, gaining momentum, that calls for the acknowledgement and return of Indigenous sovereignty over traditional territories. Unreserved visits three places on Turtle Island where people are engaged in the Land Back movement and meet some of the leaders who are on the frontlines.
Return #MountRushmore to the #Lakota!
The #US exists on stolen land. We have to acknowledge that—today and every day.
In the case of Mount Rushmore, the #SupremeCourt already did!
This Fourth of July, it’s time to return that sacred place to the Lakota. Let’s make it a day that embraces freedom and justice for all.
anna_lillith 🇺🇦🌱🐖
