America's 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 that 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 of the standoff at Oglala, then you know that Pine Ridge is Ground Zero for Native issues in the US. 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.

Um, you’ll see a lot of people in my photographs today, and I’ve become very close with them. 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 wasichu. Wasichu 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 of 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, when 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.

In 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.

In 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. In 1866, the beginning of the Transcontinental Railroad marked 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 Lakota Chief Red Cloud attacked and defeated the US Army many times over. I want to repeat that part: the Lakota defeated the US Army. In 1868, the second Fort Laramie Treaty clearly guarantees the sovereignty of the Great Sioux Nation and the Lakota's ownership of the Sacred Black Hills. The government also promises land and hunting rights in the surrounding states. We promise that the Powder River Country will henceforth be closed to all whites.

The treaty seemed to be a complete victory for Red Cloud and 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. In 1869, the Transcontinental Railroad was completed; it began carrying, among other things, large numbers of hunters who began the wholesale killing of buffalo, eliminating a source of food, clothing, and shelter for the Sioux.

In 1871, the Indian Appropriation Act made all Indians wards 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. The problem with treaties is that they allow tribes to exist as Sovereign Nations, and we can’t have that; we had plans.

In 1874, General George Custer announced the discovery of gold in Lakota territory, specifically the Black Hills. The news of gold created a massive influx of white settlers into the Lakota Nation. Custer recommended that Congress find a way to end the treaties with the Lakota as soon as possible. In 1875, the Lakota War began over the violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty.

In 1876, on July 26th, on its way to attack a Lakota village, Custer's Seventh Cavalry was crushed in the Battle of Little Bighorn. In 1877, the great Lakota warrior and 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 a campaign known as "Sell or Starve": sign 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-fourths of the tribe to sign away land; that clause was obviously ignored. In 1887, the Dawes Act ended communal ownership of reservation lands. Reservations were 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 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 wasichu.

In 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 Big Foot and 300 prisoners of war using a new