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PIERRE | Those who planned the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline route carefully avoided crossing the four major Indian reservations in western South Dakota, but the route runs entirely through the territory promised to the Great Sioux Nation in the 1868 treaty. By statehood in 1889, most of that land didn’t belong to tribal people.

That taking, accomplished in a single generation, is what has ailed South Dakota for more than 126 years and probably will forever undercut our ability to live together.

When the Public Utilities Commission agreed Tuesday that TransCanada had certified it could still meet the conditions of its 2010 permit to build Keystone XL, chairman Chris Nelson said he had been mystified for some time by tribal opponents. He said a letter from Debra White Plume of Manderson explained that she had a different worldview about the “black snake” proposed by TransCanada.

The commissioners decided early in the process they wouldn’t consider who lived on the land prior to statehood and the 1868 treaty and who might claim rights to it. But what happened from 1868 to 1889 had everything to do with the tribal opposition to Keystone XL.