Ranchers and natives put a non-traditional face on the anti-Keystone movement. Anti-Keystone protest rides in

Cowboys and Indians rode on horseback onto the National Mall on Tuesday to show President Barack Obama that opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline extends to the U.S. heartland.

“We’re here to show Obama, to show Washington, D.C., the very faces of the people that the decision on the KXL pipeline affects,” protester Dallas Goldtooth told a crowd on the Mall, where the group erected teepees that will remain through Saturday.


Ranchers and native tribes that oppose the pipeline formed the Cowboys and Indians Alliance, putting a non-traditional face on the anti-Keystone movement that has spanned the president’s time in office. Their goal — like that of their environmentalist counterparts — is to persuade Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to determine that the pipeline from Canada would go against the national interest.

( Also on POLITICO: Horses, teepees in Keystone protest)

“We have stopped the pipeline in its tracks for the last five years,” said Jane Kleeb, of the environmental group Bold Nebraska. The new protest is meant to show that “tribes have the moral authority and the farmers and ranchers have the rights to their land,” Kleeb said.

Several tribes from across the country joined together in January at the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota and signed a treaty formally agreeing to oppose tar sands projects in their territories.

“Of all people, we know not to break a treaty,” Faith Spotted Eagle, an elder of the Yankton Sioux, told the crowd.

The Sioux’s worries go beyond environmental concerns, she said. “We are worried about man camps that are coming to our territory,” she said of the male-centric labor camps that move into areas around drilling and building sites in the West. “We have seen our women suffer. One out of three women in our nation have been sexually assaulted by non-native people.”

And the ranchers — or “cowboys” — are concerned not just about protecting sensitive aquifers near the pipeline, but also about their land rights, several said at the protest.

“I’m here to support the neighbors to the north that don’t want the pipeline across their land,” said Julia Trigg Crawford, a Texas rancher who rode in on horseback.

She didn’t have so much luck with her own land. Part of the Oklahoma-to-Texas southern leg of Keystone XL, which has already been built, runs through Crawford’s ranch land on the Red River.

“Basically they came in and said a foreign corporation building a for-profit pipeline had more of a right to my land than I did,” Crawford said. The land can be used for grazing, but she can’t build a house or drive across it, she said.

Crawford received a check for $10,395 two years ago but has never cashed it, she said.

Crawford was one of about 20 ranchers, farmers and Native Americans who arrived on horseback to join about 50 others on Third Street Northwest, bisecting the Mall. Under the gaze of the Capitol building, the “cowboys and Indians” held a ceremonial gift exchange, followed by a water ceremony at the Reflecting Pool.

Then the whole group, led by those on horseback, walked down Independence Avenue to the other end of the Mall, where huge teepees circled around a stage. The Indigo Girls sang two songs while ranchers handed posts to Native Americans erecting a ceremonial teepee.

On Saturday, the center teepee, adorned with the Indian names President Barack Obama received from Montana’s Crow Nation and the Lakota tribe and painted with symbols symbolizing land and water protection, will be presented as a gift to the National Museum of the American Indian. Organizers said the museum has agreed to house the teepee in its collection.

The organizers also expect 5,000 more protesters at a rally on Saturday. That will follow a week of events, including a “traditional ceremony” outside Kerry’s house. Organizers also said that activist group The Other 98% plans to use a high-intensity projector to project messages about Keystone XL onto the Environmental Protection Agency’s headquarters Thursday night.

Shawn Howard, a spokesman for Keystone builder TransCanada, said the focus of the protest was unfortunate “when 100 percent of the landowners in South Dakota and Montana have already negotiated generous agreements with TransCanada to access their property for Keystone XL.” About 79 percent of landowners in Nebraska have agreed to terms, he said.

And Howard said the pipeline wouldn’t cross reservations or lands held in trust, but nevertheless the company has been working with Native American tribes since 2008. “While we recognize that not everyone may support our pipeline, we also deal with the concerns expressed by tribes and other landowners respectfully,” Howard said.

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