Delphine Red Shirt

The United States Army has never been our friend.

In the past few weeks, what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has done proves this point, that the U.S. Army, under any title, whether it was the Seventh Cavalry, massacring women and children at Wounded Knee in December of 1890, or since December of 2016, issuing a report clearing the way for yet, another type of human devastation. This time, it wasn’t enough to massacre innocent women and children at Wounded Knee, but to blindly clear the way so that the land and water for millions of people beyond the Sioux nation could be forever contaminated. This is no longer tit-for-tat (“blow for blow”), but reflects a war against innocent people who rely on clean drinking water along the Missouri River.

History tells us, that the U.S. Army has never been a friend to any American Indian or Native American. According to the 2010 Census, 5.2 million people in the U.S. identified as American Indian or Alaska Native, either alone or in combination with one or more races. Out of this total, 2.9 million people identified as American Indian alone.

The data on race has been collected since 1790, when the first U.S. census was recorded. The 1860 Census was the first to record American Indians as a separate race group. The 1890 Census was the first to count American Indians throughout the U.S. For Alaska Natives in Alaska who were counted in the 1880 census under the “American Indian” category, they have been separated since 1940 in their own category.

In 2010, approximately 40.7 percent of American Indians lived in the west who reported that they were American Indian and Alaska Native alone, or in combination (mixed) with other races. About 32.8 percent lived in the southern part of the U.S., 16.8 percent in the Midwest and only 9.7 percent in the Northeast.

Among those who reported they were American Indian or Alaska Native alone, 45.6 percent lived in the west and 31.5 percent lived in the south, while 15.6 percent lived in the Midwest and only 7.3 percent lived in the northeast.

When you look at these numbers, you could say, the Standing Rock Sioux represent approximately half of all American Indians who live in the west. The majority (45.6 percent) live west of the Missouri River. Of all of these tribes in the west, you can count the massacres, the forced re-locations, and the general erasure of whole tribes through termination policies. We, as American Indians have faced severe odds and survived, thanks to our own will to continue to live and thrive on our homelands.

American archeologists state, although it is their best guess, that we have been here for 14,000 years. That is how long American Indians have taken care of North America. What the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is allowing one corporation to do is to destroy 14,000 years of careful “stewardship” by whole nations of American Indians who collectively protected their own territories as the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is trying to do.

What is going to happen when the first pipe bursts in the area of the Missouri River? Who will be affected? A smaller percentage of people on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and a greater percentage of all of all other Americans who live, enjoy, and benefit from 14,000 years of careful Stewardship by American Indian tribes from that area of the U.S.

The U.S. Army, whether it is the Army Corps of Engineers, has never been our friend. When you say “American Indian” in the U.S., entities like the state of North Dakota, and the U.S. Army/Army Corps of Engineers go into a “fight/flee response.” A “flee” response comes from, the historic memory of when the Sioux, the only tribe in U.S. history, defeated the U.S. Army at Custer’s Last Stand in 1876. A “fight” response, this time, is not the right response because millions of other Americans will be impacted by the short-sighted decision to allow environmental degradation along the Missouri River by a single corporation.

MY VOICE

Delphine Red Shirt is a Native American author and educator, who is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Reservation. My Voice columns should be 500 to 700words. Submissions should include a portrait-type photograph of the author. Authors also should include their full name, age, occupation and relevant organizational memberships.

Send columns to Argus Leader, Box 5034, Sioux Falls, SD 57117-5034, fax them to 605-331-2294 or email them to letters@argusleader.com.