Tribal leader Dave Archambault II has struggled to forge unity among native people, as some see him as an enemy in the struggle against Donald Trump

Dave Archambault II pulled his car over and grabbed a piece of paper. Parked in a quiet lot near his home in Cannon Ball, North Dakota, the Standing Rock Sioux chairman drew a line graph representing the history of his tribe.

Hundreds of years of despair leading to a peak moment of harmony and euphoria last year, when indigenous people from across the country converged on the area to fight the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline.

But the movement, he said, now seemed to be imploding. He grew silent, and at the top of the sheet, jotted down three words in small letters: “Divided we fall.”

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Archambault has become the face of the internationally recognized battle to stop the pipeline, but the oil corporation and the federal government are no longer his only enemies. Some of the most dedicated activists opposing the project now see Archambault as an adversary, a leader who has weakened and divided “water protectors” and threatened the resistance. His angriest Native American critics call him “DAPL Dave”.

Days after pipeline workers resumed drilling across the Missouri river, which provides drinking water to the tribe and flows a short distance from his house, Archambault explained why he has urged demonstrators to go home.

Miles away, activists were doing the very opposite: organizing supplies, building new camps and vowing to stay in place until the pipeline is defeated.

‘We’ve given up everything we have’

Amid these growing tensions, Archambault has been looking to the past. At least one branch of the US government has declared its treatment of the Great Sioux Reservation a blight on America’s past, when, in 1975, a federal court concluded that “a more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings will never, in all probability, be found in our history”.

The past is present, Archambault explained, and the government stole more than just land. “They also took our children and put them in boarding schools and raped them and cut their hair and stole their language.”

His grandmother was beaten for speaking her native language, so she did not pass it on to her children, he said, and youth were threatened with jail if they were caught practicing their religion. The chairman also recounted how his uncles were involved in the grassroots American Indian Movement and were attacked by the FBI.

After decades of oppressive policies, Standing Rock has some of the poorest counties in the country today: a lack of housing and economic development, excessive substance abuse and physical abuse, high rates of dropouts and suicides, poor education and poor healthcare.

Dave Archambault with his dog Kuma. Photograph: Sam Levin

“For almost two centuries, we’ve been giving up everything we have and we’ve been paying the cost,” Archambault said. “And the cost that I see today is the continued state of dependency, the continued broken promises.”

It’s not hard to see how the $3.7bn oil pipeline became a flashpoint for indigenous rights across the globe. An early proposal called for the project to cross the Missouri river just north of Bismarck, but was rejected partly due to concerns about the water supply in the mostly white city. The final route, which the pipeline company says could be complete in three months, is just upstream of Standing Rock.

Archambault, who was arrested during an early demonstration in August, said the unprecedented gathering of hundreds of unified tribes at Standing Rock last year was a gift that gave him a sense of “euphoria” he had never felt before. “I didn’t want to ever leave the camp.”

The unity was short-lived.

‘I feel abandoned’

By fall, a highly militarized police force began making mass arrests, deploying rubber bullets, water cannons and pepper spray, locking indigenous people in cages and prompting a United Nations investigation.

Although the Obama administration denied a key permit for the pipeline in December, many recognized it was only a temporary victory, since Donald Trump, who has received donations from the oil company’s CEO, would soon take office.

At that point, Archambault said there were about 10,000 people at the camps amid a major snowstorm and sub-zero temperatures. Afraid for their lives, he asked them to go home: “I didn’t want to find a body.”

With the tribe’s legal battle against the project still active, the chairman has insisted that people leave. But many have returned following Trump’s fast-tracked approvals, and Archambault fears flooding could endanger people’s safety.

More broadly, he struggles to understand the ongoing value of the camps. “Do you think someone will get hurt? Do you think they have a family? Is it wrong of me to think about their family?”

Anthony Gazotti. Photograph: Sam Levin

He said he fears the “war” that some seek on the ground will only lead to further oppression. He recalled his people’s victory in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, which led to invasions, massacres and devastation. “I ask them to stay out of harm’s way because I love them.”

But at the camps, resentment toward Archambault has boiled over. Fueled by the rapid spread of misinformation, some are even convinced he is taking money from the oil company, earning him the “DAPL Dave” slur.

“I feel abandoned,” said Frank Archambault, a relative of the chairman and member of Standing Rock, huddled inside a packed tent on a frigid morning. “They just abandoned me and my family, along with my new family here.”

Anthony Gazotti, a 47-year-old Apache and recent arrival from Colorado, said the tribal council seemed no different than federal officials promoting the project.

“Telling us not to do what we believe in is the same thing the government is saying,” he said. “Nothing is going to make these people go home unless the pipeline is packed up.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Kristen Tuske (left), Floris White Bull, Wasté Win Young (right) at Wasté’s home in Fort Yates. Photograph: Sam Levin

On Saturday evening in Fort Yates, half an hour south of the camps, longtime friends from Standing Rock said it was difficult to have faith in the chairman.

“The council asked them to leave at the most critical time,” said Wasté Win Young, 38.

“I want to understand his viewpoint, but I can’t,” added Floris White Bull, 33. “To me, it feels like he didn’t just let us down. He let a lot of tribes down. It feels like an opportunity slipping away.”

The struggle with the president

Toward the end of the drive, Archambault parked his car at the Cannon Ball “pit stop”, a nondescript convenience store on Highway 1806. While his dog, Kuma, napped in the back seat, he recalled how his father encouraged him to get into business when he was a young adult, telling him: “‘Look around, there’s not one Indian-owned business on Standing Rock.”

He eventually bought the store and built a home nearby for his daughter – his way, he said, of fighting back against the “state of dependency” that plagues so many tribes.

Regardless of what happens to the Dakota Access pipeline, Archambault said he hoped people would find ways to fight back against Trump.

“This president is going to attack our treaties, he’s going to attack our sovereignty,” he said. “He’s going to try to do whatever he can to eliminate tribes.”

At one point, he slowed down the car and peered out the window at piles of trash strewn across the melting snow. He let out a sigh and explained that the US government won’t let his community have a landfill, so residents have to use open dumpsters, and local dogs often get inside and make a mess.

It’s just one of many challenges he faces as chairman. “I have a nephew who lives right there,” he said, gesturing at the trash. “This is what he sees every day.”