This news is huge! I wonder what result it will bring. It could have significant implications for the First Nation people who live just a few kilometers from my Canadian childhood hometown.
Freedom! Lakota Sioux Indians Declare Sovereign Nation Status
Threaten Land Liens, Contested Real Estate Over Five State Area in U.S.West Dakota Territory Reverts back to Lakota Control According to U.S., International Law
Lakota are the First Nations people who partially fled the American west after the Battle of Little Big Horn, where General Custer was soundly defeated (and killed). Sitting Bull and approximately 5000 of his followers moved to Canada, where the bulk of them remained for quite some time. In what is unofficially Canada’s first “peace keeping mission”, the newly created North West Mounted Police were dispatched to greet and control the influx of Lakota Sioux refugees.
The NWMP mission was a success, as Walsh (for whom the Fort Walsh in the Cypress Hills is named after) befriended Sitting Bull, and the Lakota accepted the Queen’s offer to remain in Canada peacefully. Western settlement of Canada was still in its infancy at that time. As time passed, fires were rumoured to be set by the American military in order to keep the buffalo from migrating north into Canada where they could be hunted by the Lakota. The refugees were sustained by a kind Metis man named Legare for as long as he could manage, but most of the Lakota surrendered to the Americans. Sitting Bull returned as well, under the American promise not to harm him, but he was murdered in a fight.
Lakota Sioux remain on the Wood Mountain First Nation Reserve to this day. Some of the original refugees went to the Fort Qu’Appelle area to live, rather than returning to the United States in the 19th century.
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Hat tip to NBCDipper
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sassy | 24-Dec-07 at 12:32 pm | Permalink
QU’APPELLE VALLEY - I had the delighful visual surprise of driving into the valley a few years back BUT I had no idea of the legend, thanks
Wishing you a very Happy Christmas, all the very best in the New Year and …. thanking you for your blog, much enjoyed and often read by yours truly.
Cheers
Trouble | 25-Dec-07 at 12:55 pm | Permalink
I thought the news was significant as well. I’ve often pondered the threat of succession as the only meaningful tool a group can use against an apathetic state.
My greater concern is if there is an expressed solidarity between bands the elders may end up on a CIA watchlist under the banner of ‘domestic terrorism’.
May we live in interesting times.
Louise | 28-Dec-07 at 6:42 am | Permalink
Only problem is that Russell Means is to the American Indian Movement what David Ahenakew was to the Canadian movement: a loud-mouthed boor whose only contribution was cussing and swearing at the “God-damned Whiteman” while lining his own pocket. (Ahenakew’s house on his reserve is the old Indian Agent’s home all fixed up and beautiful, and his family have all the good houses. )
Both men were hate mongers who used their people to make themselves into bigshots with a whole slew of little white groupies lapping up their every word. The only thing they both knew how to do was aggitate and drum up hatred.
When I read the news about Russell Means, the first thought that entered my head was “good riddance to bad rubbish”. The US authorities must be having a hard time hiding their collective snickering belly laugh from the media. The guy, and the group with whom he was associated, were and remain a bunch of thugs. Withdrawing from the US (or Canada, as the case may be) would leave them with absolutely nothing. Native Americans are a diverse group with nearly 600 different ethnic identities collectively outnumbered 300 to 1 by non-natives. Just what sort of future would the Sioux have if they withdrew from the US and established their own teeny-weensy island of an independent nation in the middle of nowhere?
The threat is nothing but noisy bluster from a group that couldn’t organize a bowel movement, let alone a real independance movement. At least they now have funding a services from the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs. That would no longer be available should they do what Means and a handful of other old 60s radicals have been wistfully hoping for over the past 35 or more years. These people are old and their ideas are bankrupt.
Louise | 28-Dec-07 at 7:41 am | Permalink
And one more thing. The “Nation within a nation” slogan is not new nor did it originate in Quebec. It was coined by native provincial organizations in Saskatchewan and Alberta in the early 1970s.