Growing population, shrinking land base. It’s been decades since Madonna Thunder Hawk last saw the valley she grew up in on the Cheyenne River Reservation. Now the Old Agency lies buried under the Missouri River. The United States government sent the river rushing over the reservation’s largest town in 1960 as part of a series of post-war federal flood control projects. In the history of Native American land dispossession in North America, the creation of the Oahe Dam is little more than a footnote. The dam wasn’t illegal, or even militaristic – though the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built it. The scale of land loss is hard to quantify. One study estimates that tribes have, on average, lost nearly 3 percent of the land base they had before 19th-century forced migration.
Pine Ridge made it on the 10 Largest Native American Reservations In The USA You Can Visit. Americas largest Native American Reservations are bigger than some of the smallest U.S. states, and some are open for outsiders to visit and explore. The Pine Ridge Reservation is located on the Great Plains in Nebraska and South Dakota. It is governed by the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council and is considered to be one of the biggest reservations in the US. In history, the area was the site of some of the incidents of the Plains American Indians Wars, including the Wounded Knee Massacre of 150 to 300 Lakota people by the US Army. Pine Ridge sits on 4,300 sq miles and has a people Population of 19,000.
Those are your headlines at this hour. I’m Colette Keith in the KIPI News center.
