Counting Coup – Lakota Citizens Stop US Helicopters from Landing at Wounded Knee

May 3, 2010 by Russell Means Freedom
Filed under Featured, News

By : Russell Means
In answer to today’s United States Government and its Colonial Corporation, the Oglala Sioux Tribal Govenment’s press conference:
“We the Lakotah People, do not want our massacred dead bodies of Men, Women and Children at the mass grave at Wounded Knee used for publicity by the United States Government nor their colonial corporation, the Oglala Sioux Tribal Government.”

On May 1, 2010, two young men, the Camp brothers counted coup on the first 7th Cavalry helicopter and Debbie White Plume, an elder and grandmother who charged the second helicopter preventing it from landing. By running under the blades and touching them without harming the enemy and getting away is how the Lakotah counted coup on this eventful day.

May 2, 2010 at 9:35am
Dakota.
To the Original Peoples of the Fourth World and all International Press Services:

At high noon today US Army helicopters of the US Seventh Cavalry air division attempted to land their Blackhawk aircraft upon Lakota Sacred Burial grounds in South Dakota. The presence of military aircraft from this unit is a sad and insulting reminder of the slaughter of more than 300 American Aboriginals on December 29, 1890 when soldiers of the US 7th Cavalry gunned down more than 300 Aboriginal Minneconjou Lakota refugee children, women, infants and the elderly at what is now called Wounded Knee in South Dakota Indian Country. The military then left the bodies of their victims to decay unburied in the driving snow.

According to reports from Indigenous Rights Movement Radio host Wanblee this afternoon, Lakota resident Theresa TwoBulls was given less than 24 hrs notice that three US Army 7th Cavalry helicopters would make a landing on the sacred burial grounds at Wounded Knee. As of this writing, the US military was confronted by angry but peaceful and steadfast community resistance as the Aboriginal people of the area have so far, according to reports from Lakota people on the ground, managed to prevent the aircraft from touching Indigenous ground.

For all American Aboriginals of the Americas, this is a sacred area. This is the place where the promise of a people died while fleeing from a genocidal US military unit hell-bent on liquidating the continent of its Indigenous population. There has never been any official apology offered for this massacre and the military awards bestowed upon the genocidal aggressors involved in this conflict still stand, as does a physical monument in honour of the US Army killed during Custer’s “last stand” against a defiant and united Indigenous resistance to their own demise.

The history of the US Army 7th Cavalry is important to understanding the level of violence used against Indigenous peoples. It is important to remember that after the US Seventh Cavalry officially ended the “Indian Wars” at home, they were then dispatched to do battle against Indigenous Filipinos struggling to maintain their hard-won national independence from the colonialist Spanish. In other words, the US War Department sent this very same unit to do overseas what was done here to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. In this historical light, it is only logical for Indigenous peoples to assume that the Obama administration is attempting to make a political point out of this spectacle. Only, what sort of message are you sending by insulting and humiliating a people already suffering from five centuries of continuous pro-Europocentric, anti-Indigenous genocide?

This domestic military action is a deliberate insult and an obvious message of ongoing colonialism, state-sponsored racism and apathetic Indigenous genocide to all Indigenous peoples across the Fourth World; to the whole of the Lakota/Dakota Nation; and to the Indigenous residents of Pine Ridge and Wounded Knee. The symbolism of dispatching the Seventh Cavalry to Wounded Knee in an attempt to land weapons of mass destruction on Aboriginal sacred ground tells us how little this government, and this particular administration, respects the people of Indian Country and our significant historical perspective as survivors of the racist Euro-settler xenophobic purges waged against the Indian in the Americas.

To make matters worse, this action comes on the heels of newly-passed legislation in Arizona state that requires law officers to racially-profile anyone they believe “looks”, “sounds” or “dresses” like an illegal immigrant, a thinly veiled “race law” that directly effects both our Indigenous sisters and brothers native to Occupied Mexico as well as the Native American population of Arizona in the United States. Given that most Indigenous peoples of the Americas share the same general physiotype and more often than not, similar Spanish last names, the passage of this guideline will without a doubt lead to widespread abuses against that state’s brown-skinned population. The legal door now opened, Texas and other states led by neo-confederate constituencies are moving to pass their own anti-immigrant/anti-Indigenous directives that will broadly effect anyone and everyone who could be perceived by the colonial European majority as a “foreign invader”.

The Obama administration has shown America and the world that they are no different than any other previous US government in their view that the American Indian on both sides of the US border is nothing more than a prop or a tool to be displayed only when it is useful to promote the “contemporary” 21st century neo-colonialist capitalist agenda. The Obama administration, an office headed by a man of African descent, has shamed itself and all those who have supported his candidacy in arrogantly dismissing the memory of our people interred at Wounded Knee by rubbing the military might of the historically anti-Indigenous 7th Cavalry in our faces by forcibly entering Indian Country in an attempt to land their machines of war on top of the bodies of our ancestral dead.

Clearly, the culture war against the American Indian is not over. Welcome to the new American century.

Pass this on We must get the word out…..Let everyone know..Contact the your local media….Tell them the the Local Media in (Rapid City, SD) haven’t even mentioned this in the news…So typical for rapid city SD media…and if they did post it, it would not be the truth..I tried to contact the Rapid City Urinal….LOL. They wont return my calls or post any of the comments I have made in defense of our people.
James ( Magaska) Swan AIM Black Hills South Dakota

iReport —CNN news 5/3/2010
Today at just past Noon Central Time; Three US Army Helicopters attepted to land on Lakota Sacred Burial grounds at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
The Helicopters were from the Seventh Cavalry which were Historically remnants of General G.A. Custer whose troops were defeated at Little Big Horn in one of the Many battles the United States as they waged a war of attrition and Genocide on Native Americans after the Civil War.
On Dec 28, 1890 remnants of the Seventh Cavalry Mowed down more than 300 Babies, Children, Women, Old People and Men; at what is now called Wounded Knee, South Dakota and left their Victims bodies unburied and Frozen.
Theresa TwoBulls was given less than 24 hrs Notice that Three US Army 7th Cav helicopters would Land on the Burial Grounds at Wounded Knee today.
They were met with Peaceful but Firm resistance, as Lakota (Sioux) Women and Children stood Immobile on that Sacred Ground, preventing the Gross, Unspeakable Insult of 7th Cav. choppers to Land on the same ground where more than 300 Murder Victims lay Buried.
A Lakota Mother said..”I cannot believe they are doing this, have they ( 7th Cav) NO Respect for Our Dead ” ?
Evidently the 3 Helicopters & Brass in Charge did not know their history..and what a Unspeakable Insult it was to the Residents of Pine Ridge, Wounded Knee and the Lakota People; to have the ACTUAL Seventh Cavalry Choppers attempt to land on this Sacred Ground.
This was Broadcast Live on Blogtalkradio, Indigenous People Rights today.
More to follow as reports come in.

Tags: 7th Cavalry, Arizona, Colonialism, Custer, Philipines, racism, Wounded Knee

Garry Rowland speaks about the Republic of Lakotah

March 12, 2010 by Russell Means Freedom
Filed under Commentaries

The Black Hills Are Everything! by David Swallow

July 16, 2009 by admin1
Filed under Featured, News

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by David Swallow, Jr.

Traditional Lakota Spiritual Leader

and a Head Man of the Lakota Nation

July 5, 2009 Porcupine, South Dakota

The white man calls me David Swallow, Jr. but my real name is Wowitan Yuha Mani. I am a TetohLakota of the Wa Naweg’a Band and I live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

This is the way my Grandpa Najutala told me, a long time ago. He was a teenager when the 1868 Treaty was signed. He’s gone now but this is how he told me about the sacred Black Hills.

The Black Hills used to be occupied by the Crow Tribe. That was way back, like in the 1700’s, even the 1600’s. Then, the Black Hills were taken by the Shahiyela (the Cheyenne). Then, the Lakota took them from the Cheyenne. Finally, the white man took them from the Lakota.

The Lakota look at the Black Hills as having spiritual power. All the Plains Tribes look at them that way. But the white man saw only the yellow rock called gold. They tried to make deals to get the land in the Treaties of 1825, 1851, 1868, and even the Bradley Bill of the 1980’s.

However, the only Treaty that should be recognized concerning the Black Hills is the Treaty of 1851. At that time, all the tribes signed this Treaty and they signed it in a holy way. The Lakota brought the Sacred White Buffalo Calf C’anunpa, the Cheyenne brought their 7 sacred arrows, and the Crow, Arikara, and other tribes brought their sacred bundles.

They all held ceremonies before they held the pen. They all agreed that no settlers should enter that sacred area, the Black Hills. The way that Treaty was written, this became a non-negotiable matter from that time on. No other Treaty would have the right to change that.

But the government and homesteaders, the settlers and prospectors kept invading the Black Hills.

As a result, the Federal Government renegotiated the terms and called it the Fort Laramie 1868 Treaty. This time, the original signers of the 1851 Treaty didn’t want to sign. Many were fighting. There were no sacred ceremonies done and only one sacred c’anunpa, only one sacred prayer pipe, was present.

The prospectors and homesteaders brought in whiskey to get many of the signers drunk so they would sign. My grandfather told me all about this. He saw it, personally. Mni wakan, sacred water, is what the Lakota called alcohol because it affected our people so strongly.

So this is how we lost the Black Hills.

Six years later, in 1874, General George Armstrong Custer took an expedition into the Black Hills which included a geologist and numerous miners. What they found immediately caused a major gold rush and the white settlers and miners began pouring into the Black Hills. The treaties were completely ignored.

In 1876, the Indian Appropriations Act demanded the Sioux give back the Black Hills or starve under siege. Then they ordered the destruction of all the buffalo herds. By 1889, the Federal Government had forced the Lakota into prisoner of war camps which they now call Reservations. According to government documents, Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is prisoner of war camp #344.

Around 1990, I rode 7 years with many young people to the Crazy Horse Monument. When we crossed our so-called homelands, we were stopped by the white landowners because we didn’t have their permission. One old homesteader showed us his deed showing where he had bought the land from the Federal Government. He told us that if we didn’t like it, we should go talk to the Federal Government who got it from the Louisiana Purchase.

So, we lost our Black Hills. Some said we sold them. If so, I believe somebody took the money without any of us Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, Cheyenne or Arikara knowing it. There is no money.

In 1980, the United States Supreme Court said the Black Hills did rightfully belong to the Lakota. They wanted to buy them from us but our People have refused that money. The sacred Black Hills are not for sale.

But that’s why the Bradley Bill was introduced in 1987 in Congress, to make it look good. It supposedly would have let us live in the Black Hills while the Federal Government could still mine, trespass, and do whatever they wanted. But even that was never approved.

So, saying the Black Hills are ours and belong to us are just hollow, empty words. If they are really ours, why can’t we live there? It’s only occupied by white people with land deeds.

We cannot even go to the Black Hills and exercise our spiritual ways. We are forbidden. We have to get permission from the Government and the BLM and then we have to follow their rules and regulations. But if we are a sovereign nation like they said, we would have our own jurisdiction (county-state-reservation).

If we do still own the Black Hills, we need a new treaty, to renegotiate a new treaty. All the other treaties were violated or abandoned, often with the approval of Congress, without us knowing about it. That’s not supposed to happen in nation to nation dealings.

We have a treaty council, a council of elders, all kinds of councils but none of them are effective. The government and state have kept us hungry and distracted with their projects which accomplish very little.

Every other foreign nation conquered by the United States has received huge efforts towards rehabilitation and rebuilding. Yet, while the U.S. cries about 20% unemployment, we have 80% unemployment. We remain isolated and have living conditions which are as bad as or worse than any “third world country.” Our life expectancy is only 48 years old for men and 52 years old for women.

We are the longest prisoners of war in the world’s history. It must change. We need to be set free so we can deal with our own people and our children and their children.

Unfortunately, most of our old people are in the spirit world. Today, our young people have no knowledge of the treaties, the massacre of Wounded Knee, the struggle of Wounded Knee 2, or our history. These are the reasons our culture is dying. No one remembers the language, culture, virtues, or spirituality. No one knows the real history.

But they need to know. If we are to survive, people need to understand. When we’re talking about the Black Hills, it’s not just the land that was lost but our way of life. It’s not just money. Money is the least important thing. We have lost our way of life.

When we talk about the Black Hills, it is about everything. That place is holy and sacred.

Ho he’cetu yelo, I have spoken these words.

David Swallow, Wowitan Yuha Mani

Porcupine, South Dakota – The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

Edited by Stephanie M. Schwartz,

Member, Native American Journalists Association (NAJA)

Originally published at www.SilvrDrach.homestead.com/Schwartz_2009_Jul_05.html

This article may be reprinted, reproduced, and/or re-distributed unedited with proper attribution and sourcing for non-profit, educational, news, or archival purposes.

Tags: 1825 Treaty, 1851 Treaty, 1868 Treaty, 1876 Indian Appropriations Act, Bradley Bill, Custer, Fort Laramie, Prisoner of War Camp #344

Counting Coup – Lakota Citizens Stop US Helicopters from Landing at Wounded Knee

Garry Rowland speaks about the Republic of Lakotah

The Black Hills Are Everything! by David Swallow

Russell Means: Freedom Updates

T.R.E.A.T.Y. Total Immersion

Republic of Lakotah

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