Lakota tribes, grassroots organizers unite against ‘modern gold rush’ in Black Hills

RAPID CITY – Conservation biologists consider the Black Hills a “sky island.” It’s an outcropping of high mountain peaks in a sea of Northern Great Plains tall grass and prairie flatlands. The pine-clad terrain and craggy granite spires in the unique Needles Range reach the highest known point between the Rocky Mountains and the Alps. Although tiny, with an area of only about 100 by 75 miles, it gives rise to streams and lakes that are important Missouri River tributaries that comprise the vast Mississippi Basin watershed.

This secluded rural setting is a haven for bison, cougar, elk, deer, antelope, mountain goats, bighorn sheep, fox and coyotes. Eagles, owls, hawks, wild turkey, ducks, chickadees, migratory birds, prairie dogs, ferrets, and chipmunks are common sights. Beaver and trout dwell in creeks overhung with fragrant blossoming branches. The likes of coneflower and breadroot hold medicine and nutrition underground. Wild grapes, cherries and raspberries lure butterflies and humans. 

All are relatives — or Mitakuye Oyasin, as the Lakota say.

This is the Sacred Heart of Everything for the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires of the Great Sioux Nation, as well as the Cheyenne. Ancestors of the Arapaho, Kiowa, Omaha, Kiowa-Apache and several other Indigenous Peoples frequented this landscape for at least 10,000 years. The Arikara, Assiniboine, Blackfeet, Cree, Crow, Hidatsa, Kootenai, Mandan, Salish, and Shoshone are among the many tribes who share a spiritual connection to the Black Hills.

Prospectors encountered the Lakota during the Black Hills Gold Rush of the late 1800s. Native people  had been instructed then that He Sapa, the Black Hills, was so sacred that they were not to live there permanently, according to the book, “Voice of the Eagle Woman: The Black Hills in Native American Mythology.”  To the ancient ones, this was “a place open for all to use without fear of attack: a refuge from strife.”

In the heat of 19th-century fervor to spread the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, tribal leaders sought to protect this hallowed ground with the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie treaties.  Like other treaties of the time, a central tenet assured that Native inhabitants would keep part of their ancestral land base as long as the streams shall flow and the grasses grow. 

By 1872, miners intruded into the Hills, ignoring treaty rights. Lt. Col. George A. Custer’s ensuing expedition, nearly 1,000 strong, officially verified the discovery of gold in the Black Hills. The rush was on, resulting in the theft of Indian land. 

From that time on, U.S. government agencies have cited the 1872 General Mining Act as a reason to approve exploration and mining on public land. The 150-year-old law classifies mining as the activity with the highest and best use. Any company or citizen can stake mining claims in federal jurisdiction and has the right to explore or mine without paying federal royalties. 

“It’s more than just a plot of land to us. It’s a relative itself. It’s alive. It’s our family.”

Stephen Barrett- Black Hills Clean Water Alliance’s Indigenous Community Organizer

Earthworks, one of several national allies of the Black Hills water protectors’ movement, calls the law archaic. Lobbying for reform, advocates now argue for a mining law that will protect drinking water, give communities a voice in mine permitting decisions that affect them, and hold mining companies responsible for their pollution.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1980 offered Lakota treaty signatories a monetary settlement in the case deemed an unsurpassed “ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings.” Tribal governments refused the offer, adhering to the words of the legendary warrior Crazy Horse: “One does not sell the earth upon which the people walk.” 

Those who followed the prospectors into the Hills converted it into a tourist mecca, which today generates annual visitor spending in the region of more than $1.1 billion. The USDA Forest Service jurisdiction provides tourists with 1.2 million acres “open, free of charge, for your use and enjoyment,” as the Black Hills National Forest management likes to put it.

Meanwhile, the federal government has confined Lakota jurisdiction to downstream reservation lands covering a fraction of the territory the tribes’ treaty peacemakers had expected. Dating to the treaty violations, modern-day Native Nations infamously still suffer the worst poverty, housing, employment, health and mortality records of any jurisdiction in the region. 

“Mining was the catalyst for the military violence and land grabs that have forced us and the land to our present condition, wherein the United States and the state of South Dakota carry out willful violations of constitutional and tribal treaty rights every single day,” Oglala Lakota citizen Taylor Gunhammer recently said. A board member of the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, he spoke at the 2023 Mni Ki Wakan Summit, held in Rapid City and sponsored by international allies.

The old-time prospectors struck pay dirt with the Homestake claims. Mining baron George Hearst later bought the Homestake claims. His operation became the largest and longest-lasting gold mine ever in the Western Hemisphere. Homestake’s wealth had amounted to $2 billion when operations petered out in 2001.

(Contact Talli Nauman at buffalo.gal10@gmail.com)

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