DERO SANFORD
THE OTHER
AMERICANS
rently the nation’s poorest.
At the point where 212 meets
Lake Oahe, a massive reservoir
formed by the damming of the
Missouri River north of Pierre
two generations ago, Briggs
points toward a manicured, roadside pull-out punctuated by a
large granite monument.
The boulder, cleaved to expose
a broad, polished face, is inscribed
with a tribute to Cheyenne River
leadership. At the bottom, behind
a clutch of wildflowers placed by
an unknown visitor, the monument
notes that the tribe’s burial sites
HUFFINGTON
10.21.12
have been relocated from their original site nearby, along the banks of
the pre-dammed Missouri.
The Cheyenne River Sioux lost
more than 100,000 acres, including
huge swaths of valuable timber and
range land, to intentional flooding
when the federal Oahe Dam project
got underway in the 1950s.
The dam now provides electricity for millions of residents
and businesses across the northcentral United States, but the federal government originally offered
little to the Cheyenne River tribe
in return. Dogged legal battles,
The Delta
basin is a
wide shelf
of cotton,
soybeans,
rice and
catfish
farming that
stretches
from
Vicksburg in
the south to
Southaven
in the north,
along the
border with
Tennessee.
“THERE JUST AIN’T NOTHING HERE.”