THE OTHER
AMERICANS
spearheaded by tribal leaders over
the last 40 years, finally prompted
the U.S. Treasury in October of
last year to set aside roughly $145
million in interest, along with
$293 million in principal, for the
tribe as compensation for the land
lost in the dam project.
That’s good news, Briggs says,
but all of this—the damming,
the exhumation of tribal graves
by the Army Corps of Engineers,
the wholesale relocation of the
tribal agency to Eagle Butte and
the high-handed behavior of the
federal government—are simply
part of a long list of insults that
this and other tribes have borne.
Briggs says it all weighs heavily
on minds here, and that healing
from all that, both economically
and culturally, takes time.
“Our thinking, our culture tells
us, that if one person is poor, we’re
all poor,” she said. “And we are
someone struggling in this country.
We are part of this great American
story that we all believe in, that we
all want to see happen—a future
for any dream that we want. There
should be some understanding and
some newly raised awareness and
compassion for these Americans
who have been suffering for a
very long time.”
HUFFINGTON
10.21.12
Unemployment figures on the
reservations of South Dakota are
staggering: averaging about 70 percent year over year, and peaking as
high as 90 percent when seasonal
work dries up. Not surprisingly,
drunkenness, drug abuse and crime
are problems, as are high-school
dropouts and teen pregnancies.
Among the unemployed is Ronnie Bowker, a 50-year-old tribal
member who last found work two
years ago installing fencing around
the cemeteries, scattered about the
reservation, where the Army Corps
of Engineers relocated the tribe’s
graves. He has not worked since.
Bowke