Shannon County, South Dakota

The Badlands is in the Southeastern corner of South Dakota, located to the East of the Black Hills. It was declared a national monument in 1929, and then was declared a national park though an act of congress in 1978. (Stoffer 2) The park is most known for its rugged, desolate appearance, with jagged rocks and interesting formations. The core of the “badlands” (meaning the “badlands” associated with Badlands National Park) is part of a dissected plateau region bounded by the Cheyenne River (to the north and west), the Bad River (to the east), and the White River (to the south). (Stoffer 11) The name, badlands, is given to any region where erosion in poorly consolidated sediments forms a rugged and barren landscape, which perfectly describes…

services to many Native nations and tribes, including the Oglala Lakota, yet this Act is not showing any improvements. Below, we will explore the main reasons for this deficit and those include The Treaty of Laramie of 1868, the lack of importance shown towards education, the lack of jobs, and finally what all of these causes lead up to statistically. The Pine Ridge Reservation is home to the Lakota Indians and is located in the black hills right under one of America’s most prestigious…

In the Little Bighorn Battle on June 1876 between the Lakota and Cheyenne people verse the United States. The conflict was the cultural change and clash between the two: on one hand there is the Lakota and Cheyenne were they are buffalo/horse people, and on the other hand there is the United States is industrial/agricultural people. From 1868 the US and Lakota negotiated on the Fort Laramie Treaty; however, that made conflict towards the other tribes (National Park Service Website). This…

In the Black Hills National Forest of South Dakota, Mount Rushmore, a large granite peak was dedicated in 1925 to be sculpted into a monument. That monument today is one of the most visited monuments in the United States. Mount Rushmore is a staple of the United States. On it, it has the faces of four of the most important Presidents of the United States. According to the Sculptor Gutzon Borglum “The purpose of the memorial is to communicate the founding, expansion, preservation, and unification…

After six weeks of fighting with many casualties on both sides, the then governor of Minnesota, Henry Sibley led a final onslaught against the Dakota Indians. The Dakota warriors were subdued and captured; about three hundred and three Sioux warriors were tried and sentenced to murder for their involvement in the war. Out of the number, thirty-eight of the warriors were publicly executed on December 29, 1962; the rest was commuted to various life sentences by Abraham Lincoln, who was the…

Training and preparation are important aspects to a successful mission trip. Kurt Caddy was the leader of this mission trip and has lead many trips to Indian reservations and other places in the world. I think that his knowledge and experience were greatly appreciated and was helpful. I believe that I was properly trained and prepared for my trip to South Dakota. Kurt had the group read “Neither Wolf nor Dog,” which gave us a narrative of the interaction between the author, Kent Nerburn and his…

A company called Energy Transfer Partners wants to build a pipeline from North Dakota to Illinois to transport oil. They say that this is the safest way to carry oil. The pipeline would be near the Stand Rock Sioux tribe, and could negatively affect them. The Native Americans believe that the pipeline would destroy their land and contaminate their water source. Thousands of people have come to protest the building of this pipeline. Should the North Dakota pipelines be built near Native American…

give the reader sort of good view of the Dakota tribe. Essentially, the word Dakota means ally in their language, which is the Dakota Sioux language. The Dakota people are a Native American tribe located in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and South Dakota and North Dakota. The Dakota people are First Nations band government in North America and the largest division of the Siouan family. The Dakota tribe is divided into the western Dakota and the eastern Dakota. In this paper, I will be explaining…

After reading this excerpt from the book Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas by Mari Sandoz this passage gave Crazy Horse’s thoughts about the encroachment of the white man into Indian territory. The influential leader of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, Crazy Horse, held out against the government's efforts to imprison the Sioux on reservations. Almost all the Native Americans were sent to reservations by the late nineteenth century (Pollard, pg. 571). Crazy Horse was involved in many battles,…

In The Journey of Crazy Horse: a Lakota History by Joseph M. Marshall III Crazy Horse’s vision quest is a precise prophecy of his life and death. In the vision he sees an Indian on a horse with long unbraided hair and a lightning scar on his cheek, and in his first battle he also dresses like this and he proves to be a courageous warrior. This vision also points to him rising above white people but also being conquered them, which is another sign to his life during and after the Battle of Little…