The Menominee Tribe 's Fight For Their Culture From Destruction

American Indians are being treated in atrocious, illegal, and terrifying mater, while peacefully trying to protect water for all of us. On the Other side of this battle, sits Energy Transfer Partners who fund the Dakota Access Pipeline, the real outlaws. This is part of a bigger picture, Native American lands are under threat, and being stolen.. Now is the time that we must fight this if we don't our future is threatened. This is more than about water, but the bigger threat of climate change. This is a story of courage, culture, environmental protection, climate change, and the real world danger facing all of us.

In this article, author James McPherson discusses the key players in the Dakota Access Pipeline. He outlines not only outlines the Standing Rock Sioux tribe and the pipeline company, Energy Transfer Partners, but also the Governor of North Dakota, the Tribal Chairman,

Over the past few months’ highlights of the Sioux Native American protest in North Dakota have been prevalent in the news. Though many pieces have touched upon the reasons why the Standing Rock Sioux have been protesting such as the Dakota Access Pipeline, many articles have been opinion based and failed to relay the facts surrounding the issue of it’s construction. In an attempt to understand the situation and gain factual information surrounding the pipeline and the Standing Rock Sioux, I interviewed Professor Ron Ferguson who has followed the situation from it’s beginning.

The area known as the Standing Rock Indian Reservation located in North Dakota and along the Missouri River, has been targeted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and other governmental entities, to construct a 1,172-mile-long pipe, right through the area’s clean water and ancient burial grounds. The United States Government is in favor of the project for its economic benefit, while the Indian American tribes of Standing Rock are against the project due to the harmful implications that this pipe brings to their wellbeing and their heritage. With the news that this pipe was originally headed towards Bismarck North Dakota, (90% white population) and then re-routed towards Native lands, the question can be brought up: why was the pipe rerouted?

Since 2010, there have been “more than 3,000 incidents of leaks and ruptures at oil and gas pipelines” according to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (Worland). The Dakota Access Pipeline has sparked controversy between the U.S. Army of Engineers and Native Americans. With threats of damaging their water supply, cultural land, and impeding a treaty made in 1851, had Native Americans protesting by resisting removal. The threatening impact on Native Americans deemed unconsidered and unheard of by government when they originally planned to build the pipeline through the area. And despite a severe winter storm bringing freezing conditions, protesting Natives remained (Maher and Connors). But why did it have to come to desperate measures that endanger one’s personal safety, just to gain the attention of the government? Native American sovereignty has been repeatedly impeded on, forcing them to take matters into their own hands. Concerning the decision prior to construction, the Standing Rock Sioux tribe claims the federal agency did not appropriately consult them prior to construction (Merrit). Recently, Army Corps have halted the passage of the Dakota Access Pipeline due to their outcry. But if the government had just considered the vote of Native Americans in the first place, the decision could have satisfied everyone who at least got a say

The native americans and other DAPL (Dakota Access Pipeline) opposers are filled with determination, distress, passion, and such resentment towards the pipeline project because it would run under and through ground that their ancestors knew as sacred and those beliefs are still very alive to this day. The pipeline is a 1,172 mile underground oil pipeline that will aid transporting oil through all 50 states in the USA; it was projected to go through sacred lands, reservations, and rivers. There are multifarious issues and concerns pertaining to project but some of the preeminent concerns are; historic preservation and sacred grounds becoming significantly damaged and irreparable, climate change and how it would just increase the production of CO2, and potential pipeline fractures and spills that would mutilate the crucial nearby farms and threaten contaminate for the water supply of thousands of people who depend on it.

The Energy Transfer Partners wants to install the Dakota Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, but the Sioux tribe is fighting to stop the installation of the pipeline to preserve their culture and assert their right to the property. The Dakota Pipeline is an oil pipeline that would transport oil from North Dakota through South Dakota and Iowa into Illinois. The Dakota Pipeline should not be installed because it disrespects the Native Americans’ culture and discriminates against The Sioux, a minority within the United States. The unjust treatment of Native Americans is due to the government’s disregard for Native American property rights and the government’s belief that they can simply take Native American property away because they are

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe currently fights to save its only water source from natural gas and oil contamination. This troubling current event has a somewhat forgotten historical analogue where very similar themes presented themselves. The Kinzua Dam Controversy, which took place in the 1950’s and early 1960’s, resulted in the displacement of over 600 Seneca Indian families and the acquisition of a large tract of traditional Seneca Land for dam building. Additionally, the acquisition of Seneca land represented a breach of “The Treaty with the Six Nations of 1794,” which explicated prevented such action by the US Government. The dam and its construction, which primarily benefitted Pittsburg, inspired a heated discourse concerning the ethics of native relocation.

In this instance, the cause is the constant and prolonged destruction of Indian land for personal interest; while the effect has been multi-pronged and far reaching. These effects include structural racism, unemployment, poverty, loss of ecosystem, senseless death, and underdevelopment. The writer has been able to vividly portray the history and current position of the North Cheyenne Indians and hopefully, this article will serve as a valuable source of awareness to those who can make a

Originally the DAPL was supposed to cross the Missouri River near Bismarck, but it was moved over concerns that any oil spilling would have destroyed the state capital’s drinking water. Consequently, the pipeline was shifted to a crossing approximately 805 meters from the reservation. The Standing Rock Sioux argue that the government did not consult with them enough and that the new crossing includes destruction of sacred spots and old indigenous burial grounds (Sidder, 2016). Moreover, an oil spill into Missouri River would be the death sentence to Standing Rock as it is their only drinking water supply. But the real controversy behind the DAPL is about larger philosophical and ideological issues. It is a pattern of deep injustice from the

When deciding on my research proposal, I considered what I had a personal connection to me, and I wanted to learn more of what was happening at Standing Rock. For my personal connection, we, the public, hear about the Sioux tribe protecting not only their land, but also the drinkable water that flows through the Missouri River. The Missouri River is a vital water resource for many surrounding areas, mostly to the Sioux tribe. In many Native American cultures, as people of the earth it is our duty to protect the earth, because at this moment it is the only planet that can provide an inhabitable place for humans to live. Native Americans have a strong relationship with the earth, they have creation stories of how the earth came to be. In Navajo tradition, it is said that this is the fourth and final world. We came from three previous worlds and they all been destroyed. Which means once we destroy this world there may not be another place for humans to live. What the Sioux tribe fears is that once the pipeline starts to leak the oil into the river, the water will be contaminated and people who use the river will not have clean water. As humans, we need water to survive. The Sioux tribe is not only saving themselves, but as well as the rest of the surrounding states. I rarely pay attention to the news, but the pipeline protest stood out the most. The protest was considered the biggest Native American protest in the modern day. I felt I should be informed about this, because if

Native Americans are being disrespected, harmed, and their homeland is being taken from them. Am I talking about events taken place centuries ago? No, because these unfortunate circumstances yet again are occurring right here, now, in the present. This horrid affair has a name: The Dakota Access Pipeline. This Pipeline is an oil transporting pipeline, which is funded by the U.S Army Corps of Engineers, who have devised a plan for the pipeline to run through the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois. However, unfortunately, this pipeline will run straight through the reservation of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The Standing Rock Sioux tribe, expressing their distress for the pipeline have said, that the pipeline will be “Destroying our burial sites, prayer sites, and culturally significant artifacts,” Arguments for the pipeline however have tried to counter this claim, trying to emphasize that “The pipeline wouldn 't just be an economic boon, it would also significantly decrease U.S. reliance on foreign oil”, and that the pipeline is estimated to produce “374.3 million gallons of gasoline per day.”, which could help the sinking oil economy. (Yan, 2016) However, despite the economical growth it could achieve, the Dakota Access Pipeline could have damaging environmental effects on the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the areas surrounding.

In 1975, Exxon Minerals would make a discovery that would spark controversy and opposition in Northern Wisconsin. This opposition, by those in the area, would surprisingly defeat Exxon’s mine proposal and preserve the way of life for one of the smallest and poorest bands of Native Americans in the United States. This tribe is known as Sokaogon Chippewa of Mole Lake and with the help of those with similar intentions battled for nearly thirty years to defeat Exxon. With the proposal defeated, one thing was certain, the Sokaogon Chippewa would continue to harvest wild rice without fears of it being contaminated. Yet with no mine, the area has suffered from a lack of economic development even to this day. This lack of economic development could

The Standing Rock Reservation was given to the Native Americans to because of the significance and weight that the land held for the Standing Rock Tribe. For instance, the High Arctic Relocation, which was the forced relocation of 19 Inuit families from Quebec to the Arctic Region in the 1950s. Apihtawikosisân, a Métis woman from the Plains Cree speaking community of Lac Ste. Anne, Alberta, says that the relocations of indigenous people occurred as a way to reinforce sovereignty of a race or a group of people. In doing so, the effects of these relocations reverberated for generations, such as the weakening of cultural bonds, loss of economic sufficiency, decline in standards of health, changes in social and political structures, was a damaging experience for many indigenous people. While the company nor the government is telling or forcing the Standing Rock Tribe to move, the Pipeline does endanger the Native American’s way of life. The North Dakota Pipeline is essentially forcing the Standing Rock Tribe to conform so that the structure can be built under the Missouri River and near the Tribe’s Reservation and sacred areas. More instances of denying human rights or forcing indigenous people to submit, would include the human rights abuses against indigenous people in Southeast Asia. Between the Cham, the Montagnard, and the Jumma, there were rights issues regarding way of life, religious beliefs, assimilating into another culture, imprisonment, and land dispossession (Scholten). These sorts of issues are not directly tied to the Dakota Pipeline, but are related in a way that guaranteed rights were taken away or ignored when a certain group of people began to deny the human needs of the indigenous. Establishing a Pipeline under sacred grounds and near Indian Reservations can be

In approaching this discourse, exploring whether or not mediation is a viable strategy to resolve environmental conflict, understanding that it digresses slightly from my original proposal, I was inspired to critically examine the possibility for mediation to be an option in approaching conflicts such as the one currently occurring in North Dakota between the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Energy Transfer partners (the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that granted the permits needed for the pipeline to be constructed. The Standing Rock conflict, while born of legitimate dispute-worthy issues and understandably garnering current attention, is not an anomalous scenario within the current socio-legal climate surrounding the intersection of treaty/indigenous rights and environmental conflict. These conflict scenarios are multi-faceted, possessed of layers, often including issues of historical conflict, cultural property disputes, land title disputes and in cases where there is direct action with intent to force cessation of industrial development such as we see with the Standing Rock conflict, there is also necessity to navigate conflict between activists and law enforcement. Where there is environmental conflict, increasingly with the rise of the modern environmental movement, there is opposition by concerned citizens, activists, First Nations advocates and other stakeholders. In examining this conflict and