Defenders of the Black Hills
Sioux and Cree Reach Historic Agreement
"Work begins on Treaty"
Wakpa Mniluzahan (Rapid City, SD)-- Taking the first steps to re-establish diplomatic relations, representatives from the Kakisiwew-Ochapowace Nehiyewak (Cree) and the Tetuwan Oyate (Teton Sioux Nation) reached an agreement on Tuesday, Sept. 1, 2009, at a 2-day meeting of the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council. Now work will begin on the development of an International Treaty aimed to benefit the people of both nations. (See attached Agreement)
Good Plume Jr. Resigns from BoardRapid City, SD --Garvard Good Plume Jr. resigned from the Board of Directors of Defenders of the Black Hills after agreeing to do cultural resources work for the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern (DM&E) Railroad's expansion project in South Dakota and Wyoming.
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UPDATE: August 17, 2009This past summer has been very busy. On July 27 & 28th, Defenders sponsored the meeting for the Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council. The Meeting Notes of that meeting are enclosed. As there were many issues to be discussed and follow-up on some activities, the next meeting was scheduled for Aug. 24 & 25 at Wolf Creek but had to be canceled. The next TSNTC meeting will be held Aug. 31 & Sept. 1 at the Mother Butler Center in Rapid City. We encourage all the people of the Great Sioux Nation to attend these important meetings. Defenders organization sponsors the meetings for the Treaty Council as part of our mission to preserve, protect and restore the environment of the 1868 and 1851 Treaty Territory.
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"Defenders of the Black Hills is a group of volunteers without racial or tribal boundaries whose mission is to preserve, protect, and restore the environment of the 1851 and 1868 Treaty Territories, Treaties made between the United States and the Great Sioux Nation."
Speaking about radioactive fallout, the late President John F. Kennedy said,
"Even then, the number of children and grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or with poison in their lungs might seem statistically small to some, in comparison with natural health hazards. But this is not a natural health hazard and it is not a statistical issue. The loss of even one human life, or the malformation of even one baby who may be born long after we are gone, should be of concern to us all. Our children and grandchildren are not merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent."
July 26, 1963 upon signing the ban on above ground nuclear tests
"The radiation levels in parts I visited with my students were higher than those in the evacuated zones around the Fukushima Nuclear disaster...." Nuclear Physics Professor Kimberly Kearfott, University of Michigan, in comparing the readings obtained in northwestern South Dakota at the Cave Hills open-pit, abandoned uranium mines.
"It must always be remembered that the various Indian tribes were once independent and sovereign nations, and that their claim to sovereignty long predates that of our own government."
Thurgood Marshall, US Supreme Court Justice
(McClanahan v. Sate Tax Commission, 1973)