Defenders of the Black Hills
Water Management Board
Water Management Board
Ground Water Quality Program
523 E.Capitol
Pierre, SD 57501
In response to the Press Release by Russell MeansThere is a provision within the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 that our ancestors, including my great-great grandparents, had included. Article 12 says the Treaty of 1868 could not be changed except by three-fourths of the adult male vote. This was done expressly to protect the people, the land, and our way of life. What are now called reservations, were originally created as prisoner of war camps by the USA when they invaded our territory. We are living as an occupied nation similar to the situation in Iraq where the USA imposes its own form of government.
In the late 1870s, two other leaders, Spotted Tail and Red Cloud, were coerced into trying to change the 1868 Treaty by the USA. Even though they eventually signed what the US wanted, they also knew that without three-fourths of the adult male approval, the 1868 Treaty could not be changed. Russell Means is only one man and has not received the three-fourths adult male approval. However, Russell Means efforts remind the world that we still have an international treaty with the USA. Thank you for your interest in this issue. Sincerely, Charmaine White Face, Spokesperson Teton Sioux Nation Treaty Council (established in 1893 by Chief He Dog) Pacifying the Public“Pacifying the Publicâ€By Charmaine White Face ©
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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)