Page 2 - Background

Here is a high resolution image of The Declaration of Indpendence, courtesy of the National Archives. Toward the bottom of the image, while it is impossible to make out, according to the National Archives' transcript of the document accompanying the image, it reads "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions." This exemplifies the fact that even before the state was officially founded, the United States of America placed little to no value on the lives of the indigenous population living within its new borders.

The Dawes Act, passed by Congress in 1887, permitted the government to seize the land held by the Native tribes as a whole and then divide the total property into fixed sections that were then distributed to each individual tribal member. This distribution of the land led to the long term problems of fractionation, meaning the property was separated into smaller and smaller plots. Additionally adding to this problem was that the act specified that the land each native owned was to be equally dispersed among all heirs, therefore significantly decreasing the size of each parcel with every generation. Also in the Dawes Act, the government took control over the native land they deemed to be “surplus,” and sold it to settlers. Because of this, natives lost 86 million acres of the land they possessed in 1887. This was yet another step in the long history of genocide and abuse committed against Native Americans by the U.S. government, and is also another indicator of the fact that they placed very little value on their lives and wellbeing.

This map displays the wind patterns from the startpoint of the Nevada Test Site, where the United States government conducted the majority of its nuclear weapons tests. According to the Congressional Research Service, at this site the government conducted 928 tests from 1951-1992.

Map of the locations of Native American reservations located throughout the United States, according to the United States Census Bureau. As you can see, the wind patterns directly carried the fallout from this nuclear weapons testing through the area in the United States with the highest density of Native American reservations, and this was not a coincidence. This is just one piece of evidence proving the fact that the U.S. government has placed very little value on the lives of Native Americans, even in more recent history.

The Keystone XL Pipeline extension, proposed in 2008 by energy infrastructure company TransCanada, would increase the capacity of the already existing Keystone Pipeline system to carry crude oil from Canada to Texas. To be exact, it would be able to transport 830,000 barrels a day. However, what makes this extra risky is that it will be carrying tar sands, the extraction of which is especially bad for the environment. Additionally, tar sands oil is more acidic, corrosive, and thicker than regular oil, which therefore increases the likelihood that pipelines carrying it will leak.

Here is a map displaying the proposed location of the Keystone Pipeline, accroding to the NRDC. The Keystone extension actually comprises two sections, and the first segment, running from Oklahoma to Texas, had already been constructed before the Standing Rock Protests began. The second segment, the one which the protestors were advocating against, runs from Hardisty Alberta, through Montana and South Dakota, to Steele City, Nebraska.

The residents of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota resisted the construction of this pipeline, arguing that running the pipeline under their primary source of drinking water, a Missouri River reservoir called Lake Oahe, would be detrimental to their health, and also that the construction would require further damage to sacred sites near the lake, which would violate their tribal treaty rights. A legal battle ensued between the Standing Rock Sioux and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in charge of the pipeline's construction, and when the Corps began construction even though this was unresolved, protestors began gathering and trying to interfere with the building. According to law enforcement, some of these protests involved the protestors breaking onto private construction sites and attacking the security guards and dogs. According to the protestors, they were attacked by the construction workers, dogs, and security guards. As the legal battle continued, thousands of supporters gathered at the protests to support the resistance.

While there were no known deaths at the Standing Rock protests, there were several violent confrontations between law enforcement officials and the protesters. This photo is from one of those confrontations in November of 2016, in which the law enforcement officials deployed tear gas on the protesters and sprayed them with fire hoses in below freezing temperatures.

At the end of his presidency, President Obama had passed measures to prevent the future construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline because of the threats it posed to drinking water sources, ecosystems, and public health. However, on January 24th, 2017 President Trump signed a series of executive orders permitting the advancement of the construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines. This was the general end to the conflict, and the protests disbanded soon after.

Here is a helpful graphic, courtesy of a team at the UC Davis Department of Native American Studies, that provides helpful contextual information and imagery to explain the timeline, events, and importance of the Dakota Access Pipeline.