Fall 2021
There is extensive history of indigenous resistance to the violation of water rights in Oceti Sakowin territory. Beginning with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the US government purchased lands including those inhabited by the Oceti Sakowin from time immemorial without the consultation or consent of any Native nation (Estes 2017, 116).
In response, for the next hundred years, the Oceti Sakowin defended their lands and waters, never to be defeated in military conflict (Estes 2017, 116). More recently, the proposal of the Keystone XL pipeline, proposed to travel under the Missouri River, threatened water rights (Estes 2017, 119). The Oceti Sakowin, with other Native nations and organizations, defeated the pipeline successfully in November, 2015 (Estes 2017, 119). Speeches by Armando Iron Elk and Faith
Spotted Eagle before the US State Department were instrumental to defeat of the pipeline. Calling upon the sacredness of creation and treaties as living documents, the activists question the due diligence of the State Department and the US Army Corps of Engineers, affirm their duty and responsibility to their ancestors, and question the US’s commitment to the Fort Laramie Treaties of 1851 and 1868 (Cobb 2015, 242–43).
In 2014, Texas based Energy Transfer Partners submitted an application for the Dakota Access Pipeline, an extensive $3.8 billion crude oil pipeline (Calloway 2012, 609). The project, approved by the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois, would transfer half a million barrels of oil a day from the Bakken oil fields (Calloway 2012, 610). he pipeline would pass under Lake Oahe, the source of drinking water for the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, and the Missouri River (Calloway 2012, 610). In response, protests broke out at the confluence of the Cannonball and Missouri rivers, gaining national media attention and sparking the #NODAPL movement (Calloway 2012, 610).
The “water protectors”, both Native and non-Native, employed non-violent tactics on the ground and in the courts. Rallying together behind the Lakota phrase Mni Wiconi, or water is life, the protestors faced heavily armed police forces, dogs, and water hoses, yet refused the demands of the US Army Corps of Engineers and Energy Transfer Partners (Estes 2017, 115). They held marches and disrupted construction, all while garnering the nation’s attention. The people of Oceti Sakowin were not alone, and from 2016 to 2017 over three hundred Native nations planted their flags in the area in a display of solidarity (Estes 2017, 115).In the courts, native law experts of multiple nations have continued to battle Energy Transfer Partners, even at an extreme deficit of financial resources.
The continued protests of Native peoples exemplifies their reliance in the face of incessant threats to their land and water rights. While Indigenous peoples were guaranteed “the right to the conservation and protection of the environment and the productive capacity of their lands or territories and resources” in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the US continues to avoid becoming a signatory (United Nations General Assembly 2007). Such blatant disregard for the rights of Indigenous peoples necessitates the continued solidarity and protest of Native peoples, but their dedication to the fight for equity is a reminder that, while some may wish otherwise, Native peoples are never going away.
References
Calloway, Colin G. 2012. First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History. 4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martins.
Cobb, Daniel M., ed. 2015. Say We Are Nations: Documents of Politics and Protest in Indigenous America since 1887. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Estes, Nick. 2017. “Fighting for Our Lives: #NoDAPL in Historical Context.” Wicazo Sa Review 32, no. 2 (Fall): 115–26.
United Nations General Assembly. 2007. United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. A/RES/61/295. New York, September 13.
