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In July 1999, President Clinton visited the Pine Ridge Reservation - the first acting U.S. president to visit Indian country since Franklin D. Roosevelt - as part of a tour of the nation's economically struggling regions. After seeing the deplorable living conditions for himself, the President signed a pact with Oglala leaders to establish an "empowerment zone" for Pine Ridge, suggesting the community tap into the local tourist market by building a Lakota Heritage Cultural Center.
Yet as recently as 1999, U.S. policy has continued to break treaties created by the U.S. government in the late 19th century. The Danklow Acts (also called Mitigation Acts I and II), signed by President Clinton in 1998 and 1999, gave over 90,000 acres along the Missouri River in South Dakota to the state of South Dakota, land guaranteed to the Sioux people by the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie Treaties.
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The first Council Fire camp on La Framboise Island
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In March 1999, to protest the violation of these treaties, the Sioux set up camp on La Framboise Island, near Pierre, South Dakota, and Chief Oliver Red Cloud wrote to President Clinton requesting that the treaties be honored and the lands be returned to the Great Sioux Nation. Current environmental impact studies dictated by the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) may expose the contradictions in the Danklow Acts and force the return of these lands to the Sioux.
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