HOMELAND - The Reservation: The 20th century

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Pine Ridge Reservation: 20th Century
After the 1890 Massacre at Wounded Knee, the future for the Native people on the Great Sioux Reservation looked bleak. In 1907, Oklahoma was established as the 46th state, drawing greater numbers of white settlers into what was once Indian Territory. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the U.S. government attempted to make some reparations to Native peoples by granting them full citizenship and ending the allotment policies of the Dawes Act, but a great amount of damage had already been done.

In the 1950s, the Federal Relocation Policy - also known as Termination - made matters worse by dissolving tribal nations and dispensing with treaty rights. Claiming to keep the government out of Indian affairs, Termination scattered entire tribes through relocation programs to cities, stripping them of their profound attachment to the land, nature and their communities.

Native American Activism
In 1968, the American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded by Ojibwa Indian ex-convicts Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt and George Miller to protect the civil rights of all Native Americans. They began their campaign by helping the Sioux retain the culture, rituals and attachment to the land, against policies established by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). In 1972, AIM led the "Trail of Broken Treaties," the occupation of BIA headquarters in Washington, D.C., to protest U.S. policies toward Native Americans and demand U.S. recognition of tribal sovereignty.

In 1973, AIM supporters occupied the buildings at Wounded Knee for 71 days after being contacted by Lakota elders about BIA and tribal corruption. Federal officers were called in, and gunfire was exchanged, killing two Native Americans and wounding others on both sides. At the end of the seige, the government promised AIM that their grievances would be heard. After one meeting with White House representatives, no further action was taken.

The Memorial at Wounded Knee

In the years that followed the Second Seige of Wounded Knee, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) pursued AIM supporters with increasing intensity. Between 1973 and 1976, 61 AIM supporters were killed on or near the Pine Ridge Reservation. In a gunfight between the FBI and AIM in 1975, two federal agents were killed. Despite a lack of concrete evidence and indications that another party was responsible, AIM activist Leonard Peltier was convicted of the killings and remains in federal prison.

U.S. Policy Changes
Several acts were passed by Congress in the 1970s to restore certain rights to Native Americans, including the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, and the Indian Child Welfare Act. In 1980, the Supreme Court ruled that the United States owes the Lakota Sioux interest on an 1877 payment for the Black Hills. The 1990 Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act protected gravesites located on federal lands, resulting in the September 2000 return of the skeletal remains of the Kennewick Man to five Indian tribes along the Columbia River in Washington.

For further information, see the Timeline.