How did it start? Like many conflicts, with gold. But within nine years of the treaty's ratification, Congress seized the Black Hills. The treaty also reserved most of present-day northeast Wyoming and southeast Montana as "unceded Indian territory," off limits to white people without the Lakotas' consent. guaranteed exclusive tribal occupation of reservation lands, including the Black Hills. government and the Sioux people signed a treaty, setting aside lands west of the Missouri River for the Lakota and Arapaho tribes. Indeed, Washington waged war against Native American tribes, Jefferson was considered the architect of policies that would result in the removal of Native Americans from their lands, Lincoln ordered the execution of 38 Dakota Native American rebels, the largest mass execution in American history, and Roosevelt systematically removed Native Americans from their lands. The Lakota considered the carving of the four presidents' faces on what was once Six Grandfathers, a defacement of their sacred site, especially as "those four people had a lot to do with destroying our people's land base," Douville said. Those who returned in 1776, "re-discovered" the hills, according to Douville.ĭouville described how the Lakota also view a section of the Black Hills as the "center of our world," where they conduct their worship, especially during the summer solstice to "welcome back all life." It was also a place that sustained life, and a game reserve they tapped in times of hunger. He was said to have gained entrance to the spirit world, and was granted powers by six grandfathers in order to prepare him for a life of helping his people through coming trials brought by white people.ĭouville spoke to Snopes about how the Lakota's association with the region was older than most people realized: "Our people sat in the Black Hills 3,600 years ago." Many of them eventually migrated, while some remained. The Six Grandfathers mountain was considered the heart of what the Lakota call the Black Hills, or Paha Sapa, that played a central role in the vision of Black Elk. Then around the early part of 1870, an experience by a Lakota medicine man changed the name to Six Grandfathers because of the six outcrops of the mountain and a dream or a vision. Victor Douville, history and culture coordinator in the Lakota Studies Department in Sinte Gleska University, described the story of the mountain's naming by Hehaka Sapa, or Black Elk, a medicine man:īefore it was called Six Grandfathers Mountain, it was called Cougar Mountain (Igmu Tanka Paha) because of many cougars or mountain lions living in the vicinity. We found references to the mountain's original name in a 2016 study conducted by experts contracted by the National Park Service in conjunction with Lakota scholars. American Indian Studies Associate Professor David Martinez of Arizona State University described the area as "indisputably sacred to the Lakota and a number of other indigenous nations." But before their faces were carved there, the mountain was called Six Grandfathers. The structure shows the faces of American presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum started work on the monument in 1927 and completed it in 1941. Mount Rushmore is part of the Black Hills mountain range in South Dakota. What is the Mountain's Significance for Native Americans? We looked at each claim in the meme, starting with the history of the region before Mount Rushmore was built, followed by an investigation into its creation and alleged KKK funding. We found the monument had a dark history of ties to the KKK, an illegal war, and the violent suppression of the Native American Lakota (also known as Sioux) people. Snopes users asked us to investigate a meme that began circulating on Facebook in July 2020 that addressed the Native American history of the land the monument is located on, as well as its ties to the white supremacist organization, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). Hours before Trump's speech, in which he condemned the removal of national monuments, Native American protesters gathered on the road leading to the memorial, calling it a symbol of white supremacy placed on their stolen land. President Donald Trump spoke there on the Fourth of July. monuments, considered a symbol of American patriotism, is the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, which became the subject of controversy after U.S. Amid nationwide protests after the May 25, 2020, killing of a Black man, George Floyd, in the custody of a white police officer in Minneapolis, Confederate monuments were taken down by demonstrators, and communities began to reassess their troubling histories.Īrguably one of the most iconic U.S. As the United States reckoned with its racist past in 2020, Snopes continued to investigate the histories of monuments across the country.
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