A chronicle of victory against Termination Era attacks

RESOURCES: PODCAST & DISCUSSION GUIDE

OLWS Executive Director Tasiyagnunpa Livermont Barondeau (Oglala Lakota) interviews Dr. Edward Valandra for the Red Nation #NativeReads podcast about his book, “Not Without Our Consent.” Discussion guide was also written by Barondeau.

#NativeReads: Not Without Our Consent, Lakota Resistance to Termination 1950-1959

Author

Edward Valandra, Ph.D. (Sicangu Lakota/Rosebud Sioux Tribe citizen)

Book Summary

When the Oceti Sakowin Oyate (or Great Sioux Nation) were forced onto reservations, the United States declared the West was won. As states formed in what was traditionally the lands of the Dakota, Lakota and Nakota, the battle to protect a much-reduced land base became heated, this time on paper and at the ballot box. By the 1950s, various acts had further subdivided and then given away treaty-protected lands to settlers, forcing the Dakota, Lakota and Nakota into ever smaller segments of land. By the Termination Era, policies by both the United States and the state of South Dakota would try to finish assimilation tactics and convert American Indians to state citizens. The 83rd Congress’ House Concurrent Resolution No. 108 (enacted as Public Law 83-280) would set off a fire of paranoia and contempt for Native self-determination and tribal sovereignty that the state of South Dakota’s non-tribal ranchers, legislators, academics, and law enforcement would try to use to their own advantage to gain jurisdiction (via grazing rights or law enforcement) over what little land base the Oceti Sakowin Oyate still had. Eventually, through court decisions and a referendum vote for each reservation to gain their consent of state jurisdiction over tribal lands via South Dakota House Bill 892, the Oceti Sakowin Oyate would overwhelmingly defeat the state’s attempt to finish grabbing the last of Indian lands and placing them under state jurisdiction. In Not Without Our Consent, the history of the Termination Era is laid out in thick detail and is a must-read to fully understand state and tribal relations to this day.