American Southern Plantation Colonial Mentality
By Dr. Arthur W. ZimigaNative Sun News Today Columnist
nativesunnews.today The American Southern Plantation Colonial Mentality as described by foreign governments and many Americans is for example their thoughts on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in Western South Dakota. As a matter fact this includes all the created American Indian Reservations in the United States. Indian Reservations have been depicted as unworthy cultural entities, the most reprehensible characterized groups within the United States. For example, the Lakota Oyate many dehumanizing words far inappropriate have been used to disgrace and label the Lakota people. The fear and resentment was followed by hatred was created by the US Military, Governmental Administration and US Congress. It became a common practice in middle of the 1800’s for squatters, homesteaders, merchants, and governmental officials to openly scorn the Lakota people. Many US Citizens used this phrasing which had its orientation in the deep American Southern Plantation Colonial Settlements. Even in the eastern United States it was a common practice to mock the Lakota people relating to them as a defeated Nation having only limited abilities to govern themselves. As the War against Brothers ended, the American Civil War 1861-1865, as the Lakota called it, started the Lakota land grab in the West. The same tactics of Treaty Making with the United States and US Military begin with the Lakota people in 1851 and 1868. The United States Government was bankrupt after the American Civil War with large deficit spending besides increase growing poverty in the East and South. New politicians’ solutions were seeking the coming of the second El Dorado in the west. The vision focused on the trespassing gold discovery in the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory. Bankers, land developers, speculators, immigrants, miners and swarming unemployed city people all looked to the West for the second coming of exploitation and wealth gathering. The only problem was the Lakota Oyate owned the land and the resources upon them. The Americans interpretation allegedly they held the area in trust under government agreement stated in the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights recognized by the United State Government. The 1868 Treaty in fact clearly spell it out and declaring the area in question was Lakota Homeland. The United States could not legally take Lakota land without just compensations as established by International Law. They were a Sovereign Nation as stated in the US Constitution with all the nationality legal rights to govern and determine for their selves their own destiny as a free people. These over failing treaty arrangements stated clearly the Lakota people did not want the enactment of US Federal powers settlements. They were not US Citizens and they did not want to be governed by the United States. The Lakota Nation already had treaties and trade agreements before with England, Spain, France and other Tribal Nations identifying Lakota sovereignty and their place of origin. It would be Lakota Oyate land as long as the grass grows and the waters flow was stated in the 1851 and 1868 Treaties as written declarations. A sovereign nation established with all the rights given to them by their Creator and ancestral privileged authenticities included language, customs, rituals, and ownership. Pine Ridge Sioux Indian Reservation once the Red Cloud Agency was and still is made into a primary American Southern Plantation Colonist Settlements. The Reservation was and still has a strong characteristic identification with colonialism and racism. These historical facts and the Lakota peoples journey of intervention with imposing US federal laws, Treaties of Broken Promises, limited Lakota culture and heritage education was forced with the description of being called Oglala Sioux. Then followed was the mandatory narrative designated as the Pine Ridge Oglala Sioux Indian Reservation. This was imposing to say the less by totally negating the sovereignty of the Oglala Lakota Teton Oyate. The foreigner names: Sioux, Indian, American Indian, family name changes or indigenous was substituted to disenfranchise and disinherit the Lakota Oyate (Nation) from their homeland, culture and natural resources. The United States Government had implemented its own classic “INDIAN GOVERNMENTAL REFORM POLICY”, This Indian Governmental Reform Policy was created in order to have oversite and authority over Sioux People whom they described in their American political congressional strategies and administration. The United States historical texts of these implanted names were used in creating the identifications for the destruction of the Lakota people. The facts these reports were used solely for the purposes of dehumanizing, racist prejudice, white superiority, and colonial governance in order to destroy Lakota leadership. When Lakota leadership called for the Lakota Reform Policy of the governing powers of the United States in 1873 many were threatened, jailed, beaten, murdered or regard as unworthy to be called Sioux Leaders by the United States Government and US Military. They were named the Wild Oglala, renegades, and hostiles because they wanted to insure the freedom to be called the Lakota Oyate Nation/people not US Government Indians. Large numbers of Free Lakota did not sign any treaty. They had been promised to have their own Lakota set aside lands so they could live their lives away from the drunkenness and exploitation by outsiders. These tormenting behaviors by those who continually frequent the Government forts, Indian agencies, frontier towns and mining camps created discontentment and encouraged lawlessness, rape, prostitution, women suffrage, human tariffing and discontentment amongst the Wasicu (fat taker) and also between the Lakota they called Indians. Disruption of the life style chosen for them by the US Government was a life sentence of dissatisfaction and social suffering. All the while the Free Lakota’ were being forced with rifles, swords, pistols and bayonets pointed at their backs by U.S. Soldiers and mounted US Calvary prodding the Lakota families. Free Lakota leadership grudgingly marched to the US Federal chosen Indian Reservation lands fearful the people would be killed if they did not follow. The dream of reform for the Lakota people never left their minds and has been pasted down from one generation to another. The Free Oglala leadership had and has seen the weakness of those who were selected to lead and knew of the disappointments that would follow. Several small Lakota families escaped to the Black Hills where they were born and raised. They continued to reside there without any federal intervention because the US Government did not want to recreate any new problems while the majority of the Reservation Indians submitted to US Federal directives. This is even true today a great number of Oglala Lakota people live off the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation as well as other Sioux Reservations in the Black Hills seeking a better life for themselves and their families. Rapid City has one of the largest numbers of Lakota people living there in the entire State of South Dakota followed by Sioux Falls. This is the dark continues legacy and shabby treatment by the US Government toward the Lakota people who suffer the injustice of being denied human rights and agonized in unashamed discrimination. It can be said of American History, “from the various religious pulpits, to the lectern stand of education institutions, federal and state legislators, governmental agencies, Presidential decrees and US Congressional hearings and legal chambers the colonized word Sioux, Reservation and wards of the government can still be heard. Every immigrant, homesteader, pilgrims, refugee and illegal alien in search of the American Dream looking for freedom are walking on the backs of Native Americans sufferings of the past and present.
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