Native Sun News Today Editorial: Returning the Black Hills

Black Elk Peak is a sacred peak in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Photo: Austin Matherne

Making an effort to get legislation for the return of land in the Black Hills

Monday, October 26, 2020

By Native Sun News Today Editorial Board

The Editorial Board of Native Sun News Today and its Publisher Tim Giago sent the Bradley Bill and the history of the illegal taking of the Black Hills to Deb Haaland, Democrat, Congresswoman from New Mexico, a Native American woman, and we are encouraging her to study them and perhaps meet with some of the leaders of the tribes of the Great Sioux Nation, in order to discuss the idea of putting together another Bill in the fashion of the Bradley Bill, in an effort to get some of the stolen lands of the Black Hills returned to the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people.

Her assistant Felicia Salazar has responded to our request with an email letting us know that the information we sent her is in committee presently to be studied.

The Bradley Bill [PDF] was to be introduced in Congress in 1987, but Senator Bill Bradley, D-NJ, ran into a lack of unity among several members of the different Sioux Tribes and could not bring them to get behind the Bill 100 percent so he eventually quit trying. He said, “When you guys can learn to get your act together perhaps we can proceed with a Bill then.”

That was the end of that because it seems that the different Nations of Sioux cannot get their act together and it is something we must overcome if we ever want any justice in the return of any Black Hills land.

If Congresswoman Haaland is convinced to jump in and pick up where Bradley left off we will need to come together as a united people. The Bradley Bill called for the return of 1.3 million acres of National Forest Service land to the Sioux Tribes. It is much more detailed than that but that was the gist of it.