This Rock Stands Alone For hundreds of years, Native Americans and their lands have been a major controversial topic. People and tribes have fought many battles to protect and gain land for the Native Americans. Today, Native Americans are having to face the problem of the production of the Dakota Access Pipeline. This pipeline is projected to be built right through the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. Many people are concerned about the effects of this pipeline as well as the Native Americans whose land it might destroy. It is currently being debated whether or not the Dakota Access Pipeline should go through the reservation. The Standing Rock Indian Reservation should be left alone and not be disturbed by the creation of the Dakota Access …show more content…
According to attorney Jan Hasselman, restraining orders were placed on the company placing the pipeline to stop construction before it could reach the site of the ancient burial ground, but the next day, the company bulldozed the entire area of burial grounds despite the restraining order (Democracy Now!). The action of bulldozing the ancient burial grounds of the Sioux Tribe has caused great disruption among the tribe members and protesters alike, and this destruction also brought in tribes from Montana, a very rare occurrence for separate tribes to unite (Democracy Now!). It is also, by law, illegal to disturb a person’s gravesite in the state of North Dakota, the location of part reservation that the pipeline will be constructed, without lawful permission. If the crime of grave destruction occurs, the person or persons responsible for the act are charged with various degrees of felonies (Care and Custody of Dead). The Sioux Tribe was given the land they have in North Dakota as a safe place to live and bury their people, and now it is being disturbed by the creation of the pipeline. If the people have laws to abide by for their own burial grounds inside the state, the Sioux Tribe should have the same rights, and the company constructing the pipeline have disobeyed the laws of North Dakota burial …show more content…
The breaking of The National Historic Preservation Act was a major act that the Dakota Access Pipeline construction broke. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers were to be punished for the action along with the other laws that they broke (Earthjustice). Even though the company was filed a lawsuit, they still got a permit to create the pipeline. This permission to build goes against the ethics that this nation was built upon. The company being able destroy the land despite the lawsuits should not be allowed to
On the 9th of February 2004 TransCanada Corporation, an energy company based in Alberta, Canada proposed a plan for the installation and use of a pipeline that would stretch from Alberta, Canada to oil refineries in the Gulf Coast of Texas in the United States. The pipeline, titled the Keystone Pipeline, would be installed in four separate phases and once completed would transport up to 1.1 million barrels of synthetic crude oil per day. Phases two through four of the pipeline encompass the parts of the pipeline that would be installed in the United States and would be located in the states of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Missouri, and Illinois. TransCanada is currently awaiting approval from the US government in order to begin the installation of the US portion of the pipeline.
The Dakota Access Pipeline and the Keystone XL Pipeline are two pipeline projects that were suspended in the past. These pipelines were stopped because they could have a big impact of people and the environment. The making of these pipelines would cause a great amount of carbon pollution. Recently, President Trump signed the orders to approve the pipeline project. The projects have pros and cons, the people in favor of the pipelines think we would be able to rely less on foreign oil. The people against the pipeline believe that the pipelines would cause the release of gases into the air that could be harmful for other people.
When the word “Native American” is mentioned, the first thing most people will think of is Indian gaming. As many people know, only Native Americans can conduct gaming while people from other ethnicity cannot. This leads to the belief that it is an indirect way for the American government to repay the tribal government for taking their lands. This is partially true. The right to conduct gaming on reservations begins with the Indian Gaming Regulation Act (IGRA). Since its establishment in 1988, hundreds of tribes are able to negotiate an agreement with the governments to operate casinos on reservation lands. However, this is not the only intention of IGRA. Although Congress says that the real purpose of IGRA is to allow Indians to open casinos so tribes can support themselves, it is merely a set of laws that limits the tribe’s right on gaming.
Kinder Morgan has proposed the idea of building a twin pipeline for that of the Trans Mountain pipe line. And the clear question for all Canadians especially in the lower main land of British Columbia is this proposition to twin the pipe line safe, economical for British Columbia, and reliable way to transport fossil fuel in the form of crude oil? Or is this just business as usual?
The Dakota Nation didn’t just wake up one day and decide to attack the settlers. They had been insulted, oppressed and cheated for years. Eventually, the Sioux decided to stand up and take back their land. The Sioux were hunters, not farmers. When the US decided to buy the Sioux’s hunting grounds and give them farmland, they should have thought about the consequences. The Sioux missed their sacred hunting land and struggled to make their farmland prosperous. Not only that, but the Sioux believe that they belong in Minnesota. Some say Israel is the land of the Jews. Well, Minnesota is the land of the Sioux. Of course, the US didn’t exactly steal the Sioux’s hunting land. Technically, the US bought the Sioux out, however that would imply that the Sioux had a choice about selling or were even aware of what was taking place.
The Keystone XL pipeline continues dividing the opinion of the people and being a controversial issue. The precious “black gold”, represents one of the main factors that moves the economy, nationally and globally. This extra-long pipeline will transport oil all the way from Canada to Texas. Some experts and the private oil corporation, who is the one in charge of this project, point to the benefits of this project, for example, will make the USA more independent from foreign oil, will create thousands of jobs and improve the economy. Nevertheless, are experts revealing how the pipeline is an unnecessary risk and will be negative for the environment, dangerous for the population living close to the big pipes, and long-term negative for the
The United States government's relationship with the Native American population has been a rocky one for over 250 years. One instance of this relationship would be what is infamously known as, the Trail of Tears, a phrase describing a journey in which the Native Americans took after giving up their land from forced removal. As a part of then-President Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act, this policy has been put into place to control the natives that were attempting to reside peacefully in their stolen homeland. In the viewpoint of the Choctaw and Cherokee natives, removal had almost ultimately altered the culture and the traditional lifestyle of these people.
The Keystone Pipeline started construction in 2008 for the main purpose of connecting Canadian and American oil refineries to transport crude oil from the oil sands of Canada faster and more efficient. So far the first three phases of the pipeline have been completed but the proposed and most controversial is Phase IV. It connects Hardisty, Alberta to Steele City, Oklahoma which requires a presidential permit and it also connects the 485-mile southern leg known as the Gulf Coast Project between Steele City and Port Arthur, Texas, which is now operating (Eilperin). The benefits of the pipeline include an increase in jobs, contribute $3.4 billion to the U.S economy and also save time and money from transporting the oil by pipeline instead of tanks and rails. At the same time it would be a great harm to the environment, making the climate unstable, and could cause possible future oil spills. The articles covering the Keystone Pipeline generally list out the same points, covering the same benefits and consequences of building the pipeline. Sources like Fox News and CNS have more of an opposition towards the pipeline and narrow in on the risks and of the effects it would have on the people. Whereas news stations such as CNN and The Washington Post address both sides of the controversy but are subtle about being in favor of the pipeline. The international sources such as Al Jazeera and Reuters oppose the pipeline and are more open with supporting the environmentalists.
In our day and age where our youth are becoming more aware of the history of the country and the people who inhabit it, the culture of Native Americans has become more accessible and sparks an interest in many people young and old. Recent events, like the Dakota Access Pipeline, grab the attention of people, both protesters and supporters, as the Sioux tribe and their allies refuse to stay quiet and fight to protect their land and their water. Many Native people are unashamed of their heritage, proud of their culture and their ancestors. There is pride in being Native, and their connection with their culture may be just as important today as it was in the 1800’s and before, proving that the boarding school’s ultimate goal of complete Native assimilation to western culture has
The Indian Removal Act, a bill that, if passed, will evict all Cherokee people from their homes, should not be passed, because the government has no right to strip these people of their land and force them to move. The Native Americans should not be removed from their current place of residence. As Americans, a lot of these native people have taken up American ways, some even converting to Christianity. They are true-blooded Americans in every sense of the word. If the government takes away their land, then they contradict the Declaration of Independence, proving that all men are not created equal.
The United States Government was founded on the basis that it would protect the rights and liberties of every American citizen. The Equal Protection Clause, a part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, provides that “no state shall deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”. Yet for hundreds of years, the US government and society have distressed the Native American people through broken treaties, removal policies, and attempts of assimilation. From the Trail of Tears in the 1830s to the Termination Policy in 1953, the continued oppression of American Indian communities produced an atmosphere of heightened tension and gave the native peoples a reason to fight back. In 1968, Clyde Bellecourt, Dennis Banks, and Russell Means founded the American Indian Movement to address issues concerning the Native American community and tackle the situation and position of Native Americans in society. Over the next few decades, the movement led to a series of radical protests, which were designed to raise awareness to the American Indians’ issues and to pressure the federal government to act on their behalf. After all of the unfair and unjust policies enacted by the U.S. government and society, all of the American Indian Movement’s actions can be justified as legitimate reactions to the United States’ democratic society that had promised to respect and protect their people and had failed to do so.
The once great tribes of Native Americans are now all gone from the land in which their forefathers were born in. This act of ethnic-cleansing was called the Indian Removal Act. This law authorized the removal of Native Americans to move to the west of the Mississippi River in exchange for land. Although this act lead to the growth of America, the Native Americans shouldn’t have had to relocate. The Native Americans shouldn’t have relocated because they were becoming more civilized, because they were on the land first, and they were not safely transported as the government promised.
The Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act was signed into law on November 1990 by President George Bush. This legislation is the result of decades of effort by American Indians to protect the burial sites of their ancestors against grave desecration and to recover the remains of ancestors and sacred cultural objects in the possession or under the control of federal agencies and museums. In November 1993, museums holding certain Native American artifacts were required to prepare written summaries of their collections for distribution to culturally affiliated tribes. In November 1995, museums were required to prepare detailed inventories of their Native American collection. This act is historically significant because it represents a fundamental change in social attitudes toward Native people by museum curators, the scientific community, and Congress. Congress attempted to strike a balance between the interest in scientific examination of skeletal remains and the recognition that Native Americans have a religious and spiritual reverence for the remains of their ancestors (4).
The movement westward during the late 1800’s created new tensions among already strained relations with current Native American inhabitants. Their lands, which were guaranteed to them via treaty with the United States, were now beginning to be intruded upon by the massive influx of people migrating from the east. This intrusion was not taken too kindly, as Native American lands had already been significantly reduced due to previous westward conquest. Growing resentment for the federal government’s Reservation movement could be felt among the native population. One Kiowa chief’s thoughts on this matter summarize the general feeling of the native populace. “All the land south of the Arkansas belongs to the Kiowas and Comanches, and I don’t want to give away any of it” (Edwards, 203). His words, “I don’t want to give away any of it”, seemed to a mantra among the Native Americans, and this thought would resound among them as the mounting tensions reached breaking point.
Numerous reports have been given on the dangerous affects of hydraulic fracturing. One such affect that has been noticed is that drinking water wells near the fracturing sites have been contaminated. During the hydro-fracking process, injected fluids that help to break and keep open the rock bed where the natural gas is kept, have “been known to travel three thousand feet from the well (Goldman).” This fluid could have the potential to enter and contaminate any water well for homes around hydraulic fracturing sites. This incident is one of the major problems that people want to figure out and know about before they allow a fracturing site by them. It has been the most feared outcome of having a fracking site nearby, and it is highly appropriate. One site in Wyoming had this happen, “…in August, EPA reported that eleven of thirty-nine drinking-water wells near a Wyoming hydraulic fracturing operation were contaminated with chemicals used in the fracturing process (Hobson EPA).” In Pennsylvania, another such case occurred, “There have already been severe pollution cases in Pennsylvania, mo...