They do seem to have some more sensible leaders.
The President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecilia Fire Thunder, was incensed. A former nurse and healthcare giver she was very angry that a state body made up mostly of white males, would make such a stupid law against women.
“To me, it is now a question of sovereignty,” she said to me last week. “I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.”
(via Brutal Women)
Interesting… how long before there is a serious Pleasure Island scenario, in which if you want to do anything *salacious*, you go to a reservation?
Thank God for godless heathens.
Weren’t the Dakotas going to be declared bison preserves pretty soon anyway? http://www.gprc.org/Buffalo_Commons.html
It already exists. Notice how there are casinos in reservations in states that don’t allow gambling. It seems to be working out for the tribes — I saw busloads of tourists heading to one when I used to live near a reservation.
South Dakota, and North Dakota, already belong to the Oglala and other Lakota bands, and maybe some other plains tribes — I don’t know for sure — by the Fort Laramie treaty of 1868.
“This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the Supreme Law of the Land…”
– Article VI, U.S. Constitution
US law may be technically supreme, but does the ND legislature want to take on the Souix? They’d lose that battle of public opinion, hands down.
Good for her.
Fire Thunder in 2008
That quotation doesn’t say that U.S. law takes precedence on Indian land, it says that treaties are official law — and since we signed treaties that gave the pieces of land to the various Native American tribes living on them, they are not part of the United States. U.S. law doesn’t apply there.
I wonder if, being on a reservation, they might be able to put the kibash on clinic protesters that make such pests of themselves in places like Kansas.
U.S. law doesn’t apply there.
Oddly, this is an area I used to know a great deal about.
1) It depends on the treaty.
2) It’s more accurate to say that state and local law doesn’t apply on most reservations. Some US Federal law can apply on some reservations, depending on the treaty and the law. It’s a hodge-podge.
I *do* think that the First Amendment probably would be held to apply on a reservation, so there would be limited ability to really run the protesters off without a lawsuit.
This is a _state_ law that was signed, not federal. Just as reservations (again, depending on treaty) host casinos that would be illegal in the surrounding state, this would have a good chance of working.
This is a _state_ law that was signed, not federal. Just as reservations (again, depending on treaty) host casinos that would be illegal in the surrounding state, this would have a good chance of working.
I concur. My apologies if I did not make that clear.
That’s a promising idea. With some reservations, I say Sioux ’em.
That’s a promising idea. With some reservations, I say Sioux ’em.
That’s a promising idea. With some reservations, I say Sioux ’em.
That’s a promising idea. With some reservations, I say Sioux ’em.
Contact information for those who might be interested in supporting the endeavor:
http://kathrynt.livejournal.com/366823.html
dayum – what a great idea.
The point of citing the constitution was to show that treaties are also the supreme law of the land, so that, regardless of how many double-crosses the Indians have been subjected to, legally they already own South Dakota by the Fort Laramie treaty of 1868. The treaty supersedes state law, so the Lakotas are sovereign. These treaties can be made to have teeth, depending on the circumstances. Ojibwes in Wisconsin and Minnesota were successful in gaining the right to spear fish on ceded territories in the 1990s, despite the worst efforts of local politicians, police, and assorted drunken yahoos.
If I lived in SD, I think I’d try to move to the reservation where I could be ruled by some rational people instead of the cretins in the legislature.
Just a note: Not all the reservations in South Dakota are “Lakota”… they’re the largest band of the Great Sioux Nation that also includes the Dakota (the oldest of the bands and namesake of the states) and the Nakota… Sometimes referred to as the Dakota/Lakota/Nakota Nation or DLN Nation.
But, we’re not all Lakotas. The Lakota live over on the Western side of the state.
But, thanks for noting that not all of South Dakota is wasicu.