Sioux council to regain 'Wounded Knee' territories
Leonard Doyle
Nearly 120 years after the last massacre of Native Americans by the US cavalry at Wounded Knee, some of the lands confiscated are to be returned to the Oglala Sioux.
After decades of protests, the southern part of Badlands National Park in South Dakota -- which encompasses Wounded Knee -- will return to Indian control. It will take an act of Congress to approve and is expected to occur next year.
Though broadly welcomed by the Sioux residents, there are those who say the land should be returned to the original owners rather than to the tribal council as a park.
Most of the US's national parks -- Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite and Glacier -- were created when the Roosevelt administration forced tribes from the land in the 1930s.
Karl Jacoby, a professor of history at Brown University, said: "There weren't empty wilderness areas in the United States. They had to be created by the removal of Indians."
Sioux activist Keith Janis said the land should be returned to its original Indian residents.
"The whole national park system is environmental racism against the Indian people," he added.
In the dying days of 1890, Sioux leader leader Sitting Bull was assassinated. About 120 of his followers along with 230 women and children took refuge at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, where they were surrounded by the US cavalry.
About 300 men, women and children were massacred. (© Independent News Service)
