Frequently I encounter non Native folks who tell me they think reservations are some form of reparatoins to Natives from the US government. I even had someone close to me tell me they thought reservations were places to “reserve” our cultures.
Where I’m from (South Dakota) reservations were concentration camps where they sent us to die after they stole and colonized all of the land every US citizen occupies. In the early SD Rez days our ppl had to get permission from district agents (white settler men) to get food, fix our homes, or even leave our community to travel to another community on our Rez to visit relatives. We couldn’t hunt cuz they killed millions of our buffalo. If we didn’t get permission from the white settler agent we couldn’t eat, fix our homes or visit relatives because we would be violating US law & could be arrested. Also our cultures & ceremonies were illegal under US law until the Indian Religious Freedom Act in 1978.
So plz educate the ppl you love and care abt because everyone in the USA is living in an illegal settler colony, Indigenous ppl survived their genocide & we’re her to say these settlers never gave af abt us & never will.
~ @FrankWaln
Whenever gold or oil were found on reservation land, the treaties were always redrawn so that the gold or oil was now on government land. That’s how “reparations” they were.
