2026-09-14 17:36 UTC
Replies (1)
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@emsenn@kolektiva.social 2026-09-14 17:45
Like, so - first off: it sucks how much more history and law Indigenous folk are basically forced to learn just to justify our existence, while settlers just get to live but: Bear Butte is HELLA important to the history of American settlerism. It's where Custer (as in, Custer Died for Your Sins, Custer's Last Stand, Custer) camped when violating the treaty the US signed when they lost their war trying to invade our territory. It's where gold prospectors came and camped and coordinated the massive land theft that violated that treaty. It's where they brought in the mining materials that stole gold and polluted the water. It's where they staged the cattle trade that continues to turn the continent into ANOTHER dust bowl. All to try and keep pace with their own debts - something that STILL motivates US imperialism. The Americans needed Bear Butte so badly that it's why us Lakota ended up on reservations. Why they stabbed Crazy Horse in the back. They replaced the buffalo with cow, and now I'm supposed to be cooperative when folk act like we're all experiencing this together? But it's the land theft that established the real estate systems and labor systems that let some of us have the money to settle new territory when the current one is ate up, and why some of us are literally designated as residents of *prison camps* left over from wars you won't admit you fought. I *hate* how much ecological adaptation, climate collapse, has become a way that white folk and other settlers try and like, claim that because they're experiencing that, we're all in this together, now. If that were the case, I wouldn't be begging for handouts on the Fediverse while settler children get grants to go to their own schools to try and study my people for what they can learn.