BLACK HILLS NATIONAL PARK

In 1872, Congress made history by establishing Yellowstone, the world's first national park. Since then, the National Park System has grown to include 385 sites and more than 83 million acres of land with nearly 300 million visits annually. The national parks protect diverse ecosystems and awe-inspiring landscapes, and safeguard our cultural and historical heritage.

These are the legendary Black Hills of South Dakota, an oasis of pine-clad mountains on the Great Plains. The mountains and forests of the Black Hills.

The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 was signed on September 17 between United States treaty commissioners and representatives of the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Shoshone, Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara nations. The U.S. government promised control of the Great Plains which was the bulk of Native American territory, for "as long as the river flows and the eagle flies". The Indians guaranteed safe passage for settlers on the Oregon Trail in return for promises of an annuity in the amount of fifty thousand dollars for fifty years. The Native American nations also allowed roads and forts to be built in their territories. The United States Senate ratified the treaty, adding Article 7, to adjust compensation from fifty to ten years, if the tribes accepted the changes. Acceptance from all tribes, with the exception of the Crows, was procured. Several tribes never received the commodities promised as payments. The treaty produced a brief period of peace.

The Treaty of Fort Laramie was an agreement between the United States and the Lakota nation, Yanktonai Sioux, Santee Sioux, and Arapaho signed in 1868 at Fort Laramie in the Wyoming Territory, guaranteeing to the Lakota ownership of the Black Hills, and further land and hunting rights in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. The Powder River Country was to be henceforth closed to all whites. The treaty ended Red Cloud's War.

The treaty included articles intended to "ensure the civilization" of the Lakota; financial incentives for them to farm land and become competitive - and stipulations that minors should be provided with an "English education" at a "mission building". To this end the US government included in the treaty that white teachers, blacksmiths, a farmer, a miller, a carpenter, an engineer and a government agent should take up residence within the reservation.

Repeated violations of the otherwise exclusive rights to the land by gold prospectors led to the Black Hills War. The treaty explicitly described, "the permanent home of the Indians, which is not mineral land..." Migrant workers seeking gold had crossed the reservation borders, in violation of the treaty. Indians had assaulted migrant workers, in violation of the treaty. War ensued. The U.S. government seized the Black Hills land in 1877.

More than a century later, the Sioux nation won a victory in court. On June 30, 1980, in United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371, the United States Supreme Court upheld an award of $17.5 million for the market value of the land in 1877, along with 103 years worth of interest at 5 percent, for an additional $105 million.

What I would like to see is the Black Hills to be set up in a National Protected Park that everyone has the right to enjoy. Illegal stripping has to stop to allow history to HONOR and pay respect to those who lives were taken.  Please sign this petition to give respect to those who lives were taken and protect our history.