Pine Ridge Indian Reservation

The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation ( lkt, Wazí Aháŋhaŋ Oyáŋke), also called Pine Ridge Agency, is an Oglala Lakota Indian reservation located entirely within the U.S. state of South Dakota. Originally included within the territory of the Great Sioux Reservation, Pine Ridge was created by the Act of March 2, 1889, 25 Stat. 888. in the southwest corner of South Dakota on the Nebraska border. Today it consists of of land area and is one of the largest reservations in the United States.

The reservation encompasses the entirety of Oglala Lakota County and Bennett County, the southern half of Jackson County, and a small section of Sheridan County added by Executive Order No. 2980 of February 20, 1904. Of the 3,142 counties in the United States, these are among the poorest. Only of land are suitable for agriculture. The 2000 census population of the reservation was 15,521; but a study conducted by Colorado State University and accepted by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development has estimated the resident population to reach 28,787.

Pine Ridge is the site of several events that mark milestones in the history between the Sioux of the area and the United States (U.S.) government. Stronghold Table—a mesa in what is today the Oglala-administered portion of Badlands National Park—was the location of the last of the Ghost Dances. The U.S. authorities' attempt to repress this movement eventually led to the Wounded Knee Massacre on December 29, 1890. A mixed band of Miniconjou Lakota and Hunkpapa Sioux, led by Chief Spotted Elk, sought sanctuary at Pine Ridge after fleeing the Standing Rock Agency, where Sitting Bull had been killed during efforts to arrest him. The families were intercepted by a heavily armed detachment of the Seventh Cavalry, which attacked them, killing many women and children as well as warriors. This was the last large engagement between U.S. forces and Native Americans and marked the end of the western frontier.

Changes accumulated in the last quarter of the 20th century; in 1971 the Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST) started Oglala Lakota College, a tribal college, which offers 4-year degrees. In 1973 decades of discontent at the Pine Ridge Reservation resulted in a grassroots protest that escalated into the Wounded Knee Incident, gaining national attention. Members of the Oglala Lakota, the American Indian Movement and supporters occupied the town in defiance of federal and state law enforcement in a protest that turned into an armed standoff lasting 71 days. This event inspired American Indians across the country and gradually led to changes at the reservation, with a revival of some cultural traditions. In 1981 the Lakota Tim Giago started the '' Lakota Times'' at Pine Ridge; he published it until selling it in 1998.

Located at the southern end of the Badlands, the reservation is part of the mixed grass prairie, an ecological transition zone between the short-grass and tall-grass prairies; all are part of the Great Plains. A great variety of plant and animal life flourishes on and adjacent to the reservation, including the endangered black-footed ferret. The area is also important in the field of paleontology; it contains deposits of Pierre Shale formed on the seafloor of the Western Interior Seaway, evidence of the marine Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary, and one of the largest deposits of fossils of extinct mammals from the Oligocene epoch.

History

19th century

Great Sioux Reservation

As stipulated in the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), the U.S. government built Indian agencies for the various Lakota and other Plains tribes. These were forerunners to the modern Indian reservations. The Red Cloud Agency was established for the Oglala Lakota in 1871 on the North Platte River in Wyoming Territory. The location was one mile (1.6 km) west of the present town of Henry, Nebraska. The location of the Red Cloud Agency was moved to two other locations before being settled at the present Pine Ridge location. Pine Ridge Reservation was originally part of the Great Sioux Reservation established by the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868); it encompassed approximately 60 million contiguous acres () of western South Dakota (all of what is now called West River), northern Nebraska and eastern Wyoming.

Exclusion of the Black Hills

In 1874 George Armstrong Custer led the U.S. Army Black Hills Expedition, which set out on July 2 from Fort Abraham Lincoln in the Dakota Territory, with orders to travel to the previously uncharted Black Hills of South Dakota. Its mission was to look for suitable locations for a fort, find a route to the southwest, and to investigate the potential for gold mining. After the discovery of gold was made public, miners began invading Sioux Territory.

"Custer's florid descriptions of the mineral and timber resources of the Black Hills, and the land's suitability for grazing and cultivation ... received wide circulation, and had the effect of creating an intense popular demand for more settlers to invade the Black Hills." Initially the U.S. military tried to turn away trespassing miners and settlers. Eventually President Grant, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Secretary of War, "decided that the military should make no further resistance to the occupation of the Black Hills by miners."''U.S. v. Sioux Nation'', 448 U.S. at 378. These orders were to be enforced "quietly", and the President's decision was to remain "confidential".

As more settlers and gold miners encroached upon the Black Hills, the Government determined it had to acquire the land from the Sioux, and appointed a commission to negotiate the purchase.''U.S. v. Sioux Nation'', 448 U.S. at 379. The negotiations failed, as the Sioux resisted giving up what they considered sacred land. The U.S. resorted to military force. They declared the Sioux Indians "hostile" for failing to obey an order to return from an off-reservation hunting expedition by a specific date. In the dead of winter, the Sioux found the overland travel was impossible.

The consequent military expedition to remove the Sioux from the Black Hills included an attack on a major encampment of several bands on the Little Bighorn River. Led by General Custer, the attack ended in his defeat; it was an overwhelming victory of chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse over the 7th Cavalry Regiment, a conflict often called Custer's Last Stand. US forces were vastly outnumbered.

In 1876 the U.S. Congress decided to open up the Black Hills to development and break up the Great Sioux Reservation. In 1877, it passed an act to make 7.7 million acres (31,000 km²) of the Black Hills available for sale to homesteaders and private interests. In 1889 Congress divided the remaining area of Great Sioux Reservation into five separate reservations, defining the boundaries of each in its Act of March 2, 1889, 25 Stat. 888. Pine Ridge was established at that time.

Wounded Knee Massacre

The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred on December 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek ( Lakota: ''Cankpe Opi Wakpala''). On the day before, a detachment of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment commanded by Major Samuel M. Whitside intercepted Spotted Elk's (Big Foot) band of Miniconjou Lakota and 38 Hunkpapa Lakota near Porcupine Butte and escorted them westward to Wounded Knee Creek where they made camp. The rest of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, led by Colonel James Forsyth, surrounded the encampment, supported by four Hotchkiss guns.

On the morning of December 29, 1890, the troops went into the camp to disarm the Lakota. One version of events claims that during the process, a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote was reluctant to give up his rifle, saying he had paid a lot for it. A scuffle over Black Coyote's rifle escalated and a shot was fired, which resulted in the 7th Cavalry opening firing indiscriminately from all sides, killing men, women, and children, as well as some of their fellow troopers. Those few Lakota warriors who still had weapons began shooting back at the troopers, who quickly suppressed the Lakota fire. The surviving Lakota fled, but U.S. cavalrymen pursued and killed many who were unarmed.

In the end, U.S. forces killed at least 150 men, women, and children of the Lakota Sioux and wounded 51 (four men, and 47 women and children, some of whom died later); some estimates placed the number of dead at 300. Twenty-five troopers also died, and thirty-nine were wounded (six of the wounded would also die). Many Army deaths were believed to have been caused by friendly fire, as the shooting took place at close range in chaotic conditions.

The site has been designated a National Historic Landmark and is administered by the National Park Service.

20th century

White Clay Extension

In 1882, at the urging of Valentine McGillycuddy—the US Indian Agent at the Pine President Agency—President Chester A. Arthur issued an executive order establishing the White Clay Extension, an area of land in Nebraska extending south of the reservation's border and wide approximately perpendicular to the road leading north into the town of Pine Ridge on the reservation. This road is today's Nebraska Highway 87. McGillycuddy lobbied for the buffer zone to prevent white peddlers from engaging in the illegal sale of "knives, guns, and alcohol" to the Oglala Lakota residents of Pine Ridge.

A law passed in Congress in 1832 banned the sale of alcohol to Native Americans. The ban was ended in 1953 by Public Law 277, signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The amended law gave Native American tribes the option of permitting or banning alcohol sales and consumption on their lands. The OST and many other tribes chose to exclude alcohol from their reservations because of the problems for their people.

In 1887, when Congress enacted the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887—breaking up the reservations and allotting a plot to the registered head of each family—the Whiteclay Extension was specifically exempted. On March 2, 1889, the U.S. Congress enacted the ''Great Sioux Agreement of March 2, 1889, 25 Stat. 888,'' breaking up the Great Sioux Reservation and setting boundaries for the six reduced reservations. In this act, the White Clay Extension was incorporated again within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Agency. "Provided, That the said tract of land in the State of Nebraska shall be reserved, by Executive order, only so long as it may be needed for the use and protection of the Indians receiving rations and annuities at the Pine Ridge Agency."

On January 25, 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt signed an executive order returning the of the White Clay Extension to the public domain. The town of Whiteclay in Sheridan County, Nebraska, just over the border from the reservation, was founded in the former "Extension" zone. Merchants quickly started selling alcohol to the Oglala Sioux.

On February 20, 1904, Roosevelt amended the executive order to return back to Pine Ridge: "the section of land embracing the Pine Ridge Boarding School irrigation ditch and the school pasture".

Bennett County Land dispute

In 1975 in ''Cook v. Parkinson'' 525 F.2d 120 (8th Cir. 1975) ruled that Bennett County was not considered part of the Pine Ridge Reservation. However, "the United States participated only as amicus before the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in ''Cook v. Parkinson'', 525 F.2d 120 (8th Cir. 1975) and is not bound by that decision because it did not participate in the litigation. The United States was a party in ''United States v. Bennett County'', 394 F.2d 8 (8th Cir. 1968), in which the State of South Dakota had to obtain permission from the Department of Interior in order to fix roads or condemn property in Bennett County, consistent with the property's reservation status as well as ''Putnam v. United States'' 248 F.2d 292 (8th Cir. 1957) which ruled that "Bennett County is within the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation created by the Act of Congress of March 2, 1889, 25 Stat. 888." The Federal Government recognizes Bennett County as being entirely within the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. More recently in 2004, in State of South Dakota v. Acting Great Plains Regional Director, Bureau of Indian Affairs Docket Number IBIA3-24-A the State of South Dakota argued against an Oglala Sioux Tribal member's application to the BIA to return a 10-acre tract of land in Bennett County into Federal Trust arguing it was outside of the Boundary of the Pine Ridge Reservation. The judge ruled in favor of the applicant and Bureau of Indian Affairs' affirmant that Bennett County is indeed within the boundaries of the Reservation.

Indian Reorganization Act

During the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration made changes in federal policy to improve conditions for American Indians. In response to complaints about corruption and injustices in the BIA management of reservations, Congress passed the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, permitting tribal nations to reorganize with self-government. It encouraged them to adopt a model of elected representative governments and elected tribal chairmen or presidents, with written constitutions. While tribes welcomed taking back more control of their government, this change eroded the power and structure of the traditional hereditary leaders of the clan system.

The Oglala Sioux Tribe developed a tribal government along democratic constitutional lines, with a chairman to be elected for a two-year term. This short term makes it difficult for leaders to accomplish longer-term projects, but the tribe has not changed its constitution. The BIA still has had the ability to oversee some tribal operations, including the police. Historically BIA tribal police were often assigned from other Indian tribes rather than representing local people and understanding their culture, which created tensions. Many traditionalists among the Oglala Lakota never supported the new style of government; tribal elders were still respected, and there were multiple lines of authority and influence among different groups on the reservation. Political factions also formed between those who were mixed-bloods or had urban experiences, and those who were full-bloods and tended to be more traditional in practices and culture.''Ruling Pine Ridge: Oglala Lakota Politics from the IRA to Wounded Knee''
Texas Tech University Press, 2007

The people continued to be under assimilation pressure: through the early part of the century, many children were sent away to Indian boarding schools where they were usually required to speak English and were prohibited from speaking Lakota; they were usually expected to practice Christianity rather than native religions. In the late 20th century, many of these institutions were found to have had staff who abused the children in their care."Wounded Knee"
, ''We Shall Remain'', PBS: American Experience, accessed 29 June 2011

Taking of Badlands Bombing Range

In 1942 the federal government took privately held Pine Ridge Indian Reservation land owned by tribal members in order to establish the Badlands Bombing Range of (the largest portion is located in Oglala Lakota County). It also leased communally held Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST) land for this defense installation.

Among the 125 families evicted was that of Pat Cuny, an Oglala Sioux. He fought in World War II in the Battle of the Bulge after surviving torpedoing of his transport in the English Channel. Dewey Beard, a Miniconjou Sioux survivor of the Wounded Knee Massacre, who supported himself by raising horses on his allotment received in 1907 was also evicted. The small federal payments were insufficient to enable such persons to buy new properties. In 1955 the 97-year-old Beard testified of earlier mistreatment at Congressional hearings about this project. He said, for "fifty years I have been kicked around. Today there is a hard winter coming. ... I might starve to death."

Since 1960, the U.S. has returned portions of the bombing range to the OST. The 1968 Public Law 90-468 returned to the OST and set aside former tribal lands as the Badlands National Monument (the smaller Air Force Retained Area is within the boundaries of the reservation.)

A 2008 USAF & OST agreement initiated "a three-month $1.6 million project to remove unexploded ordnance" from the bombing range.

Wounded Knee Occupation

In the early 1970s, tribal tensions rose and some members turned to the American Indian Movement (AIM) for help. Longstanding divisions on the reservation resulted from deep-seated political, ethnic and cultural differences. Many residents did not support the elected tribal government. Many residents were upset about what they described as the autocratic and repressive actions by the tribal president Dick Wilson, elected in 1972.

On February 21, the tribal council was called into session to consider impeaching Wilson. Five hundred Oglala members were in attendance. He was criticized for favoring family and friends with jobs and benefits, not consulting with the tribal council, and creating a private militia, known as the Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOONs), to suppress political opponents. He used tribal funds to pay for this force. Wilson's response was to screen a right wing propaganda film. After a series of meetings held in the Calico community near the Pine Ridge Agency, the old traditional chiefs and the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization (OSCRO) called down to AIM in Rapid City and asked them to come to Pine Ridge. A meeting was arranged between Wilson and Russell Means. Five of Wilson's supporters cornered Means in the parking lot. Means escaped. Women elders such as Ellen Moves Camp, founder of the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization (OSCRO), called for action. They organized a public protest for the next day.

About 200 AIM and Oglala Lakota activists occupied the hamlet of Wounded Knee on February 27, 1973. They demanded the removal of Wilson, restoration of treaty negotiations with the U.S. government, and correction of U.S. failures to enforce treaty rights. Visits by the U.S. senators from South Dakota, FBI agents and United States Department of Justice (DOJ) representatives, were attended by widespread media coverage, but the Richard Nixon administration was preoccupied internally with Watergate.

As the events evolved, the activists at Wounded Knee had a 71-day armed stand-off with U.S. law enforcement. AIM leaders at the site were Russell Means, Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt, and Carter Camp; traditional spiritual leaders of the Lakota, such as Frank Fools Crow, were also prominent. Fools Crow led Oglala Lakota spiritual ceremonies and practice in their ways for participants. Joseph H. Trimbach of the FBI and Steve Frizell of DOJ led the government.

Casualties of gunfire included a U.S. Marshal, who was seriously wounded and paralyzed; and the deaths of Frank Clearwater, a Cherokee from North Carolina, and Buddy Lamont, a local Oglala Lakota. After Lamont's death, the Oglala Lakota elders called an end to the occupation. Some Lakota have alleged that Ray Robinson, a civil rights activist, was killed during the Wounded Knee occupation, as he disappeared there.

The stand-off ended, but Wilson remained in office. The U.S. government said it could not remove an elected tribal official as the Oglala Sioux Tribe had sovereignty.
Ensuing open conflict between factions caused numerous deaths. The murder rate between March 1, 1973, and March 1, 1976, was 170 per 100,000; it was the highest in the country. More than 60 opponents of the tribal government allegedly died violent deaths in the three years following the Wounded Knee Incident, a period called the "Reign of Terror" by many residents. Among those killed was Pedro Bissonette, executive director of the civil rights organization OSCRO. Residents accused officials of failing to try to solve the deaths. In 2000, the FBI released a report regarding the 57 alleged unsolved violent deaths on pine ridge reservation and accounted for most of the deaths, and disputed the claims of unsolved murders. The report stated that only 4 deaths were unsolved and that some deaths were not murders. AIM representatives criticized the FBI report.

Pine Ridge Shootout

During this period of increased violence, on June 26, 1975, the reservation was the site of an armed confrontation between AIM activists and the FBI and their allies, which became known as the 'Pine Ridge Shootout'. Two FBI agents, Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams, were killed and executed at close range. The agents had been following a car when they were shot at by its occupants and others. AIM activist Joe Stuntz was later killed by responding police. Stuntz was found wearing Coler's FBI jacket. In two separate trials, the U.S. prosecuted participants in the firefight for the deaths of the agents. AIM members Robert Robideau and Dino Butler were acquitted after asserting that they had acted in self-defense. Leonard Peltier was extradited from Canada and tried separately because of the delay. He was convicted on two counts of first–degree murder for the deaths of the FBI agents and sentenced to two consecutive terms of life in prison.

Murder of Anna Mae Aquash

On February 24, 1976, the body of Anna Mae Aquash, a Mi'kmaq activist and the most prominent woman in AIM, was found in the far northeast corner of the Pine Ridge Reservation. Missing since December 1975, she had been shot execution-style. At the time, some AIM people said that she was a government informant, but the FBI has denied that. In 1974 AIM had discovered that Douglas Durham, then head of security, was an FBI informant. Three federal grand juries were called to hear testimony on the Aquash murder: in 1976, 1982 and 1994, but it was more than a quarter of a century before any suspects were indicted and tried for the crime. Two AIM members, Arlo Looking Cloud and John Graham, were convicted of her murder in 2004 and 2010 respectively, and sentenced to life in prison. Bruce Ellison, Leonard Peltier's lawyer since the 1970s, invoked his Fifth Amendment rights and refused to testify at the grand jury hearings on Looking Cloud or at his trial in 2004. At trial, the federal prosecutor referred to Ellison as a co-conspirator in the Aquash case.

21st century

Alcoholism among residents has been a continuing problem in the life of the reservation since its founding. Since 1999, activists from the Pine Ridge Reservation, AIM, and Nebraskans for Peace have worked to have beer sales shut down in nearby Whiteclay, Nebraska, a border town. Whiteclay sells millions of cans of beer annually, primarily to residents from the reservation in South Dakota, where alcohol possession and consumption is prohibited. In 2008 the documentary ''The Battle for Whiteclay,'' about the toll of alcoholism and activists' efforts to control beer sales, was released, which has attracted wide attention. The Nebraska legislature allocated funds in late 2010 for increased police patrols in Pine Ridge by the county sheriff's office, based away in Rushville.

While other tribes and reservations also prohibited alcohol at one time, many have since legalized its sales on their reservations. They use the revenues generated to improve health care and life on the reservation, and they prefer to directly control the regulation of alcohol sales and police its use. A 2007 survey found that 63% of federally recognized tribes in the lower 48 states have legalized liquor sales on their reservations. They include the nearby Sicangu Oyate or Brulé Sioux at the Rosebud Indian Reservation, also located in South Dakota. In 2006, the Omaha Nation in northeastern Nebraska started requiring payment of tribal license fees and sales taxes by liquor stores located in towns within its reservation boundaries in order to benefit in the revenues generated by alcohol sales.Paul Hammel, "Tribe's Liquor Tax May Restart Old Boundary Dispute,"
, ''Omaha World-Herald'' (Nebraska), 28 December 2006, p. 03B, at H-Amindian Discussion Log, accessed 27 February 2012

Activists at Pine Ridge have worked to persuade Nebraska to enforce its own laws and support the tribe's prohibition. In 2004 the Oglala Sioux Tribe voted down a referendum to legalize alcohol sales, and in 2006 the tribal council voted to maintain the ban on alcohol sales, rather than taking on the benefits and responsibility directly.James N. Hughes III, "Pine Ridge, Whiteclay and Indian Liquor Law"
Federal Indian Law Seminar, December 2010, p. 7, University of Nebraska College of Law, accessed 27 February 2012

At a discussion at Bellevue University on April 2, 2010, Lance Morgan, CEO of Ho-Chunk, Inc.—the development corporation of the Winnebago Reservation—said the Oglala Sioux needed to concentrate on economic development. He believes that poverty is at the heart of its people's problems.KEVIN ABOUREZK, "Winnebago business leader: Poverty at heart of Whiteclay debacle"
''Lincoln Journal Star,'' 7 April 2010, accessed 29 February 2012 The Winnebago used revenues from a casino and alcohol sales at their reservation in eastern Nebraska to build an economic development corporation. It now employs 1,400 people in 26 subsidiaries. With its revenues, the Winnebago have been able to build a hospital, a new school and $1 million in new housing. Kevin Abourezk reported that Stew Magnuson—the author of ''The Death of Raymond Yellow Thunder'', a study of issues related to the Pine Ridge reservation and its border towns—described alcohol prohibition at the reservation "as a complete failure." Magnuson said, "Whenever you have prohibition, you're going to have places like Whiteclay." He thought prohibition contributed to bootlegging on the reservation.

On February 9, 2012, the Oglala Sioux Tribe filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court of Nebraska against the four liquor stores in Whiteclay, Nebraska, as well as the beverage distributors and the brewery companies who make it. The suit, ''Oglala Sioux Tribe v. Jason Schwarting, Licensee of Arrowhead Inn, Inc. et al'', sought $500 million in damages for the "cost of health care, social services and child rehabilitation caused by chronic alcoholism on the reservation, which encompasses some of the nation's most impoverished counties." The suit claims that the defendants knowingly and willingly sell excessive amounts of alcohol, knowing that most of it is smuggled onto the reservation, in violation of Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and Federal law. The defendants listed in the suit are the following:
* Anheuser-Busch InBev Worldwide, Inc.
* SAB Miller d/b/a Miller Brewing Company
*Molson Coors Brewing Company
* Miller Coors, LLC
*Pabst Brewing Company
*Pivo, Inc. d/b/a High Plains Budweiser. President, Treasurer: Jeffrey J. Scheinost. Secretary: Cynthia A. Scheinost. Director: Marykate Scheinost
*Dietrich Distributing Co., Inc. President, Director, Treasurer: John D. Dietrich
*Coors Distributing of West Nebraska d/b/a Coors of West Nebraska; President, Treasurer, Director: James K. Raymond, Treasurer, Director: Evelyn K. Raymond
*Klemm Distributing Inc.: President: Robert (Bob) F. Klemm, Secretary: Barrett R. Klemm d/b/a Arrowhead Distributing, Inc. President: Patrick A, O'Neal. Secretary: Greg Burkholder, Treasurer: Kent O'Neal
*Jason Schwarting d/b/a Arrowhead Inn, Inc. President: Jason Schwarting, Secretary: Vic Clarke
*Sanford Holdings, LLC d/b/a D&S Pioneer Service. Corporation Members: Doug Sanford, Steve Sanford
*Stuart J. Kozal d/b/a/ Jumping Eagle Inn. Owners: Stuart J. Kozal, Lillie I. Norman
*Clay M. Brehmer and Daniel J. Brehmer d/b/a State Line Liquor

On August 14, 2013, voters voted to end prohibition and legalize alcohol, so the tribe can use the profits for education and detoxification and treatment centers.

Demographics

In a 2005 interview, Cecilia Fire Thunder, the first female president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, noted, " ixty-eightpercent of the college graduates on the reservation are women. Seventy percent of the jobs are held by women. Over 90 percent of the jobs in our schools are held by women."Sam Hurst, "Cecilia Fire Thunder a 'person of character'"
''Rapid City Journal'', 17 December 2005, accessed 13 June 2011

* The 2010 U.S. Census counted 18,834 individuals living on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The vast majority (16,906) identified as American Indian.
* 89% of residents are unemployed;
* 53.75% of the residents live below the Federal poverty level
* Average per capita income in Oglala Lakota County is $8,768 and ranks as the "poorest" county in the nation.
* The infant mortality rate is five times higher than the national average;
* Native American amputation rates due to diabetes are three to four times higher than the national average;
* Death rate due to diabetes is three times higher than the national average;
* Teen suicide is four times the national average; and
* Average life expectancy on Pine Ridge is 66.81 years, the lowest in the United States. Other statistics, attributed to the Pine Ridge hospital, cite an average life expectancy of just 47 years for men and 55 years for women.

Tribal government

The reservation is governed by the eighteen-member Oglala Sioux Tribal Council, who are elected officials rather than traditional clan life leaders, in accordance with the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. The Executive Officers of the council are the President (also called Chairman), Vice President, Secretary, and Treasurer. Primary elections are held in October and the General election in November.

The President and Vice-President are elected at large by voters to a term of office of two years; the Secretary and Treasurer are appointed by the Tribal Council. Council members serve a term of two years. There are nine election districts on the reservation. One representative is elected for each 1,000 tribe members.

A Constitution was approved on January 15, 1936, with amendments approved on December 24, 1969; December 3, 1985; July 11, 1997.

Politics

While many residents have continued to struggle with the tribal government, BIA and other federal representatives, some have become more politically active in other ways. In 2002, the Pine Ridge Reservation was part of a statewide voter registration campaign organized by the Democratic Party. That year, Oglala Lakota candidates won offices in Bennett County; since the 1990s, Native Americans (mostly Lakota) have become a majority of the county's population. Charles Cummings was elected as county sheriff, Gerald 'Jed' Bettelyoun to one of the positions as county commissioner, and Sandy Flye became the first Native American elected to a seat on the county school board. Statewide turnout by Native Americans helped elect the Democratic candidate Tim Johnson to the U.S. Senate by a narrow margin.

In 1992, John Yellow Bird Steele was elected president of the OST, the first of what would become a record-setting seven terms as president. Despite winning seven elections, Steele only won re-election once, in 2002. In most cases, he was defeated when seeking re-election, only to come back and defeat his successor in the next election (or, in the case of the 2006 election, to defeat the person serving out the rest of his successor's term).

In 2004, Cecilia Fire Thunder became the first woman elected president of the OST, defeating the incumbent Steele and Russell Means. In 2005 she led negotiations with Nebraska to strengthen law enforcement in Whiteclay by hiring more Oglala tribal police and having them deputized by Nebraska to patrol in the town. The town sells massive quantities of alcohol to the Lakota, although it is illegal on the reservation. The "historic agreement" was signed by Fire Thunder following approval by the tribal council, the Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman and State Attorney General Jon Bruning.AP, "Two years after 'historic' agreement, no tribe patrols in Whiteclay"
''Rapid City Journal'', 14 May 2007, accessed 13 June 2011

On March 21, 2006, Fire Thunder announced her plan to bring a Planned Parenthood clinic to the reservation to improve health services to women. The South Dakota state legislature had recently passed a stringent abortion law. In May 2006, the Oglala Sioux tribal council unanimously voted to ban all abortions on the reservation, regardless of the circumstances. The council also voted to suspend Fire Thunder for 20 days pending an impeachment hearing. On June 29, 2006, the tribal council voted to impeach Fire Thunder: it said that founding the clinic was outside her authority and she had failed to consult with them. Her two-year term would have expired in October 2006. In November 2006, state voters reviewed the law passed by the state legislature, and they overwhelmingly defeated the ban on abortions without exceptions, by 55.57 percent to 44.43 percent. A ban with exceptions was proposed in 2008, and state voters rejected that by a margin of 55.21 percent to 44.79 percent.

The U.S. Congress supported Fire Thunder's tribal law enforcement initiative, earmarking $200,000 over two years to pay for the increased cost of OST police patrols in Whiteclay. By May 2007, the tribe had spent none of the money. Fire Thunder's impeachment and tribal political conflict appeared to prevent its implementing the agreement. However, during 2006 and 2007, tribal activists tried to blockade the road inside the reservation to confiscate beer being illegally brought in. The OST police chief complained of having insufficient money and staff to control the beer traffic.CARSON WALKER (Associated Press), "Pine Ridge blockade planned to nab bootleggers"
13 May 2007, accessed 17 February 2012 The tribe lost the earmarked funds and let the initiative lapse.

In November 2008, Theresa Two Bulls, a Democratic State Senator for South Dakota since 2004, became the second woman elected president of the OST. She succeeded Steele and defeated Russell Means. When the reservation had a rash of suicides in late 2009, she declared a state of emergency and organized a call-in to President Barack Obama. She organized services during a blizzard to assist residents in outlying areas on the reservation.

Steele was re-elected in 2010, defeating Two Bulls. Bryan Brewer was elected as Tribal president in November 2012, defeating the incumbent Steele with 52% of the vote. A retired educator and school administrator, he was new to tribal politics. He worked to develop housing and discourage alcoholism, even leading a protest against Whiteclay alcohol sales. The journalist Brian Ecoffey noted that Brewer represented a "new direction" for the tribe, as he had not held political office before. Steele then defeated Brewer in 2014, starting what would be Steele's last term.

Troy "Scott" Weston represented the Porcupine District in the 2010 and 2012 administrations; Weston was elected OST President in 2016 beating Steele, the incumbent, in a landslide victory. The ''Rapid City Journal'' reported that nearly 2/3 of voters at the polls cast their ballot for Weston.

Federal, state, and tribal law

The Oglala Sioux Tribe maintains legal jurisdiction over all crimes committed on the reservation by tribal members, non-reservation Indians, and those willing to relinquish authority to the tribal courts. Felony crimes and others which have been specifically assumed by the federal government, as defined by various acts of the U.S. Congress, are outside their jurisdiction and are prosecuted by the BIA and FBI. The ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States in ''Ex parte Crow Dog'' (1883) marked the high point of Indian sovereignty in law enforcement on reservations; since then federal legislation and subsequent Supreme Court decisions have reduced Native American sovereignty in this area.

Public Law 280, enacted by Congress in 1953 and substantially amended in 1968, allows for states to assume jurisdiction on Indian reservations if approved by referendum by the affected reservations. In South Dakota, Public Law 280 is applied only to state highways running through reservations.

Landmark cases affecting tribal criminal law include:
*: On August 5, 1881, Crow Dog, a Brulé Lakota subchief, shot and killed the Oglala principal chief Chief Spotted Tail, on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. A grand jury was convened, and Crow Dog was tried and convicted in Dakota Territorial court in Deadwood, South Dakota, and sentenced to death. In 1883 his lawyers petitioned for '' writs of habeas corpus'' and ''certiorari''; his case was argued in November 1883 before the U.S. Supreme Court. In a unanimous decision, the court ruled that, according to the provisions of the Treaty of Fort Laramie, the Dakota Territorial court had no jurisdiction over the Rosebud reservation; it overturned Crow Dog's conviction. In response to this ruling, Congress passed the Major Crimes Act

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