Page 7 - Meridel Le Sueur News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

From a distance,  the green pines and the blue-gray haze that gently hug the valleys of the Black Hills merge into a deep black. The Lakota name “He Sapa” meaning “black ridge” describes this visual phenomenon. This is a place of origin for dozens of Native peoples and a revered landscape for more than 50 others. The land’s most recent, and perhaps longest-serving, stewards the Oceti Sakowin, the Dakota, Nakota and Lakota people hold the mountains central to their cosmos. The Black Hills are also central to the political territory drawn by the 1851 and 1868 Fort Laramie treaties. And they continue to be a crucial part of the strategic position that sustained Native resistance to white encroachment. They have become an international symbol of the call to return stolen land to Indigenous people. That’s why President Donald Trump chose to hold his July 3 rally at Mount Rushmore, said Nick Tilsen, who is Oglala Lakota. The faces of U.S. Presidents George Washington

South dakotaUnited statesStone mountainRepublic ofEl doradoPine ridge reservationBlack hillsPennington countySioux fallsMount rushmoreCheyenne riverRapid cityWounded kneeHarold frazierLeonard peltierOceti sakowin