The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (Wazí Aháŋhaŋ Oyáŋke in Lakota) is an Oglala Sioux Native American reservation in South Dakota.
The Reservation, which was originally called the Great Sioux Reservation by white settlers, was established with the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 and encompassed roughly 60 million acres. However, the U.S. government violated the treaty in 1876 by opening up 7.7 million acres to homesteaders and private interests.
In 1890, the U.S. 7th Cavalry killed more than 300 men, women and children, near Wounded Knee Creek, who were trying to get to Pine Ridge. The massacre has come to be known as the Wounded Knee Massacre.
In the 1970s, the reservation was the site of a 71-day-stand-off between American Indian Movement (AIM) activists and FBI Agents and the National Guard. AIM was lead by Dennis Banks and Russell Means. Two FBI agents were killed and two Oglala Lakotas were killed.
Minnesota Public Radio’s Kevin McKiernan was inside the Pine Ridge Reservation when the firefight broke out. MPR also covered the trial of the AIM leaders and other issues surrounding the reservation.
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October 17, 1975 - Cases of nine people convicted for roles they played in Wounded Knee occupation come before appeals court. The appeal is a consolidated one, with two lines of attack: one on US jurisdiction (the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty guarantees sovereign rights of Lakota people), the other, government misconduct (the FBI paid informant Doug Durham to infiltrate AIM). The appeals court many not act on treaty issues, so the case may be sent to the Supreme Court. Lawyer Vine DeLoria says for too many years the government has treated Indian tribes as sovereign some of the time and wards of the state at other times. She wants an unambigious ruling on what the relationship is, which has implications for Pine Ridge Reservation. A ruling expected in two and a half months. Martin Bunzl and Bob Potter report.
February 27, 1998 - MPR’s Cara Hetland reports on 25th anniversary of Wounded Knee, a 72 day stand-off between members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and the tribal and federal governments. Some regard the incident at Wounded Knee in western South Dakota as the beginning of an era of increased Indian activism and by others as the end to progress on the reservation.
June 4, 1998 - A half century of work on a craggy granite mountain in South Dakota's Black Hills has been unveiled. The massive Crazy Horse mountain carving celebrates its golden anniversary this year with the completion of the Sioux (Lakota) Warrior's face, and the carvers are now moving on to the horse's head. Minnesota Public Radio's Cara Hetland reports.
April 24, 2001 - As part of Mainstreet Radio series "Broken Trust: Civil Rights in Indian Country,” MPR’s Cara Hetland reports on decades of Native American civil rights complaints in South Dakota.
March 14, 2002 - A relatively small, regional railroad, the Dakota Minnesota and Eastern, has a bold plan to expand its range. The proposal takes the DM&E into the Powder River Basin coal fields and requires more than 250 miles of new track in Western South Dakota and Eastern Wyoming. Opponents have sprung up along that new section of railway. They are ranchers concerned about tracks cutting through their land and Native Americans who say the project will trample all over treaty rights. As our series "Tracking the Plains" continues, South Dakota Public Radio's Joshua Welsh reports another point of opposition may be found just under the surface of the ground.
January 3, 2003 - American Indian activist Russell Means is beginning the new year free of an old burden. Means was pardoned by South Dakota Governor Bill Janklow earlier this week. The pardon wipes away a felony conviction, stemming from a 1974 courthouse riot Means was involved in. He spent a little more than a year in prision for the offense. Governor Janklow called Means into his office Monday to discuss the pardon. Means and Janklow were friends in the late 1960's, when they worked together on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. And Means says that in this case, an old friend turned out to be a good friend.
October 26, 2004 - In this installment of our occasional series "Every Vote Counts," Mainstreet Radio’s Cara Hetland reports on South Dakota's close race for the U.S. Senate. The margin for a victory could be just a few hundred votes, and Native American votes could be the deciding factor.
October 15, 2007 - Vernon Bellecourt, a longtime leader of the American Indian Movement, died Saturday at the age of 75 from complications of pneumonia. Minnesota Public Radio's Jess Mador has this remembrance.
December 23, 2008 - A group of about 50 Native Americans will ride on horseback into the Mankato area later this week. Their arrival will mark the end of a nearly 300 mile trip to mark the 146th anniversary of the largest mass execution in U.S. history. The group has endured blizzards and long stretches of below zero temperatures in their journey from the Missouri River to the Minnesota River. They saddled up again this morning in southwest Minnesota for one of the last legs of what they call a ride of reconciliation. Minnesota Public Radio's Mark Steil reports.