Oglala Lakota writer Layli Long Soldier’s measured, almost solemn, narration, contrasted with images so stunning as to rival those of Ansel Adams, provides a dramatic sensory backdrop to the documentary “Lakota Nation vs. United States.”
Now playing at DOC NYC and streaming on AMC+ and Amazon Prime Video, the Jesse Short Bull- and Laura Tomaselli-directed film is a literal survey of the ongoing battle between America’s federal government and the Lakota Nation, historically called the Sioux and more properly known as Oceti Sakowin, over their ancestral homeland, the Black Hills in South Dakota and Wyoming.
The Battle of the Greasy Grass (also known as Battle of Little Bighorn), the Battle of Wounded Knee, Standing Rock, and Mt. Rushmore are all well-known sites of standoffs or outright violence between the Lakota and the federal government. “Lakota Nation vs. United States,” however, shows viewers that the struggle took place both on the battlefield—and off.
Lakota activists Phyllis Rogers, Candi Brings Plenty, Nick Estes, Nick Tilsen, Milo Yellow Hair, and Kathryn Two Bulls; lawyer and writer Mary Kathryn Nagle; and author Edward Lazarus (“Black Hills/White Justice”) comment on the historical events that mark the struggle for power centered around land for Native Americans in general, and for the Lakota people in particular. The doc includes extensive archival photos and news footage, footage from popular television and movies, and legal documents.
Much of the struggle took place in the courts, with the government issuing hundreds of treaties indicating they would stop encroachment on Lakota land, or compensate for the land with money or other land. There’s a question of why the government went to the trouble of creating the treaties—as often as these treaties were signed, they were broken, and military and law enforcement were brought in to quell any resistance to the seizure of Lakota land.
“Lakota Nation vs. United States” highlights perhaps the most egregious example: the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty, where the Sioux nations agreed to cede much of their rightful land if the government recognized the Black Hills area as their sovereign land and ceased incursion. As soon as white settlers discovered there was gold in that area however, they broke the treaty and began settling (and mining) the land.
“While the Indians are barely surviving, because the 7 million acres of the Black Hills have been taken away, the whites in the Black Hill region are getting fabulously wealthy off the gold deposits there,” said Lazarus. “That wasn’t just any gold strike. That was the richest gold strike as probably there’s been in the history of humankind.”
One of the mines, Lazarus explained, “yielded many hundreds of millions of dollars in gold over time, and became the foundation of the Hearst family fortune, one of the most powerful families in the history of the United States.”
As Lazarus indicated, the Native Americans were suffering—not simply because their land was taken but because of the other fronts on which the federal government and white settlers waged war against them. The buffalo, a source of food and trade for the Lakota, were being systematically slaughtered by the whites. Eventually, the situation forced the Lakota into a state of dependency, which in turn forced them to reluctantly agree to other outrageous concessions, leading to further suffering.
“Lakota Nation vs. United States” details how the law was used to separate the Lakota from their religion and traditions. The law was used to forcibly remove their children and put them into boarding schools with the stated aim of “killing the Indian and saving the man.” Another law, the Dawes Act of 1887, further weakened social cohesion and increased economic insecurity among the Lakota. It also paved the way for giving another 90 million more acres of land to white settlers.
“Lakota Nation vs. United States” also makes the case that popular media was heavily used to perpetuate negative stereotypes of Native Americans, including the Lakota: They were, as Estes said, “dehumanized,” and “made into caricatures.” Further, he argues, the media was used “to make [whites’] invasion look like self-defense.”
Estes made one of the most poignant statements in the film: “The organizing principle of any settler society is the elimination of the native. The intent of treaties, the intent of removal, the intent of boarding schools, has always been the elimination of native people to gain access to the land. That is, fundamentally, the intent of the United States is access to native land.”
The Lakota continued to fight and finally, in 1980, the Supreme Court ruled the U.S. should settle with them for $105 million. They refused on the premise that the land was sacred and not for sale.
“Lakota Nation vs. United States” chronicles the Landback campaign, which the Lakota have instead leaned into. Landback is basically their nomenclature for what other groups might term reparations, but with an emphasis on land. The settlement funds are still available but the Lakota, with a population of roughly 150,000 today, continue to refuse the money. According to the title card at the end of the film, that money would be worth just over $1 billion today. The current net worth of the Hearst family, by the way, is reportedly $21 billion.
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