Here’s What Happened When These Unarmed Native American Sisters Defended Their Land from the Feds

[niyad]

Resistance


Here’s What Happened When These Unarmed Native American Sisters Defended Their Land from the Feds


Like the Bundys, the Dann sisters tried a standoff with the BLM. But it ended very differently.


Carrie Dann (left) with her sister Mary (right)

The double standard in the media’s treatment of Ammon Bundy and his gang at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is shameful, but the case of the Dann sisters underlines even further the disparity in how non-white activists are treated. Carrie and Mary Dann, two elderly Shoshone women who have defied seizure of their land, have been repeatedly roughed up and harassed by federal officials and mobs of white ranchers for refusing to cede their claim to land that was illegally stolen from them 30 years ago.

In 1863, the U.S. government signed the Ruby Valley Treaty with the Western Shoshone nation, who laid claim to 26 million acres of land in Nevada, Idaho, and Utah. The Shoshone tribe and the U.S. government agreed that settlers and cowboys had access to the land, but not title. But in the 1970s, the federal Indian Claims Commission ruled that the land no longer belonged to the Shoshone nation due to “gradual encroachment” of white settlers and ranchers. The government seized the land and put $26 million into an account meant for the Shoshone nation in 1979, but the tribe turned down the money, saying they never agreed to sell their land.

. . . . .

In September of 2001, the government sent in the cavalry to show it was serious about its claim to the Shoshone tract:
The government considers it public land, and to drive the point home, 40 agents from the Bureau of Land Management descended on the Danns’ ranch in September, heavily armed and fortified with helicopters, and confiscated 232 cattle, which were later sold.

The sisters and their supporters argue that their tribe never legally ceded these range lands. Though the federal government controls 85 percent of Nevada, they contend that it has no legitimate title to the land — or the gold, water, oil and geothermal energy beneath it.

. . . .

http://usuncut.com/resistance/dann-sisters-brutalized-by-blm-defending-land/

[randys1]

1. Cant be, you mean they werent invited in to have tea and crumpets?

Wounded Knee, anybody?

[niyad]

2. indeed.

[countryjake]

3. Here is that Oxfam documentary on the struggle of Carrie & Mary Dann ...

from the article you've posted:

The part which talks about the gold mines is absolutely disgusting...everyone should watch this...25 minutes well spent.

[niyad]

4. thank you so much for posting this.

would you consider posting it as its own OP, for wider visibility?

[countryjake]

5. You go ahead and do that...

nobody much pays attention to anything I have ever posted, so it will be seen by more if you do it.

[niyad]

9. I don't believe that nobody pays much attention to your posts, but I will post it. thank you

again for linking it for us.

[passiveporcupine]

7. just finished the documentary

Yes, the gold mining is tragic, but to me, being an animal (including horse) lover, the fencing in and starving of the horses was just as tragic.

And to think that even today we are still trying to renig on our treaties and steal land from the people who lived here first. The people who actually did care for the land.

appalling.

[passiveporcupine]

6. This sounds like Israel.

But in the 1970s, the federal Indian Claims Commission ruled that the land no longer belonged to the Shoshone nation due to “gradual encroachment” of white settlers and ranchers.

Maybe this is why we still let Israel get away with their territory expansion.

I think the Dann sisters went about it wrong. They weren't taken seriously because they didn't ask for snacks.

Gonna watch the documentary now. Probably won't be able to make jokes any more after that.

Thanks for this thread and the doc link.

[niyad]

8. sadly, you make a most excellent point about israel's territorial expansion and our silence

about it.

please let us know what you think of the doc.

[passiveporcupine]

10. I think it's obvious that the US screwed the indigenous people out of a fair treaty

We keep doing that, don't we? It was a very good doc...informative. Sad, for the people, the animals, and the earth.

I can't imagine digging up 20 tons of earth and contaminating it with cyanide, and pumping out all the ground water in vast areas, just to get a tiny amount ( a few oz) of some precious metal out of it? How is that even considered legal?

[niyad]

11. apparently because the big corporations are doing it, and they count more than we do.

[passiveporcupine]

12. Where I live it might have been more mililtary needs (and Hanford)

But The Dalles dam took out Celilo falls (and other salmon fishing runs) on the Columbia River. Celilo Falls was a famous salmon fishing area for the tribes in both Oregon and Washington. There were native villages and trading centers there for 15,000 years. They were not fairly compensated for their loss. As a matter of fact, on the Oregon side, they have a very small reserve now (Celilo village) where I count 15 houses (looking at it on google maps). No Indian land on the Washington side there. Just a tiny town named Wishram after the Wishram tribe that used to be there.

So what did The Dalles dam do for the residents?

When the Lewis and Clark expedition passed through the area in 1805, the explorers found a "great emporium…where all the neighboring nations assemble," and a population density unlike anything they had seen on their journey.[14] Accordingly, historians have likened the Celilo area to the “Wall Street of the West."

from wiki

The Dalles is a small struggling town now...no major importance to anyone any more. Hood River, a little west of them, is a thriving town because of tourism and more water (green orchards everywhere)...The Dalles is dry and rocky (beautiful, really) but it will never be what it used to be before the dam.

Yes, the dam (and other dams on the river) provided electricity to Hanford nuclear site. Yay! This nation has too much history of damages done to native peoples and our ecology. I read a book last year called "That Dark and Bloody River" By Allen Eckert, that is really eye-opening and ugly of our past dealings with natives in the need to expand our territories here in the US. It's a long read, but you might like to read it.

[niyad]

13. thank you for the information, and the book (just added to my reading list)

finishing "an indigenous people's history of the united states" and "in the hands of the great spirit" right now.