Sioux-Lakota ban Governor Kristi Noem from entering Indian reservations

by Raffaella Milandri©

The news that six out of nine Lakota tribes in South Dakota have banned the Republican Governor of the state, Kristi Noem, from their reservations has caused a stir. The first tribal council to vote for the ban was the Pine Ridge Reservation, in early 2024.

As is well known, the Sioux-Lakota, the people famous for Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud and other great native chiefs, were the ones who fought to the last against the Whites, going so far as to defeat General Custer at Little Big Horn and only surrendering at the end of so many battles. A proud and combative people, therefore, not to be trifled with. Ready to defend their territories, they are also famous for their protests in recent years against various oil pipelines such as the XXL Pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline, known by the hashtag #NoDAPL. During these protests, the police arrested many of them using batons and water cannons (used a few years ago in a similar case at home, in Puglia, in protests against the TAP pipeline). Well, what happened between the Native Americans and the governor?

Kristi Noem is already quite a controversial character and this is not the Governor’s first clash with some tribes in her state. She has previously been banned from the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council after supporting anti-riot legislation in response to the 2016 Dakota Access pipeline protests, and again during the Covid-19 pandemic, when some tribes implemented checkpoints to control the spread of the disease on their reservations (and you have to understand them, too, after nearly being exterminated by smallpox and other diseases brought by the white man). The governor of South Dakota is also fresh from a dog-killing scandal. Noem, once considered a Republican vice presidential candidate, has been severely criticised for revelations in her memoir No Going Back, in which she recounts shooting and killing the family dog, Cricket, after he ‘misbehaved’. In the face of outraged bipartisan reaction, Noem defended his actions during his book tour, arguing that the dog had exhibited threatening behaviour and should be put down.

But back to why Kristi Noem was ‘kicked out’ by the Lakota tribes. For more on the right of tribal councils to banish non-native Americans from reservations who, by the way, as we have seen in an article in this column, do not own the land, here is an interesting write-up: https://dc.law.utah.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1218&context=scholarship).

Noem, an ally of Donald Trump, has embraced his tough rhetoric on immigration and in recent months has repeatedly linked drug cartels to crime on Indian reservations in the state. ‘We don’t have cartels on the reservations,’ said Crow Creek Sioux Tribe Chairman Peter Lengkeek. ‘To say that all tribes are involved in this shows the ignorance of the Governor’s office.’ In the statements, several tribal members accused Noem of political opportunism and called his comments disrespectful and dangerous. ‘Our people are being used for her political gain,’ Oglala Sioux Tribe Chairman Frank Star Comes Out recently told the Associated Press. Of course, there is no shortage of accusations of racism and prejudice against Native Americans against her. Tribal leaders have demanded an apology from Kristi Noem for her remarks. Moreover, as the same leaders have been complaining for several years now, Native American youth are victims of organisations – and several speak of Mexican cartels – that deal in methamphetamine, cocaine, crack cocaine, heroin and so on on the reservations.

We come to the reservations in South Dakota that have banned Kristi Noem. They are all part of the so-called ‘Great Sioux Nation’, although Sioux is a misnomer imposed by the white man, and is composed of Lakota and Dakota Native Americans, who are themselves divided into various tribes. I studied this issue in depth when I edited the book ‘Lakota Lexicon. History, Spirituality and Italian-Lakota Dictionary’.

They are: the Crow Creek Reservation of the Mdewakanton and Ihanktonwan, the Pine Ridge Reservation of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, the Rosebud Sioux Reservation of the Sicangu, the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation of the Hunkpapa, Sihasapa, Ihantonwanna and Ihanktonwan, the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation of the Miniconjou, Sihasapa, Oohenumpa and Itazipco, the Lake Traverse Reservation of the Sisseton and Wahpeton. Three are still missing. The Yankton Sioux Tribe has already voted for the ban, but ‘it’s not official yet,’ said the tribal secretary, Courtney Sully, when newspapers announced that the number of reservations that had banned access to Kristi Noem had grown to seven. This ban, in any case, opens up interesting scenarios about Native Americans and their reservations. May they finally, after more than five hundred years, be masters in their own home?

Published originally in Italian in The AntiDiplomatico, 21 May 2024

“Nativi” column by Raffaella Milandri

https://www.lantidiplomatico.it/news-nativi/53237/