notable presidents.įor 14 years, Borglum blasted, chiseled, and filed the faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln in the granite bluff. The controversial sculptor Gutzon Borglum was hired to create a sculpture “to honor the West’s greatest heroes, both Native Americans, and pioneers.” Borglum wanted a Nationally significant monument and convinced the SD state historian to use the faces of U.S. In the 1920s, South Dakota state historian Doane Robinson saw the Six Grandfathers as an opportunity for the state of SD to increase tourism through the Black Hills area. The directions were said to represent kindness and love, full of years and wisdom, like human grandfathers.” The granite bluff that towered above the Hills remained carved only by the wind and the rain until 1927 when Gutzon Borglum began his assault on the mountain. “ The vision was of the six sacred directions: west, east, north, south, above, and below. The Six Grandfathers (Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe) was named by Lakota medicine man Nicolas Black Elk after a vision. Sacred places like Wind Cave, Devil’s Tower, Black Elk Peak, and Six Grandfathers Mountain (now Mount Rushmore-named after a wealthy NY lawyer in 1885) were now in the hands of the Euro-Americans. Within the next few years, the Lakota and neighboring tribes faced the genocide of their culture, traditions, land-everything was gone. federal government took ownership of the Black Hills. A Congressional Act forced Indians onto reservations and the U.S. The Act of 1877 was another breach of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. After suffering and starving, the Lakota relinquished their claim to their sacred lands: the Black Hills. wanted the Black Hills-its gold and other resources. enacted “Sell or Starve” which withheld promised food rations from the tribes that defeated Custer and his men. Two months later in August of 1876, the U.S. When the Sioux and their allies defeated Custer and members of the 7 th Cavalry, there was a call for swift retaliation. government constructed roads and railroads within the Great Sioux Nation breaching the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty-this breach sparked several conflicts with Custer and the U.S. This brought miners and prospectors to the area. That's what this place is for.’"īefore the Battle of Greasy Grass in 1874, gold was discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota, some 330 miles southeast. “’This represents the end of the way of life for the Indian people,’ the superintendent, Gerard Baker, said as he gestured toward the battlefield in the rolling hills of southern Montana, which was crowded with tourists.‘When Indian people come here, they cry and get mad for losing that way of life, that freedom. The monument’s former National Park superintendent Gerard Baker (1990-1998) was a Mandan Hidatsa Indian from North Dakota, who spent his tenure making the site of the “Last Stand” more meaningful and spiritual for Indian people. The Little Bighorn Battlefield is now a national monument. Army rounded up Indians forcing them to live on undesirable reservation lands. The Great Sioux War intensified as the U.S. put forth to defeat the Lakota and their allies. Their victory was squashed by the massive effort the U.S. The Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors faced insurmountable odds in the years following their Victory Day at Greasy Grass. The Indian’s victory at Little Bighorn, on June 25, 1876, forced the U.S. Part II in a series of articles that attempt to give more perspective into the truths our history books are avoiding.
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