taunt

In 1948, a photo summarized centuries of injustice. The man in suit and tie, standing before photographers, broke into tears. He was George Gillette, leader of the Mandan, Arikara, and Hidatsa tribes of the Missouri River. The document in his hands was not a negotiated settlement. It was the forced secession of ancestral lands from his people to the U.S. government. More than 150,000 native ancestral acres, full of homes, schools, churches, and fertile fields. The US government forced him to hand over the land so they could flood it all by building the Garrison dam. Gillette knew that with his signature he sealed a permanent tragedy. But if he didn’t, the tribes would receive NO compensation, The US government would simply take the land. Through tears he said "Today we sign under protest. Our hands are tied, but our hearts are sad." The dam flooded entire villages, erased old communities, and buried centuries of indigenous history. We must not whitewash American history in our schools.