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Badlands National Park
The Badlands National Park is
located in southwest South Dakota, with 244,000 acres of pinnacles,
spires and distinctly eroded buttes that mixes with a huge protected
mixed grass prairie. The Badlands Wilderness protects 64,144 acres
of the park as a designated wilderness region and is the place where
the black footed ferret was reintroduced, it being the most
endangered land mammal in the North American continent. The
Stronghold Unit is co-managed by the Oglala Lakota tribe and
includes the sites of a former USAF bomb and gunnery range, Red
Shirt Table, the highest peak in the park at 3,340 feet and the
1890s Ghost Dances. The Badlands National Monument was authorized in
1929 but wasn't established until 1939, and in 1957-1958, the Ben
Reifel Visitor Center was constructed and opened. In 1978, it was
redesignated a national park, and also manages the Minuteman Missile
National Historic Site. Some of the genera discovered in the area
includes; rhinoceros, alligator, nimravid, creodont, running rhino,
ground squirrel like rodents, entelodont, oreodont, tragulid,
aquatic rhino and camels. For more than 11 millennia, Native
Americans used the badlands for their personal hunting grounds, and
way before the Lakota, the paleo-Indians lived and hunted here,
which were then followed by the Arikara peoples; and their
descendants are living in the state today, part of the Three
Affiliated Tribes. Archaeological records and oral histories tell us
that these peoples would camp in secluded valleys full of fish and
fresh water available all the time; eroding out of the banks of the
streams today are evidence of this with rocks and charcoals from
their campfires, with many tools and arrowheads that they would use
to butcher rabbits, bison and other game. Standing atop the Badlands
Wall, these early settlers would scan the horizons for enemies and
wandering herds. If the hunting proved good, they would stay as long
as possible and then head back to their villages by the Missouri
River. Only a hundred and fifty years ago, the Great Sioux Nation
was made up of seven bands that included the Oglala Lakota, that had
slowly displaced other tribes in the northern prairie. It wasn't
until the latter part of the 19th century that a great change
occurred in the region, as white settlers and homesteaders moved
into the territory of South Dakota. The United States government
"stripped" the Native Americans of most of their lands and "forced"
them to live on reservations. It is that history that makes the
immigration problems in this country today seem so small and
insignificant; since many Americans, like those in Arizona, feel
hostility towards those immigrants that are coming to this country
"illegally"?, when these very same people or rather their ancestors
came here and stole the same lands that belonged to the Indian
nations; who considered the "white man" to be the immigrant that was
trying to come here and take their share of the great huge land that
God gave to all of us to use for our benefits, and to care for the
animals that live here, instead of killing them to the extent that
many will become extinct; all in the name of progress ( but it is
really just greed, as it always has been). In the fall and winter of
1890, thousands of the Native American followers, including the
Oglala Sioux, would become followers of the Indian prophet, Wovoka;
whose vision called the native peoples to dance the Ghost Dance and
wear Ghost shirts that were unable to be pierced by bullets. This
prophet, Wovoka envisioned the white man disappearing from the land
and the natives hunting grounds restored to them. Wovoka was a
Paiute spiritual leader from Nevada, and a powerful medicine man who
was good with illusions to get his point across, and on January 1,
1889, when a solar eclipse occurred he had a "vision" that told him
all the events that would lead to the white men's disappearance and
restoration of their lands. One of the last big Ghost Dances
happened on Stronghold Table in the Badlands National Park, and as
winter started, the ghost dancers went back to the Pine Ridge
Agency. The climax of this great struggle happened in 1890; and has
gone done in history as one of the worst moments in American
history. A small band of Minneconjou Sioux were going south of the
Cheyenne River and passed into the Badlands Wall, chased by units of
the US Army 7th Cavalry, with the Indians hoping to get to the Pine
Ridge agency for refuge. The group of Indians was led by Chief Big
Foot, and they would be overtaken by the army at a place called
Wounded Knee Creek "in the reservation" and camped for the night.
The next day, the soldiers arrived and tried to disarm the Indians,
with one deaf or hard of hearing Indian, Black Coyote, didn't
understand the soldiers and didn't want to relinquish his weapon,
used for hunting and a means of his livelihood, but instead a shot
was fired that ended in the infamous Wounded Knee Massacre
happening, with almost 200 Indian men, women and children murdered;
and this became the last big conflict between the red men and the
white men; until the second Wounded Knee clash in 1973. Wounded Knee
is NOT located in the Badlands National Park, but about 45 miles
south of the park in the Pine Ridge Reservation.
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Fighting Stallions Memorial
The Fighting Stallions Memorial
was built by the people of South Dakota as a lasting memorial to
eight fellow statesmen that died on a plane crash on April 19, 1993.
There were four state employees, the governor and three Sioux Falls
corporate leaders that had been on an economic mission to save the
biggest agricultural processing employer in the state. The stallions
bronze statue was enlarged from the 1935 mahogany carving created by
South Dakota sculptor, Korczak Ziolkowski; and represents the
state's struggle to overcome adversity, courage to believe in the
future and a strong desire for achievement; a constant reminder of
those fellow South Dakotans that gave the ultimate sacrifice.
The statue sits on the lawn of the state capitol in Pierre, South
Dakota.
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