Lincoln and Mt Rushmore

[David Lockmiller]

The Black Hills are sacred to the Lakota Sioux, the original occupants of the area when white settlers arrived.

In the Treaty of 1868, the U.S. government promised the Sioux territory that included the Black Hills in perpetuity. [Perpetuity is defined at dictionary.com: "endless or indefinitely long duration or existence; eternity."]

Perpetuity lasted only until gold was found in the mountains and prospectors migrated there in the 1870s. The federal government then forced the Sioux to relinquish the Black Hills portion of their reservation.

If President Lincoln had lived, . . . .