Lincoln and Mt Rushmore

[David Lockmiller]

(09-17-2024 06:41 PM)David Lockmiller Wrote:  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, . . . .

Here is a post that I made over a decade ago on August 15, 2013:

"Episcopal Bishop Henry B. Whipple lobbied the President to reform the corrupt Indian agency system. . . . In the spring of 1862, the bishop had recommended more humane treatment of the Minnesota Sioux. Lincoln promptly asked the secretary of the Interior to investigate, which he did and suggested numerous reforms. The President told a friend that Whipple 'came here the other day and talked with me about the rascaclity of this Indian business until I felt it down to my boots.' . . . [President Lincoln] pledged that '[i]f we get through this war, and if I live, this Indian system shall be reformed.'" (Henry B. Whipple, "Light and Shadows of a Long Episcopate,etc.," pages 136-137. [Emphasis added today, September 18, 2024.]