In 2017, the Dakota Access Pipeline leaked.

Completed in April 2017, the Dakota Access Pipeline saw at least 5 documented leaks in its first 6 months of operation. One leak, in November 2017, spilled 210,000 gallons of oil on land directly adjacent to Sioux tribal land. President Trump pushed for the building of the Dakota Access Pipeline despite much opposition. For the Sioux, the fight was about protecting their basic needs. Chief Arvol Looking Horse of the Dakota people wrote “Water is not a resource, it is a right” (x).

However, there was another issue present. Whose resources are being sold?

President Trump ordered the construction of a pipeline, jeopardizing treaty-protected tribal reservation land and Native health and safety. The Sioux were forced off this land by white settlers, and now, with thousands of gallons of oil spilling on the Plains, they reap few benefits from the oil industry right outside their doors.

Before they lived in the Great Plains region, the Dakota Sioux people can be traced geographically to Northern Minnesota. Living in Minnesota, survival was key in an unforgiving environment; their lives hinged on how they used their resources. Fighting with the neighboring Ojibwe tribe, the Sioux moved further South and West, into modern-day North and South Dakota. As settlers from the East began moving westward in the 1800s, the Sioux people were pushed around, confined to reservation land against their will, and executed for disobeying. Settlers also separated tribes from agricultural land and wiped out the bison, eliminating culturally valuable food sources. Hundreds of Sioux died trying to preserve their way of life.

Tribal nations were forced into a Western land ownership system, which disagreed with their beliefs. The worst part is, even on specified reservation land, tribes are deprived of crucial resources.

Natural resource development on tribal land is complicated to say the least. The Secretary of the Interior reviews and authorizes all energy leases and agreements with regards to tribal nations. Native companies must go through almost 50 steps to get a permit for energy development on tribal lands. This diagram shows the number of federal agencies that are potentially associated with tribal land development:

Source: https://www.perc.org/wp-content/uploads/old/pdfs/IndianPolicySeries%20HIGH.pdf

Tribal lands are estimated to contain $1.5 trillion in developable resources, yet the only path to development requires a patronizing and unnecessarily long process. Natives are kept in poverty without the ability to develop their trillions of dollars of capital.

Moreover, because the U.S. federal government owns all native reservation land in a trust system, it can make executive decisions. The federal trust system implies that Native Americans are unable to manage their land independently, and thus the government has executive say. Dakota Sioux may not be able to easily develop their oil reserves, yet President Trump can single-handedly authorize the Dakota Access Pipeline. Today, the Sioux suffer the consequences and reap no benefits from the resources on their land. That is why Sioux pipeline protesters marching in Washington D.C. in 2017 were simply begging, “He [President Trump] needs to listen to us” (x).

This country finds new and ugly ways every day to tear down tribal nations—denying their right to vote after forcing them into citizenship during the allotment era, exploiting their trust land for resources they are unable to develop for themselves, trying to deny them access to healthcare, and so much more.

Tribal nations need systemic change to gain the control and ease of development that any other American has. No person should have to go through several federal agencies, 50 complicated steps, and years of waiting just to obtain the ability to develop their land. Natural resource and energy development on tribal land would create jobs, bolster tribal economy, and allow for much needed modernization of reservations. Native people need livable wages to keep up with the rest of the country and the modern world.

Featured Image source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/03/north-dakota-access-oil-pipeline-protests-explainer

Photograph: Stephanie Keith/Reuters