Final Project: Food and Sovereignty for the Lakotas

Jesse Patt

11/17/24

Native American History

Final Paper: Food Sovereignty

The history that Native Americans have with the food they eat is a long and complicated one. In the past, indigenous people have been criticized and looked down upon for eating the meats and crops commonly associated with their cultures, which has made it difficult for them to gain food sovereignty. The Lakota groups, like the Oglala, were among some of the most affected groups in the plains and struggled with this for years. This is because of various factors that include the Bison Extermination of the 1800s, dangerous food leading to the establishment of immigration stations and special food markets, and a desire by white Americans to have Native Americans grow crops for them instead of their own crops. As time went on, the Lakota were able to own their own lands and return to traditional customs like food, but it took a long time to get there. Hopefully by understanding the struggles indigenous people have faced in the past and still face to this day, we can work harder towards a future where it is freely enjoyed for the Lakota and other groups to control the food they have access to.

Undoubtedly, the bison/buffalo extermination had the most effect on the Lakota’s inability to procure food, as it was one of their sacred animals and represented life and abundance, coming from the Earth. After the Civil War era, many former military commanders ended up wanting to defeat the Native Americans, remembering how they had shattered the confederate’s willpower to do so, so they decided to be stationed at Native camps and kill the bison, harming the Natives’ nomadic ways. People like General Sherman, who went after them from 1865 to 1869 found the Natives to be “tarnishing” their “beautiful country”,  and thus felt justified in their actions to exterminate the enemy. Needless to say, the peoples did try to fight back against these actions, fleeing on their powerful horses, or invoking the Medicine Lodge treaty. Sherman later quit due to believing there were numerous bison, and general Phillip Sheridan took over, making sure that his soldiers would get their own food, gear, and care at the expense of the indigenous people and the bison. Various hunting camps were invaded, with the hunters choosing to use different tactics, like going after the bison for their tongues and hides. By applying civil war tactics and making his people more advanced, it became clear who the victors would be in this quest to destroy all bison, as after doing all of this, Sherman and Sheridan’s troops did not hear much from Native Americans by 1877, as many indigenous people including one Lakota chief had surrendered, but there remained a notable one, implying that this group at least retained their willpower. As stated by David D. Smits in the 1994 article “The Frontier Army and the Destruction of the Buffalo, “Unable to persuade Sitting Bull to return to the United States and unwilling to antagonize the Canadian authorities by pursuing him into Canada, the army’s high command resolved to starve him into surrender by depriving him of his commissary on the hoof-the buffalo (Smits 320).” While the Lakotas were some of the last to surrender, it is still clear they were profoundly affected by this change, and were not able to keep up with the military tactics of focusing on different herds of buffalo/bison at once, instead of all together, with the military remaining one step ahead. This made it difficult for them to obtain their own food, or even make it, and it shows with their decrease in activity.

By the 1900s, while some living conditions had improved for the specific Oglala branch of the Lakota people, they were still constantly exposed to toxic or low-quality food as well as harsh temperatures, which negatively affected their money and made it difficult to afford anything else. Due to this, more and more Lakota (then often referred to as Sioux) ended up relying on things like immigration stations to pick up their food, as they were unable to even grow it in an ordinary agricultural sense. The market handlers there were not always reliable, which led to several places such as schools working hard to conserve food. It genuinely felt like the people were not getting their money’s worth, and they even tried requesting congressional acts to stop that, which was even harder, as some people found it unappealing. As The Oglala Light mentioned in a 1918 article, “Congress put teeth in the act authorizing the making of a food survey by providing that persons willfully failing to make returns when called upon, or willfully making incorrect returns, will be subjected to a fine of not more than $1000, or imprisonment for not more than one year (The Oglala Light January 1918, p.4).”, which ended up not really working out. Instead, many Lakota children died due to stuff like this, making it seem unlikely they would ever gain food sovereignty at all.

Around the same time as this, some Lakota found themselves working for white Americans on farms, which again stirred up debate about what foods the Native Americans could grow and acquire, as many crops were tried and dropped, such as spring wheat. Though white Americans said they would help the Lakotas, this ended up not working out, making both conditions and obtaining food difficult, and increasing feelings of distrust and unease. Also from “The Oglala Light”, the indigenous people didn’t have enough of many types of food during this time, because of the Southern states issuing rules like feeding themselves and not paying for them.  This was also during the war, so it became essential for Native Americans to want to participate and prove themselves. “Sorghum sirup, it is pointed out, may be produced in nearly every state in the Union, and increased production of sorghum sweets would enable the public to conserve still further the supply in the sugar form most available for transportation to our soldiers (The Oglala Light December 1919  p. 11)”. Because of these helpful actions in providing for their fellow Americans, the indigenous people hoped to one day be able to achieve their own food sovereignty and provide the food they desired, hoping this would result in a change in their culture.

By the 1930s, there had been much pushing for the Lakota peoples to drop their lifestyles, which included food. Their chances of ever getting to be able to grow and eat food of their own culture without constant pressure appeared to evaporate after the reveal of the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934, which sought to try and stop the assimilation process. This only made things worse for the Lakota, and they ended up becoming a much-ignored tribe, with a series of broken treaties, some of which included wanting a better agricultural and hunting lifestyle. It was only after their occupation of Wounded Knee in 1972 that they came back into focus, and they used this to their advantage, knowing that taking back ancestral land such as the Black Hills was a key to using many of their own customs again, like food. As said in the epilogue of Pekka Hämäläinen’s 2019 book, Lakota America: A New History of Indigenous Power,  “It meant proclaiming and performing sovereignty in daily life, grounding sovereignty in specific places and specific cultural practices; at its most basic level, it meant dignity in one’s personal life. It also involved drastic political reforms (Hamalainen 389).”  Food was one of many things that the Lakota people were able to retrieve with this return in prominence, and the ability to make their own food was intrinsically linked to this cultural aspect. By being able to do things like eat as they wished again, the Lakota were also respected by America as a nation.

As we approach the present-day, Lakota have established a Cheyenne River Youth Project that promotes healthy eating of traditional Lakota foods for teens, due to concerns about the lifespans and health of indigenous people and a desire to reconnect with a lost culture. They have made land modifications and started a garden to the original ancestral homelands in order to make this an invigorating and truthful program for the young Lakota that participate in this program. As explained in the Project’s announcement article that was published this June in Native News Online, “To improve access to traditional foods, the youth project also maintains an orchard to provide chokecherries, leads field trips to harvest red willow and prairie turnips, and is developing a program that would allow youth to participate in a buffalo harvest (Cheyenne River Youth Project).”  This modification of land and desire to travel back to a simpler time show the resilience and bravery the Lakota have felt since the Wounded Knee Occupation in the 1970s. By even going to extreme places like where buffalo/bison are, it shows that they do wish to find a way of healing from the past trauma and becoming a stronger nation than ever, especially with food.

In conclusion, the Lakota have had many struggles to afford and obtain food, but have luckily managed to come full circle with having access to traditional lands. The lands may be somewhat messed up, the tribe is much smaller, and they don’t have full sovereignty yet, but it has been a long and complicated process, and it feels like it’s getting closer to the Lakota being back in a comfortable position each time. This is because they have been able to successfully adapt to the hardships thrown their way, with special events such as the Wounded Knee Occupation bringing them back into the spotlight. As a result, they enjoy some food sovereignty, and as they continue to build new programs, this freedom from their hard work will hopefully spread to other tribes.