The man crying is George Gillette, tribal chairman of the Mandan, Arikara, and Hidatsa tribes of North Dakota in 1948. He was forced under the threat of death of all his people to sign over the tribesβ homeland on the fertile floodplain of the Missouri River in order to build the Garrison Dam.
The final settlement legislation denied tribesβ right to use the reservoir shoreline for grazing, hunting, fishing or other purposes, including irrigation development and royalty rights on all subsurface minerals within the reservoir area.
After the dam was constructed, the three tribes were scattered, their communities and extended families flung to different shores of the 200-mile-long Lake Sakakawea.
This is what your freedom and democracy is built on.
America was NEVER great. βIn creating the dam, the federal government flooded 156,000 acres of prime real estate, including the tribeβs capital. More than 300 families and 1,700 residents β 80 percent of the membership at the time β were forced to relocate, prompting the loss of an entire way of life, tribal members say.β [x]
