Sioux Indians reclaim their land with hard cash
By Countervalue • May 12th, 2008 • Category: Economy, Latest, Survival 
Native Americans, flushed with casino profits, are buying up vast tracts of land in Minnesota - taken from them two centuries ago - with hard cash. The recession has seen land values plummet and the Sioux are taking advantage. Who could possibly not cheer?
From: Star Tribune
Face black with soot, Victoria Ranua strides across a Scott County hillside, painting it with fire. What begins as a low thin strip of yellow, ignited by her torch, leaps behind her at once into a huge hedge of dancing flames, racing across dry prairie grasses.
The process, Ranua said, helps the native plants survive against invasive species.
After lighting a backfire during a prescribed burn on a prairie on Shakopee land Victoria Ranua, an environmental assessment specialist for the Shakopee, keeps an eye on the flames.
“You know, Europeans didn’t just come here as people,” she said. “They brought their own plants and animals, and changed a lot of what was here.”
Ranua works for the casino-enriched Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, which is recovering, acre by acre in the southwest metro, portions of the land its ancestors once lost to European settlers, and meticulously returning it to age-old looks and uses.
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But the tribe’s land purchases, which are surging as the price of land sags, are turning up a different sort of heat in Scott County. Civic leaders in Shakopee say the pace and pattern of the tribe’s land buys — it has spent more than $100 million — are making planning a logistical nightmare in the fast-growing community.
And they wonder if the tribe is engaged in a shrewd chess game to block Shakopee’s development plans, then move out into open countryside to start reacquiring vast stretches of ancestral land. It’s a question emerging from New York to California as tribes riding high on casino profits have begun spending that wealth to reassert control over that ancestral land.
In Shakopee itself, said Mayor John Schmitt, “It appears they’re out to garner as much as they can get, wherever they can get it. And they have the war chest to do that.”
For his part, however, Stan Ellison, the tribe’s land manager, points to a pile of historic maps as a reminder of who, historically, interfered with whom.
“This land,” he said, “was taken by the point of a gun — and we are buying it back with American dollars.”
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[…] Sioux Indians reclaim their land with hard cash […]
I wouldn’t call it ‘hard cash’ under the present economic circumstances, but by all means, these people are acquiring, through legal means, title of the lands that were once theirs in the first place. More power to them!
Good luck, Sioux Nation!
I hope the Sioux fail to find oil on their land,——It will be taken back, —-in a whisper,—-at the point of a gun!
No, they won’t be looking to sell oil. They’ll want to sell luck. At least that’s what they always do: casinos and peyote. That’s where they get their “hard cash” back.
Well my DAY WAS MADE by this glimmer of hope! Acre by acre may your lives be fulfilled.
May the buffalo run free and the ponies run wild!
So be it!
Leopard
I kind of find it funny that We came here and in many ways took over their lands with disease and addiction, and that is how they are getting it back
Fair is fair
Awesome! I totally support the Sioux’s plan to retake the land. It should never have been stolen from them in the first place.
Full circle.
We need a native american president. One with traditional values who will help us learn to respect our sacred planet.
[…] Sioux Native Americans buy their land back - CounterValue They could just buy it back I do find it interesting that reparations don’t usually mention […]
Good on them. I think its only right that they get their land back.
they shouldn’t have to buy there land back. It should be given back to them. and all land every where should be shared freely with those that respect and honor the great spirit.
You brainwashed Zombie horde! The Native American Indians committed genocide against the Mongolian migrants, now South Americans, just like the Europeans committed genocide againsts the African descendants, referred to as Native American Indians. You ignorant hypocrites. Where do you suppose the Indians acquired their culture? Don’t you read your Tsarion? The Druids civilized us all. All humans can come and go freely where ever they choose. Besides y’alls comments, the article was a pleasant dose of irony. Down with the Illuminati, hooray for Anarchy.
It’s not their land, fool. We belong to the Earth and the Universe for that matter, not the other way around.
Nice James Ratte. Answers to all things are always usually simple and come from the heart like your comments on the land belonging to everyone and roaming freely. The answers are within. That leaves the question of where greed comes from lol It’s all good. All things that have to be will be. If we go extinct or not, we experienced human conditions.
I for one have read Michael Tsarion’s books and articles, but probably most people haven’t ever heard of him. Maybe they’re intelligent enough to check him out for themselves without having epithets hurled, such as: “Zombie horde” and “ignorant hypocrites”. Maybe they have their own sources of information that are just as valid. But other than that one tremendous gaffe, I agree with you that Tsarion makes a good case for the Druids civilizing the world, and people should check out his books because there’s a lot of really interesting things about the Druids that are uncovered by his research, including linguistic links to Native American languages. But who’s going to listen to your advice after you just berated them. You’ve probably seen too much action in the trenchs of the anti-Pudding League (inside joke). If I were Native American, I would do exactly the same thing - take back by whatever means is available what was yours to begin with. At least they are taking it back lawfully instead of by the barrel of a gun, which is how it was acquired since the time of Columbus. Couldn’t do a worse job of it than colonization and democracy has done. Just look at the environmental report, we’re getting steam up so we can hit rock bottom. They’ve got the right idea, restore the land.
How can anyone claim to own land on the planet? or oil or anything?
Whatever the druids may have done, it’s the natives that are there and they have not exactly been treated with the milk of human kindness.
They’re buying back their land, I think that is a great way to solve that problem.
When the land is big enough they should declare independence. It’s not as if the US is the most noble country to be associated with in the first place.
Good going cousins!!
Great energy, great plan, GREAT SPIRIT!
Dah naat’á áh hool’áa doo
Nihikéyah bikáa’gi
K’ad nihi hodéezyéél!
Power to the american indian take back what was your ancestors and may the mayflower decendents rot in thier wealth for they can not prosper for long.
Too bad.Indians are lazy people.What would this country BE without the Europeans ?They don’t pay taxes but don’t mind the benefits that the taxes pay for.Next time they need medical help,,go smoke your herbs and heal yourself .
Dave….. Alive…. It would be the Garden of Eden still….. too bad you ‘white-eyes’ carry the plagues of the original sin and brought that here with you! Your means will be your ‘ends’….