A Native American-led nonprofit says it has purchased about 40 acres of land in the Black Hills adjacent to Bear Butte State Park near Sturgis. No price has been released.
Cheyenne River Youth Project Director Julie Garreau calls the Bear Butte area, which has the Lakota name Mato Paha, “one of the most sacred places for the Lakota Nation.”
Garreau says “Access to Bear Butte was severed in the late 19th century, when the U-S government violated treaties, seized the Black Hills, and broke up the Great Sioux Reservation into several smaller reservations.”
The U-S Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Sioux in 1980 and awarded them $105-million dollars, but no land.
The Sioux have continued to refuse to accept the money – now well over a billion dollars – and have been buying land in the Black Hills whenever possible.
Garreau says this 40-acre purchase grew out of the chance to “re-establish access to sacred places that are being lost rapidly as metro areas grow and land values skyrocket.”