#NO DAPL Syllabus Project and Other DAPL Resources and Updates

The NYC Stands for Standing Rock committee and Public Seminar are developing a syllabus around the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) conflict in an effort to put it in its broader historical and social context.

According to the #NODAPL Syllabus Project website, one of its goals is to “launch a syllabus project to contextualize DAPL within Sioux and settler history so that those who seek a deeper understanding of the territory and the conflict might learn and teach.”

Here is a link to the syllabus. It currently has an extended timeline and a bibliography by topic area, with links to online publications. The website says:

Although a “work in progress,” the current #StandingRockSyllabus places what is happening now in a broader historical, political, economic, and social context going back over 500 years to the first expeditions of Columbus, the founding of the United States on institutionalized slavery, private property, and dispossession, and the rise of global carbon supply and demand.

Public Seminar is an extension of The New School’s General Seminar.

Indian Country Today Dedicates Magazine Issue to NO DAPL Movement

For those interested in more details on the recent history and actions in the NO DAPL movement, Indian Country Today has a 36-page online magazine dedicated to the topic, reprinting many news stories and columns from the past year.

Many carry an upbeat message, such as the column written by Sarah Sunshine Manning, originally published August 24. She wrote:

Standing Rock has changed us forever. Our hearts are with the water, the land, and with each other. Today, we stand armed with the medicine of unity and prayer, and the strength of our ancestors. Still standing for water. Still standing for life.

In so many ways, we have already won.

An introductory letter from Publisher Ray Halbritter states in part:

A single arrow may be snapped over one’s knees with ease, but a bundle of arrows may not. This old adage is exemplified by the strength and fortitude shown by the gathering of water protectors in Hunkpapa territory north of the Standing Rock Sioux nation. …

Beautiful Images of Mother Earth

Check out this link with images of River Basins of the U.S. in rainbow colors. It shows how the earth is a living thing, with the rivers and streams the arteries that carry the water of life. Damage in one part of the basin will affect many other places.

(Thanks to LeMoine LaPointe (Lakota) for sharing both this image and the information on the #NO DAPL Syllabus Project.)

83 Arrested in Pipeline Action

Eighty-three water protectors were arrested for trespass in north of Cannon Ball, North Dakota, in their efforts to draw attention to — and stop — the Dakota Access Pipeline. Some people were pepper sprayed.

This will be an ongoing story as the water protectors get tents and cold weather gear to prepare to stay throughout the winter.

We don’t have many details about the latest incident. Main stream media reports said that protectors tried to cross the police line between them and the construction equipment. Here are versions from CNN and NBC.

This Day in History: United States vs. Sandoval (1913)

On this day in history, Oct. 20, 1913, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling that said the federal government retained the power to regulate alcohol sales for the Pueblo people of New Mexico, not the newly created state of New Mexico. The ruling ties back to a long line of reasoning connected to the Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny.

An article titled: “From Marshall to Marshall: The Supreme Court’s changing stance on tribal sovereignty” discusses the reasoning in the Sandoval case, justifying federal action because the United States is a “superior and civilized nation.”

… the Court upheld the application of a federal liquor-control law to the New Mexico Pueblos, even though the Pueblo lands had never been designated by the federal government as reservation land. The Court ruled that an unbroken line of federal legislative, executive, and judicial actions had “…attributed to the United States as a superior and civilized nation the power and the duty of exercising a fostering care and protection over all dependent Indian communities within its borders….” Moreover, the Court said that once Congress had begun to act in a guardian role toward the tribes, it was up to Congress, not the courts, to determine when the state of wardship should end.