The battle for the Black Hills
From a distance, the green pines and the blue-gray haze that gently hug the valleys of the Black Hills merge into a deep black. The Lakota name “He Sapa” — meaning “black ridge” — describes this visual phenomenon. This is a place of origin for dozens of Native peoples and a revered landscape for more than 50 others. The land’s most recent, and perhaps longest-serving, stewards — the Oceti Sakowin, the Dakota, Nakota and Lakota people — hold the mountains central to their cosmos. The Black Hills are also central to the political territory drawn by the 1851 and 1868 Fort La...
Source: hcn.org