Indians told reenactors to go home

Quotes of the Decade:  Lewis and Clark and GenocideThe American lie of Lewis and Clark unraveled as Lakota, Ponca and Kiowa told re-enactors to turn back downriver or face the consequences.

“What they wrote down was a blueprint for the genocide of my people. You are re-enacting something ugly, evil and hateful,” Carter Camp, Ponca, told the Discovery Expedition camped on the Missouri River.

“You are re-enacting the coming of death to our people,” Camp told the expedition, while seated in a circle with Indian elders and Lewis and Clark re-enactors, on the banks of the Missouri River.And:Referring to the tribal governments who welcomed the expedition, Hand said those tribal governments reflect the same type thinking as the re-enactors and are not the voice of the grassroots people. “The tribal governments are not a voice for us. They are imitating us, like you are imitating Lewis and Clark.”

“We want you to turn around and go home,” Alex White Plume, Lakota from Pine Ridge, told the expedition. White Plume said Lakota are here on this land for a reason. “We were put here by the spirits.” He said the Lakota never lost their language or ceremonies and now they are making these requests: Lakota want their territory back, their treaties to be honored and to be able to continue their healing ways.Comment:  As with Russell Means's Republic of Lakotah, this incident was a great example of a publicity stunt. But if the protesters thought it would actually change anything, they were sadly mistaken.

The Civil Rights movement is our most prominent example of a successful protest movement. It succeeded because tens of thousands of people spent decades organizing it, not because a handful of people performed a handful of colorful stunts.

For more on Lewis and Clark reenactors, see Missouri River Race in Chinook Canoe. For more on the the original expedition, see Jefferson Sought to Remove Indians and American Empire from the Beginning.

P.S. Whatever happened to Means's Republic of Lakotah? Is it safe to classify it as a failed and forgotten effort?