Sioux Tribe Chair Offers to Destroy Mount Rushmore Ahead of Trump Visit: ‘Brand on Our Flesh’
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Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Chairman Harold Frazier has offered to destroy Mount Rushmore “free of charge” in the wake of President Donald Trump’s July 3 visit, calling it a monument to “our molesters.”
“Nothing stands as a greater reminder to the Great Sioux Nation of a country that cannot keep a promise or treaty [than] the faces carved into our sacred land on what the United States calls Mount Rushmore,” Frazier wrote in a statement published on Twitter. “We are now being forced to witness the lashing of our land with pomp, arrogance and fire hoping our sacred lands will survive. This brand on our flesh needs to be removed and I am willing to do it free of charge to the United States, by myself if I must.”
South Dakota’s Black Hills region, where Mount Rushmore sits, was given to Native American tribes in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, but the federal government reclaimed the land in 1876 after gold was discovered in the region. The Supreme Court ruled in the 1980 case United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians that the tribes were entitled to compensation for the seizure, but the tribes rejected that compensation in order to retain their claim to the land.
Construction of the monument — which contains the faces of former Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Theodore Roosevelt — took place between 1927 and 1941. An annual July 4 fireworks display took place from 1998 until the National Park Service ended the practice in 2010 due to environmental concerns, with agency records indicating the display caused at least 27 wildfires over the 12 years it took place. Trump this year directed the display to resume, and plans to make a Friday appearance at the monument with South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R).
Frazier’s tribe spans five counties in South Dakota and accounted for about 8,000 people as of the last census. He did not reference Trump’s appearance in his statement, but emphasized his objection to the memorial. “The United States of America wishes for all of us to be citizens and a family of their republic yet when they get bored of looking at those faces we are left looking at our molesters.
“We are the ones who live under the stare of those who have wronged us,” he added. “While others have the privilege to look away and move on, we cannot. When I can remove those faces from our land, I believe I would not be alone.”
