The weather was bitterly cold when I was there, but I managed to play my song for him, at his memorial, on the banks of the Missouri River. The very place of the present crisis.Įarlier this year, I was lucky enough to record parts of "Last Man Standing" in Standing Rock, near where Sitting Bull is buried today. And in 1890, he was murdered outside his home, on the Standing Rock reservation. He was present in Golden Spike, Utah, at the ceremony commemorating the completion of the first transatlantic railroad. He was his people's great unifier - first in the Great Sioux War of 1876, and later against General Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn.įor a time, his celebrity was international - he toured with Annie Oakley as part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. I wrote this song about Chief Sitting Bull, the gifted Hunkpapa Sioux leader. This time, those human beings are American Indians: one can't help but hear in the bullhorns of the National Guard the echo of the countless broken treaties, the war cry of Crazy Horse, the snap of the necks of the 38 Native American men killed in Mankato, Minnesota, in the largest public execution in American history. Apart from the specific threat, people are frustrated - I am frustrated - that this is one more example of the government putting corporate interests over the health and well-being of human beings. Watching the news, I see policemen lined up in riot gear, while behind them bulldozers carve up land upon which buffalo once roamed. The tribe says it was not adequately consulted, and the result has been protests, arrests, and escalating violence. The Dakota Access Pipeline - originally slated to cross the Missouri River near Bismarck - was diverted to within 1/2 mile of the reservation because of concerns about the pipeline's potential impact on the state's drinking water. This time, it's happening on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. Once again, Indian land is being threatened by the private interests of the wealthy and powerful. I can't take back the past, but I do feel culpable for the freedoms of the present. Treaties were drawn up and revoked as soon as new resources were discovered. How does this basic fact of American History continue to be ignored? The freedoms we enjoy and the private property we take for granted had at their root at least some level of ignoble chicanery. Everyone knows that white people did bad things to Indians, but when you read the details of it happening over and over, it's hard not to feel like you've inherited a legacy of treachery and deceit. I wrote this song after reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee - a book about the abuse and destruction of the Native people in the name of American Expansionism. "Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children." 100% of the proceeds for song downloads will go to the STANDING ROCK SIOUX TRIBE - DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE DONATION FUND.
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