7-12-13 indian country today

The sale of Wounded Knee to actor Johnny Depp or any other individual is not the only option for that sacred land.

Scott Barta, a Lakota activist, has called for a Treaty Meeting at the Wounded Knee Massacre site for Saturday, July 13, to discuss strategies for getting the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie honored and respected.

The 1851 Treaty between the United States and representatives of the Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapaho, Crow, Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara nations affirmed the nations’ traditional territories and gave the U.S. the right to establish roads and military posts in the respective territories. The treaty also asserted that, by signing it, the nations did not “abandon or prejudice any rights or claims they may have to other lands; and further, that they do not surrender the privilege of hunting, fishing, or passing over any of the tracts of country heretofore described.”

7-10-13 By: Indian country today

Deep in this Daily Mail feature on Johnny Depp, the actor who portrayed Tonto in Disney’s Lone Ranger re-boot expresses a desire to buy the site of Wounded Knee and return it to the Oglala Sioux Tribe. While landowner James Czywczynski and tribal president Bryan Brewer say the purchase would be a noble gesture, neither have heard from Depp.

“It’s very sacred ground and many atrocities were committed against the Sioux there. And in the 1970s there was a stand-off between the Feds and the people who should own that land,” Depp told the Daily Mail. “This historical land is so important to the Sioux culture and all I want to do is buy it and give it back. Why doesn’t the government do that?”