{"id":44721,"date":"2016-10-28T11:02:39","date_gmt":"2016-10-28T16:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=44721"},"modified":"2016-12-05T10:28:06","modified_gmt":"2016-12-05T16:28:06","slug":"native-americans-put-aside-differences-at-standing-rock-to-fight-pipeline-construction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/native-americans-put-aside-differences-at-standing-rock-to-fight-pipeline-construction\/","title":{"rendered":"Native Americans put aside differences at Standing Rock to fight pipeline construction"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Cloee Cooper<\/strong><\/p>\n

[Continuing updates on the DAPL pipeline story here<\/a>.]<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Donnielle Wanatee, a member of the federally recognized Sac and Fox tribe of the Mississippi and the Meskwaki nation in Iowa, made the 735-mile trek to the Standing Rock camp during the first week of October. For the mother of eight children, the Sioux protest in North Dakota touched a nerve.<\/p>\n

The proposed pipeline cuts through 18 counties in Iowa, including ancestral Meskwaki territory, Wanatee said as she pointed out Meskwaki and Sac land cessions on a map. The Dakota Access Pipeline, known as the Bakken pipeline in Iowa, crosses the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Wanatee explained that Sac Tribe Chief Keokuk\u2019s grave is about 5-10 miles south of where the pipeline is going to cross.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe used to fight them and battle with them for this land right here,\u201d said Wanatee.<\/p>\n

She said the Meskwaki nation and the Sioux battled over territory between Iowa and North Dakota between 1677 and the late 1800s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Sioux and the Meskwaki are not alone,\u201d said Patty Loew, a member of the Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe and visiting professor in the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. \u201cAs manifest destiny made its way from the East to the West across North America, tribes from the East were pushed out by settlement and that created a domino effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

The proposed Dakota Access Pipeline, being built by Energy Transfer Partners<\/a>, is slated to transport 470,000 barrels a day of domestic crude oil from the Bakken and Three Forks formations in North Dakota through South Dakota, Iowa and into Patoka Illinois, which is an oil transport hub. North Dakota has become the second largest source of crude oil production in the United States, according to the US Energy Information Administration.<\/p>\n

The portion of the pipeline being built through North Dakota goes through land adjacent to the Standing Rock Sioux reservation.<\/p>\n

The Standing Rock Sioux claim that the construction of the pipeline violates the Fort Laramie treaty of 1868, disrupts sacred burial sites, and contaminates their water sources. Since the beginning of April, the Standing Rock Sioux have been camping, living, protesting, and praying on Army Corps of Engineers land, as well as on private land to protest the construction of the pipeline. The protests, which they prefer to call water protection efforts, have now spanned more than six months, grown beyond the Sioux to include at least 300 Native American nations.<\/p>\n

Although women and youth have traditionally not been on the frontline of resistance in past Native American-led protests, Wanatee said the threat to clean drinking water has brought women to the forefront.<\/p>\n