Ep 86 Mt. Rushmore: How Sacred Indigenous Land Was Stolen and Defaced by the US

In the Black Hills region of South Dakota stands a massive American monument, the faces of four US presidents blasted into the side of a mountain. George Washington represents the birth of the nation. Thomas Jefferson represents its growth. Theodore Roosevelt development and Abraham Lincoln preservation. Mount Rushmore National Memorial hosts more than 2 million visitors each year who gaze upon the stoic stone faces of our forefathers and feel… proud. Proud of what we’ve accomplished as a country. Proud of our freedom, our liberty which these four men fought hard to help us achieve. But not everyone looks upon those faces with pride and patriotism. For some Americans, it’s more like a deeply seeded festering resentment, anger, outrage, and sadness. Because what most of those 2 million visitors do not know, what they do not learn during their visit to the park, is that the mountain upon which those faces were carved is sacred land, stolen from native people during the Black Hills gold rush of the 1870s. But not only was it stolen, it was desecrated, destroyed, defaced. Because, you see, the mountain was already a memorial, the Six Grandfathers, who stood side by side, stoically watching over Lakota lands until they were erased by the faces of their enemies. Let’s fix that.

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Sources: 

• National Park Service "Mount Rushmore National Memorial"
• Native Hope "The Six Grandfathers Before It Was Known As Mount Rushmore"
• Ted Ed "The dark history of Mount Rushmore"
• Readers Digest "The Racist History of Mount Rushmore"
• National Geographic "The Strange and Controversial History of Mount Rushmore"
• PBS American Experience "Native Americans and Mount Rushmore"
• Iowa State University "Report seeks to recognize meaning of Mount Rushmore for Native people"
• National Park Service "Charles E. Rushmore"