The Legacy of Federal Control in Indian Country

Abstract

Only five years ago, a grassroots movement led by members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe was beginning to organize in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline. At the time, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was still weighing whether to approve a permit for the pipeline to cross the Missouri River, just upstream from the Standing Rock Reservation. Nobody had yet heard of #NoDAPL. Although tribal opposition to the pipeline echoed centuries of Indigenous opposition to projects and priorities imposed upon them by outside interests, no one could have predicted the momentous events that would follow—a national movement for a sustainable future, led by Native voices