Native Americans
As Inflation Soars, Access to Indigenous Foods Declines
Blueberry bison tamales, harvest salad with mixed greens, creamy carrot and wild rice soup, roasted turkey with squash. This contemporary Native American meal, crafted from the traditional foods of tribes across the United States and prepared with "Ketapanen" – a Menominee expression of love – cost caterer Jessica Pamonicutt $976 to feed a group of 50 people last November.
Today it costs her nearly double.
Pamonicutt is the executive chef of Chicago-based Native American catering business Ketapanen Kitchen. She is a citizen of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin but was raised in the Windy City, home to one of the largest urban Native populations in the country, according to the American Indian Center of Chicago.
Her business aims to offer health-conscious meals featuring Indigenous ingredients to the Chicago Native community and educate people about Indigenous contributions to everyday American fare.
One day, she aims to purchase all ingredients from Native suppliers and provide her community with affordable access to healthy Indigenous foods, "but this whole inflation thing has slowed that down," she said.
U.S. inflation surged to a new four-decade high in June, squeezing household budgets with painfully high prices for gas, food and rent.
Traditional Indigenous foods — like wild rice, bison, fresh vegetables and fruit in the Midwest — are often unavailable or too expensive for Native families in urban areas like Chicago, and the recent inflation spike has propelled these foods even further out of reach.
Risk of disease compounds the problem: healthy eating is key to battling diabetes, which afflicts Native Americans at the highest rate of any ethnic group in the United States.
"There are many benefits to eating traditional Native foods," said Jessica Thurin, a dietician at Native American Community Clinic in Minneapolis. "The body knows exactly how to process and use that food. These foods are natural to the Earth."
But many people the clinic serves are low-income and do not have the luxury of choosing where their food comes from. Food deserts – areas with limited access to a variety of healthy and affordable foods – are more likely to exist in places with higher rates of poverty and concentrations of minority populations.
"In these situations, there are limited healthy food options, not to mention limited traditional food options," Thurin said.
Aside from health benefits, traditional foods hold important cultural and emotional value.
"It's just comfort," said Danielle Lucas, a 39-year-old descendant of the Sicangu Lakota people from the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota.
Lucas' mother, Evelyn Red Lodge, said she hasn't prepared traditional dishes of the Great Plains, like wojapi berry sauce or stew, since May because the prices of key ingredients – berries and meat – have soared.
Pamonicutt, too, is feeling the pinch. Between last winter and this spring, the price of bison jumped from $13.99 to $23.99 per pound.
Shipping costs are so high that the chef said it's often cheaper to drive hundreds of miles to buy ingredients, even with spiking gas prices. She's even had to create her own suppliers: the 45-year-old's parents are now growing crops for her business on their Wisconsin property near the Illinois border.
Gina Roxas, program coordinator at Trickster Cultural Center in Schaumburg, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, has also agreed to grow Native foods to help the chef minimize costs.
When a bag of wild rice costs $20, "you end up going to a fast food place instead to feed your family," Roxas said.
More than 70% of Native Americans reside in urban areas – the result of decades of federal policies pushing families to leave reservations and assimilate into American society.
Dorene Wiese, executive director of the Chicago-based American Indian Association of Illinois, said members of her community have to prioritize making rent payments over splurging on healthy, traditional foods.
Even though specialty chefs like Pamonicutt aim to feed their own communities, the cost of her premium catering service is out of the price range for many urban Natives. Her meals end up feeding majority non-Native audiences at museums or cultural events that can foot the bill, said Wiese, a citizen of the Minnesota White Earth Band of Ojibwe Indians.
"There really is a shortage of Native foods in the area," she said, But the problem isn't unique to Chicago.
Dana Thompson, co-owner of The Sioux Chef company and executive director of a Minneapolis Indigenous food nonprofit, is another Native businesswoman striving to expand her urban community's access to traditional local foods like lake fish, wild rice and wild greens amid the food price surge.
Thompson, of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate and Mdewakanton Dakota people, said inflation is "really impacting the food systems we have here," which include dozens of Indigenous, local and organic food producers.
At Owamni, an award-winning Indigenous restaurant under The Sioux Chef umbrella, ingredients like Labrador Tea – which grows wild in northern Minnesota – have been especially difficult to get this year, Thompson said.
When an ingredient is not consistently available or affordable, she changes the menu.
"Being fluid and resilient is what we're used to," Thompson said. "That's like the history of indigeneity in North America."
Inflation is similarly impeding the American Indian Center of Chicago's efforts to improve food security. Executive Director Melodi Serna, of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, said the current prices of food boxes they distribute – with traditional Midwestern foods like fish, bison, venison, dairy products and produce – are "astronomical."
"Where I could have been able to provide maybe 100 boxes, now we're only able to provide 50," Serna said.
For 57-year-old Emmie King, a Chicago resident and citizen of the Navajo Nation, getting the fresh ingredients she grew up with in New Mexico is much more difficult in the city, especially with inflation biting into her budget.
She finds ways to "stretch" the food she buys so it lasts longer, purchasing meat in bulk and freezing small portions to add to stews later on. "I get what I need, rather than what I want," she said.
But King was able to enjoy a taste of home at an Aug. 3 luncheon at the American Indian Center of Chicago, where twenty elders gathered to enjoy turkey tamales with cranberry-infused masa, Spanish rice with quinoa, elote pasta salad with chickpea noodles and glasses of cold lemonade.
The mastermind behind the meal was Pamonicutt herself, sharing her spin on Southwestern and Northern Indigeneous food traditions. Through volunteering at senior lunches and developing a food education program, the chef is continuing to increase access to healthy Indigenous foods in her community.
"I want kids to learn where these foods come from," the chef said. "That whole act of caring for your food … thanking it, understanding that it was grown to help us survive."
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Native American news roundup, Jan. 19-25, 2025
Senate Energy Committee approves Trump's pick to lead Department of Interior
The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee this week voted 18-2 to approve the nomination of North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum to head the as U.S. Department of Interior.
If the full Senate approves, Burgum will oversee 11 bureaus and agencies that manage public lands, minerals, national parks and wildlife refuges. He will also oversee federal trust responsibilities to Indian tribes and Native Alaskans.
During his confirmation hearing, Burgum stressed that he has the support of his state’s five tribes.
“State and tribal relationships in North Dakota have sometimes been challenged, but the current partnership is historically strong because we prioritize tribal engagement through mutual respect,” Burgum told senators.
In addition to the Interior Department, President Donald Trump wants Burgum to lead a new national energy council.
Burgum has said he backs bypassing certain environmental regulations to increase energy production, create jobs and enhance national security. He also stressed his commitment to land conservation.
“We always want to prioritize those areas that have the most resource opportunity for America with the least impact on lands that are important, and I think that’s a pretty simple formula to be able to figure out,” Burgum said during his hearing.
Trump Pursues Recognition for Lumbee Tribe
Fulfilling a campaign promise he made to the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina last September, President Donald Trump this week directed the interior secretary to initiate steps toward securing full federal recognition for the tribe.
Historically, the tribe has been known by several names, including Tuscarora, Croatan, Cheraw and Cherokee. In 1953, it changed its name from "Cherokee Indians of Robeson County" to the "Lumbee Indians of North Carolina."
North Carolina recognized the Lumbee Tribe in 1885. In 1956, Public Law 570, the "Lumbee Act," acknowledged the tribe as an "admixture of colonial blood with certain coastal tribes of Indians" but denied it federal services. In the 1990s, the Interior Department rejected the tribe's petition for recognition, saying it could not document cultural, political or genealogical ties to any single historic tribe.
Biden grants clemency to Leonard Peltier
In the last hours of his presidency, President Joe Biden on Sunday commuted the life sentence of Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted in the 1975 killings of two FBI agents. He has served almost 50 years in prison.
During the unrest of the 1970s, Peltier, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota, joined the American Indian Movement, or AIM, which was dedicated to protecting, preserving and defending treaty rights of tribal Americans. AIM’s reputation was tarnished by acts of violence, most notably the 1972 six-day takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Washington.
In 1977, Peltier was convicted of the 1975 murders of two FBI agents during a standoff on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences.
“He is now 80 years old, suffers from severe health ailments, and has spent the majority of his life (nearly half a century) in prison,” the Biden White House said in a statement. “This commutation will enable Mr. Peltier to spend his remaining days in home confinement but will not pardon him for his underlying crimes.”
A diverse coalition of tribal nations, human rights groups and former law enforcement officials support his release, scheduled for Feb. 18.
The FBI tried to block his release.
“Peltier is a remorseless killer, who brutally murdered two of our own,” former FBI Director Christopher Wray wrote in a letter to Biden on Jan. 10. “Mr. President, I urge you in the strongest terms possible: Do not pardon Leonard Peltier or cut his sentence short.”
Also in 1975, Annie Mae Pictou-Aquash, a Mi'kmaq activist and AIM member from Nova Scotia, Canada, was kidnapped, raped and murdered. A 35-year investigation resulted in convictions of two other AIM members, but her family and supporters believe that Peltier was involved with her killing and expressed disappointment over his release.
Wearable robot teaches endangered Indigenous languages
In the tech world, Native Americans are almost invisible.
Danielle Boyer is looking to change that. The 24-year-old Anishinaabe robotics inventor from the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Michigan founded the nonprofit STEAM Connection in 2019 to design, manufacture and donate educational robots to Indigenous students.
Her latest creations, called SkoBots, are wearable animal-shaped robots that help students learn endangered Indigenous languages.
Boyer has distributed 20,000 free robot kits to Indigenous students, advocated for youth in STEM fields and challenged stereotypes about Indigenous peoples' technological capabilities.
Read more:
Native American news roundup, Jan. 5-11, 2025
Tribes laud Biden designation of national monuments in California
President Joe Biden this week announced plans to designate two new national monuments in California as part of his “America the Beautiful” initiative to conserve at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030.
The Chuckwalla National Monument in the southern desert region encompasses about 260,000 hectares (624,000 acres) near Joshua Tree National Park on the ancestral lands of the Iviatim, Nüwü, Pipa Aha Macav, Kwatsáan, and Maara’yam peoples – today, the Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, Mojave, Quechan, and Serrano Nations.
“The area includes village sites, camps, quarries, food processing sites, power places, trails, glyphs, and story and song locations, all of which are evidence of the Cahuilla peoples’ and other Tribes’ close and spiritual relationship to these desert lands," Erica Schenk, Chairwoman of the Cahuilla Band of Indians, said in a statement.
To the north, the Sattitla Highlands National Monument will protect 90,650 hectares (224,000) acres of ancestral lands in Shasta-Trinity, Klamath, and Modoc National Forests near Mount Shasta. This region is sacred to the Pit River Nation and will safeguard critical water resources and rare wildlife species.
In Biden’s final days in office, his administration has issued several environmental protections. On Monday, he banned oil and gas drilling in more than 24 million hectares ( 600 million acres) of coastal waters; on Dec. 26, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland instituted a 20-year ban on mining activities in portions of South Dakota’s Black Hills; and on Dec. 30, his administration announced a 20-year withdrawal of all oil, gas and geothermal development in Nevada’s Ruby Mountain area.
Little interest in Arctic oil and gas leases
The Interior Department announced this week that no bids were submitted for the second oil and gas lease sale in the Coastal Plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
This sale, required by the 2017 Tax Act, aimed to generate $2 billion over 10 years but failed to attract interest. The first sale was held under the Trump administration and also saw little demand, raising only $14.4 million.
All previous leases have been canceled, leaving no active leases in the area.
Interior Department Acting Deputy Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis said the lack of interest shows the Arctic Refuge is too special to risk with drilling.
“The BLM [Bureau of Land Management] has followed the law and held two lease sales that have exposed the false promises made in the Tax Act. The oil and gas industry is sitting on millions of acres of undeveloped leases elsewhere; we’d suggest that’s a prudent place to start, rather than engage further in speculative leasing in one of the most spectacular places in the world.”
Documentary about tribal disenrollment dropped from film festival
Film director Ryan Flynn says he was “elated” in October when his documentary “You’re No Indian” was selected for screening at the 36th annual Palm Springs International Film Festival, which runs through Jan. 13 (see film trailer, above).
The film concerns the growing trend of tribal disenrollment by which some Native American tribes strip individuals and families of their citizenship, making them ineligible for federal benefits and services and, as the documentary stresses, shares in casino revenue.
“When they announced the film schedule, we sold out on the first day,” Flynn said. “And then in mid-December, we got an email saying there had been a scheduling error, and they wouldn’t be able to move forward with our screening.”
Flynn said he was heartbroken.
“I don't mean heartbroken for myself,” he said. “It's for the people whose voices you have been systematically silenced by the powers that be.”
Indigenous rights attorney Gabe Galanda, a citizen of the Round Valley Indian Tribes in California, told VOA that approximately 10,000 tribal citizens from almost 100 tribes have been disenrolled.
VOA reached out to the film festival for comment.
“Due to an unforeseen scheduling error, the festival was unable to proceed with screenings of the film YOU’RE NO INDIAN,” a spokesperson responded via email. “The festival programming team reached out to the filmmaker to explain the situation and offered to reimburse the director for any non-refundable festival travel fees that may have been incurred.”
Federal report shows Native Americans wrongfully billed for health care
Native Americans are twice as likely to have medical debt sent to collections, with average debts that are one-third higher than the national average. This problem is worsened by limited access to year-round health care through the Indian Health Service and inconsistent Medicaid coverage between states, reports the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The IHS is responsible for providing free health care services in regional clinics. Where specialty services aren’t available, patients may be approved for emergency care outside the program at no cost.
Errors in bill processing and payment delays mean Native individuals are frequently billed for debts they should not owe, the consumer protection bureau says. Improper medical debt can damage individuals’ credit, making them ineligible for jobs, housing, loans and educational opportunities.
The Indian Health Service is responsible for providing free health care services in regional clinics. Where specialty services aren’t available, patients may be approved for emergency care outside the program at no cost.
High winds force Biden to cancel event announcing two new national monuments
Dangerously high winds forced U.S. President Joe Biden to cancel a trip Tuesday to the Eastern Coachella Valley, where he was to announce the creation of two new national monuments in California that will honor Native American tribes.
Winds began gaining strength across Southern California as forecasters warned of "life-threatening, destructive" gusts. The president was in his limousine ready to leave Los Angeles when the event was canceled. The White House initially said Biden would speak in Los Angeles but later announced the event would be rescheduled at the White House next week at a time when others could attend.
The National Weather Service said it could be the strongest Santa Ana windstorm in more than a decade and it will peak in the early hours of Wednesday, when gusts could reach 129 kilometers per hour. Isolated gusts could top 160 kph in mountains and foothills.
Biden's announcement was part of his administration's effort to conserve at least 30% of U.S. lands and waters by 2030 through his "America the Beautiful" initiative. But the cancellation of the trip was also a stark reminder of another administration priority: climate change and the increasing effects of extreme weather.
The proclamations name the Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California near Joshua Tree National Park and the Sattitla National Monument in Northern California. The declarations bar drilling and mining and other development on the 2,400-square-kilometer Chuckwalla site and roughly 800 square kilometers near the Oregon border in Northern California.
The new monuments protect clean water for communities, honor areas of cultural significance to tribal nations and Indigenous peoples and enhance access to nature, the White House said.
Biden, who has two weeks left in office, announced Monday he will ban new offshore oil and gas drilling in most U.S. coastal waters, including in California and other West Coast states. The plan is intended to block possible efforts by the incoming Trump administration to expand offshore drilling.
The flurry of activity has been in line with the Democratic president's "America the Beautiful" initiative launched in 2021, aimed at honoring tribal heritage, meeting federal goals to conserve 30% of public lands and waters by 2030 and addressing climate change.
The Pit River Tribe has worked to get the federal government to designate the Sattitla National Monument. The area is a spiritual center for the Pit River and Modoc Tribes and encompasses mountain woodlands and meadows that are home to rare flowers and wildlife.
Several Native American tribes and environmental groups began pushing Biden to designate the Chuckwalla National Monument, named after the large desert lizard, in early 2023. The monument would protect public lands south of Joshua Tree National Park, spanning the Coachella Valley region in the west to near the Colorado River.
Advocates say the monument will protect a tribal cultural landscape, ensure access to nature for residents and preserve military history sites.
"The designation of the Chuckwalla and Sattitla National Monuments in California marks an historic step toward protecting lands of profound cultural, ecological and historical significance for all Americans," said Carrie Besnette Hauser, president and CEO of the nonprofit Trust for Public Land.
The new monuments "honor the enduring stewardship of Tribal Nations and the tireless efforts of local communities and conservation advocates who fought to safeguard these irreplaceable landscapes for future generations,'' Hauser said.
Senator Alex Padilla of California called the new monuments a major victory that will safeguard the state's public lands for generations to come.
Designation of the Chuckwalla monument "accelerates our state's crucial efforts to fight the climate crisis, protect our iconic wildlife, preserve sacred tribal sites and promote clean energy," Padilla said. The new Sattitla monument, meanwhile, ensures that land that has "long served as the spiritual center for the Pit River and Modoc Nation" will "endure for generations to come," Padilla said.
The Chuckwalla monument is intended to honor tribal sovereignty by including local tribes as co-stewards, following in the footsteps of a recent wave of monuments such as the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, which is overseen in conjunction with five tribal nations.
"The protection of the Chuckwalla National Monument brings the Quechan people an overwhelming sense of peace and joy," the Fort Yuma Quechan Tribe said in a statement. "Tribes being reunited as stewards of this landscape is only the beginning of much-needed healing and restoration, and we are eager to fully rebuild our relationship to this place."
In May, the Biden administration expanded two national monuments in California — the San Gabriel Mountains in the south and Berryessa Snow Mountain in the north. In October, Biden designated the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary along the coast of central California, which will include input from the local Chumash tribes in how the area is preserved.
Last year, the Yurok Tribe in Northern California also became the first Native people to manage tribal land with the National Park Service under a historic memorandum of understanding signed by the tribe, Redwood National and State Parks and the nonprofit Save the Redwoods League, which is conveying the land to the tribe.
Native American news: 2024 in review
The 2024 elections in the U.S. highlighted the growing impact of Native American voters, especially in swing states such as Arizona. Home to 22 tribes, Native voters played a key role in that state’s results.
Unfounded claims of voter fraud and election irregularities four years ago triggered a surge of restrictive voting laws across the United States for this year’s vote, raising concerns about potential harassment and intimidation of voters and poll workers.
Exit polls showed a shift in Native American support toward Republican Donald Trump, driven by economic concerns and alignment with his party’s traditional values.
Biden apologizes for federal boarding school system
During his October visit to the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona, President Joe Biden delivered a long-awaited official apology to Native Americans for the Indian boarding school system that severed the family, tribal and cultural ties of thousands of Indian children over multiple generations.
“I say this with all sincerity: This, to me, is one of the most consequential things I've ever had an opportunity to do in my whole career as president of the United States,” Biden said, calling it his “solemn responsibility.”
In a related story, the Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition in May launched the National Indian Boarding School Digital Archive, a public archive of information on boarding schools and students that includes documents, photographs and other ephemera.
Supreme Court: Feds must pay for tribal health care programs
In a landmark June decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the Indian Health Service (IHS) must fully reimburse tribes for the administrative costs of running their own health care programs.
Chief Justice John Roberts explained that if the federal government’s position had prevailed — opposing payment of administrative costs — it would have created a “systemic funding shortfall” for tribes that chose to manage their own health care programs, thus imposing “a penalty for pursuing self-determination.”
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh argued that the ruling could cost the government as much as $2 billion.
The 1975 Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act allows federally recognized tribes to contract with the Indian Health Service to operate their own health care programs, which IHS would otherwise manage. When a tribe opts for this arrangement, IHS provides the funds it would have used to run those programs.
Museums, institutions, under pressure to return Native remains
The Interior Department issued new regulations in 2024 to improve compliance with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. Passed in 1990, it calls on federally funded museums and other institutions to inventory and return to tribal communities all ancestral remains and funerary objects.
The new rules cut out a loophole that allowed institutions to hang onto “culturally unidentifiable” remains and give tribes a greater say in the process. Throughout the year, institutions have made some progress, but as ABC News reported in November, nearly 500 museums and federal agencies have so far failed to identify or make available for repatriation more than 90,000 remains and associated cultural objects.
South Dakota governor banned from nine Indian reservations
Since taking office in 2019, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has had a tense relationship with the nine tribes in her state. Tensions escalated in January when Noem accused Mexican drug cartels of operating on reservations and then later suggested that tribal leaders were “personally benefiting” from that drug trade.
Oglala Lakota tribal president, Frank Star Comes Out, who had earlier declared a state of emergency over drug use and violence on the Pine Ridge Reservation, accused Noem of being politically motivated and in February became the first of nine tribes to ban her from the reservation.
Land Back movement sees some wins
The Land Back movement, a push for the return of lands lost to colonization, grew in momentum in 2024, and several tribes regained control of land or ancestral territories.
Among the successes, the Yurok Tribe of coastal California signed a memorandum of understanding to co-manage with the National Park Service 50 hectares (125 acres) of land they lost after the California gold rush in the mid-19th century.
TheLeech Lake Band of Ojibwe reclaimed more than 4760 hectares (11,000 acres) of ancestral land that the federal government seized from them in the 1940s.
And in the largest ever return of Indigenous land, the nonprofit Trust for Public Land returned 12,545 hectares (31,000 acres) to the Penobscot Tribe in Maine, with no easements or restrictions on its use.
Birth of white buffalo viewed as a blessing and a warning
A rare white buffalo calf was born June 4 in Yellowstone National Park's Lamar Valley, an event of profound cultural and spiritual significance for many Native American tribes.
According to Lakota tradition, White Buffalo Calf Woman appeared to the Lakota people during a time of great need, bringing them the sacred pipe and teachings of harmony, respect and gratitude for the Earth.
The pipe has been passed down for generations and is now held by Chief Arvol Looking Horse from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, who explains the tradition in the video below:
Looking Horse presided over a ceremony in Yellowstone June 26, naming the calf Wakan Gli, (“Sacred Return”) and warning that the calf’s birth was both a fulfillment of prophecy and a warning for people to unite and protect the earth.
Wounded Knee anniversary renews push to revoke US Medals of Honor
Each year, the Sitanka Wokiksuye, or Chief Big Foot Memorial Ride, remembers the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre with a 14-day journey on horseback from the Cheyenne River Reservation to the site of that violence on South Dakota’s Pine Ridge Reservation.
By the late 1880s, the Native American Lakota tribe was confined to reservations, their traditional ways of life forbidden, and the buffalo, critical to their survival, were decimated. Left to survive on inadequate U.S. government rations, the Lakota and many other tribes found hope in the Ghost Dance, a messianic movement that promised a return to their former way of life.
The U.S. Army interpreted the dance as a call to arms and sent the 7th Cavalry to suppress the dancing and arrest Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitting Bull, who the U.S. government believed was orchestrating rebellion.
Sitting Bull was shot dead, and his half-brother, Hunkpapa Lakota leader Sitanka, dubbed Big Foot, led his followers to consult with the Oglala leadership on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
The Army intercepted them and forced them to camp at Wounded Knee village; the next day, while confiscating weapons, a shot rang out, triggering the Army to open fire. By the end of the day, Big Foot and about 300 Lakota, including unarmed women, and children, lay dead. The event was celebrated as a victory for the U.S. Army, and the government awarded Medals of Honor to 20 cavalry soldiers for their actions.
This year, the Big Foot riders and their supporters hoped that President Joe Biden might revoke those medals.
Oliver “O.J.” Semans has spent years lobbying U.S. administrations to “take back honor wrongly bestowed.” The Sicangu Lakota voting rights advocate from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota lost many ancestors in that violence and said, “If Biden’s going to do anything, the best day would be December 29th” as that is the anniversary of the massacre.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren introduced the Remove the Stain Act in 2019, calling on the Army to revoke those Medals of Honor. Despite some bipartisan support and backing from Native leaders and advocacy groups, the bill did not advance.
Administrative action
This July, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered a review of medals of honor given for what he called the “engagement” at Wounded Knee to assess whether awardees violated the laws and military ethics of the era.
"It's never too late to do what's right," said an unnamed senior defense official quoted in the Pentagon press release that announced the decision. "And that's what is intended by the review that the secretary directed, which is to ensure that we go back and review each of these medals in a rigorous and individualized manner to understand the actions of the individual in the context of the overall engagement."
Austin directed a review panel of five members – three from the Department of Defense and two from the Interior Department -- to gather all relevant historical records and assess the actions of those soldiers based not on today’s standards but by those at the time.
"This is not a retrospective review," said another unnamed DoD official in the same Pentagon press release. "We're applying the standards at the time. And that's critical because we want to make sure that as these are reviewed and as a recommendation is made to the secretary and then to the president that we have applied the standards appropriately, while ensuring that we look at the context.”
The U.S. Army’s 1863 General Orders No. 100, also known as the “Lieber Code,” banned using excessive force, killing noncombatants, attacking during a ceasefire, and looting.
The Army held two sets of hearings on the matter in early 1891, interviewing officers and witnesses that included newspaper reporters, a surgeon and a Catholic priest.
“The Army was on the cusp of being a modern professional force, and so they at least made an effort to investigate allegations of crimes at Wounded Knee,” said Dwight S. Mears, author of “The Medal of Honor: The Evolution of America's Highest Military Decoration.”
In the end, the Army excused the cavalry’s actions as accidental and unintentional, and the U.S. Secretary of War recommended commendations.
“There was no political will to prosecute anybody, but they did collect a lot of evidence,” Mears said, “and if you sift through that with a critical eye, you can find a whole bunch of places where officers misrepresented themselves, which is a crime under oath.”
Three months after the massacre, the first Medal of Honor for Wounded Knee was awarded to an officer who, according to the medal citation “killed a hostile Indian at close quarters, and although entitled to retirement from service, remained to the close of the campaign.”
An award without guidelines
The U.S. Medal of Honor was created in 1863 to recognize acts of bravery, gallantry, and other distinguished actions in battle.
"But the Army didn't publish any standards for awarding it until 1889, so the commanding general of the Army just gave the medal out however he saw fit,” Mears explains.
In 1916, Congress directed the Army to review more than 2,600 medals and determine whether any had been issued “for any cause other than distinguished conduct by an officer or enlisted man in action involving actual conflict with an enemy.”
After an eight-month review, the Army struck more than 900 medals from the record. All of the Wounded Knee medals remained in place.
This year’s Wounded Knee review panel was given until October 15 to present its findings. By mid-November, Cheyenne River Sioux President Ryman LeBeau reported that the panel had voted three-to-two in favor of maintaining all medals awarded.
Semans believes that review was flawed from the start.
“Military historians weren’t used, and it was done over such a short period of time that evidence really couldn’t be put together,” he said.
Senator Warren and South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds asked the Interior and Defense departments to extend the review’s deadline to give stakeholders — including tribes, survivor descendants and historians a chance to weigh in.
"The devil is in the details,” Mears said. “If you don't know what actually happened at Wounded Knee, you might assume that every member of the 7th Cavalry, you know, just stood up and executed Lakota. And that is not what the record supports.”
To date, neither the Pentagon nor the White House has made any statement about the review panel’s findings.
“We have no additional updates to share at this time,” a Defense Department official told VOA.