The original tweet was shared in July 2017 by @TheAriDee: For anyone curious, here's what Six Grandfathers looked like before they defiled it by carving a bunch of old white men into it. The Black Hills were considered sacred by the Lakota, and they objected to mining. This unique geographic area contains the oldest mountains in the world. An oblong ridge circles the Black Hills, separating them from the surrounding prairie grasslands and making them “one of the most unusual environmental features in the United States,” according to anthropologist Peter Nabokov. But the court also declared that the passage of time made the return of Sioux lands impossible and ordered a $120 million reparation payment. They formed an alliance with the Crow to the west around 1700. During the late 1700s to early 1800s, the Lakota came to control the lands in the Black Hills and on the northern plains by the eviction of the Cheyenne and the Crow tribes; areas that would later become western South Dakota, eastern Montana, northern Wyoming and northern Nebraska. The Sioux refused the money and in 1982 the Committee for the Return of the Black Hills was formed, consisting of one representative from each Sioux tribe. The Act of 1877 was another breach of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. About 50 years later, in the 1920s, Mt. The United States never owned the land. White guys.”. In October 2019, a post circulated showing a natural rock formation known as “Six Grandfathers” before it was carved into what most Americans now call “Mount Rushmore.”. While there isn’t proof that Borglum officially joined the Klan, which helped fund the project, “he nonetheless became deeply involved in Klan politics,” John Taliaferro writes in Great White Fathers, his 2002 history of Mount Rushmore. Images labeled “Mount Rushmore before carving” seemed to follow a conversational pattern on social media, in which the latter caption and image was shared and sparked claims that the image showed a natural rock formation that had been called Six Grandfathers, it was sacred to the Lakota people, and that it was originally preserved for indigenous Americans under perpetual treaty. ", Speaking about radioactive fallout, the late President John F. Kennedy said,"Even then, the number of children and grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or with poison in their lungs might seem statistically small to some, in comparison with natural health hazards. The Black Hills were part of the aboriginal territory of the Sioux, taken in violation of the 1868 treaty, of the Constitution and of international law. The Sioux rejected the cash settlement because they still want the land back. Alongside an image of an unaltered rock formation, the post said: For anyone curious, here’s what Six Grandfathers looked like before they defiled it by carving a bunch of old white men into it. That article went on to note that as of 2013, the value of the $120 million repayment, with interest, had grown to about $570 million. Shown Here: Introduced in Senate (07/17/1985) Sioux Nation Black Hills Act - Reconveys certain Federal lands to the Sioux Nation. Court-ordered compensation initially valued at $120 million (which had more than quadrupled nearly 35 years later) lay untouched by the Sioux — who are waiting for their land to be returned, as they were promised so many years before. 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