Some white South Dakotans love to talk about their generational connection to the land. I’m one of them: a proud, fifth-generation descendant of Dakota Territory homesteaders.

The federal government awarded nearly 100,000 parcels of free land to South Dakota settlers via the 1862 Homestead Act and successive rounds of related legislation. Modern South Dakotans celebrate that legacy in myriad ways, including an annual State Fair ceremony honoring farms and ranches owned by the same family for 100 or more years.

Too few of us pause to consider how that must sound to Native Americans. Their connection to the land spans hundreds of generations and thousands of years. Before any white settler rushed to claim free land in western South Dakota, the federal government broke a treaty that promised to reserve all of that land as a Great Sioux Reservation. Continue reading The cost of free land and either-or history