Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance

On Thanksgiving Day 2016, Estes took his fourth and final trip back to the Oceti Sakowin Camp, where the Water Protectors north of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation were camping. The Water Protectors were protesting the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), a nearly 1,200-mile oil pipeline that would weave through territory established as unceded by the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. The pipeline would also cross beneath the Missouri River, an important source of water for the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. At the Oceti Sakowin Camp, all seven nations described by colonial settlers as the “Great Sioux Nation” joined non-Indigenous people to protest the pipeline. Many believed that the unification of these nations—along with non-Indigenous sympathizers—was the key to moving forward.

DAPL project supporters made strong attempts to dismantle the Oceti Sakowin, employing military-style surveillance and roadblocks and hiring a private security company to spread false stories about the Water Protectors. Estes describes a peaceful protest at Kirkwood Mall on Black Friday to bring attention to the cause. Law enforcement applied violent force and arrested both protestors and non-protestors, citing “the smell of campfire” as justification for the arrests (6).