CHAMBERLAIN, S.D. – A group led by a man from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is planning “an action of the Lakota people” against Lewis and Clark re-enactors who are coming to Chamberlain this weekend.
“They’re just opening up all the old wounds that we’re still trying to heal from,” Alex White Plume said. “They should have been a little bit more courteous and asked us about what they are doing, and maybe they could have joined in the healing effort. Instead, they’re just coming through and bragging about what they did 200 years ago.”
About 20 people who are part of the Discovery Expedition of St. Charles, Mo., are scheduled to be in Chamberlain through Monday. The group travels aboard a replica boat to retrace the water route that explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark took 200 years ago, which ended in Oregon.
White Plume said his group will ask the re-enactors to go home.
Larry McClain, executive director of the expedition, said there have been rumors of a possible protest. His organization has been trying unsuccessfully to contact White Plume, said McClain.
He declined to say whether the re-enactors would consider ending the expedition.
“We’ve had incredibly positive experiences with Native Americans starting in Monticello all they way out,” McClain said. “We’re kind of a platform for education on a lot of issues. We obviously would like to help them have a voice and a platform for education.”
Brule County Sheriff Darrell Miller said he had no knowledge of any protest plans, but said he would meet with the local police chief to talk about the matter.
“I suppose everybody has a right to protest, as long as there’s no violence,” Miller said.
White Plume said the event will not be a protest but instead prefers to describe it as an “action.” He expects the re-enactors will cooperate with his request.
“I’m going up there with one peaceful purpose, and that’s to stop them,” he said. “We may even capture their boats – who knows?” he added with a laugh. “I just want to sit down and talk to them. I’ve got some things to say to them.”
Fliers have gone out to announce a Friday planning meeting.
“We, the descendants of the free Lakota, will make a stand to tell the world about the 1851 &1868 Ft. Laramie Treaties &how America fails to abide by its own laws,” the fliers state.
The treaty designated 60 million acres, including land in present-day South Dakota, as the Great Sioux Reservation. Another part of the treaty encouraged Indians to become farmers.
White Plume has drawn interest in recent years with attempts to grow hemp as a cash crop. Federal Drug Enforcement agents confiscated his crops in 2000 and 2001.
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