OPPOSING MYTHICAL MEDIA IMAGES AND MAINSTREAM HISTORICAL NARRATIVES OF INDIGENOUS LAKOTA INDIANS AS SAVAGE AND WARLIKE

The nature of this violent conflict between the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians and the US government and military is an example of what my entire research and teaching career has focused on— minority- dominant relations. The significance of this research is that the seven tribal bands of the Lakota nation and their allies were the last loose ends that needed to be tied up by the US government and military to complete the continuous expansion of manifest destiny. The Lakota Sioux had long dominated the American interior northern territories, impeding Western migration with discerning negotiation, brutal intimidation and absolute power. A fierce and effective resistance emerges in the North central US, led by the Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne. This dramatic confrontation features men like Sitting Bull, Red Cloud, John Grass, Gall, Crazy Horse and military icons like George Custer. Gruesome violence, massacre, mutilation and removal are tragic and continuous in this saga. This research is relevant because many of the methods of decimation and control used against the indigenous plains Indians—racial and cultural genocide, forced assimilation, disproportionate use of violence, broken treaties, territorial colonization, suppression of religion and language, and reeducation schools—are the same weapons used today by dominant cultural groups against their own citizens, ethnic minority groups —by China against Uyghur Muslims and by the military coup in Myanmar against Rohingya Muslims. US deplorable treatment and nativist policies regarding African slaves, those of Mexican descent, Asian immigrants and indigenous Americans have provided a ghastly template for genocide and other human rights violations for nations around the globe.