Save the Sioux

April 30, 2014

President Barack Obama

1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW

Washington, DC 20500

My name is Sofie Forde and I am a student at Scituate High School in Scituate, Massachusetts. I am writing on behalf of the hundreds of Native Americans who have been killed, wounded, and forced to live in terrible conditions on small reservations in the U.S. I want to spread awareness of what our country is doing to tribes like the Sioux and Lakotah indigenous people, and encourage the government to help them as well. We are supposed to be a loving and compassionate country that accepts all people, but instead we have chosen to push the Native Americans off of their land and into tiny reservations with extremely poor living conditions. I am asking that the government create regulations, laws and organizations to protect the Native Americans of the U.S. and finally be the loving and caring country we intend to be. We need to return the Sioux's land back to them and defeat the racism that divides them from the rest of the U.S. By showing them how loving our country can be towards them, we will be able to support them and gain their trust. By showing them love, we can establish connections with the people of the Lakotah tribes and help them rebuild their lives on the land they love. 

Since the early 1800's, and even before then, Native Americans like the Sioux tribe and the Lakotah indigenous people have been moved off of their very own land and onto reservations by the U.S. governement and people. They describe white men as "the ones who take the best part of the meat for themselves" because they are forced to live in terrible conditions while the white people of the U.S. are wealthy and well-off. In 1863, President Lincoln had 38 Sioux men killed after an uprising against the men trying to take their rightfully-owned land. In 1868, the Treaty of Fort Laramie was signed and guaranteed the ownership of the Black Hills to the Lakotah people. In 1874, the treaty was broken after gold was discovered in Lakotah territory. The chiefs of the tribes were defeated and thier reservations were split up and destroyed. In 1890, twenty U.S. soldiers were awarded medals of honor for killing chief Bigfoot and 300 prisoners of war in the Wounded Knee Massacre. Today, the people of the Lakotah tribes suffer from cancer, alcoholism, domestic violent, high drop-out rates, and the highest a infant mortality rate on the continent.

I hope that you share my concern for these innocent people and plan to take action in the Lakotah area. We need to make it a priority to love and support the Native American tribes in any way we can. If we do not make people aware of their situation and initiate change in the lives of these tribes, they could potentially disappear forever. These humans are suffering and should be shown the love they deserve from their country. We are taking away the only thing they love- their land- and we can make it up to the tribes by returning what we have taken, and showing them the love and respect all people want in life. Please help as soon as possible; before it is too late to end this hidden cultural genocide.

Sincerely,

Sofie Forde