Project Report
| Nov 29, 2021
Lakota Lands Recovery Project Update
By David Bartecchi | Director
![Bailer]()
Bailer
Dear Supporter of the Lakota Lands Recovery Project,
It's been a busy year for Village Earth and the Lakota Lands Recovery Project. Most recently, we have been focused on transporting some large farm equipment from a donor in California to the Knife Chief Buffalo Nation project on the Pine Ridge Reservation. While the equipment including a tractor, bailer, and mower were donated, we had to pay a considerable expense to load and transport the equipment from California to South Dakota. The good news is that he equipment should arrive this week and will be extremly valuable to the Knife Chief project to be able to harves and store hay bailes for their bison herd during the winter months when the grass goes dormant.
Additionally, we've been putting a lot of energy into our new initiative (a spinoff of the LLRP) called the Native Lands Advocacy Project and website the Native Land Information System at https://nativeland.info. The NLIS serves as repository of learning resources, information, and data to help defend and protect native lands for the benefit of native peoples. It aims at challenging the status quo around historical data colonialism in Native Lands.
Thank you for taking the time to read this brief report and your ongoing support!
David Bartecchi
Executive Director
![John Deere Tractor]()
John Deere Tractor
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Nov 24, 2020
Winter 2020 Report
By David Bartecchi | Director
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Dear Supporter,
There's been a lot happening on the Lakota Lands Recover Project the past year, primarily in researching the status of Bennett County, SD (as being part of the Pine Ridge Reservation) as well as researching the allottment process and fee patenting process on Pine Ridge. Both of these are important to understand why, how and when certain lands on the Pine Ridge Reservation were fee patented (e.g. taken out of trust status and sold primarily to non-natives). One of the most significant developments was the digitization of government patent records and then using them to create a timeline of the allotment process on Pine Ridge see link https://www.nativeland.info/dashboard/allotment-timeline-on-the-pine-ridge-reservation/
In the coming weeks we hope to do the same thing for lands that were fee patented. This will reveal just what policies had the greatest impact on liquidating native lands on the Pine Ridge Reservation. With the results from this project we hope to reproduce this for all native lands in the United States, clarifying the historical record for tribes.
Additionally, we continue to maintain the Lakotalands.net and land information for the Pine Ridge Reservation and frequently respond to calls from Tribal members about the options they have for utilizing their lands.
Our work wouldn't be possible without your support so I humbly thank you!
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Nov 19, 2018
Winter 2018 Report
By David Bartecchi | Director
![The historic allotment map added to the PRLIS]()
The historic allotment map added to the PRLIS
The Lakota Lands Recovery project has been pretty busy this fall. We've been focusing a lot of effort on our research of "fee" lands on the Pine Ridge Reservation and the impact that this has had on the Oglala Sioux Tribe's sovereignty and self determination. We've also been busy adding resources to our online mapping system for the Pine Ridge Reservation http://lakotalands.net, specifically, we've added county maps for Bennett, Jackson, and Oglala Lakota counties. These maps help mebers of the tribe understand who owns and controls fee lands on the Reservation. We've also added a historical allotment map of Bennett County which is part of our broader effrots to help residents "audit" their lands - specificlaly to discover where their families original allotments were located and then be able to trace changes in ownership over time - and in some cases, discover when those lands were liquidated through forced fee patenting or other nefarious mechanisms. One of the tools wer'e most excited about is linking the BLM's land patent database to each parcel on the Pine Ridge Reservation. This makes it possible for residents of the Reservation to discover the exact year and in some cases, the justification used to issue their ancestors fee patents. We are now working with this data to develop an animated map of land loss on Pine Ridge and will announce it as soon as it's available.
We want to thank you all for your ongoign support of our efforts to protect and recover Lakota lands.
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