Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate
‘Just a knee bone’: Reinterment brings pain and healing to Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate
They only found a knee bone. That was all that was left of Amos La Framboise in his grave at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, where the 13-year-old Sisseton Wahpeton boy was sent to assimilate to white culture in 1879. He died just three weeks after arriving at the school. ‘They are important […]
‘They are important to us’: Remains of Sisseton Wahpeton children returning home
Amos La Framboise and Edward Upright didn’t know that they’d never see their homes and families again. The boys, of the Spirit Lake and Lake Traverse bands of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, set off to Pennsylvania in 1879 to attend the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. They didn’t know they would die at the school before […]
Tribal leaders urge legislators to support reestablishment of Lake Traverse Reservation boundaries
AGENCY VILLAGE — The Lake Traverse Reservation, home to the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, doesn’t appear on official South Dakota state maps. Literally, the oyate (a Dakota word meaning “people” or “nation”) was wiped off the map because of a 1975 U.S. Supreme Court decision. That decision has made tribal members feel erased in the last […]
‘Always in emergency mode’: Tribe partners with national groups on food security, disaster prep
About 90 inmates at the Roberts County Jail in northeastern South Dakota didn’t have food in mid-December this winter. The jail relies on weekly truck deliveries from over 50 miles away, but back-to-back blizzards dropped roughly 18 inches of snow on the region, closed the interstate and left kitchen staff stranded in their homes. “Any […]