One of the most remote and depress­ing Indian reser­va­tions is in South Dakota. Pine Ridge reser­va­tion is not one of those who has ben­e­fited from a fancy casino. Instead, Pine Ridge suf­fers from an 80 per­cent unem­ploy­ment rate, and a high sui­cide rate.

From the UK’s Guardian, reporter Chris McGreal vis­ited the reservation.

Pine Ridge is among the US’s largest Indian reser­va­tions – much smaller than the vast plains of the mid­west that the Sioux once roamed but still big­ger than England’s largest county – and also among its poor­est. No one is sure how many peo­ple live on its 2.2m acres, but the tribe esti­mates about 45,000.

Con­di­tions on the reser­va­tion are tough. More than 80% unem­ploy­ment. A des­per­ate short­age of hous­ing – on aver­age, more than 15 peo­ple live in each home and oth­ers get by in cars and trail­ers. More than one-third of homes lack­ing run­ning water or elec­tric­ity. An infant mor­tal­ity rate at three times the US national aver­age. And a depen­dency on alco­hol and a diet so poor that half the pop­u­la­tion over the age of 40 is diabetic.

The Oglala Sioux’s per capita income is around $7,000 (£4,400) a year, less than one-sixth of the national aver­age and on a par with Bul­garia. The res­i­dents of Wounded Knee, scene of the noto­ri­ous 1890 mas­sacre of Sioux women and chil­dren and of the 1973 stand­off with the FBI, are typ­i­cally liv­ing on less than half of that. Young peo­ple have almost no hope of work unless they sign up to fight in Afghanistan. The few with jobs are almost all employed by the tribal author­i­ties or the fed­eral gov­ern­ment. It is not uncom­mon to hear peo­ple qui­etly speak of the guilt they feel for hav­ing a job. Those who don’t sur­vive on piti­fully small wel­fare cheques. It all adds up to a life expectancy on Pine Ridge of about only 50 years.
…

But the tribe’s lead­ers today view the treaties as a trap – promis­ing much but pro­vid­ing just enough to cre­ate a cul­ture of depen­dency and despair. “The gov­ern­ment wanted us to feel defeated and we played right in to their hands,” says (Tribe Pres­i­dent Theresa) Two Bulls. “We were taught to feel defeated. Look how they brought wel­fare and our peo­ple lived on wel­fare and some of our peo­ple don’t even know how to work. They’re used to just stay­ing at home all day, watch­ing TV and drink­ing and tak­ing drugs. That’s the state the gov­ern­ment wanted us to be in and we’re in it.”

It is a state Adelle Brown Bull has spent her life resist­ing, not always with suc­cess. The 69-year-old great-grandmother is still in the same tribal-owned house she raised her eight chil­dren in, and some of them never moved out. Today the two-bedroomed home is stuffed with grand­chil­dren and great-grandchildren. She sits at her kitchen table, the green wall behind her dot­ted with pho­tographs of the gen­er­a­tions of babies. Some of the pic­tures are so old they are in black and white.

Among those liv­ing with Brown Bull are a daugh­ter and her three chil­dren who are all in their 20s. Two of the grand­daugh­ters have sev­eral chil­dren of their own, one of them a baby. There’s another grand­child, nine-year-old Michael, who Brown Bull is rais­ing after his mother in effect aban­doned him when he was 10 months old. The num­bers fluc­tu­ate but there is any­where between eight and 15 peo­ple sleep­ing in the house at any one time.

None of the occu­pants has a job. Brown Bull gets a pen­sion of $538 (£337) a month, plus $323 (£202) for car­ing for Michael. The other moth­ers in the house get wel­fare cheques of a few hun­dred dol­lars a month. “We just man­age,” Brown Bull says, laughing.

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