Mount Rushmore was built to foster national pride and tell future civilizations how America was built.
That is not what Indigenous people see. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 granted the Black Hills exclusively to the Lakota Nation. To Native people, the monument is a symbol of broken promises.
Imagine two children standing side by side looking at the four carved faces.
The white child sees George Washington as a heroic general. The Lakota child sees a commander who destroyed Native villages and put bounties on Indigenous lives.
The white child sees Thomas Jefferson as the author who wrote that all men are created equal. The Lakota child sees a leader who spoke of hunting Native people like wolves.
The white child sees Theodore Roosevelt as a great conservationist. The Lakota child sees a president who seized fifty million acres of reservation land.
Then there is Abraham Lincoln. The white child sees Honest Abe, who ended slavery. The Lakota child sees the president who authorized the largest mass execution in United States history, hanging thirty eight Dakota men on December 26, 1862. Six days later, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
We do a disservice to white children when we hide the true nature of these four men. Shielding them from reality strips them of the chance to build real empathy for others. True education requires facing our whole history.
If you want to learn more about indigenous history, join our growing Substack community. We are still welcoming new members to our tribe.
