This page is referenced by:

• 1 2020-12-01T13:57:41-08:00 Iron White Man 18 plain 2021-03-16T09:07:22-07:00 Chief Iron White Man was a leader of the Oglala Sioux. Born in roughly 1860, he defended the Sioux against General Custer in the Battle of the Greasy Grass (Battle of the Little Bighorn), when he was a young man of only 17. 
  
  
  As a chief of the Oglala Lakota Sioux of the Pine Ridge Agency of South Dakota, Iron White Man was frequently a representative of Sioux Nation in the US court system. His testimony is recorded in several legal cases, defending his community against the corruption and poor living conditions provided to them on the reservation. In 1882, Iron White Man signed his name to a petition against the agent assigned to Pine Ridge by the Bureau of Indian affairs, a man named McGillicuddy. The petition details McGillicuddy's abuses on the reservation, and describes the poor living conditions 
  
  At the age of 71, Iron White Man traveled to the District of Columbia to deliver his most important legal testimony to the Supreme Court. He argued that the events of the Battle of the Greasy Grass (Little Bighorn) had been historically misrepresented, and that General Custer had attacked the Sioux unprovoked. At this point in the early 20th century, the general American perception of the Battle of the Little Bighorn was one of Native American hostility. This belief led to the government's decision to violate the sovereignty of the Sioux and Cheyenne nations, forcibly relocating the Lakota Sioux from their home in Red Cloud, Montana, to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
  
  By testifying against General Custer in 1930, Iron White Man added to mounting evidence that the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1866 had been unlawfully violated by the US government when they claimed the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1877. Initially, the United States ruled against the Sioux Nation's claim in 1946. Ultimately, however, legal proceedings culminated in the 1980 case of the United States vs the Sioux Nation. The Supreme Court ruled that, although native lands were not unlawfully seized, native beneficiaries were entitled to $17.1 million under the Just Compensation Clause of the 5th amendment. As of this writing, the Sioux have not accepted that compensation in protest of the ruling, as acceptance would nullify their fight for sovereignty over native land.
  
  As one newspaper puts it, Iron White Man's testimony was "The story of the Indian's battle for existence against the white man's desire to gain control of all the rich lands of the west."  Although Iron White Man's testimony was not immediately successful, and the fight for sovereignty is still ongoing, his testimony demonstrates the ongoing resilience of native nations all over Turtle Island (the United States) in fighting to preserve their culture and regain their lands.