This is not an argument for nostalgia or for imagining a past that could have been.

It is an argument for taking seriously the specific historical record — the specific promises made and broken, the specific choices taken — and understanding their consequences clearly.

The Lakota people today live with the consequences of those choices.

The Black Hills remain in American hands, occupied by national parks and the carved faces of American presidents, legally claimed by the Sioux Nation but physically controlled by the federal government.

The Powder River Country is cattle ranching and oil and gas country, the bison long gone, the way of life that Red Cloud fought to protect a historical memory rather than a living reality.