Tag: Tom Asbridge

“Death by Oil” Remembering the Dakota 38 for Christmas

Looking back 154 years, little has changed in the Peace Garden State

By C.S. Hagen
BISMARCK
– The same prejudices that sent 38 Dakota Native Americans to the gallows in Minnesota 154 years ago still exist in the Peace Garden State today. Parallels between the broken treaties that sparked the six-week US-Dakota War of 1862 and the current fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline contain undeniable similarities, red man and white man say.

Standing Rock Sioux Chairman Dave Archambault II has repeatedly stated the Sioux tribe is not only fighting water and land rights, but also defying hundreds of years of broken treaties and oppression.

Little has changed since the day after Christmas 1862, the day of the U.S. largest mass execution in Mankato, Minnesota.

“Death by Oil” – wet plate by Shane Balkowitsch

“The overt racism that exists here in North Dakota is something that shocked me,” retired rancher and former candidate for the North Dakota House of Representative Tom Asbridge said. His family has lived in or near Morton County since the late 19th century. “It is North Dakota nice. During holiday times we pride ourselves for handing out turkeys to poor kids, but the rest of the year we ignore what is going on. There’s a lot of self-delusion here about who we are, and people who are smart prey upon that. We shouldn’t blame them, but blame the people who are too dumb to know the difference.”

Bismarck native and wet plate artist Shane Balkowitsch decided to commemorate the 154th anniversary of the Dakota 38’s mass execution with a wet plate featuring renowned flute player and writer Darren Thompson.

“I made this wet plate in the historic wet plate collodion process to remember and pay respect to the 38 Native Americans that we executed a day after Christmas in 1862 by Abraham Lincoln,” Balkowitsch said. “The oil dripping down the rope symbolizes the current protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Have we learned nothing from past historical tragedies?”

Thompson, the subject in the wet plate, is an award-winning flute player and a journalist who lives in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Growing up on the Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe Reservation in Northern Wisconsin, he didn’t hear about the Dakota 38 until later in life. The story upset him, and he recently stepped from behind his role as a journalist to help Balkowitsch with his wet plate “Death by Oil.”

“It was difficult because originally I was planning on covering it as a journalist, and not being in the photo,” Thompson said. “It was difficult especially in terms of how can I explain this story.

“But he said ‘you have a voice that I don’t have, you can make this image reach to larger masses of people than I could.’ It would be a modern look of a Native American man.”

 

The Dakota 38: “It is a good day to die.”

Little by little, through trick and by trade, the federal government ate away at Dakota lands in southern Minnesota. Starting in 1805, the nomadic Dakota people were forced into smaller and smaller areas surrounding the Minnesota River, according to the Minnesota Historical Society.

In 1819, the US Army began building forts, settlers soon followed. Animals the Dakota depended upon for survival vanished from the forests. Missionaries promised education and farming assistance. Politicians threatened reprisals if treaties weren’t signed. Eventually, 35 million acres were exchanged for a promised USD 3 million, which the Dakota never received in full. Despite disagreements within the Dakota tribe, treaties were signed, but the translations were false.

Battle of Wood Lake sketch

The Dakota were tricked, lost half their land, and now owed fur traders in excess of USD 400,000. Those that refused to change their ways were threatened with more reprisals, and were not allowed to return to their homes. Annuity payments were late.

In 1862, the Dakota had enough. War began.

Settlers in Renville County lived opposite the Dakota, three days after the attacks began the county was abandoned, as most had been killed, wounded, captured, or had fled, the Minnesota Historical Society reported. The attacks took settlers by surprise. Those that escaped fled to Fort Ridgely.

General Henry Sibley led the U.S. Army against the Dakota. Sibley was no Indian hater; he spoke the Dakota language, and was well acquainted with the four tribes, according to historian William Folwell.

He was frequently opposed by General John Pope, who subscribed to a Three-Alls policy: kill all, burn all, loot all. Sibley resisted.

“It is my purpose utterly to exterminate the Sioux if I have the power to do so and even if it requires a campaign lasting the whole of next year,” Pope wrote to Sibley in 1862. “Destroy everything belonging to them and force them out to the plains, unless, as I suggest, you can capture them. They are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts, and by no means as people with whom treaties or compromises can be made.”

Prairie on Fire

The campaign against the Native Americans ended at the Battle of Wood Lake on September 23, 1862. Dakota warriors lay in ambush against Sibley’s forces near Lone Tree Lake, while soldiers broke camp. They attacked as Sibley’s forces marched. Sibley won the battle, but not without casualties to both sides: seven white soldiers were killed, 33 wounded, 15 Dakota, including chiefs Makato and Mazamani, were killed.

A total of 152 civilians were killed, 48 soldiers or militia killed, 113 settlers and soldiers were captured, and 201 people escaped, according to some estimates. Other historians report more than 600 people were killed in total. Only 24 percent of the survivors returned to Renville County after the war.

The numbers of Dakota killed during the war estimate from 75 to 100, and by some reports much higher, but more than a fourth of the Dakota people who surrendered in 1862 died the following year. More than 1,000 Dakota were captured, and were forced into concentration camps on reservations, pressured to assimilate, and their lands were taken by white settlers, according to the Minnesota Historical Society. Eventually, all Dakota were forced from Minnesota; all treaties were destroyed. Many fled to North Dakota and Nebraska.

The U.S. Military Commission convened at Camp Release to try 392 Dakota prisoners. Proof of crimes was difficult to obtain as President Abraham Lincoln’s criteria for capital punishment was to sort out those who had committed rape and murder from those who participated in battles.

The trials were known as a mockery, both blind and ignorant, according to the Family and Friends of Dakota Uprising Victims. Language barriers, lack of proper translations, and local hatred against the Dakota spurred judges to quick determinations. A total of 303 people were originally sentenced to death, and 16 were given prison terms. President Lincoln shortened the list to be executed to 39, and one elderly man was spared minutes before the execution by Sibley.

Under orders from President Lincoln, the U.S. Army carried out the largest mass execution in U.S. history in Mankato, the word for Blue Earth in the Dakota language.

Abraham Lincoln letter and signature regarding the Dakota 38

The day before the mass execution, Reverend Stephen Riggs said some of the condemned “availed themselves of the opportunity to receive the Christian rite” of baptism. The prisoners were chained in pairs and to the floor.

“It was a sad, a sickening sight, to see that group of miserable dirty savages, chained to the floor, and awaiting the apparent unconcern the terrible fate toward which they were then so rapidly approaching,” Riggs wrote for newspapers in 1862.

A man identified as Father Augustine Ravoux, a noted Catholic patriarch of the Minnesota church, addressed the condemned, but was interrupted when an elderly Dakota “broke out in a most lamentable and unearthly wail; one by one took up the lay, and ere long the walls resounded with the mournful ‘death song.’”

When a second missionary began his address, the Dakota once again began singing.

Soon after, the condemned were bound, hands behind their backs. Many dressed in traditional blankets, white muslin hoods were slipped over their heads.

At precisely 10 a.m., the condemned were then marched to the gallows, a square structure on Main Street, between the jail and the Minnesota River. “The mechanism of the whole thing consisted in raking the platform by means of the pulley, and then making the rope fast, when by a blow from an ax by a man standing in the centre of the square, the platform falls; the large opening in its centre protects the executioner from being crushed by the fall.”

They wore war paint, and hopped on one foot to the gallows. Some of the condemned who had been “Christianized” sang “I’m on the Iron Road to the Spirit Land,” while others sang a native war song. One person among the condemned yelled out, “Hear me my people, today is not a day of defeat, it is a day of victory. For we have made our peace with our creator, and now go to be with him forever… Do not mourn for us, rejoice with us, for it is a good day to die.”

The spectacle drew people by the thousands. “Every convenient place from which to view the tragic scene was soon appropriated. The street was full, the house tops were literally crowded, and every available space was occupied.”

More than 1,500 soldiers also were present to keep the peace.

“Instead of shrinking or resistance, all were ready, and even seemed eager to meet their fate. Rudely they jostled against each other, as they rushed from the doorway, ran the gauntlet of the troops, and clambered up the steps to the treacherous drop. As they came up and reached the platform, they filed right and left, and each one took his position as though they had rehearsed the programme.”

Three taps of the drum signaled the executioner.

Upon the first tap, the condemned reached for each others’ hands, and shouted out their names to watching relatives.

The second tap followed. Stillness descended upon the scene.

“Again the doleful tap breaks on the stillness of the scene. Click! Goes the sharp ax, and the descending platform leaves the bodies of thirty-eight human beings dangling in the air.”

Most died instantly; some struggled. One rope broke, and a new length was quickly tied and the condemned hung until he was dead.

“Thirty-eight human beings suspended in the air, on the bank of the beautiful Minnesota; above, the smiling, clear, blue sky; beneath and around, the silent thousands, hushed to a deathly silence by the chilling scene before them, while the bayonets bristling in the sunlight added to the importance of the occasion.”

Their bodies were buried in a large hole in a sandbar in the Minnesota River.

President Lincoln later explained the mass execution to the U.S. Senate.

“Anxious to not act with so much clemency as to encourage another outbreak on one hand, nor with so much severity as to be real cruelty on the other, I ordered a careful examination of the records of the trials to be made, in view of first ordering the execution of such as had been proved guilty of violating females.”

Many local politicians and military personnel sent telegrams to the President to execute all 303 prisoners.

Sibley sent a telegram to President Lincoln the day after the executions. “The 38 Indians and half-breeds ordered by you for execution were hung yesterday at 10 a.m. Everything went off quietly.”

Hanging of the 38 Sioux at Mankato – sketch by W.H. Childs

Racism today

Thompson began teaching himself the flute while in college and now tells native stories with his songs, frequently in the Black Hills at the Crazy Horse Memorial, the world’s largest stone carving, which is not yet finished. Many of his tribe’s old songs and traditions are gone, but he’s discovered a few songs Jesuit priests recorded years ago, and he creates his own music.

Darren J. Thompson “Pipigew” or flue player – wet plat by Shand Balkowitsch

He plays prayer songs, songs for nature, songs to honor corn grinding, which he described as experiences for people to be baby fed native trauma and culture. Before Europeans “discovered” America, estimates put 50 million natives north of the Mexican border. By 1900, less than 100,000 remained, he said.

“With that comes an immeasurable loss of a people, languages, knowledge, their history, and their culture, and one of the ways I try to emphasize that particular fact is explaining this music is a part of who we are and it’s a very pleasant thing to listen to.”

Thompson has seen racism up close and it has been personal. As an Ojibwe, his tribe had issues over hunting and spear fishing rights, a fundamental part of their original treaties with the U.S. government. One of the ideologies he faced as a child was the “Save a walleye, kill an Indian” slogan. He has brown skin, and was called a “timber n*gger.” He received death threats in college, and close friends were also threatened.

The dangers Native Americans face today are just as real as they were in 1862, he said, although this time perhaps not at gunpoint, but with the burning of fossil fuels. Communication and mutual understanding could ease the months-long standoff.

“If somebody is wanting to understand, they need to specifically go in to speak with the people of Standing Rock,” he said. “It’s going to become too late if we don’t stop being so reliant on fossil fuels.

“What’s really challenging for an entire community is to have to swallow the inability of this company to consult, to invite the community to the table to have significant contributions. In the lack of doing that 86 burial sites were desecrated or harmed because of their inability to consult or to invite the community to the table.

“The people there are not anti-white, they’re anti-greed. They want a clean environment for everybody. It’s not that they want to harm the police or harm the pipeline workers. The people that want the pipeline want it built only because native people don’t want it built.”

Asbridge said racism is deep-rooted in the Peace Garden State, frequently reminding him of the days in the deep south when white people believed they had a moral right to go so far as to have white-only drinking fountains.

In coffee parlors and coffee shops around Bismarck he’s heard people say “we ought to go kill those damn Indians that are protesting.’

“Makes you wonder. When you hear it, it’s just really startling, do you really know what is coming out of your mouth? We’re being guided here without us thinking very clearly.”

Racism dates back to 1862 and beyond, Asbridge said.

“It’s kinda cultural, it goes back to the Scandinavian and the German roots – we got that built into us, instead of questioning government, we defer to it. An example is the response of police to the pipeline, they’ve been the aggressors in my mind, no question about it. I think they were sent there to antagonize the Natives.”

Early on, someone should have went down, rolled up their sleeves, and over pots of strong coffee discussed plans, man to man. “That to me is a crime, it’s a criminal activity to do that. The dogs, the rubber bullets, the water hoses, what the hell is the purpose of that?

“It’s an indicator of the culture here. Fighting the culture is a tough job.”

As Jack Dalrymple prepared to step down from the governorship, he received a standing ovation after he praised law enforcement and National Guard efforts during the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy. “Many of our people have gone months without a day off, ably managing the onslaught of out-of-state agitators in a situation that could never have been anticipated.

“The people of North Dakota can take satisfaction in knowing that the financial strength of their state is among the best in the nation,” Dalrymple said. He left a financially stable state to the newly elected 33rd governor, Doug Burgum.

The state may be financially secure, at least for the time being, but many agree the Peace Garden State’s spirit is sick. The symptoms are evident; the disease is contagious. From state politicians accepting big oil bribes during election races, to ignoring its first citizens, to not consulting appropriately with sovereign nations, to repressing the collective voices of North Dakota’s original peoples, racism is still alive and well, and living in the Peace Garden State.

“Go Home”

City leaders, law enforcement, state residents have had enough; Standing Rock and supporters say they’re already home

By C.S. Hagen
BISMARCK
– The day before President Obama pardoned the Thanksgiving Turkey, Peace Garden State leaders told Standing Rock and the tribe’s supporters that North Dakota has had enough.

“It’s time for them to go home,” Bismarck Mayor Mike Seminary said to the activists camped outside of Standing Rock. “I thank the visitors for coming, making their message known. It’s loud and clear… It has been profound, and we understand. No more productive messaging can really be done, you’ve said everything that needs to be said…

“It’s now time for them to go home.”

Seminary added that law enforcement involved in the DAPL controversy was doing an “incredible job,” and thanked those that make the city of Bismarck run.

“I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday,” Seminary said. “God bless you.”

Those camped out at Oceti Sakowin are frightened. Many come from across the nation to protect the Missouri River against the USD 3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline. Arrests are mounting, totaling 528 by Wednesday afternoon. Local anger against Standing Rock and its stance against the pipeline is spilling into metropolitan streets as pro-DAPL protesters gather wherever activists go. The capitol building has been repeatedly shut down. Roads have been closed. Alerts follow activists’ movements on resident cell phones.

Activists say they’re being harassed. Law enforcement say they’re experiencing “doxing,” a practice of identifying and releasing police identities to the public.

Law enforcement reported they felt threatened Sunday night, standing behind cement blocks and multiple rolls of razor wire, and were forced to use water cannons and hoses on activists. Supporters of Standing Rock said they were gathered in prayer, that they started no fires except for those made to keep warm.

Anger is rising across the area, fierce and cold as the north winter wind. Despite tribal elders call for peaceful demonstration and civil disobedience, violence is escalating.

 

Kicked out

Monday night, Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney and Mandan Police Chief Jason Ziegler called activists Liz George, 26, and Kana Newell, 23, over to their table while they were eating at the Chinese restaurant Rice Bowl, according to George.

After a brief conversation, both Laney and Ziegler ordered the two women out of the restaurant, and threatened to arrest them both for disorderly conduct, according to video footage.

Liz George

Liz George

George wasn’t worried when she approached the two police chiefs, she said. “We thought we’d say hi, show them that we are peaceful and not the image they have and then leave,” George said. “But they also called out to us on our way out so it would have been rude for me to just ignore and walk out.”

George’s ancestry is from India, and she is from Michigan, and Newell is from Japan. They’re proud women of color, and have become friends at Oceti Sakowin, frequently going on actions together. They both were on the front lines Sunday night when law enforcement turned water cannons on the activists in sub-freezing temperatures.

Newell was hit by the water, and by a percussion grenade, which exploded in the air above her, knocking her to the ground. Both breathed in CS gas, and Newell is still coughing.

“I didn’t think so much about the water, all I thought about was holding up this line,” Newell said. “We had to hold that line to protect the people behind us.” Eventually, the cold numbed her fingers and toes; her hair froze. Friends had to help her change out of her clothes.

Kana Newell

Kana Newell

And then she returned to the front line.

The next night, Newell and George traveled into Mandan to eat Chinese food.

“We didn’t go into that restaurant to pick a fight,” Newell said. “We went in to have a meal, and heal and laugh a little bit.”

Laney called out to them as they were leaving, George said, and he was friendly, at first. His tone changed quickly. Two gentlemen at a nearby table were called over to join the conversation, but the two women could not talk above Laney’s voice, George said.

“He was trying to make an example out of us,” George said. “I think the reason we were mistreated was because, yes, we are women of color, but also because of the Water is Life badge. And that made me think, yes, I can take that badge off, but native men and black men cannot ever take theirs off.”

“If we had not worn that badge we probably would not have been targeted,” Newell said. “It’s a lot to process.”

Neither woman had experienced police intimidation before coming to Standing Rock, they said. Now, it’s difficult to sleep. George jumps whenever she hears a loud noise. She pulls out her cell phone as protocol when police approach.

“It’s an unjust use of power, and the law sort of allows it,” Newell said. “What does disorderly conduct really mean? The police get to decide, and that leaves us powerless.”

Both women are frightened, and they’re not going to wear their Water is Life badges when going into town in the future. On Wednesday, during an action in Bismarck, different police confronted the two women when the vehicle they were riding in failed to properly signal a right turn.

George was sitting in the back seat and took her seat belt off after the car was put in park, she said. Officers then threatened to arrest her for failure to wear a seatbelt, she said.

“They’re basically intimidating us, they’re forcing me to give them my ID, which I didn’t want to give to him,” George said. “I asked them to bring a couple more officers over. We’re surrounded by cops, and they are indiscriminately pulling people over for nothing, and basically fabricating charges.”

North Dakota’s seat belt laws say that all front seat occupants must be buckled up; anyone younger than 18 must be properly restrained no matter where they sit, according to the North Dakota Highway Patrol, but the law states no requirement for those older than 18 in the backseat.

“They’re using pure intimidation tactics on us,” Newell said. She sat in the backseat of the car with George.

“It’s only against us,” George said. “There are a lot of pro DAPL protesters out here, and none of them are affected by anything. This is the second day in a row that we’ve been harassed and intimidated by police in Bismarck and Mandan. I’m just kind of shaken up; it’s the second time this has happened to us. It’s ridiculous, but it’s almost funny what they’re doing out here. The charges they’re putting against us are humorous because of how false there are.”

“We know our rights,” Newell said.

An officer returned and issued three citations: failure to use proper turn signal, failure to use seatbelts, and failure to have a clean license plate. Fines for the citations totaled USD 60.

Case County Sheriff Paul Laney

Case County Sheriff Paul Laney

Laney is a Cass County hero, according to his police biography. Originally from rural Cass County, near Horace, he served four years in the Marine Corps before becoming a Fargo police officer. He served as a lieutenant and commander of the Red River Valley SWAT Team, and was sworn in as Cass County Sheriff in 2007. He is president of the North Dakota Sheriff’s and Deputies Association, serves on the board of directors for the North Dakota Association of Counties. Laney is decorated, heavily, including the 2011 winner of the “Government Leader of the Year” award and in 2012 the “National Sheriff of the Year” award.

He has also been serving as Morton County Sheriff’s Department operations chief since mid August.

Mandan Police Chief Jason Ziegler

Mandan Police Chief Jason Ziegler

Ziegler is not from North Dakota, but is also a former Marine who served during the Gulf War. While in the Marine Corps he earned the rank of a corporal, and later became a lieutenant in the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office in Florida He was named Mandan’s police chief in 2015.

Both Laney and Ziegler, their offices, the departments’ public information officers were contacted for comment.

“This is the absolute first I’ve ever heard of this,” Cass County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Kim Briggeman said.

“There’s another underlying story here and it goes further than the racism,” Tom Asbridge, a Morton County resident said. “If the two ladies at the Rice Bowl in Mandan were doing something out of line, then that’s a whole different thing, but there is no evidence of that. There is evidence that those two cops were abusive. Don’t you think it would have been much more prudent and wise to make friends of them and try to smile and say ‘hey, what can we do?’ Then it puts the onus on the two ladies. We don’t need to have people on police force acting like jerks.”

Asbridge ran for representative of District 30 this year, but lost, as he feels his viewpoints on issues including DAPL are in the minority in the Peace Garden State. He grew up near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation, knows the area well, including Backwater Bridge, which authorities have deemed unsafe.

“Its subhuman, and there’s some profit motive going on, because there’s some other corruption beneath this, and nobody will touch it. It seems to me that if someone would lance this boil… I think there would be an element of goodness here in North Dakota that would just say ‘No, we don’t believe in this, we won’t put up with this kind of treatment by the people who are working for us.’

“But if there’s no story, if there’s no journalism here to report this, it will remain secret.”

Asbridge has been an “advocate for justice” for many years, he said, and he fears for Standing Rock.

“I think there is way more baiting by Morton County to induce bad stuff than one can imagine. Things don’t quite add up.”

Police spraying mace - photo by Liz George

Police spraying mace – photo by Liz George

Punishing Standing Rock

Asbridge says he calls Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier’s bluff that Backwater Bridge, the epicenter of much of the recent violence, is unsafe.

Tom Asbridge

Tom Asbridge

“That’s a really great concrete bridge and it’s not very old. You’re not going to hurt that bridge by burning a few tires, some trash and logs on the bridge. They made that up. If it is unsafe why hasn’t the Department of Transportation been there with some people observing them? I would want to cover my proverbial butt; the bridge is not unsafe… I think it contains the natives where they are.”

Kirchmeier disagrees.

“North Dakota Department of Transportation has closed the Backwater Bridge due to damage caused after protesters set numerous fires on the bridge October 27,” Morton County Sheriff’s Department reported. Department of Transportation cannot inspect the bridge until law enforcement knows the area is safe, Kirchmeier said in a press conference.

Additionally, the best way to “punish Standing Rock is to shut down their economy,” Asbridge said. Shutting down Highway 1806 is putting the financial clamp on the tribe’s casino, Prairie Knights. “That’s their big source of revenue, and they’ve accomplished that.”

Once again, Morton County officials disagree. Shutting down Highway 1806, effectively turning Backwater Bridge into a war zone, was to protect against confrontations between activists and DAPL workers, Morton County Sheriff’s Department reported.

“This is some sophisticated people that are maneuvering, and manipulating, there are strings coming from higher up, and I think the governor is being manipulated by those same strings,” Asbridge said.

If someone challenged Governor Jack Dalrymple’s emergency declaration in court, Asbridge believes they would win. “There is no emergency. The linchpin was the use of the emergency, the use of the National Guard, the excessive use of the police, the law enforcement from all over the country. This is a feeding frenzy. This isn’t healthy to have a militarized police force doing this.”

Asbridge calls for federal intervention, because the state is biased.

“Take it out of the hands of the local people who are obviously biased and settle this dispute.”

In the meantime, Standing Rock and supporters have the right to be upset, Asbridge said. When the pipeline’s route was moved north of Bismarck to its current location less than a mile away from Standing Rock Sioux reservation, it was the spark that lit the native fire that has gathered thousands of supporters and more than 400 tribes from around the world.

“This is the eruption of 500 years of abuse, and they’ve finally taken a stand and said this is it. Whether they’re right in everything or not, I’m not sure it is as important. If you check, not one treaty with Standing Rock has ever been kept. Not one. And as a white American, that’s shameful.

“I don’t anticipate that this is not going to come to a very good end. The natives have lost the public sentiment. The media and the police have done such a good job of spreading disinformation, they’re very organized, and they’re good at it. And that’s too bad.”

Activist on the front lines - photo by Liz George

Activist on the front lines – photo by Liz George

The pipeline

Asbridge stood with attorney Chase Iron Eyes and others in Bismarck in September before elections to make a plea to move the pipeline, and create an oil refinery west of Mandan. Bakken oil, utilizing a public utility – which is what the Dakota Access Pipeline is supposed to be – must benefit the American people, and not line the deep pockets of an out-of-state company and executives.

“We should discuss whether one drop of that oil will be burned in the United States,” Asbridge said. “It’s all for export. If this was about American energy independence, I would be on the side of the pipeline. But it’s not. It actually makes us more dependent on Saudi oil, and causes more bloodshed by Americans to protect Saudi oil. Our sons and daughters are going to war over there, and we’re going to ship that oil to China. That’s bad policy.”

The necessity of the pipeline is a moot point; local railroad companies can ship all the oil coming out of the Bakken, Asbridge said.

The Dakota Access Pipeline is 1,172 miles long, and is supposed to finish before the end of 2016, according to Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren. The drill pad to cross the Missouri River at Lake Oahe is ready; horizontal drilling equipment has been brought in, but the company lacks the easement it needs from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Dakota Access LLC is the subsidiary of Energy Transfer Partners, which combined with Sunoco Logistics Partners on Monday. Energy Transfer Equity controls both companies, according to media outlet Fortune.

On Wednesday, the North Dakota Industrial Commission called for better monitoring and higher standards of pipelines that cross major bodies of waters after nearly 3 million gallons of brine spilled north of Williston. A newly-introduced Senate bill also states that the legislative management must consider studying technology that may be used on pipelines to detect or prevent leaks.

While the state legislature decides on a bill that may prove too little too late, George and Newell worry that law enforcement may sometime soon use live ammunition against activists.

“We’re scared for our people,” Newell said. She recently obtained a bachelors degree in zoology and marine science. “We don’t know what’s going to happen, this is just us processing all this.”

“I can’t even imagine what it is like to be an indigenous person in this community, regardless to what happens with the pipeline,” George said. “All we’ve heard in camp is the message of peace, and non-violence. It feels like home.”

Front line Sunday night - photo by Liz George

Front line Sunday night – photo by Liz George

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