A rare win in Indian country: how tribes drove out a mining company in one week

‘We’re just not used to winning. We’re people used to being screwed over by the government at every level.’ Photograph: Angel White Eyes

• This story was co-published and supported by the journalism non-profit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

When two Oglala Lakota scouts heard drilling was expected to begin on Pe’ Sla, the sacred prairie in the Black Hills of South Dakota, they set out on back trails. They needed to find out where. That’s when they saw a deer break ahead and a red-tailed hawk soar above them – less like a coincidence than being led, the scouts said. Over a rise, they came upon a road freshly cut to the dirt. They followed it, past a parked truck. “Oh my god,” one of them said, seeing a drill turning. “They’re drilling now!”