Loading...
Inventing Indian Country: Race and Environment in the Black Hills Region, 1851-1981
Hausmann, Stephen Robert
Hausmann, Stephen Robert
Citations
Altmetric:
Genre
Thesis/Dissertation
Date
2019
Group
Department
History
Permanent link to this record
Collections
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
DOI
http://dx.doi.org/10.34944/dspace/2969
Abstract
In 1972, a flood tore through Rapid City, South Dakota, killing 238 people. Many whose lives and homes were destroyed lived in a predominately Native American neighborhood known as “Osh Kosh Camp.” This dissertation asks: why did those people lived in that neighborhood at that time? The answer lies at the intersection of the histories of race and environment in the American West. In the Black Hills region, white Americans racialized certain spaces under the conceptual framework of Indian Country as part of the process of American conquest on the northern plains beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. The American project of racializing Western spaces erased Indians from histories of Rapid City, a process most obviously apparent in the construction of Mount Rushmore as a tourist attraction. Despite this attempted erasure, Indians continued to live and work in the city and throughout the Black Hills. In Rapid City, rampant discrimination forced Native Americans in Rapid City to live in neighborhoods cut off from city services, including Osh Kosh Camp After the flood, activists retook the Indian Country concept as a tool of protest. This dissertation claims that environment and race must be understood together in the American West.
Description
Citation
Citation to related work
Has part
ADA compliance
For Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accommodation, including help with reading this content, please contact scholarshare@temple.edu