Dakota Access Pipeline Fight Opens New Chapter of Indian-Federal Conflict

‘Donald Trump hung a portrait of Andrew Jackson in the Oval Office on the same day that he signed an executive order to expedite construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline. The chilling symbolism of giving pride of place to the man who presided over the Cherokees’ expulsion from their Eastern lands in one of the largest forced migrations of America’s indigenous people was hard to miss. The Army Corps of Engineers followed up on the order by granting an easement to the Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the pipeline project, to complete the last segment of the $3.8 billion, nearly 1,200-mile underground project.
The construction gets back on track just as protests spread nationwide from the North Dakota homelands of the Standing Rock Sioux and crystalize a new phase in the ongoing quest for indigenous rights.’
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