Jake Herman
During World War I, Lakotas volunteered to serve in the military, raised money for the Red Cross, and leased their lands to support soldiers overseas. The agency superintendent arranging the leases at Pine Ridge, however, aggressively made tribal lands and individual allotments available—to the point that Lakotas could not raise their own livestock. By 1920, tribal leaders demanded his removal and the termination of the leases. Lakotas answered the call again in 1941, nonetheless. And the federal government, just as it had before, sought land on Pine Ridge—but this time eminent domain was used to seize more than 300,000 acres for an aerial gunnery and bombing range. In this 1953 testimony advocating for compensation, Jake Herman (1890–1969), a member of the tribal council recounted the hardships his family and at least 124 other Lakota families experienced. Consider how Herman’s account echoes that of Hattie Twiss, another tribal council member who faced eviction. “[The federal official] stated that it is wartime and we did not have any rights,” she recalled. “I retorted that I believed that is what we were fighting for.”42
One day, the first part of August 1942, one of my friends came to me very excited and said we were going to have to move out of our homes in ten days because the Army was going to take over our lands. The Indian people were shocked. Great confusion followed and people were asking what was going to happen to them. Although we knew that some land was to be taken, no one was told which tracts of land. Then after a few days we still had received no information as to what lands were involved, and many of us began to believe that the story was only a rumor. No one seemed to know what was going on. Someone said the Government was going to take a strip of land from the northern part of the Pine Ridge Reservation. A few of us then put up tents to live in and began rolling our barbed wire fences and tearing down our houses, but most of the people did not know what to do or what was going to happen.
A few weeks later, by word-of-mouth, we learned there was to be a meeting of all landowners at Kyle, South Dakota. Not very many of the Indian people managed to attend this meeting at Kyle because they had not been notified; but the meeting was conducted, nevertheless, by Superintendent W. O. Roberts, assisted by a Mrs. Heinemann, Social Worker from Pine Ridge. The Superintendent called the meeting to order and spoke very briefly, “The other day there were two Army Officers who came to Pine Ridge to see me and they want this scope of land, describing it. These Army men said “We are here to tell you, Mr. Roberts, that we need this land for a bombing range, and we need it now, so we will give the people ten days to move out of this area.” Superintendent Roberts explained that he asked if the people could not have more time to move, but they replied, “Mr. Roberts, the Army is going to start shooting on this range in ten days.” The Superintendent went on to say that if we did not vacate our lands within that time, we would be shocked. He informed us there would be men coming out to appraise our land and that we should stay there until this was done. He also told us not to worry and that we would be rehabilitated in some way for our losses. A few of the people asked questions about their livestock and were told that if they were not out of the area within ten days, or if they strayed back into the area, they would be shot. At this time the Indian people were greatly frightened and bewildered. Some of us went to the Agent’s Office at Pine Ridge inquiring what to do. The only help we were offered at that time was a small loan of $50 or $100 to assist in leasing new lands, if we could find something to lease, and we were required to reimburse the tribe out of the money to be gotten from the sale of our original land.
The reservation roads at this time were jammed with wagonloads of household and farm equipment and people were moving hastily what they could salvage. A great number of those who did not live in the bombing range were forced to sacrifice all their improvements because they were not notified in any way that this condemnation was taking place. Most of the people had no definite place to go. Indian people streamed out of the bombing range in all directions and they often moved their belongings just outside of where they thought the line was to be and dumped them, not knowing what else to do, but trying to comply with the Government’s orders. No advice was given these people as to what they could do to protect themselves in any way.
Just before these people started moving from their homes, a team of Government appraisers visited each location and took photographs of the buildings. These appraisals often took ten minutes or less and the landowners were not allowed to discuss the value of their land or improvements with the Government appraisers. In many instances the eviction was much more of a hardship than it appears to be on paper because in the usual custom of Indian people, many allotments were occupied by two or three families and they were all required to move. This made it impossible in many cases for the Indian people to move in with their relatives even temporarily, since all of them were being evicted.43
We have seven people in my family, and like a lot of the others, I had to camp with my tent wherever I could locate space to live temporarily. During this time I had to move my 18 head of cattle, 10 head of horses and 200 chickens, and had to leave 120 acres of good farmed land. I had to leave 20 acres of the best corn we ever raised on land that yielded 20 bushels to the acre. I lost two acres of potatoes, my whole winter’s supply. I also lost all of the millet which I had raised to support my livestock through the winter. Many of the other families had hardships as bad as mine. As a result I lost eight milk cows that winter, as well as the 200 chickens I mentioned. I was finally able to lease some land and tried to build a house on it during the winter. I had no one to help me because my two boys were in Service at that time. The one in the Army was killed in action and the other one was in the Navy.44
I just figured up my total loss on the corn crop as $400, although the Government appraisers only allowed me $90. We were told not to harvest any crops because they belonged to the Government now and that we would be paid for them. Later on, someone told us we could go back and harvest them, but by that time they were destroyed or eaten by cattle, because I had removed the fence around it sometime earlier. I figured my moving expenses, together with the cost of building a new home, as $2,000, as well as $100 in labor in tearing down the original improvements on my land. I knew the other 126 other families who had to do the same thing I did, and they had similar expenses and similar difficulties.45
Many of the old people were extremely shocked by the news that they had to leave their homes within ten days. There was never any question about cooperating with the Federal Government. The Indian people never refused the Government use of their lands during the emergency, but the way it was handled not only caused hardships, but many of the old people took sick and died as a result of the sudden move.
My father-in-law had a stroke while he was packing his belongings, and died. At this time he lost his 320 acres and all his improvements for which the Government paid him only $1,600. He then had this stroke and was taken to the Government hospital at Pine Ridge where they cared for him a short while, and then notified the family to come after him, that there was nothing they could do to help. Shortly after that, he was moved to a private hospital and the $1,600 was used up in paying doctor and medical bills, and so that family lost everything.
One of the men even committed suicide after he had moved his wife and family into a house so poor that the roof leaked continually. His wife contracted pneumonia and died, and as a result, this man was so shocked that he took his own life.
Many of the old people who were evicted tried to get loans from the Government but were refused because they were so old the officials said they would not be able to pay back the loans, and in many cases the State of South Dakota dipped into the money which was paid for these lands and reimbursed himself in the amount of hundreds of dollars for old age assistance previously advanced to these people, thereby, reducing the price received for their lands to a point where it was ridiculous.
In all the terror and confusion many of the families had their belongings stolen or lost. These people today are scattered and most of them are still without permanent homes. Many are living in tents, in slum areas of towns and cities, and most of them are worse off physically and financially than they were when this land was taken, and many have died. We come here today to ask your help.46