The Oyate for Fairness and Equal Representation (OFFER) is meeting Wednesday, March 7, at 1 p.m. CST in Rose Cordier’s office in the Rosebud Tribal Building in Rosebud. On the OFFER agenda is the petition to change the name of Todd County to Sicangu Oyate County.
This petition comes from OFFER and Rep. Shawn Bordeaux (D-26A/Mission), who announced the name-change drive on Facebook on February 20:
Per SDCL 7-1-69, Bordeaux and friends have to collect signatures from 15% of the county’s registered voters, as counted at the 2016 general election, by July 1 to put the name change to a vote. If the petition gets the necessary 708 signatures, the name change must then win two-thirds of the county vote in November (see SDCL 7-1-70).
Oglala Lakota County residents made this process work in 2014, when they petitioned and voted to scrub the name of wasicu lawyer, judge, and land agent Peter C. Shannon from their county seal. Taking his cue from then-Rep. Kevin Killer’s (D-27/Pine Ridge) leadership on the Oglala Lakota renaming petition, Rep. Bordeaux hopes to strike another white colonialist from the map:
Todd County was named after John Blair Smith Todd, a relative to President Abraham Lincoln, and a delegate in Dakota Territory to the U.S. House of Representatives and a general in the Union Army. According to Bordeaux, Todd was present at the Battle of Ash Hollow (Harney Massacre) near present day Garden County, Neb. [Richie Richards, “708 Votes Needed to Change Todd County Name,” Native Sun News, 2018.02.21]
Sicangu Oyate, the Native name for the Rosebud Sioux Tribe, means “Burnt Thigh Nation.”
Update 17:06 CST: An eager reader points out that the county-name-change process has changed since Oglala Lakota County last put it to use. After their 2014 vote, Oglala Lakota County voters still had to wait for the Governor and the Legislature to formally enact the name change. 2015 Senate Bill 66 removed the Governor and the Legislature from the process. It also changed the official renaming date from the first day of the month following the Governor’s proclamation to July 1 following the county’s successful name-change election.
“Todd” is certainly easier to say and spell. I have known several Todds over many decades and all were pretty swell fellows. That said, I think it is just fine to have people rename counties. Mr. Pennington was a bit of a scoundrel, I am told, and “County grudznick” has a really neat sound to it.
I look forward to seeing you standing on the street corner with your petition, Grudz. Be sure to take some selfies so we can post and advertise your effort. But please consider Valentine McGillycuddy, the old surgeon and Indian agent, as a replacement for Pennington. That name is much more fun and historical.
McGillycuddy likely would not stand a chance in hell, in Penn Co
w/o vouching for historical accuracy:
“With their military might smashed, the Oglala were confined to the Pine Ridge agency, and in March 1879 they met their new government agent, McGillycuddy. Within months, a political struggle had developed between McGillycuddy and Red Cloud, whom McGillycuddy identified as the leader of the “nonprogressives”—a caucus highly critical of the government’s program of acculturation. Between 1879 and 1886, Chief Red Cloud convened numerous councils and initiated several petitions in his persistent attempts to oust McGillycuddy. Federal policymakers had decided by 1882 that the Great Sioux Reservation contained more land than the Lakota people needed. Thus, they advocated dividing it into six smaller reserves and negotiating for the cession of “surplus” lands to the public domain. Moreover, the six Lakota reservations would be further divided into individual plots of land under the Dawes Act of 1887. During his protracted dispute with agent McGillycuddy, Red Cloud, with the steadfast support of his wife Wetamahecha (Mary), continued to challenge these policies. So fervidly did Red Cloud fight for the preservation of Lakota lands that American officials labeled him an “obstructionist.” http://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-2000842
imagine conservative republicans insisting they were progessives and Indians were non-progressives…and then labeling Indians obstructionists. Only in a GOP world culminating in Trumpteyville.