Activists work to change South Dakota sites named after men whose acts harmed Native Americans

WOUNDED KNEE, S.D. – South Dakota’s Shannon County will now be Oglala Lakota County, removing the name of a man who Oglala Sioux Tribe activists say helped with negotiations that were a precursor for the breakup of tribal lands.

The change becomes official Friday. More than 80 per cent of the county’s voters approved it in November.

Officials in South Dakota and other states have for years moved to eliminate overtly offensive names for geographic places and monuments. But South Dakota’s recent moves extend to names that might not be obvious except to Native American communities and others who know the history behind them.

The state’s Board on Geographic Names is hearing a request to provide a new designation for Harney Peak. It’s named for an Army general whose men killed Sioux Indians in 1855.