Damming the Reservation: Tribal Sovereignty and Activism at Fort Berthold

“The single most destructive act ever perpetrated on any tribe by the United States,” Vine Deloria Jr. called it. For the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara communities living on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota, the construction of the Garrison Dam as part of the New Deal–era Pick—Sloan Missouri Basin Program meant the flooding of a third of their land, including their most fertile agricultural acreage, the loss of their homes, and wrenching relocation. In Damming the Reserva...