Indianie zjednoczyli się przeciwko Czarnemu Wężowi. Chodzi o gigantyczny rurociąg w Dakocie

Trzech członków Red Warrior Camp.

Fot. ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Fot. ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Chase "Żelazne oczy" z plemienia Siuksów Standing Rock. Stara się o fotel kongresmena.

Fot. ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Debra "Białe Pióro", wódz z plemienia Lakota

Fot. ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Sampson DeCrane z plemienia Mountain Crow, z miasteczka Pryor w stanie Montana. Na głowie ma kapelusz plemienia Lummi.

Fot. ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Tara Houska pochodzi z plemienia Anishinabe i jest plemiennym adwokatem w Waszyngtonie.

Fot. ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Sweetwater Nantucket

Fot. ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Fot. ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Ella Mendoza nosi kurtkę z napisem "Black Snake Killer". Black Snake to przydomek rurociągu jaki nadali mu Indianie.

Fot. ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Dr Sara "Skaczący orzeł" należy do plemienia Oglala Lakota z Pine Ridge.

Fot. ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Fot. ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Obóz protestujących niedaleko annon Ball, Północna Dakota.

Fot. ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

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A member of the Savage family, a collective of indigenous lyricists and producers, and Lakota leader Debra White Plume are among the thousands protesting an oil pipeline that would cross North Dakota.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Text and Photographs by Erika Larsen

PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 23, 2016

As currently proposed, the Dakota Access pipeline would move oil out of northwestern North Dakota, through a 30-inch pipe, and along a 1,200-mile path that cuts through both Dakotas, Iowa, and a stretch of Illinois before meeting another pipeline in the town of Patoka. It would carry nearly half a million barrels of domestic sweet crude oil every day, and the project’s builder, Energy Transfer Partners, says it will bring back money.

The Texas-based company says the pipeline will create up to 12,000 jobs (the Army Corps of Engineers approved the project and agreed) and generate over $120 million in property and income taxes every year. And they say it’ll be safer than moving the oil by train, the current option.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe tells another story. The tribe, made up of Hunkpapa Lakota and Yanktonai Dakota, lives in the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, which covers parts of North and South Dakota. Members have been protesting the pipeline since April. They’re worried it might leak and contaminate wells along the pipe’s path, threatening their water supply.

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The pipeline project is on hold following a federal judge's ruling. But the protesters remain. Here, they camp near Cannon Ball, North Dakota.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

With the environmental protection group Earthjustice, the tribe filed suit against the Corps of Engineers in July, saying the Corps violated the Clean Water Act, the National Historic Protection Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act. In addition to water concerns, the suit says the “pipeline crosses areas of great historical and cultural significance.”

The protests simmered for months and exploded in early September, when video surfaced of private security using dogs and pepper spray on protesters. Since then, coverage of the protests has increased, with stories appearing on national news and even the Daily Show.

A federal judge has halted the pipeline’s construction. A number of museum workers, historians, and archaeologists have encouraged the White House to order a more thorough review of the potential risk to artifacts. Standing Rock Sioux representatives recently addressed the United Nations Human Rights Commission. And the tribe is one of several in the U.S. and Canada to join an alliance against future oil pipelines.

And the protest has grown. There are thousands of people from all over the country taking part. I spent three days with the Red Warrior Camp—a collective that believes in nonviolent direct action—and their allies. I created a series of portraits that, as a collection, I hope will share the views and heart of what many are calling the Resistance to the Black Snake.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Chase Iron Eyes of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is running for congress. He’s one of many Native Americans seeking federal office across the country this year.

“We don’t have energy security unless we have water security. We don’t have food security unless we have water security. We don’t have national security unless we have water security. I say this with the truest of intentions because when you look at who we are fighting to stop this poison from coming into our homelands and this is all of our homelands. America, you are 240 years old; we have been here since time immemorial and we have been telling you that you can get by love what you have taken by force.”

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PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Dr. Sara Jumping Eagle is Oglala Lakota from Pine Ridge and she lives and works at Standing Rock. "We are here to protect our land and our water, and our thoughts for the future go seven generations," she says.

The Dakotas have long been a site of conflict between Native Americans and the government. The history stretches from the brutal wars waged as settlers pushed west in the 19th century to the 1973 protest at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, when some 200 members of the American Indian Movement led an occupation and accused the U.S. government of not fulfilling its treaties with indigenous people.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Sampson DeCrane (above, sitting) of the Mountain Crow from Pryor, Montana, wears a hat “woven from the Lummi People in Washington.”

“I do this because they showed me the importance of water to them and how they were created as the People of the Sea. So I wear this hat to embody that, and that is what is happening at this camp; we are all paddling as one,” he says. “We as natives are the first environmentalists.

“If you get all native people together on one issue, we will be unstoppable.”

The three people above are from the Red Warrior Camp outside of Cannon Ball, North Dakota.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Tara Houska is a member of the Anishinabe from Couchiching First Nation and a tribal attorney in Washington, D.C.

“This past week we saw the use of excess force, the use of dogs, to attack Native American people as they were protecting a sacred site,” she says. “To see that and to know that is where we are in the narrative and to know that a company would even think that they can do that speaks volumes about where we are treating Native Americans and how we view them.”

Native Americans from across the country have come to join the Standing Rock protest.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Ella Mendoza wears a coat with Black Snake Killer written on the back, alluding to the nickname for the pipeline.

“We are here to kill the black snake,” Mendoza says. “The black snake is the pipeline and it is not just this pipeline, it is all the pipelines. When we talk about the pipelines we mean all unnatural, man-made things on this land that includes borders and the idea of owning territory and land. Black Snake Killer is really saying I am not going to make friends with the black snake, I am not going to reform the black snake, we are not here to befriend politicians, we are not here to change the rules of how the water will be poisoned. We are here to literally stop the pipeline and win.”

“We are making great changes for our children and their children,” says Sweetwater Nantucket (above, in hat). “This is a spiritual battle. This is a big village; here we have food and we have all our needs met just like our people did a long time ago, and it takes a village to stop a pipeline.”

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PHOTOGRAPH BY ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Cody Hall, rzecznik Red Warrior Camp.

Fot. ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Winona Laduke - pisarka i aktywistka

Fot. ERIKA LARSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC