Conflicting Concepts of Land: The Badlands::

Badlands National Park

During the early 1800s, only a handful of French-Canadian trappers had skirted the region, and enough was known to enable cartographers to sketch the area on their maps as the 'Mauvaise Terres'. The first group to actually explore the Badlands was one led by a US scientist, Dr. John Evans, in 1849. The numerous fossils and bones found by Evans caused a great stir amongst eastern geologists and paleontologists, and the doors were flung open to geological expeditions. Since that time, all manner of fossils have been dug up and scrutinised under the laboratory microscopes: inhabitants of the ancient seas (alligators, sea turtles and ammonites); huge rhino-like titanotheres; saber-toothed cats; giant pigs; as well as the ancestors of rhinoceroses, camels, and horses.

After the Ghost Dance occupation of Stronghold Table, in the Badlands, in 1890, the massacre at Wounded Knee and the partition of Sioux land into reservations, the Badlands were divided into two, and the area north of the White River was opened up to homesteading. The southern portion, including the Stronghold Table and the sacred Sheep Mountain Table, was included in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The northern Badlands became a cattle ranchers paradise, and in 1917, the Indian Department leased portions of the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations, including the southern half of the Badlands, to cattle companies in order that the demand for beef could be met by the nation entering into World War One. One portion, the northwest corner, of Pine Ridge Reservation was leased for as little as five cents an acre.

Then the Depression hit the cattle industry and ranchers left the Badlands and the reservations in droves. By 1935 the Badlands was declared to be sub-marginal land and the federal government began buying it up, sometimes for as little as two dollars an acre.

In 1939, the Badlands National Monument was established comprising of some 110,700 acres. In 1976, the Monument more than doubled its size when the National Park Service came to an agreement with the Oglala Sioux Tribe and added 133,300 acres of land lying within the northern boundaries of Pine Ridge Reservation. This brought the total land acreage of the Monument to some 244,000 acres. In 1978, the Monument was renamed Badlands National Park. Today, the Badlands National Park is split between the North and the South Units. The South Unit includes the Sheep Mountain and Stronghold Tables and is administered jointly by the Park Service and the Oglala Sioux Tribe.

Badlands National Park's Mission Statement reflects the multiple-use directive employed by the National Park Service:

"Badlands National Park preserves a diversity of significant resources for the education and inspiration of a world audience. These resources are a blending of the best known Oligocene fossil deposits contained within archetypical Big Badlands formations, a rich and varied cultural history spanning from paleo-Indian occupation through the early twentieth century homesteading period, and a fine expanse of a mixed grass prairie ecosystem. Other qualities, most notably the wilderness character, clean air, quiet, solitude, vastness, and natural processes, provide visitors with a setting for exploration and appreciation through such experiences as hiking, camping, wildlife viewing, scenic drives and vistas, research and educational opportunities, and quiet contemplation. Badlands National Park was established as a national monument to protect its fossil resources and its stunning geological scenery; however, the park's story encompasses much more than that. The park currently provides public education in four broad areas: 1) The paleontological resources demonstrate the rise of the mammals after the demise of dinosaurs and show how Oligocene mammal populations evolved through 15 million years of climate change; 2) The geological processes involved with the building and destruction of the White River Badlands are illustrated through the deposition of sediments and erosion of the resulting layers; 3) The mixed grass prairie ecosystem protected within Badlands National Park makes up more than 50% of the park and consists of native plants and animals; 4) The diverse human history spans at least 11,000 years, demonstrating cultural adaptation as the physical environment evolves."

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