"After forcing dozens of tribes into Indian territory before the civil war, the US government then parceled out reservations and property to individual members. It was part of the government's attempt to civilize Native Americans by turning them into private, not communal, landholders and yeoman farmers in the model of Thomas Jefferson's ideal citizen."
"The waste rock, laced with chemicals, was left after miners extracted millions of tons of lead and zinc from the Tri-State Mining District, where the valuable ores stretched across Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma between 1891 and the 1970s. By 1983, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had designated 40 sq miles that include nearly all the Quapaw Nation as the Tar Creek Superfund site."
"After years of cleanup, the Laue has been cleared of chat. The ground has been restored and tested. The soil is healthy again. Like hundreds of acres across the Quapaw Nation, it has returned to agriculture."
The Laue, 200 acres of grassland within the Quapaw Nation, was allotted to tribal citizen Charley Quapaw Blackhawk in the late 1800s as part of the U.S. government's assimilation policy. For over a century, the land remained largely barren, with half buried under toxic chat piles—waste rock from lead and zinc mining operations spanning Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma between 1891 and the 1970s. In 1983, the EPA designated 40 square miles including nearly all Quapaw Nation lands as the Tar Creek Superfund site, one of the country's most contaminated areas. Following extensive cleanup efforts, the chat has been removed, soil restored and tested, and the land returned to healthy agricultural use, benefiting the Quapaw community of over 6,000 members.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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