Sioux Nation Treaty Council - est 1894

Hello Everyone,

This newsletter is being sent to keep you updated as a lot is happening in the world that could have a positive effect on us if we “seize the day.” To that end, I have sent letters, which are attached, to Pope Leo; Felipe VI, king of Spain; and Claudia Sheinbaum, President of Mexico, via International Priority Mail. Thanks to our relatives from the South, we became aware of these happenings regarding the Doctrine of Discovery. The reason the Doctrine of Discovery is important to us in the United States is because it is the basis of federal Indian law, and also was the cause of so many of our nations no longer being in existence.

The following is taken from an article in El Pais USA Edition, March 16th, 2026, by Miguel Gonzalez, which also can be found at Spain’s King Felipe VI acknowledges that there were ‘many abuses’ in the colonization of America | Spain | EL PAÍS English .

“Spain’s King Felipe VI acknowledged on Monday morning, during a visit to the exhibition Half the World: Women in Indigenous Mexico, organized jointly by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Mexican Ministry of Culture, that “there was much abuse” during the colonization of the Americas by the Spanish conquistadors.

“There have also been struggles, let’s say, moral and ethical controversies regarding how power was exercised from the very beginning,” King Felipe said in an informal conversation with the Mexican ambassador to Spain, Quirino Ordaz, as seen in a video released by the Spanish Royal Household on social media.

“The opening of this same exhibition last November served as the stage for Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares.... “The shared history between Spain and Mexico, like all human history, has its light and dark sides,” he said. “There has been pain and injustice toward the Indigenous peoples. There was injustice, and it is right to acknowledge and regret it. This is part of our shared history; we cannot deny or forget it.” 

However, there must also be action and that is where our recommendation that our Treaty be fully enforced by the UN Decolonization Committee comes in. Both the Mexican Ambassador and the Spanish Ambassador have heard this recommendation coming from us at the UN many times. But now it is directed to the King of Spain and the President of Mexico, as well as the Pope. If they truly want to undo all the harm that has been done, they need to act on our recommendations. Yes, the Decolonization process will take time, but it needs to be started. Kudos to all who are doing language and culture immersion. Kudos to all of you who are decolonizing yourselves. Kudos to all of you who continue to pray and offer your pain and difficulties for the good health of our nation. The Creator did not forget us.

According to our ways and understanding of the circle, by the King of Spain acknowledging the abuses and injustices done by Spain, he began closing that circle of abuse and injustice that was started by his ancestors more than 500 years ago in collusion with the Catholic Church and their Doctrines of Discovery. In addition, with Mexico starting to stand up for Indigenous peoples beginning with their last President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and continuing with the current President, Claudia Scheinbaum, they are also beginning the closing of that circle. Hopefully, it won’t take another 500 years before we can return to being the nation the Creator made us to be.

As the UN Seretary-General Antonio Guterrez’ term expires in December, our relatives to the South wanted to present an Indigenous candidate for thatposition. We haven’t heard if they have chosen a candidate yet.

Finally, I want to thank Steve W. for the postage needed to get this newsletter out to many of our elders and others who still receive it in the mail. Our thanks also goes to Jennifer S. for the envelopes which enable us to mail all the reports and letters. Our special thank you to Bill M. for the funds to make hard copies. Wopila tanka.

If you receive this newsletter via postal mail but want to receive it via email, please let me know at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. It will help with our expenses. Thank you.

Respectfully submitted by

Sgnd Sgnd

Charmaine White Face, Spokesperson Zumila Wobaga, Itancan

Letter to the Pope 

May 8, 2026

Pope Leo XIV
The Vatican
Vatican City
Italy

Greetings,

Thank you for your stance on the genocide of the Palestinians, the Indigenous nation of that part of the world. Your stance against war anywhere is also commended,

However, the Catholic Church’s Doctrines of Discovery are still the foundations of the United States government’s Federal Indian Law, and are still being used against many Indigenous nations and peoples in the United States TODAY. It is an hypocrisy to call out the President and the United States government for what they do in other parts of the world without looking in the United States’ own backyard.

In the case of the Sioux Nation, of which I and all my relatives belong, we have experienced the genocide and continuing oppression to this day even though we have a legal, International Treaty with the United States.  Our Treaty, the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty was recognized as still having its International status at the United Nations in 1999 in the Study on Treaties, Agreements and Other Special Arrangements between States and indigenous populations by Special Rapporteur Miguel Alfonso Martinez.  The Special Rapporteur actually came to our Territory and visited with our elders about our Treaty with the United States so his findings and conclusions are not taken from any books.

In the 1868 Treaty, which my great-great grandfathers signed, there was set aside a specific geographic land area that was to be “...for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians...”. It was large enough to hold all the buffalo that we would need. However, when gold was discovered by white men trespassers into the sacred Black Hills, the United States government tuned a blind eye to the illegal trespass of settlers and miners and began the illegal, belligerent occupation and genocide of my nation.

We lived with Mother Earth and all Her children in a sacred manner.  Our elder brother, the American bison or buffalo, had agreed to come to the Earth to help us in all ways by providing our food, clothing, shelter, tools, and even fuel for our fires through their dried dung.  We followed the buffalo in their migratory journeys, and lived in a good way with all of the Creation for thousands of years.

Our great nation consisted of seven sub-nations all with the same culture.  The only difference was that we spoke three dialects of the same language, speaking the L, D, or N dialect.  Consequently, we were called Dakota, Nakota, or Lakota which is a misnomer.  For example, Lakota means the language or ally.  Friend is another word.  Collectively we are called the Oceti Sakowin, which means Seven Fireplaces.  I belong to the western most sub nation called the Tituwan and we are the only ones who speak the Lakota language.  Our entire nation once covered 24 American states and 4 Canadian Provinces.  However, by 1868, we, the Tituwan, were the last in the United States that had not been dominated by the United States.  The United States was the one who asked for a treaty for peace as they could not travel though the center of the country without being stopped by our people.

After the passage of the 1868 Treaty and the illegal discovery of gold, the United States began their genocide of my nation,  the Tituwan nation.  The massive slaughter and almost complete extermination of the buffalo left us starving and freezing, catching their white man illnesses, and unable to resist their onslaught.  In order to contain us, the United States corralled us into Prisoner of War camps, now called American Indian Reservations. Until after World War II, we were required to get permission to travel off the reservations.  In the 1950s, a Bill was introduced into Congress that allowed the killing of any Indian that left the reservations.  Thankfully the Bill did not pass. My father was working as a teacher off the reservation and he was a veteran of the U.S. Navy from World War II.

There were many massacres after the signing of the 1868 Peace Treaty, most of which are undocumented but passed down in our oral history.  One of the most famous massacres was the Wounded Knee Massacre in December, 1890, in the middle of the Treaty Territory. My great grandfather and great-great grandmother were survivors.  There were only fourteen (14) men in the whole camp which my grandmother learned from her father-in-law, a survivor, and she told me.  The soldiers lined the men up and took their hunting rifles.  Then the Army began shooting their Gatling guns (machine guns) into the whole camp killing more than three-hundred fifty people who were mostly women, children, and elders. Stories handed down through the generations tell of United States soldiers throwing Indian babies into the air and catching them on their swords like a game. Somehow my family escaped with the help of prayer and the spirits, so I could write this today.  In the end, the United States gave twenty (20) medals of honor to the soldiers for their bravery in killing women, children, and the elderly.

The Wounded Knee Massacre happened after the United States and the Catholic Church had already started building their missions and boarding schools on the Reservations in order to forcefully assimilate Indian children into the white man’s culture. Both sets of my grandparents and my parents were sent to the boarding schools as children, and subjected to mental, physical, sexual, emotional, and psychological abuses.  We had none of these abuses prior to the coming of the white man.  Our ancient laws were strong and our people very spiritual.  Pierre De Smet, one of the first Catholic priests to meet our people, said that he had never met a more Christian people. So why did they want to change us?

If a child ran away from the Boarding Schools, they were forced to carry a ball and chain for the rest of their school years.  My maternal grandfather ran away from the Rapid City Indian School three times, the second and third times carrying his ball and chain over 100 miles in order to reach his parents on the Pine Ridge Reservation, or Prisoner of War Camp No. 344. This was in the early 1900s.

My parents at the ages of 6 and 8 years of age watched their fellow students be beaten to death as children for speaking one word in their first language, Lakota.  Consequently, my parents’ DNA was changed by methylates due to the body’s reaction for survival and they could not speak the Lakota language although they understood it.  Their DNA with it’s methylates were passed down to me and my siblings so we are unable to speak our Lakota language either.  This has been proven in studies on trauma in young children. (See Grandma's Experiences Leave a Mark on Your Genes, May, 2013 Issue, Genes & Health, Dan Hurley)

As the children grew older, the girls with darker skin were told they were to have their appendix removed when in reality they were being sterilized. This happened to my father’s sister in 1934-35. This was in accordance with the United States’ efforts at racial control.  The practice of forced sterilization of Native American Indian women continued until the 1970s with some girls as young as age eleven (11) being sterilized by the U.S. Indian Health Service.  

This genocide continues to today with more than two-thousand (2,000) abandoned, open pit Uranium mines in our Treaty Territory since the 1960s and 1970s.  The abandoned mines pollute the entire region with radioactive particles in the land, air, and water.  By having to live with this pollution, my people have the highest cancer rate in the country as shown in a study in 2003 by the Indian Health Service.  In my family, my father died from cancer, and both I and my sister have had cancer. Very high rates of heart disease and diabetes are all caused by exposure to radioactivity.  Although we have made efforts to expose this threat locally and to the highest levels of the United Nations, the United States refused to allow the UN Special Rapporteur on Toxic Waste to investigate this matter. The United States refuses to clean up these mines and our Treaty Territory has been declared a national sacrifice area. Therefore, our mortality rate is also the highest in the United States.

The Catholic Church’s Doctrines of Discovery are responsible for the deaths of millions of Indigenous peoples, and hundreds of Indigenous nations in the United States alone, not to mention all the millions of Indigenous nations and peoples in other parts of the world. In 2023, your predecessor, Pope Francis, did recognize and repudiate the atrocity of what the Doctrines of Discovery did to the nations of Indigenous peoples in the western hemisphere. However, a repudiation is only words. He needed to go one step further and REVOKE the Doctrines of Discovery. Revoking is an action not just words. Revoking would finally mean the recognition of the humanness of all the Indigenous nations and peoples of the world. Revoking would also acknowledge the major violations of the human rights of all Indigenous nations and peoples of the world today.

In our case, we also seek Decolonization through the UN Decolonization Committee through the full enforcement of the 1868 Treaty.  You, Pope Leo, could help in this matter by advocating for all Indigenous nations with Treaties, Agreements, and Constructive Arrangements with States to be listed with the United Nations Decolonization Committee.  With our undisturbed use and occupation of our entire Treaty Territory, we would be able to heal ourselves and Mother Earth through our prayers and ceremonies.

There are many more abuses and injustices that were and are being committed by the United States against us, people of the Sioux nation.  I would have to write a book to cover all those areas such as education, health, the justice system, and so forth. Presented here are only a few examples. However, the fact that the United States government’s actions and laws are based on the Doctrines of Discovery lead us to you and the Catholic Church, the foundation for all this horror.

We pray that you have the courage to revoke the Doctrines of Discovery. Perhaps then the United States will not have the basis for it’s brutal, inhumane actions. To allow the Catholic Church to continue to be responsible for the oppression and domination of Indigenous nations and peoples for more than five-hundred years through the use of the Doctrines of Discovery is an anathema. Our hope is that you will not allow this to continue for even one day longer.

Sincerely,                  

Charmaine White Face, Spokesperson                                        Zumila Wobaga, Itancan

Letter to Felipe Vi - King of Spain

May 9, 2026

Felipe VI
King of Spain
28071 Madrid
Spain

Your Majesty,

It was with great relief and joy that we read of your remarks regarding your disapproval of the abuses and injustices that befell the Indigenous nations and people of Mexico, South and Central America by the conquistadors.  Your integrity and courage are commended,  We also are aware of Spain’s stance against the wars in the Middle East perpetrated by the United States and Israel.  We strongly support Spain’s position.

We have endured what the United States and Israel are doing to the Indigenous nation of Palestine.  We also were starved by the United States by their decimation of our economic source, the American bison which we call buffalo.  The United States did this to us even though we have an International Treaty with them, the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868.  Our Treaty was proven to still retain its International status at the United Nations in 1999 with the UN study on treaties between colonizing States and Indigenous nations and peoples. (Study on treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements between States and indigenous populations: final report / by Miguel Alfonso Martínez, Special Rapporteur;  1999;  https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/276353?v=pdf)

The United States continues to intimidate the world with arrogance and superiority due to the fact that their laws are based on the Catholic Church’s Doctrines of Discovery. Those atrocious doctrines were developed at a time when the world did not even know we, Indigenous peoples, existed nor that we could be human beings.  That superior attitude of eliminating or dominating hundreds of Indigenous nations in the United States has continued in the American mindset to today.  

Your Majesty, your words would be more historic if they were followed by your actions.  To that end, would you give your courage and support to Pope Leo XIV so that the Pope will do all in his power to revoke the Doctrines of Discovery?  Coming from the King of Spain would mean more to the world than coming from anyone else.  No one, in this case, has more influence on this subject than you.

Page 2.  Letter Felipe VI

I am a member of an Indigenous Nation located in the middle of the United States.  At one time, our great nation called the Great Sioux Nation lived in more than half of the states of the United States and in nearly half of Canada.  The goal of the United States is to totally exterminate us even to today through the use of radioactive pollution.  Although we have asked for the help of the United Nations in trying to expose this abomination, the United States refused to let the UN Special Rapporteur on Toxic Waste into the United States to do an investigation.  My coming to you for help to eliminate the Doctrines of Discovery is also a cry for help so we can live.

By allowing one human being to be subjected to the Doctrines of Discovery without objecting to such oppression is a scourge on all humanity.  Please, you Majesty, raise your objections to the oppression of all Indigenous Nations and Peoples world-wide so that all the human beings can know the truth.  Millions of us have had to endure oppression and domination for more than 500 years.

We pray for your continued courage, integrity, fortitude, and good health.

Respectfully submitted by,     

Charmaine White Face, Spokesperson             Zumila Wobaga, Itancan

Letter to Claudia Scheinbaum, President of Mexico

May 11, 2026

Claudia Scheinbaum, President of Mexico
Palacio Nacional Edificio 10
Planta Baja Centro
Cuauhtémoc  06060
Ciudad de México
Mexico

Dear President Scheinbaum,

As King Felipe VI from Spain has admitted to the abuses and injustices inflicted on the Indigenous Peoples of the Western Hemisphere, we are hoping you will also support his position.  Now, five-hundred (500) years later, the world is very much aware that Indigenous Peoples are human beings.  We also had and could continue to have civilizations that live with Mother Earth in a way that does not destroy anything.  The life philosophy of Indigenous Peoples would be good for all human beings to learn for the continued existence of our planet, Mother Earth.

I am a member of an Indigenous Nation located in the middle of the United States.  At one time, our great nation called the Great Sioux Nation lived in more than half of the states of the United States and in nearly half of Canada.  The goal of the United States is to totally exterminate us even to today through the use of radioactive pollution.  Although we have asked for the help of the United Nations in trying to expose this abomination, the United States refused to let the UN Special Rapporteur on Toxic Waste into the United States to do an investigation.  My coming to you for help is also a cry for help for our very lives.

We have endured what the United States and Israel are doing to the Indigenous nation of Palestine.  We also were starved by the United States by their decimation of our economic source, the American bison which we call buffalo.  The United States did this to us even though we have an International Treaty with them, the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868.  Our Treaty was proven to still retain its International status at the United Nations in 1999 with the UN study on treaties between colonizing States and Indigenous nations and peoples. (Study on treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements between States and indigenous populations: final report / by Miguel Alfonso Martínez, Special Rapporteur;  1999;  https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/276353?v=pdf)

Page 2. Scheinbaum letter

The United States continues to intimidate the world with arrogance and superiority due to the fact that their laws are based on the Catholic Church’s Doctrines of Discovery. Those atrocious doctrines were developed at a time when the world did not even know we, Indigenous peoples, existed nor that we could be human beings.  That superior attitude of eliminating or dominating hundreds of Indigenous nations in the United States has continued in the American mindset to today.  The American Western movies of cowboys and Indians continue to denigrate us, and glorify the mindset that violence is the answer to whatever they want.

By allowing one human being to be subjected to the Doctrines of Discovery without objecting to such oppression is a scourge on all humanity.  President Scheinbaum, raise your objections to the oppression of all Indigenous Nations and Peoples world-wide so that the whole world can know the truth.  Millions of us have had to endure oppression and domination for hundreds of years.

We also ask if you could have your Ambassadors to the United Nations Human Rights Council introduce and support the passage of a Resolution for Indigenous Nations to be listed with the Decolonization Committee by the General Assembly.  We realize the Decolonization process takes years, but it would be a first step in recognizing the nations that can help with the survival of humankind.

We pray for your continued courage, integrity, fortitude, and good health.

Respectfully submitted by,    

Charmaine White Face, Spokesperson             Zumila Wobaga, Itancan