Talk:Black Hills

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Careschroeder. Peer reviewers: Jnune14.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 15:52, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

1
to me it seems odd that you would write 'many .. farmers have settled there blah balh blah'.

today it is a tourist attraction with many national parks.

which indians lived there? who found it sacred and why?

no links to the history of gold or silver?

It's incredible that some one would write that the black hills were "purchased". they were stolen fair and square like most all of the US.

They were stolen fair and square at least twice. The Lakota stole them from the Arikara in the Nineteenth Century and then the U.S. stole them from the Lakota. I don't know why the Lakota found them sacred but it isn't such a huge stretch to think that they simply appreciated the wooded, hilly "island" in the bleakness of the plains. It isn't as if they were originally from the plains themselves. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.79.173.135 (talk) 21:55, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Why dont you bring in Adam and Eve too. --HumusTheCowboy (talk) 07:40, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

These claims need a proper source Refrcchecker (talk) 16:26, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

There seems to be a bias in a lot of the writing about the Indigenous people in South Dakota within these edits. Unsourced claims with clear bigoted bias. Martinezwhite (talk) 17:43, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Accusatory tone, without references
"The region is considered sacred by the Lakota Native Americans, although sceptics point out that they only discovered the Hills in 1765, barely 100 years before they used the Black Hills' "sacredness" as grounds for "deserving" the gold-rich territory in treaties with the U.S. government." This text seems unnecessarily inflammatory; the quote marks, at the very least, around some of the words should be removed. They inject an unwelcome accusatory tone into the article that seems unprofessional. Also, this contention needs to be referenced. --ebedgert


 * Took it out of intro as unsourced and poorly worded. The info is included in the history section. Vsmith 22:26, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

"Some consider this ad hoc claim of spiritual status a dubious pretension to keep the gold-rich territory since the Sioux tribe had only discovered the Black Hills about 100 years earlier (1765) and that they themselves took the land by force from its previous residents (the Cheyenne tribe) in 1776." "Some consider" is a weasel phrase. Suggest removing or providing a source --- JBPM, 12:25 Central Time, February 26, 2008. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.126.202.31 (talk) 18:26, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

I just wonder when the Cheyenne will sue the Lakota to get the Black Hills back from them? It was probably sacred to them before the Lakota took it from them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.215.51.175 (talk) 11:05, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Courts of the US republic deal with actions that deal with the US republic. The Lakota won their case fair and square --HumusTheCowboy (talk) 07:42, 9 September 2012 (UTC)

Tallest peaks?
I think the following claim in the introduction is wrong:


 * The Black Hills are home to the tallest peaks between the Rocky Mountains and the Alps in Europe (not counting undersea mountains).

The highest point in the Black Hills, Harney Peak is 2,207 m., but in Greenland (which surely lies between the Rocky Mountains and the Alps) there are seven mountains higher than that (see List_of_mountains_in_Greenland). Dougg 23:37, 25 July 2006 (UTC)


 * This claim has come back, with a citation, but it's still ridiculous, so I've removed it again. In addition to Greenland, there are higher peaks in France, Spain, Portugal (specifically the Azores), the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

Okay, that's been changed to...


 * The Black Hills are home to the tallest peaks of continental North America West of the Rockies.

...but aren't the Black Hills east of the Rockies? I'd make the change but not being very familiar with USA geography (physical or political) I'd like someone else to verify it. Dougg 00:49, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

This claim exists throughout Black Hills lore. I believe I've seen it on official signage but without photos, I looked it up in a book I have on South Dakota. includes this claim in its section on the Black Hills. Then I found the photo on this page (http://www4.uwsp.edu/geo/projects/geoweb/participants/dutch/vtrips/harneypk.htm) and the author of the page makes the same caveat: it's not true if you consider Canada and Greenland. So perhaps it's worth a mention on Wikipedia because of its prominence in Black Hills mythology but with the corrections and caveats here: a statement of myth, not fact. Runner1928 (talk) 23:24, 8 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, interesting. As that webpage notes, it also depends what exactly "between" means.  Define it strictly enough and some claim along these lines may actually be true, but rather misleading.  I suspect if there is a case for mentioning that claim (and with appropriate caveats there may be), it's probably better on the Harney Peak page than here Armouredduck (talk) 23:40, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The Harney Peak page currently makes only the claim of being the tallest in the United States east of the Rockies. Assuming we all agree that's true, I think this is the only claim that should be repeated in Black Hills; as suggested by others, the apocryphal or misleading (but possibly notable) claims can be treated, or not, at Harney Peak. --Arxiloxos (talk) 23:49, 8 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I like the 'highest in the United States east of the Rockies' as well. Alexius  Horatius  23:53, 8 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Me too. Thanks, all! I also think that the Harney Peak page can contain this information about the Alp claim, if notable. Runner1928 (talk) 00:45, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Geology
I am changing the section 'The Black Hills also has a 'skirt' of gravel covering it in areas called erosional terraces. These are conglomerate beds formed as the waterways cut down into the uplifting hills and represent the former river beds.' so it does not refer to it as a conglomerate bed. It is just gravel and not a conglomerate because it is not cemented. BHrock 04:57, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

typos, et cetera
the page says
 * The Black Hills also made an attempt at succession from the United States in the book World War Z

I haven't read World War Z but I presume that succession should be secession in the passage above. Funkyj 08:57, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Article Lead
It seems to me that the lead of this article is merely a brief history of the Black Hills and not a summary of the entire article. I think that most of this lead should be condensed into a History section and a new lead written. Are there any comments concerning this? Lmielke359 18:50, 17 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Go for it.Spiesr 16:53, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Barring no objections I created a history section out of the former lead and with the remaining content, expanded the lead. The new lead neads to be cleaned up and wikilinked more.

Moved from main page
Comment from Special:Contributions/75.71.44.4 moved here by CosmicPenguin (Talk) 01:44, 20 January 2008 (UTC). In reference to the statement about the Black Hills being the tallest east of the Rockies:
 * (Not sure, but Sierra Grande is 8720 feet in northeastern New Mexico and is well east of the Rockies and near the same longitude.)

He is talking about Sierra Grande.

I am suprised to see that the article completely ignores the 500 plus Lakota men, woman, and children along with military personnel of the United States. It does not display adequate history of the former Lakota owners and their economic and political soverignty up until the mid 19th century. If any improvements could be made, a link to Wounded Knee Massacre would be appropriate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.69.200.61 (talk) 07:14, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

What's in a name?
Dave Barry offers, "[T]he Black Hills ... get their name from the fact that they are brown, gray, and green." Why, then, do we call them the "Black Hills"? Are the names in other languages literally "black hills" or "black mountains", or are the names different? -- ke4roh (talk) 16:04, 22 October 2013 (UTC) 03:00, 15 September 2016 (UTC)03:00, 15 September 2016 (UTC)03:00, 15 September 2016 (UTC)03:00, 15 September 2016 (UTC)== Copyright problem removed ==

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: here. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Diannaa (talk) 02:11, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

02:58, 15 September 2016 (UTC)Careschroeder (talk)==Assessment comment==

Substituted at 09:45, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

History Edit

What was previously written on the opening paragraph of this section was: Human habitation has been established for 7000 BC.[citation needed] The Arikara arrived by AD 1500, followed by the Cheyenne, Crow, Kiowa and Pawnee. TheLakota (also known as Sioux) arrived from Minnesota in the 18th century and drove out the other tribes, who moved west.[6] They claimed the land, which they called Ȟe Sápa (Black Mountains). The mountains commonly became known as the Black Hills. I deleted the first sentence. The first sentence had a syntax which was difficult to understand, it was false, and it was without citation. I moved the remaining sentences into a new paragraph, the second on the page, and created a whole new first paragraph to include information of the land that is not necessarily about rocks, as listed later in the article. I made the new first paragraph: Although written history of the region begins with the Sioux domination of the land over the native Arikara tribes[1], researchers have carbon-dating and stratigraphic records to analyze the area. Scientists have been able to utilize carbon-dating to evaluate the age of tools found in the area, which indicate a human presence that dates as far back as 11,500 BCE with the Clovis Culture.[2] Stratigraphic records indicate environmental changes in the land, such as flood and drought patterns. For example, large-scale flooding of the Black Hill basins occurs at a probability rate of 0.01, making such floods occur once in every 100 years. However, during The Medieval Climate Anomaly, or the Medieval Warm Period, flooding increased in the basins. A stratigraphic record of the area shows that during this 400 year period, thirteen 100-year floods occurred in four of the region's basins, while the same four basins from the previous 800 years only experienced nine floods.[3] This way, history that predates written language in the area is included in the article, as there is little mentioned anywhere on the web of this history. However, I was able to find peer-reviewed articles to cite my information, as well as a USA Today article for the more well-known occurrences in the history of the Black Hills. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Careschroeder (talk • contribs) 02:56, 15 September 2016 (UTC) Careschroeder (talk) 18:43, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Red squirrels?
Really? the red squirrel is a Eurasian species, not found in the Americas. Aren't we talking, here, about the American red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus)? Kintaro (talk) 20:39, 17 March 2017 (UTC)
 * Ok, I assume it is definetily a mistake. Fixed. Kintaro (talk) 10:06, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

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External links modified (January 2018)
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Highest east of the Rockies?
", Black Elk Peak (the highest point in the United States east of the Rockies,"

This is at best controversial/a question of definitions, and probably simply wrong.

Several higher peaks in the Trans-Pecos region of west Texas are not part of the Rockies -- at leadt by the normal definition -- and at least Emory Peak is actually farther east than Black Elk Peak. Vultur~enwiki (talk) 14:15, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Changes made (may 2024)
So the changes I made is getting rid of the black hills Lakota name from the first pharagraph as that is mentioned in the indigenous history paragraph in the history section, then I added two citations on why the black hills is considered a holy site and on how the hills got its name the “black hills” then I specify Mount Rushmore is a memorial and I also specify that the federal government annexed the hills from the Lakota rather than just simply saying “taking it” as it feel more appropriate to say it that way. 94.204.244.111 (talk) 20:44, 27 May 2024 (UTC)