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You can read Tilsen’s dream on his fingers. On his knuckles, the 43-year-old has had the letters L-A-N-D and B-A-C-K tattooed in ornate script. Land back. He means the land of his ancestors: the Black Hills in South Dakota. For centuries, they were home to several Indigenous nations before white settlers, swept up in a gold rush, and U.S. soldiers brutally drove them out. That was almost 150 years ago, but the last word on the matter is still a long way off, Nick Tilsen believes.
He is a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation and, as the founder of the NDN – pronounced "Indian” – Collective, one of the most influential champions of Indigenous rights and networking in America. Tilsen receives visitors in his office in Rapid City, crammed with evidence of small triumphs: a photo of him with former President Barack Obama; another with the long-imprisoned Indigenous activist Leonard Peltier, whom then-President Joe Biden released from prison shortly before Donald Trump took office.
With Trump, Tilsen says, dark times for America’s Indigenous peoples have returned. Then he talks about ideas for how to take on this president. Listening to him, you get a sense of where Tilsen’s Lakota name comes from: TaBloka Waketa – Forward-Looking Bison.
DER SPIEGEL: Mr. Tilsen, the United States will be celebrating its 250th birthday this year. Are you going to be joining the party?
Nick Tilsen: No. Instead of glorifying the violent history of the United States, I am much more interested in talking about what the next 250 years will look like. Especially at a time when democracy here is crumbling. Donald Trump’s regime has nothing to offer for the future and is only celebrating false narratives about the past.
The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 12/2026 (March 12th, 2026) of DER SPIEGEL.
DER SPIEGEL: It’s possible though that your home of South Dakota will become a central location for this celebration. Trump has commissioned a gigantic sculpture garden full of 250 "American heroes.” It could end up being established next to the iconic stone faces of four U.S. presidents at Mount Rushmore.
Tilsen: We don’t call it that. We call the mountain Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe, Six Grandfathers. It was a sacred site for the Lakota people and other Indigenous nations for centuries before white people came along to put up these four white men who were responsible for slavery, murder and the rape of Indigenous people. This has always been and still is our land. The United States has admitted that they broke their own laws in stealing the place.
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DER SPIEGEL: You are referring to the Supreme Court decision from 45 years ago, in which the justices ruled that the government broke a treaty with the Indigenous population of the Black Hills in 1877 and confiscated the entire territory, including Mount Rushmore.
Tilsen: And I think it’s a bit rich to celebrate the birth of a nation which we never wanted on our stolen land. Didn’t they always tell us that the American democracy is founded on the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution? Article VI states that treaties are the supreme law of the land. The stealing of the Black Hills was one of the worst violations of the U.S. Constitution in history. And a deliberate act of humiliation.
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