Tribal rep George Gillette crying as 154,000 acres of land is signed away for a new dam (1948) [1440×1791]

https://www.indianz.com/news/2016/12/20/north-dakota-tribe-recovers-ancestral-la.asp

After a decades-long quest, the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation is finally reclaiming a piece of its homeland.
In the 1940s and 1950s, the federal government flooded 156,000 acres of the tribe’s reservation in North Dakota. More than 300 families — more than 80 percent of the membership at the time — were forced out of their homes to make way for the Garrison Dam on the Missouri River. The upheaval contributed to language and cultural loss as well as a decline in health because a community hospital was closed and wasn’t replaced until 2011.
“We will sign this contract with a heavy heart,” George Gillette, the tribe’s chairman said at an emotional ceremony in 1948 in Washington, D.C., where he can be seen crying in a photo published by the Associated Press. “With a few scratches of the pen, we will sell the best part of our reservation. Right now the future doesn’t look too good to us.”