Reclaiming the Territory Through Mapping: The Example of the Lakotas Around Rapid City

This article explores traditional and contemporary mappings of Lakota territory. Indigenous relationships to land go beyond physical space, serving as fundamental aspects of identity, resistance, and cultural survival. Different ways of mapping this land can challenge colonial frameworks, sustain Indigenous epistemologies, and shape social and political landscapes. Before colonization, Lakota cartography was fluid and relational, relying on oral traditions, pictographs, and sacred landscapes rather than fixed borders. These practices adapted to colonial impositions—initially serving as a means of knowledge transmission and later evolving in response to treaty negotiations and reservation boundaries—ultimately demonstrating both resistance and continuity in Indigenous cartography. The case of Rapid City, built illegally on Lakota land, illustrates the enduring contest over space through official signage, urban murals, and counter-mapping projects. This paper highlights the ongoing Lakota struggle for territorial recognition and the ways in which Indigenous cartography reclaims space and resists erasure.