- The video discusses survival skills and the importance of mental preparation in survival situations.
- It presents a hypothetical scenario of a war with an invasion and occupation of the United States by North Korea, China, Russia, and ISIS.
- The video focuses on ISIS's occupation of the Middle East, describing the physical and mental control they would establish.
- It then transitions to discussing the real-life examples of dislocation and property seizure experienced by Native Americans in the United States.
- The video highlights the Trail of Tears and the forced removal of Native populations from the Black Hills.
- It also mentions the ongoing property seizure through the Allotment Act and land sales to non-Natives.

- Non-Native populations occupy the best lands for ranching and farming in Indian country, leaving Native populations in rural areas with limited resources.
- The government policy of destroying the buffalo in the 1800s forced Native tribes to move to reservations for survival and rely on government food rations, leading to widespread obesity and diabetes in Indian country.
- The United States ran boarding schools from the 1800s to the 1960s, aimed at assimilating Native children by cutting their hair, removing their traditional clothes, punishing them for speaking their language or practicing their religion, and teaching them that being Indian was uncivilized.
- Traditional Native religions were criminalized until the 1970s, and the federal government still imposes a court system on Indian reservations.
- The lingering effects of forced dependency and the fight for tribal rights and recognition highlight the ongoing challenges faced by Native communities.
- The question of how to survive and maintain cultural identity and values is a complex one.

Survival is 90% mental. With the geopolitical uncertainties these days, what would you do if the United States were invaded? By Russia, China, Syria? How do you prepare? How would you react? Fight? Adapt? Assimilate? What would you want your children and grandchildren to remember about being an America in 20, 50 or 100 years? Is there a “right” answer? This talk explores the potential survival scenarios, and then pivots to consider if there are lessons from our neighbors right in our own backyard… Heather Dawn Thompson is a Harvard Law School graduate with extensive expertise in international and domestic law and policy. Heather is a former federal prosecutor and has worked for the Department of Justice, United States Senate, and the Immigration & Naturalization Service in our nation’s capital. She is a nationally renowned attorney with clients throughout the United States. In addition to her law practice, Heather comes from three generations of farmers, is a concealed carry permit holder, and was granted a Bush Fellowship to study off-grid and grid-down survival skills. Heather is going to walk us through some of the challenges of "Surviving an Invasion." Heather and her family live in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

Today, we're going to talk about survival, survival skills.

It's interesting, the study of survival skills imagines a number of different scenarios in which the skills might actually be useful.

Could be a natural disaster, like we saw in Puerto Rico, or we're now seeing in Hawaii.

A financial collapse, like we've been watching in Venezuela, or even a worst-case scenario, a war, with an invasion and an occupation.

1 of the first things you actually learn though when you really start studying survival skills is that 90% of survival is mental, Mental preparation, right?

And so in order to fully understand that and internalize that, what we're going to do today is we're going to go through a hypothetical survival scenario.

And in order to really appreciate it, we're going to use the most extreme example.

We're going to use a war with an invasion and occupation of the United States.

So, if you will, with me, imagine this scenario.

North Korea, China, and Russia join forces.

Collectively, they turn all of their efforts against the United States, specifically cyber warfare.

This shuts down our communications, our transportation systems, our banking systems, and eventually, our weapons systems.

In the spoils of war, North Korea, China, and Russia receive the valuable land along the coast.

ISIS has allocated Middle America so that they can extract the agrarian and water resources for the Middle East.

And that's where we're gonna focus our hypothetical today, on ISIS's occupation of the Middle East.

Anytime you have an occupying force, they must immediately gain physical control, and then mental control for the long term.

Physical control, it entails dislocation, seizure of property, and destruction of access to independent food sources.

All remaining living Americans in Middle America are forcibly removed from their homes and placed in American camps, indicated by the flags.

All of our property, our homes, our land are seized, with a preference, of course, going towards agrarian land and water resources.

All of that land and property seized is reallocated to ISIS, their families, and any Americans who are friendly to ISIS.

Once they have us in these camps, they have to control access to food, so we don't have independent access to food.

All domestic cattle, pigs, and chickens are poisoned and left to rot.

This involves education, religion, and language.

All children under 16 in the American camps are forcibly removed and sent to what was Syria and is now controlled by ISIS.

The children are required to attend radical Islamic madrasa schools.

They are only allowed to study the Quran, to speak Arabic, and they are taught that everything about being an American, about their family, their nation, is wrong.

Back At the American camps, everyone is prohibited from practicing any religion other than radical Islam.

The women are forced to cover in wehrabayahs.

Everything is conducted in Arabic only, including the posts with the rules throughout the camps.

Now that we have set this survival scenario, let's think through the survival questions.

Even though it's very likely your family will be killed?

Do you have that skill set to survive with your family off grid?

Or in order to survive, to live, Is it better to just acquiesce for now?

But what about your children and your grandchildren?

And their children in 20, 50 or even a hundred years?

Do you want them to remember that they are Americans?

Your American values, in order to really survive as an American, do you forever resist?

In addition to being an expert in survival skills and a very proud American.

I'm also an expert in Native American law and history, and a proud Lakota.

And unfortunately, these hypothetical questions that we just asked ourselves aren't actually very hypothetical.

For myself, for my colleagues, We actually ask ourselves these questions every single day.

If I'm not fluent in Lakota, Ma Lakota, Tashunkehiziwi machiapi, Wakpa washite oyonkehemataha.

If we're practicing Christianity, if I allow my son to cut his long hair because he's getting bullied in the American schools, am I betraying my grandparents and my great-grandparents?

We're gonna walk through this exact same survival scenario now, but with real facts.

The story of Dislocation is well known in the United States, right?

The United States was built on land in which Native Americans were dislocated and that property seized and redistributed.

1 of the best known stories, 1 of the earlier ones, happened down here in the south.

And that's where the Cherokee Nation were very successful farmers.

Those lands were desired by non-Natives in order to farm there.

And so you probably heard of the Trail of Tears.

The Army forcibly removed the Cherokee Nation and eventually about 40 other tribes east of the Mississippi, and forcibly walked them to what was Indian territory and became Oklahoma.

Each of those tribes lost anywhere between a third to a half of their population during that time period.

A more recent example of the dislocation and property seizure happened here in South Dakota, and that was near the end of last century, of course, gold was discovered in the Black Hills, and the Army forcibly removed the Native population from the Black Hills to lands that were reserved for them in perpetuity, reservations.

What a lot of Americans don't realize about this story is that property seizure, that dislocation, continued after the tribes were moved to the lands that were reserved in perpetuity.

So of course, the Indian Territory became the state of Oklahoma, and it was opened up to the land rush.

And then here in South Dakota, we had the Allotment Act at the turn of the century in which the lands that were most desirable on those reserve lands that were most arable were declared excess to the Native population and sold to non-Natives.

And that's why you continue to see large non-Native populations on some of the best lands for ranching and farming throughout Indian country.

And this trend, of course, is why we also have Most Native populations are in the most rural, isolated areas with the least natural resources, right, because it was the land that was left, that wasn't wanted by the non-Native population.

Next, of course, in any occupation comes control of access to food.

Here in the Midwest, that meant the buffalo.

As long as the Native population had independent access to food, it couldn't have complete physical control.

So it became a national policy to destroy the buffalo.

The Army assisted in this by providing housing and shelter to the hunters, the sport hunters at their various forts, and refusing to implement the provisions of the treaties protecting the hunting grounds.

The railroads assisted by hosting hunting parties on the railroads as they moved throughout the West.

This policy was very successful, And by the 1890s, the buffalo were almost entirely extinct.

And so the last remaining independent tribes were forced, in fact, to move to the reservations in order to survive, to receive government food rations.

The food that was distributed at that time and continues to be distributed today is predominantly carbohydrates and sugar-based and so that's created widespread obesity and diabetes throughout Indian country.

In addition, of course, it created a culture, a pattern of dependency on the federal government for survival.

From the 1800s all the way up until the 1960s, the United States ran a series of boarding schools throughout the United States.

At its height, there was almost 150 of them, including 1 here in Rapid City.

It's located on the west side on the location that's now called Susan.

This is the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

It was 1 of the first and 1 of the best known.

It was run by a captain, an army captain, Captain Pratt, and his motto, which became the motto of all the boarding schools, was to kill the Indian and save the man.

So the strategy was complete forced assimilation.

As you can imagine, you can tell from this picture, all the children's hair was cut, their traditional clothes were removed.

They were no longer allowed to use their name that was given to them, and they were given a Western or Christian name.

They were physically punished if they spoke their language.

They were required to speak English only.

They were punished physically if they practiced their religion.

They were only allowed to practice Christianity.

And many of these schools were run by various divisions of the Christian churches.

In addition, the number 1 teaching was that everything about being Indian, including your parents, your family, was ungodly and uncivilized.

She was sent to the Shine River Sioux Reservation Boarding School here in South Dakota.

She got married when she was 15 years old in order to leave that boarding school and had 5 small children by the time she was 21.

The boarding school was very successful in severing the Lakota language with my grandmother, and it's just now my generation that's been working very hard to relearn our language.

In addition to the religious oppression at the schools, in 1883, the federal government made it illegal.

Nationwide criminalized the practice of traditional Native religions.

As you can see from this quote, there was a specific emphasis placed on medicine men, the leaders of the traditional religions.

The majority of them were incarcerated or they were sent to insane asylums for the remainder of their lives, including 1 here in South Dakota called the Canton Insane Asylum, the Hiawatha Insane asylum.

This is my great-grandmother, and here you can see her in her traditional outfit, and here she is with her sister and the Christian clothes that she was placed in for that ceremony.

It was not until the 1970s in which the federal government reversed this policy and passed a law protecting traditional Native religions.

So it's only been a few decades where this has been above ground, and people have been actively and openly participating.

In addition, what started as a criminalization of Native religions has become a permanent federal system in Indian country.

The federal government prosecutes crimes in Indian country.

What that means is, unlike in a state or a county or a local government where you have a democratic say in your sheriff or your prosecutors, you still have an external imposed federal court system on Indian reservations.

So now that we've gone through the same survival scenario but with real facts, we come back to the same place, which is those survival questions.

If your family is in this situation, do you fight?

In order to live, survive, is it just better to practice American values, speak English, practice Christianity?

But what about your children and your grandchildren in 20, 50, or 100 years?

Do you want us to remember that we are Lakota?

When you witness the lingering effects of forced government dependency, when you read in the paper about that tribe fighting to restore their criminal jurisdiction.

When you see on the TV that young Native man getting arrested for aggressively protesting that oil pipeline near his last remaining territory.

When that elderly grandma shows up at your school board meeting over and over and over again and keeps insisting on including Native American history in the curriculum.

And you ask yourself that 1 right question.


Speaker 0: Today, we're going to talk about survival, survival skills. It's interesting, the study of survival skills imagines a number of different scenarios in which the skills might actually be useful. Could be a natural disaster, like we saw in Puerto Rico, or we're now seeing in Hawaii. A financial collapse, like we've been watching in Venezuela, or even a worst-case scenario, a war, with an invasion and an occupation. 1 of the first things you actually learn though when you really start studying survival skills is that 90% of survival is mental, Mental preparation, right?

And so in order to fully understand that and internalize that, what we're going to do today is we're going to go through a hypothetical survival scenario. And in order to really appreciate it, we're going to use the most extreme example. We're going to use a war with an invasion and occupation of the United States. So, if you will, with me, imagine this scenario. Things don't go well with North Korea.

North Korea, China, and Russia join forces. ISIS allies with them. Collectively, they turn all of their efforts against the United States, specifically cyber warfare. They shut down our entire electric grid. This shuts down our communications, our transportation systems, our banking systems, and eventually, our weapons systems.

They invade and they win. In the spoils of war, North Korea, China, and Russia receive the valuable land along the coast. ISIS has allocated Middle America so that they can extract the agrarian and water resources for the Middle East. And that's where we're gonna focus our hypothetical today, on ISIS's occupation of the Middle East. Anytime you have an occupying force, they must immediately gain physical control, and then mental control for the long term.

Physical control, it entails dislocation, seizure of property, and destruction of access to independent food sources. All remaining living Americans in Middle America are forcibly removed from their homes and placed in American camps, indicated by the flags. All of our property, our homes, our land are seized, with a preference, of course, going towards agrarian land and water resources. All of that land and property seized is reallocated to ISIS, their families, and any Americans who are friendly to ISIS. Once they have us in these camps, they have to control access to food, so we don't have independent access to food.

All domestic cattle, pigs, and chickens are poisoned and left to rot. Next, mental control. This involves education, religion, and language. All children under 16 in the American camps are forcibly removed and sent to what was Syria and is now controlled by ISIS. The children are required to attend radical Islamic madrasa schools.

They are only allowed to study the Quran, to speak Arabic, and they are taught that everything about being an American, about their family, their nation, is wrong. Back At the American camps, everyone is prohibited from practicing any religion other than radical Islam. The women are forced to cover in wehrabayahs. Everything is conducted in Arabic only, including the posts with the rules throughout the camps. Now that we have set this survival scenario, let's think through the survival questions.

What would you do? What would you do? Do you fight? Are you prepared for that? Even though it's very likely your family will be killed?

Do you run? Do you run into the mountains? Do you have that skill set to survive with your family off grid? Or in order to survive, to live, Is it better to just acquiesce for now? To speak Arabic, practice radical Islam?

But what about your children and your grandchildren? And their children in 20, 50 or even a hundred years? Do you want them to remember that they are Americans? Your American values? Your American values, in order to really survive as an American, do you forever resist?

Here's where we're going to pivot. In addition to being an expert in survival skills and a very proud American. I'm also an expert in Native American law and history, and a proud Lakota. And unfortunately, these hypothetical questions that we just asked ourselves aren't actually very hypothetical. For myself, for my colleagues, We actually ask ourselves these questions every single day.

If I'm not fluent in Lakota, Ma Lakota, Tashunkehiziwi machiapi, Wakpa washite oyonkehemataha. If we're practicing Christianity, if I allow my son to cut his long hair because he's getting bullied in the American schools, am I betraying my grandparents and my great-grandparents? We're gonna walk through this exact same survival scenario now, but with real facts. Physical control. Mental control.

Physical control. Dislocation. Property seizure. Destruction of access to food. The story of Dislocation is well known in the United States, right?

The United States was built on land in which Native Americans were dislocated and that property seized and redistributed. 1 of the best known stories, 1 of the earlier ones, happened down here in the south. And that's where the Cherokee Nation were very successful farmers. Those lands were desired by non-Natives in order to farm there. And so you probably heard of the Trail of Tears.

The Army forcibly removed the Cherokee Nation and eventually about 40 other tribes east of the Mississippi, and forcibly walked them to what was Indian territory and became Oklahoma. Each of those tribes lost anywhere between a third to a half of their population during that time period. A more recent example of the dislocation and property seizure happened here in South Dakota, and that was near the end of last century, of course, gold was discovered in the Black Hills, and the Army forcibly removed the Native population from the Black Hills to lands that were reserved for them in perpetuity, reservations. What a lot of Americans don't realize about this story is that property seizure, that dislocation, continued after the tribes were moved to the lands that were reserved in perpetuity. So of course, the Indian Territory became the state of Oklahoma, and it was opened up to the land rush.

And then here in South Dakota, we had the Allotment Act at the turn of the century in which the lands that were most desirable on those reserve lands that were most arable were declared excess to the Native population and sold to non-Natives. And that's why you continue to see large non-Native populations on some of the best lands for ranching and farming throughout Indian country. And this trend, of course, is why we also have Most Native populations are in the most rural, isolated areas with the least natural resources, right, because it was the land that was left, that wasn't wanted by the non-Native population. Next, of course, in any occupation comes control of access to food. These are buffalo schools.

Here in the Midwest, that meant the buffalo. As long as the Native population had independent access to food, it couldn't have complete physical control. So it became a national policy to destroy the buffalo. The Army assisted in this by providing housing and shelter to the hunters, the sport hunters at their various forts, and refusing to implement the provisions of the treaties protecting the hunting grounds. The railroads assisted by hosting hunting parties on the railroads as they moved throughout the West.

This policy was very successful, And by the 1890s, the buffalo were almost entirely extinct. And so the last remaining independent tribes were forced, in fact, to move to the reservations in order to survive, to receive government food rations. And what does that mean for us today? The food that was distributed at that time and continues to be distributed today is predominantly carbohydrates and sugar-based and so that's created widespread obesity and diabetes throughout Indian country. In addition, of course, it created a culture, a pattern of dependency on the federal government for survival.

Mental control. Education, religion, language. From the 1800s all the way up until the 1960s, the United States ran a series of boarding schools throughout the United States. At its height, there was almost 150 of them, including 1 here in Rapid City. It's located on the west side on the location that's now called Susan.

This is the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. It was 1 of the first and 1 of the best known. It was run by a captain, an army captain, Captain Pratt, and his motto, which became the motto of all the boarding schools, was to kill the Indian and save the man. So the strategy was complete forced assimilation. As you can imagine, you can tell from this picture, all the children's hair was cut, their traditional clothes were removed.

They were no longer allowed to use their name that was given to them, and they were given a Western or Christian name. They were physically punished if they spoke their language. They were required to speak English only. They were punished physically if they practiced their religion. They were only allowed to practice Christianity.

And many of these schools were run by various divisions of the Christian churches. In addition, the number 1 teaching was that everything about being Indian, including your parents, your family, was ungodly and uncivilized. This is my own grandmother. This is my mother's mother. She was sent to the Shine River Sioux Reservation Boarding School here in South Dakota.

She got married when she was 15 years old in order to leave that boarding school and had 5 small children by the time she was 21. The boarding school was very successful in severing the Lakota language with my grandmother, and it's just now my generation that's been working very hard to relearn our language. In addition to the religious oppression at the schools, in 1883, the federal government made it illegal. Nationwide criminalized the practice of traditional Native religions. As you can see from this quote, there was a specific emphasis placed on medicine men, the leaders of the traditional religions.

The majority of them were incarcerated or they were sent to insane asylums for the remainder of their lives, including 1 here in South Dakota called the Canton Insane Asylum, the Hiawatha Insane asylum. This is my mother's grandmother. This is my great-grandmother, and here you can see her in her traditional outfit, and here she is with her sister and the Christian clothes that she was placed in for that ceremony. What does this mean for us today? It was not until the 1970s in which the federal government reversed this policy and passed a law protecting traditional Native religions.

So it's only been a few decades where this has been above ground, and people have been actively and openly participating. In addition, what started as a criminalization of Native religions has become a permanent federal system in Indian country. The federal government prosecutes crimes in Indian country. What that means is, unlike in a state or a county or a local government where you have a democratic say in your sheriff or your prosecutors, you still have an external imposed federal court system on Indian reservations. So now that we've gone through the same survival scenario but with real facts, we come back to the same place, which is those survival questions.

What would you do? If your family is in this situation, do you fight? Do you run? In order to live, survive, is it just better to practice American values, speak English, practice Christianity? But what about your children and your grandchildren in 20, 50, or 100 years?

Do you want us to remember that we are Lakota? Do you want us to speak Lakota? To practice Lakota values? There's no 1 easy answer. But there's 1 right question.

When you witness the lingering effects of forced government dependency, when you read in the paper about that tribe fighting to restore their criminal jurisdiction. When you see on the TV that young Native man getting arrested for aggressively protesting that oil pipeline near his last remaining territory. When that elderly grandma shows up at your school board meeting over and over and over again and keeps insisting on including Native American history in the curriculum. That's when you stop. That's when you pivot.

And you ask yourself that 1 right question. What would you do to survive? Thank you.

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Surviving an Invasion & Understanding Your Neighbors. | Heather Dawn Thompson | TEDxRapidCity