The Cost of Free Land

Description

COMMUNITY EVENT: The Cost of Free Land: Book Discussion with Dr. Brad Tennant. VERMILLION, SD – Join us for a book discussion led by Dr. Brad Tennant about The Cost of Free Land by Rebecca Clarren. This novel covers her family’s story as Jewish immigrants fleeing Russia and their relationship with the Lakota, indigenous land, and the true cost of freedom. Copies of this book are available for checkout at the library.

This event is free both in person and on Zoom, open to the public, and served with a light lunch. Registration is only required for the Zoom link. Register for Zoom at: bit.ly/vplzoom Sponsored by the Vermillion Public Library and the South Dakota Humanities Council

 

Synopsis:

Growing up, Rebecca Clarren only knew the major plot points of her tenacious immigrant family’s origins. Her great-great-grandparents, the Sinykins, and their six children fled antisemitism in Russia and arrived in the United States at the turn of the 20th century, ultimately settling on a 160-acre homestead in South Dakota. Over the next few decades, despite tough years on a merciless prairie and multiple setbacks, the Sinykins became an American immigrant success story.

What none of Clarren’s ancestors ever mentioned was that their land, the foundation for much of their wealth, had been taken from the Lakota by the United States government. By the time the Sinykins moved to South Dakota, America had broken hundreds of treaties with hundreds of Indigenous nations across the continent, and the land that had once been reserved for the seven bands of the Lakota had been diminished, splintered, and handed for free, or practically free, to white settlers. In The Cost of Free Land, Clarren melds investigative reporting with personal family history to reveal the intertwined stories of her family and the Lakota, and the continuing cycle of loss of Indigenous land, culture, and resources.