Health on the Fort Berthold Resevation
July 29, 2010
It is a well-documented fact that from the late 1800s on, Native American tribes on the high plains were forced to abandon hunting and foraging as their primary means of feeding themselves. Instead, they started eating unhealthy processed ‘commodity foods' supplied by the federal government. My project will focus on a trio of agricultural tribes on North Dakota's Fort Berthold Reservation, whose robust health lasted into the middle of the 20th century. But the subsequent construction of a hydroelectric dam consigned them to less-fertile land, commodity food, and declining health.
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