On November 10, 1972, the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council passed several resolutions following the Bureau of Indian Affairs building takeover in Washington, DC, by members of AIM after the march across the US.

Another resolution authorized the elected tribal president, Dick Wilson, "to take whatever action that he felt would be necessary to protect the lives and property and to insure the peace and dignity of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation" of the Oglala Sioux.

In his 1991 book about the tribe and reservation, author Peter Matthiessen alleges that funding was derived through misappropriation of a federal highway safety program.

[8][9][10] GOON activities during the 1974 tribal election led the United States Civil Rights Commission to report "a climate of fear and tension".

The rate of violence climbed on the reservation as conflict opened between political factions in the following three years; residents accused Wilson's private militia, Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOONs), of much of it.

More than 60 opponents of the tribal government allegedly died violently during those years, including Pedro Bissonette, director of the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization (OSCRO).