This is the end of the Standing Rock camp. For now.
Photo by Stephen Yang/Getty Images.
After a Trump administration executive order, the Army Corps of Engineers ordered protesters to vacate the camp by 2 p.m. local time on Feb. 22, 2017. Authorities were set to physically remove everyone in the way of the Dakota Access Pipeline's construction upon sacred Native American land.
In a symbolic gesture, the protesters set fire to their camp.
Photo by Stephen Yang/Getty Images.
“People have said their last prayers, and offered cedar to the sacred fire and are also burning these structures we have ceremonially built, so they must be ceremonially removed,” Vanessa Castle of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe told the Seattle Times.
Here are some images of those last moments.
Photo by Stephen Yang/Getty Images.
Photo by Stephen Yang/Getty Images.
Photo by Stephen Yang/Getty Images.
Photo by Stephen Yang/Getty Images.
Photo by Stephen Yang/Getty Images.
Photo by Stephen Yang/Getty Images.
We can still stand with Standing Rock and help them as they take their struggle from the ground to the courtroom. For more information, visit the official Standing Rock Sioux Tribe site.
Photo by Stephen Yang/Getty Images.