Lakota Sioux
Currently approximately 60,000 Native Americans call South Dakota home. There are a total of nine (9) Tribal Governments. The most prominent of the various tribes in the area are the Lakota Sioux. North and South Dakota were named after these indigenous people.
The Lakota Sioux followed the great herds of buffalo which roamed from the American Plains into the south western part of South Dakota. The Indians hunted not only the buffalo but the other plentiful game found in the region. Of all the Plains tribes, the Sioux were the most resolute in resisting white men's incursions upon their land. With the advance of the white frontier west of the Mississippi River in the mid-19th century, the United States sought to forestall Indian trouble by negotiating the First Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851)with the Sioux, Shoshoni, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and other Western tribes. The treaty assigned boundaries to each tribe through out the Northern Great Plains and arranged for fort sand roads within Indian Territory.
Originally, the US government signed a treaty with the Sioux exempting the Black Hills from all white settlement forever. The Sioux consider the Black Hills region to be sacred ground. However, in 1864, General George Armstrong Custer's expedition discovered gold in the Black Hills and the US government broke its treaties with the local Indians. Fortune hunters and settlers flooded into the Black Hills, and Native Americans were forcibly resettled on Indian reservations. Some of the tribes resisted and even tried to fight for their lands under the leadership of now well known Indian chiefs, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Red Cloud. The Lakota were defeated slowly by the wholesale slaughter of the buffalo by the U.S. Army and military police actions herding all Indians onto reservations and enforcing government food distribution policies to 'friendlies' only which resulted years later, in the killing of Sitting Bull at Standing Rock and the Massacre of Wounded Knee at Pine Ridge. In a small skirmish at "Wounded Knee" South Dakota, an army detachment massacred 250 Lakota men, women and children. Today, a small memorial marks the site of the "Wounded Knee Massacre", and descendants of the survivors still live on nearby reservations.
In 1980, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the US government had illegally confiscated the Black Hills from the Sioux, and awarded the tribe $122 million in damages and accrued interest. The Sioux, living in some of the poorest communities in the U S, declined the money. They declared that they want their sacred lands returned.
You can still visit the beautiful southern area of the Black Hills which are considered sacred by the Sioux. You can also drive through the Indian reservations and see the poor living conditions of these proud people.
Currently OutsideOther pages you might find helpful:
Intertribal Bison Cooperative
The Intertribal Bison Cooperative strives to reintegrate bison into Indian Nations in a way that matches their traditional practices.
Native Educational Endeavors
Native Educational Endeavors, based in Spearfish, strives to provide educational opportunities for American Indians and encourages Cross-Cultural Respect.
