The Sioux Indians

“A people without a history is like wind on a buffalo grass.”

It is amazing to think the Sioux, a hard working tribe on the North American plains once had as many as 30,000 Native Americans. They occupied most of the North Great Plains and western prairies mainly in Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, North and South Dakota and up into the bordering provinces of Canada. The Tetons, with some 15,000 men, women, and children, were the most populous of the seven tribes. The Oglala Sioux, the largest group of the Tetons numbered some 3,000. The Sioux nations had a typical Plains culture involving buffalo hunting and the sun dance.

The Great Indian Chiefs.

Actually, the Sioux were known for bravery, fighting ability and political skills. So, during the 1800s when white settlers took over the Sioux’s hunting grounds and killed a lot of buffalo. The Sioux then rebelled and fled westward. Sixty-five years later this is still going on. In, Minnesota attacks by the Sioux made counterattacks by the forces of Henry H. Sibley, after which they were moved to the Dakotas.      In the North, the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahoes had forced the army to move the forts of the Bozeman Trail in Red Cloud’s War (1867). When arable lands and rumors of gold in the Dakotas that continued to bring in white settlers into the Sioux’s promised reservation. The government then made a new war in 1876.

Sioux Chiefs

Two very great Sioux leaders were Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Both did very great deeds for the Sioux nations. Sitting Bull born in ca. 1834 in the Grand River Valley (Now South Dakota). Sitting Bull or Tatanka Yotanka, got recognition fro being a warrior and a man of vision. He joined in on with the usual tribal raids and raids for horses against enemies such as the Crow and Assiniboin. Many of Sitting Bull’s followers believed that his magical powers had brought them victory. He was the leader in the battle of the Little Big Horn. When Custer was killed on June 25, 1876, Sitting Bull and some of his followers fled to Canada. Then returned in 1881 on a promise of a pardon. In 1890, Sitting Bull was killed by Native American police for resisting arrest. He was buried in North Dakota but in 1954 his remains were removed to South Dakota.

Native American chief, Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux was a prominent leader in the Sioux resistance to the encroachment of whites in mineral-rich Black Hills. When he and his people said “no” to go on a reservation, troops attacked them at their camp on the Powder River. Although he was victorious in that battle he also held victory against Gen. George Crook on the Rosebud River. Crazy Horse ganged up with Sitting Bull and Gall in defeating Custer at the Little Big Horn.  January of 1877, Gen. Nelson A. Miles attacked his camp and Crazy Horse with his followers spent the remainder of the winter near starvation. The group numbering about 1,000 surrendered to the Red Cloud Agency in May. Imprisoned because of a rumor that he was planning a revolt, Crazy Horse was stabbed to death with a bayonet while attempting to escape. His bravery and skill were generally acknowledged and the Sioux remember him as their great leader.

Charles Eastman tells about Crazy Horse in this story.

Crazy Horse

Story of a Brave Sioux Leader

“ A very great vision is needed and the man who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of he sky… we preferred hunting to a life of idleness on our reservation. At times we did not get enough to eat and were not allowed to hunt. All we wanted was peace and to be left alone. Soldiers came and destroyed our villages. Then Long Hair (Custer) came… They say we massacred him, but he would have done the same to us. Our first impulse was to escape but we were so hemmed in we had to fight.”

At Fort Robinson, Nebraska in 1877, Crazy Horse was walking toward the guardhouse, unarmed except for his knife he always carried. When his cousin ahead of him yelled,” They will put you in prison!”

Sioux Burial System.

“Another white man’s trick! Let me die fighting!” cried Crazy Horse. Both of his arms were held tight but that didn’t stop him from trying. While struggling he was killed by a soldier who thrust his bayonet into his back. His old father sang the death song and then carried his body away and buried it somewhere in the Bad Lands. To this day his remains are still resting in its place.

During all this war, the Indians were using bow and arrows, tomahawks, knives, lances, and war clubs. They used these before they had any access to muskets or other firearms. A war club was a length of wood with a knob at the end. Tribes across America differed in how they made it with material, shape, and decoration. Clubs then developed into tomahawks, a hatchet shaped weapon that was mainly of stone. Because of its war symbolism, the tomahawk was buried to represent peace and dug up for war.

If the battle of the Little Big Horn was the beginning of the end, Wounded Knee was the finale for the Sioux Indians. This was the last engagement in American history between the Plains Indians and the U.S. Army. Gone was the Indian dream, pride and spirit. Wounded Knee Massacre started on the banks of the Wounded Knee about 25 miles west of current day town Martin, South Dakota on December 29, 1890.

On December 28, the 7th Calvary had arrived at a village led by Big Foot of the Hunkpapa Sioux and arrested 230 Sioux women and children with only 120 Sioux men. Early next morning Hotchkiss guns were aimed on the Wounded Knee Valley. More than 500 Calvary Troops under the command of Colonel James W. Forsyth began disarming every Indian of any gun, knife, axe, stakes, or and such weapon.

No one knows what caused the disturbance, no one claims the first shot, and it began with the Hotchkiss guns raining shells into the village at a combined rate of 200 or more rounds per minute. Them 500 Calvary Troopers were ready and they started the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Almost immediately, most of the Sioux men were killed although a few mustered enough strength barehanded to kill29 soldiers and wound 39 more. Unarmed Sioux Indian women and children were Mercilessly Massacred. A few were able to run a couple of miles but were soon chased down and killed.

Of the original 350 Sioux, one estimate stated that only 50 survived. Almost all historical evidence report over 200 Indians were killed on that day but the government figured 64 men, 44 women and girls, and 18 babies were brutally murdered. All of their bodies were buried in one communal grave.

By the last quarter of the 19th century, most of these Indians were moved to reservations. Encouraged to abandon their ways of life and become yeomen farmers in regions that would not sustain agriculture, so they suffered from disease and a declining birthrate.

In 1980, the Supreme Court of the United States ordered the federal government to pay about $105 million to the Sioux nations for land taken away...illegally

Trevor Wehner Rossville Jr. High 2002 Plains Project Bibliography