The Dakota Sioux (also called Santee Sioux) with 4 bands:

living in South Dakota, as well as in Minnesota, Nebraska, and ND.

The Nakota - Yankton Sioux with 3 bands in modern times:

In North America the territory of the Lakota, Nakota and Dakota Nation covers some 200,000 km2 in the present day state of South Dakota and neighboring states.

The Lakota, Nakota and Dakota Nation (also known as the Great Sioux Nation) descends from of the original inhabitants of North America and can be divided into three major linguistic and geographic groups: Lakota (Teton, West Dakota), Nakota (Yankton, Central Dakota) and Dakota (Santee, Eastern Dakota). The total number of native North Americans is approximately 1,5 million, of which around 100,000 are Lakota. They reside near the Sacred Black Hills of South Dakota.

1847 - Westward migration on the Oregon Trail through Plains Indian country

1850 - 20,000,000 buffalo on the plains between Montana and Texas

1851 - First Fort Laramie Treaty with the Plains Indians allowing for safe migration and beginning settlements in Indian country

1850-1875 - Extermination of buffalo herds by sports and hide hunters­severely limits Plains Indians food supply and ability to survive

1868 - Second Fort Laramie Treaty establishes Great Sioux Reservation encompassing the western half of South Dakota and smaller portions of Wyoming and Nebraska­many Plains Indians still move freely in Powder River country (Montana)

1870 - Buffalo herds are diminished to a crisis point for Plains Indians

1873 - Gold discovered in the Black Hills­part of the Great Sioux Reservation in South Dakota

1876- Battle of Little Big Horn (Custer's Last Stand)

1877 - Plains Indians forced to surrender and camp at Fort Robinson, Nebraska­Red Cloud Agency established

1877 - 'Sell or starve' bill forces the Lakota to give up the Black Hills and gold

1877-1888 - Buffalo have disappeared and Lakota now live on handouts from the Federal Government

1888 - Oglala Lakota move to Pine Ridge Agency on South Dakota/Nebraska border

1889 - Great Sioux Reservation is further reduced in size by the Dawes Act, non-reservation land is opened to settlers

1890 - Wounded Knee Massacre Pine Ridge, South Dakota

1890 to Present - Lakota reduced to chronic conditions of poverty, poor health and despair

1934 - Traditional tribal form of government abolished and replaced with Bureau of Indian Affairs (federally managed elected tribal councils)

1980 - United States Supreme Court opinion "The taking of the Black Hills [60 billion dollars in gold] is the most ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealing ever perpetrated on a people by the United States Government

1999 - Shannon County, South Dakota, home of the Oglala Lakota on Pine Ridge Reservation is identified as the poorest place in the country

Traditionally, the Lakota hunted buffalo. Today, the economy is based on agriculture, cattle, sheep ranches, fishing and tourism. Natural resources are gold, silver, oil, ore and shale. The countryís largest gold mine is in the Black Hills, which is being mined against the wishes of the indigenous Lakota.

The US signed the First First Laramie Treaty with several indigenous Nations, which formally recognised the Lakota as being entitled to a huge tract upon their sacred land and that Indians were an independent political community which possess sovereignty. Despite the Treaty, the clash between the Lakota people and the invaders continued.

The Second Fort Laramie Treaty was signed and secured traditional Sioux territories. After that, the Treaty was almost immediately violated and Euro-American exploitation went on in full strength.

US government forced the Chiefs to transfer the Black Hills to white control, and organised the partition of the vast Sioux Territory into a number of small reservations.

The US Court of Claims ruled that the US government had violated the 1868 Treaty and that the Sioux were entitled to US$ 110 million in compensation for the Black Hills. The rule was upheld by the US Supreme Court.

The Sioux were awarded US$ 40 million for losses based on the treaty of 1868, which designed lands to the Lakota. This US$ 40 currently lies in a trust fund in Washington. There is now division in the Sioux nations as to whether to claim the money, and therefore relinquish their rights to the Black Hills forever, or to press for the return of the Black Hills.

The US Budget recommended the elimination of funding for public service employment on all Lakota, Dakota and Nakota reservations. The Lakota band of Hunkpapa, on Standing Rock Reservation, established a cultural reservation office in Fort Yates, North Dakota. The Lakota Nation hosted a îPrayer Day of Peaceî. The ride and ceremony for peace was organised at a time when the need for unity and a common sense of direction is increasingly being felt among Lakota, Nakota and Dakota peoples.

US federal and state policy appears to continue to dissident and to prevent any form of unity from arising. At worst, the policy today is still genocidal. At best, it is shockingly intensive. In many reservations, there is violence, drunkenness, aphaty and despair. Schools drop-outs rates range from 45 to 62%. Suicide among the indigenous people is twice the US national average and unemployment runs around 80%. The Lakota have formed The Alliance of Tribal Tourism Advocates, whose goal is to enhance prospects of tourism development in accordance with the nationís organisations, beliefs and priorities.

Sitting Bull - Tatanka Iyotake

Sitting Bull was a Lakota Medicine Man and Chief was considered the last Sioux to surrender to the U.S. Government.

Sitting Bull, a Hunkpapa Lakota was born in the early 1830s near the Grand River in present-day South Dakota. A formidable warrior and military strategist, Sitting Bull also gained renown as a powerful medicine man.

Following the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June, 1876, Sitting Bull led 135 of his lodges across the "medicine road," or border, into Canada where they hoped to find a better life. Some American generals, including Nelson Miles, feared that Sitting Bull might use his new homeland as a base for attacking American troops and citizens. Miles convened a council in an attempt to convince the Hunkpapa leader and his followers to return to the United States.

Along with General Alfred Terry, Nelson Miles promised Sitting Bull that the United States would make peace with the Sioux and that all those who returned would receive a full pardon. Fearing that the American generals would betray him, Sitting Bull expressed intentions to keep his people in Canada.

In 1881, on the verge of starvation, Sitting Bull led his people back into the United States. While most of these Hunkpapas were assigned to the Standing Rock Reservation, Sitting Bull was escorted to Fort Randall where he was detained for two years before being allowed to join his people.

His opposition to government assimilations policy on Standing Rock Reservation led agent James McLaughlin to issue orders for his arrest on December 15, 1890. While being taken into custody, the 59 year-old leader was shot and killed.

 

Crazy Horse - Tashunca-uitco

Celebrated for his ferocity in battle, Crazy Horse was recognized among his own people as a visionary leader committed to preserving the traditions and values of the Lakota way of life.

Even as a young man, Crazy Horse was a legendary warrior. He stole horses from the Crow Indians before he was thirteen, and led his first war party before turning twenty. Crazy Horse fought in the 1865-68 war led by the Oglala chief Red Cloud against American settlers in Wyoming, and played a key role in destroying William J. Fetterman's brigade at Fort Phil Kearny in 1867.

Crazy Horse earned his reputation among the Lakota not only by his skill and daring in battle but also by his fierce determination to preserve his people's traditional way of life. He refused, for example, to allow any photographs to be taken of him. And he fought to prevent American encroachment on Lakota lands following the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, helping to attack a surveying party sent into the Black Hills by General George Armstrong Custer in 1873.

When the War Department ordered all Lakota bands onto their reservations in 1876, Crazy Horse became a leader of the resistance. Closely allied to the Cheyenne through his first marriage to a Cheyenne woman, he gathered a force of 1,200 Oglala and Cheyenne at his village and turned back General George Crook on June 17, 1876, as Crook tried to advance up Rosebud Creek toward Sitting Bull's encampment on the Little Bighorn.

After this victory, Crazy Horse joined forces with Sitting Bull and on June 25 led his band in the counterattack that destroyed Custer's Seventh Cavalry, flanking the Americans from the north and west as Hunkpapa warriors led by chief Gall charged from the south and east.

Following the Lakota victory at the Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull and Gall retreated to Canada, but Crazy Horse remained to battle General Nelson Miles as he pursued the Lakota and their allies relentlessly throughout the winter of 1876-77. This constant military harassment and the decline of the buffalo population eventually forced Crazy Horse to surrender on May 6, 1877; except for Gall and Sitting Bull, he was the last important chief to yield.

Even in defeat, Crazy Horse remained an independent spirit, and in September 1877, when he left the reservation without authorization, to take his sick wife to her parents, General George Crook ordered him arrested, fearing that he was plotting a return to battle. Crazy Horse did not resist arrest at first, but when he realized that he was being led to a guardhouse, he began to struggle, and while his arms were held by one of the arresting officers, a soldier ran him through with a bayonet.

Dream Catcher (Lakota) Legend

Long ago when the world was young, an old Lakota spiritual leader was on a high mountain and had a vision.  In his vision, Iktomi, the great trickster and teacher of wisdom, appeared in the form of a spider. Iktomi spoke to him in a sacred language that only the spiritual leaders of the Lakota could understand.  As he spoke Iktomi, the spider, took the elder's willow hoop which had feathers, horse hair, beads and offerings on it and began to spin a web.

He spoke to the elder about the cycles of life ... and how we begin our lives as infants and we move on to childhood, and then to adulthood. Finally, we go to old age where we must be taken care of as infants, completing the cycle.  "But," Iktomi said as he continued to spin his web, "in each time of life there are many forces -- some good and some bad. If you listen to the good forces, they will steer you in the right direction. But if you listen to the bad forces, they will hurt you and steer you in the wrong direction."  He continued, "There are many forces and different directions that can help or interfere with the harmony of nature, and also with the great spirit and-all of his wonderful teachings."  All the while the spider spoke, he continued to weave his web starting from the outside and working toward the center.  When Iktomi finished speaking, he gave the Lakota elder the web and said..."See, the web is a perfect circle but there is a hole in the center of the circle."  He said, "Use the web to help yourself and your people to reach your goals and make good use of your people's ideas, dreams and visions.  "If you believe in the great spirit, the web will catch your good ideas -- and the bad ones will go through the hole."  The Lakota elder passed on his vision to his people and now the Sioux Indians use the dream catcher as the web of their life.

It is hung above their beds or in their home to sift their dreams and visions.  The good in their dreams are captured in the web of life and carried with them...but the evil in their dreams escapes through the hole in the center of the web and are no longer a part of them.  They believe that the dream catcher holds the destiny of their future.