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Oglala Lakota

Chief Bone Necklace (1899)
Total population
42,357 enrolled tribal members (2008)[1]
Regions with significant populations
United States ( South Dakota)
Languages
Lakota, English[2]
Religion
traditional tribal religion, Sun Dance,[3] Native American Church, Christianity[4]
Related ethnic groups
other Lakota peoples, Dakota, Nakota[5]

The Oglala Lakota or Oglala Sioux (pronounced [oɡəˈlala], meaning "to scatter one's own" in Lakota language^[5]) are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people; along with the Nakota and Dakota, they make up the Great Sioux Nation. A majority of the Oglala live on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the eighth-largest Native American reservation in the United States. The Oglala are a federally recognized tribe whose official title is the Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Reservation.

History[link]

The Oglala Lakota, along with the six other groups of Lakota, had separated from each other by the early 19th century. By 1830, the Oglala had around 3,000 members. In the 1820s and 1830s, the Oglala, along with the Brulé, another Lakota band, and three other Sioux bands, formed the Sioux Alliance. This Alliance attacked surrounding tribes for territorial and hunting reasons.

Surrounded By the Enemy performed during a European tour of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show in London. He died in 1887 from a lung infection at age 22 in Salford. His corpse was taken to Hope Hospital. It is now understood Surrounded By the Enemy was buried in a traditional Sioux ceremony conducted by fellow warriors Black Elk and Red Shirt. Paul Eagle Star was buried next to Surrounded by the Enemy at Brompton Cemetery in 1891. Eagle Star's corpse was repatriated to the Rosebud Reservation for reburial in 1999.

Gender roles[link]

Typically, in the Oglala Lakota society, the men are in charge of the politics of the tribe. The men were usually the chiefs for political affairs, war leaders and warriors, and hunters. Women are and always have been highly regarded and respected in the tribe. The Lakota are matrilineal and children belong to the mother's clan. Chiefs were selected based on the mother's clan. Women controlled the food, resources and movable property. When a man married, he went to live with his wife with her people. They could support her in childbearing and rearing and, if the couple separated, she would not be away from her people. This also helped control the men's behavior toward women. The women elders of the clan were highly respected and had to approve the selection of chiefs of the clans. If they withdrew their support, a man could not continue as chief. Both genders were equal in decisions and power.

Traditional culture[link]

Family is of utmost importance to the Oglala Lakota, with loyalty to the tribe coming in close second. Each family had one or more tipi households. The women were critical to the family's life: they made almost everything the family and tribe used. They cultivated and processed a variety of crops; prepared the food; prepared game and fish caught by the men; worked skins to make clothing and footwear, as well as storage bags, the covering of tipis, and other items.

Beyond the family was the clan. Inheritance of clan chief positions and the composition of the clans was matrilineal: only the males born to the clan could be life chiefs of it. Within the clan, relatives whom Europeans and Americans would call cousins were considered, and identified by titles, equivalent to brothers and sisters. Because of the importance of the clan, a boy's maternal uncle, rather than his father, would often be the most influential male figure in his life. The uncle would integrate the boy into the clan's male society.

Bands[link]

Kevin Pourier is an Oglala Lakota jeweler and sculptor whose medium is buffalo horn.^[6]

The Wake Singers, band of Oglala Lakota musicians

Each of the twenty tribes were subdivided into bands (tiyospaye), which consisted of a number of smaller family camps (tiwahe). During parts of the year, the small camps were scattered across the region; at other times, these camps gathered together as a thiyóšpaye to cooperate on activities such as a large buffalo hunt. Each summer, usually in early June, bands from many groups gathered together for the annual sacred Sun Dance.

Writing in 1875, Dr. John J. Saville, the US Indian agent at the Red Cloud Agency, noted that the Oglala tribe was divided into three main bands: the Kiyuksa, the Oyuhpe and the head band or True Oglala. "Each of these bands are subdivided into smaller parties, variously named, usually designated by the name of their chief or leader."^[7]

In the years immediately following the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, these bands became increasingly polarized as they and their leaders struggled with decisions relating to the continued American encroachment on their territory. Some bands chose to come in to the Indian agencies (forerunner to the reservations), where they received beef and other rations from the U.S. government. Other bands decided to remain out, attempting to continue the traditional lifeways for as long as possible. Many bands moved between these two extremes, coming in to the agencies during the winter and joining their relatives in the north each spring. These challenges further split the various Oglala bands.

Just prior to confinement on the reservations, the Oglala bands included:

Oyúȟpe Thiyóšpaye

• True Oyúȟpe (Big Road's band). Other members include: Black Elk
• Wakȟáŋ
• Makȟáiču (Red Dog's band)

Oglála Thiyóšpaye

• True Oglála
• Čhaŋkȟahuȟaŋ (He Dog's band). Other members include: Short Bull; Amos Bad Heart Bull.
• Hokayuta (Black Twin's band)
• Húŋkpathila (Little Hawk and Crazy Horse's band)
• Itéšiča (Red Cloud's band)
• Payabya (Young Man Afraid of His Horses's band)
• Waglúȟe (Blue Horse, American Horse and Three Bear's bands)

Khiyáksa Thiyóšpaye

• True Khiyáksa
• Kuinyan (Little Wound's band)
• Tȟaphíšleča (Yellow Bear's band)

On the reservation[link]

After being moved several times during the 1870s after the Great Sioux Reservation was broken up into five portions, the Red Cloud Agency was relocated in 1878 and renamed the Pine Ridge Reservation. By 1890, the reservation included 5,537 people, divided into a number of districts that include some 30 distinct communities.

The Rosebud Indian Reservation, to the east in South Dakota, also has residents who are enrolled Oglala Lakota members, but its population is composed primarily of Sicangu Oyate, or Brulé Sioux.

Oglala flag[link]

Oglala flag in use since 1961

First used in 1961, this flag was approved by the Oglala Sioux Triba OST Council on March 9, 1962 as the official flag of the Oglala Sioux Tribe (OST).

The circle of eight teepees on the flag represent the nine districts of the reservation: Porcupine, Wakpamni, Medicine Root, Pass Creek, Eagle Nest, White Clay, LaCreek, Wounded Knee, and Pine Ridge. The red field represents the blood shed by the tribe in defense of their lands and an allegorical reference to the term "red man," by which they were referred to by European Americans. The blue represents the sky, as seen in all four cardinal directions during the worship of the Great Spirit, and the elements. It also represents the Lakota spiritual concept of heaven or “the happy hunting ground" to which departed tribal members go.^[8]

Notable Oglala[link]

Leaders

American Horse Crazy Horse Red Cloud Little Wound Young Man Afraid Of His Horses American Horse (Wasechun-tashunka) Crow Dog (Kangisanka) Old Chief Smoke (Šóta) Surrounded By the Enemy (1865-1887) Cecilia Fire Thunder Theresa Two Bulls

Ola Mildred Rexroat, a pilot in the Women's Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) during World War II. Warriors-military Ed McGaa Ola Mildred Rexroat Pat Cuny

Amos Bad Heart Bull Artists Amos Bad Heart Bull

See also[link]

• Sičháŋǧu, Brulé (Burned Thighs)
• Itázipčho, Sans Arc (No Bows)
• Húŋkpapȟa
• Mnikȟówožu, Miniconjou
• Sihásapa, Blackfoot Sioux
• Oóhenuŋpa, Two Kettles

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Oglala Sioux Tribe: A Profile
• Pritzker, Barry M. A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture, and Peoples. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-19-513877-1.

Further reading[link]

• Ruling Pine Ridge: Oglala Lakota Politics from the IRA to Wounded Knee Texas Tech University Press
• Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux University of Nebraska Press

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Oglala Lakota

• Oglala Lakota College
• Oglala Lakota art, National Museum of the American Indian

Lakota

Lakota portraits
Total population
55,000 Lakota on reservations(mid-1990s),[1] 103,255 Sioux on self-identified 1990 census[1]
Regions with significant populations
United States ( North Dakota and  South Dakota)
Languages
Lakota, English
Religion
traditional tribal religion, Sun Dance, Native American Church, Christianity
Related ethnic groups
other members of Oceti Sakohowin (Santee, Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, Yankton, Yanktonai)[2]

The Lakota (pronounced [laˈkˣota]; also known as Teton, Titunwan ("prairie dwellers"),^[1] Teton Sioux ("snake, or enemy") are an indigenous people of the Great Plains. They are part of a confederation of seven related Sioux tribes,the Oceti Šakowiŋ or seven council fires, and speak Lakota, one of the three major dialects of the Sioux language.

The Lakota are the western-most of the three Sioux-language groups, occupying lands in both North and South Dakota. The seven bands or "sub-tribes" of the Lakota are:

• Sicaŋǧu (Brulé, Burned Thighs)^[1]
• Oglala ("They Scatter their Own)^[1]
• Itazipco (Sans Arc, Without Bows)^[1]
• Huŋkpapa ("End Village,"^[1] Camps at the End of the Camp Circle)
• Miniconjou ("Plant beside the Stream,"^[1] Planters by the Water)
• Sihasapa ("Black Feet")^[1]
• Oóhenuŋpa (Two Kettles)^[1]

Notable persons include Tataŋka Iyotake (Sitting Bull) from the Hunkpapa band; and Tašuŋke Witko (Crazy Horse) from the Oglala band, Maȟpiya Luta (Red Cloud), Heȟaka Sapa (Black Elk), Siŋte Gleška (Spotted Tail), Billy Mills and Touch the Clouds from the Oglala band.

History[link]

Siouan language speakers may have originated in the lower Mississippi River region and then migrated to or originated in the Ohio Valley. They were agriculturalists and may have been part of the Mound Builder civilization during the 9th–12th centuries CE.^[1] In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, Dakota-Lakota-Nakota speakers lived in the upper Mississippi Region in present day Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas. Conflicts with Anishnaabe and Cree peoples pushed the Lakota west onto the Great Plains in the mid- to late-17th century.^[1]

Early Lakota history is recorded in their Winter counts (Lakota: waniyetu wowapi), pictorial calendars painted on hides or later recorded on paper. The Battiste Good winter count records Lakota history back to 900 CE, when White Buffalo Calf Woman gave the Lakota people the White Buffalo Calf Pipe.^[3]

Around 1730, Cheyenne people introduced the Lakota to horses,^[4] called šuŋkawakaŋ ("dog [of] power/mystery/wonder"). After their adoption of horse culture, Lakota society centered on the buffalo hunt on horseback. The total population of the Sioux (Lakota, Santee, Yankton, and Yanktonai) was estimated at 28,000 by French explorers in 1660. The Lakota population was first estimated at 8,500 in 1805, growing steadily and reaching 16,110 in 1881. The Lakota were, thus, one of the few Indian tribes to increase in population in the 19th century.^[5] The number of Lakota has now increased to about 70,000, of whom about 20,500 still speak the Lakota language.^[6]

Scenes of battle and horse raiding decorate a muslin Lakota tipi from the late 19th or early 20th century.

After 1720, the Lakota branch of the Seven Council Fires split into two major sects, the Saône who moved to the Lake Traverse area on the South Dakota–North Dakota–Minnesota border, and the Oglala-Sicangu who occupied the James River valley. By about 1750, however, the Saône had moved to the east bank of the Missouri River, followed 10 years later by the Oglala and Brulé (Sicangu).

The large and powerful Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa villages had long prevented the Lakota from crossing the Missouri. However, the great smallpox epidemic of 1772–1780 destroyed three-quarters of these tribes. The Lakota crossed the river into the drier, short-grass prairies of the High Plains. These newcomers were the Saône, well-mounted and increasingly confident, who spread out quickly. In 1765, a Saône exploring and raiding party led by Chief Standing Bear discovered the Black Hills (the Paha Sapa), then the territory of the Cheyenne. Ten years later, the Oglala and Brulé also crossed the river. In 1776, the Lakota defeated the Cheyenne, who had earlier taken the region from the Kiowa.^{[citation needed]} The Cheyenne then moved west to the Powder River country,^[4] and the Lakota made the Black Hills their home.

Initial United States contact with the Lakota during the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804–1806 was marked by a standoff. Lakota bands refused to allow the explorers to continue upstream, and the expedition prepared for battle, which never came.^[7] Nearly half a century later, after the United States Army had built Fort Laramie without permission on Lakota land, the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 was negotiated to protect travelers on the Oregon Trail. The Cheyenne and Lakota had previously attacked emigrant parties in a competition for resources, and also because some settlers had encroached on their lands.^[8] The Fort Laramie Treaty acknowledged Lakota sovereignty over the Great Plains in exchange for free passage on the Oregon Trail for "as long as the river flows and the eagle flies".

The United States government did not enforce the treaty restriction against unauthorized settlement. Lakota and other bands attacked settlers and even emigrant trains, causing public pressure on the US Army to punish the hostiles. On September 3, 1855, 700 soldiers under American General William S. Harney avenged the Grattan Massacre by attacking a Lakota village in Nebraska, killing about 100 men, women, and children. A series of short "wars" followed, and in 1862–1864, as refugees from the "Dakota War of 1862" in Minnesota fled west to their allies in Montana and Dakota Territory. Increasing illegal settlement after the American Civil War caused war once again.

The Black Hills were considered sacred by the Lakota, and they objected to mining. In 1868, the United States signed the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, exempting the Black Hills from all white settlement forever. Four years later gold was discovered there, and prospectors descended on the area.

The attacks on settlers and miners were met by military force conducted by army commanders such as Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. General Philip Sheridan encouraged his troops to hunt and kill the buffalo as a means of "destroying the Indians' commissary."^[9]

The allied Lakota and Arapaho bands and the unified Northern Cheyenne were involved in much of the warfare after 1860. They fought a successful delaying action against General George Crook's army at the Battle of the Rosebud, preventing Crook from locating and attacking their camp, and a week later defeated the U.S. 7th Cavalry in 1876 at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, which the Lakota call the Greasy Grass Fight. Custer attacked a camp of several tribes, much larger than he realized. Their combined forces killed 258 soldiers, wiping out the entire Custer battalion, and inflicting more than 50% casualties on the regiment.

Their victory over the U.S. Army would not last, however. The US Congress authorized funds to expand the army by 2500 men. The reinforced US Army defeated the Lakota bands in a series of battles, finally ending the Great Sioux War in 1877. The Lakota were eventually confined onto reservations, prevented from hunting buffalo and forced to accept government food distribution.

January 17, 1891: Young Man Afraid of his Horses at Camp of Oglala tribe of Lakota at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, 3 weeks after Wounded Knee Massacre, when 150 scattered as 153 Lakota Sioux and 25 U.S. soldiers died.

Lakota storyteller: painting.

Oglala Sioux tribal flag

In 1877 some of the Lakota bands signed a treaty ceding the Black Hills to the United States. Low-intensity conflicts continued. Fourteen years later, Sitting Bull was killed at Standing Rock reservation on December 15, 1890. The US Army attacked Spotted Elk (aka Bigfoot), Mnicoujou band of Lakota at the Wounded Knee Massacre on December 29, 1890 at Pine Ridge.

Today, the Lakota are found mostly in the five reservations of western South Dakota: Rosebud Indian Reservation (home of the Upper Sičangu or Brulé), Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (home of the Oglala), Lower Brule Indian Reservation (home of the Lower Sicangu), Cheyenne River Indian Reservation (home of several other of the seven Lakota bands, including the Mnikoju, Itazipco, Sihasapa and Oohenumpa), and Standing Rock Indian Reservation (home of the Hunkpapa), also home to people from many bands. Lakota also live on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in northeastern Montana, the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation of northwestern North Dakota, and several small reserves in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Their ancestors fled to "Grandmother's [i.e. Queen Victoria's] Land" (Canada) during the Minnesota or Black Hills War.

Large numbers of Lakota live in Rapid City and other towns in the Black Hills, and in metro Denver. Lakota elders joined the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) to seek protection and recognition for their cultural and land rights. It is a little known fact that some of the American Sign Language came from the Lakota Sioux^{[citation needed]}.

Government[link]

United States of America[link]

Legally^[10] and by treaty a semi-autonomous "nation" within the United States, the Lakota Sioux are represented locally by officials elected to councils for the several reservations and communities in the Dakotas, Minnesota, Nebraska. They are represented on the state and national level by the elected officials from the political districts of their respective states and Congressional Districts.^[11] Band or reservation members living both on and off the individual reservations are eligible to vote in periodic elections for that reservation. Each reservation has a unique local government style and election cycle based on its own constitution^[12][13] or articles of incorporation. Most follow a multi-member tribal council model with a chairman or president elected directly by the voters.

• The current President of the Oglala Sioux, the majority tribe of the Lakota located primarily on the Pine Ridge reservation, is Theresa Two Bulls.
• The President of the Sicangu Lakota at the Rosebud reservation is Rodney M. Bordeaux.
• The Chairman of the Standing Rock reservation, which includes peoples from several Lakota subgroups including the Hunkpapa, is Charles W. Murphy.
• The Chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe at the Cheyenne River reservation, comprising the Mniconjou, Izipaco, Siha Sapa, and Ooinunpa bands of the Lakota, is Kevin Keckler.
• The Chairman of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, which is home to the Lower Sicangu Lakota, is Michael Jandreau.

Tribal governments have significant leeway, as semi-autonomous political entities, in deviating from state law (e.g. Indian gaming.) They are ultimately subject to supervisory oversight by the United States Congress^[10] and executive regulation through the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The nature and legitimacy of those relationships continue to be a matter of dispute.^[14]

Canada[link]

There are nine bands of Dakota and Lakota in Manitoba and southern Saskatchewan, with a total of 6,000 registered members. They are recognized as First Nations but are not considered "treaty Indians". As First Nations they receive rights and entitlements through the Indian and Northern Affairs Canada department. However as they are not recognized as treaty Indians, they did not participate in the land settlement and natural resource revenues.^[15] The Dakota rejected a $60 million land rights settlement in 2008.^[16]

Ethnonyms[link]

The name Lakota comes from the Lakota autonym, Lakota "feeling affection, friendly, united, allied". The early French historic documents did not distinguish a separate Teton division, instead grouping them with other "Sioux of the West", Santee and Yankton bands.

The names Teton and Tetuwan come from the Lakota name títuŋwaŋ, the meaning of which is obscure. This term was used to refer to the Lakota by non-Lakota Sioux groups. Other derivations include: ti tanka, Tintonyanyan, Titon, Tintonha, Thintohas, Tinthenha, Tinton, Thuntotas, Tintones, Tintoner, Tintinhos, Ten-ton-ha, Thinthonha, Tinthonha, Tentouha, Tintonwans, Tindaw, Tinthow, Atintons, Anthontans, Atentons, Atintans, Atrutons, Titoba, Tetongues, Teton Sioux, Teeton, Ti toan, Teetwawn, Teetwans, Ti-t’-wawn, Ti-twans, Tit’wan, Tetans, Tieton, and Teetonwan.

Early French sources call the Lakota Sioux with an additional modifier, such as Scioux of the West, West Schious, Sioux des prairies, Sioux occidentaux, Sioux of the Meadows, Nadooessis of the Plains, Prairie Indians, Sioux of the Plain, Maskoutens-Nadouessians, Mascouteins Nadouessi, and Sioux nomades.

Lakota Beaded Saddle Belt, made ca. 1850

Today many of the tribes continue to officially call themselves Sioux. In the 19th and 20th centuries, this was the name which the US government applied to all Dakota/Lakota people. However, some of the tribes have formally or informally adopted traditional names: the Rosebud Sioux Tribe is also known as the Sicangu Oyate (Brulé Nation), and the Oglala often use the name Oglala Lakota Oyate, rather than the English "Oglala Sioux Tribe" or OST. (The alternate English spelling of Ogallala is deprecated, even though it is closer to the correct pronunciation.) The Lakota have names for their own subdivisions. The Lakota also are Western of the three Sioux groups, occupying lands in both North and South Dakota.

Notable Lakota[link]

• Arthur Amiotte, Oglala artist, educator, curator, and author
• Black Elk (Heȟáka Sápa)
• Tomahawk Funk (Tyrone Pacheco), rapper
• Mary Brave Bird, Brulé author
• Nathan Chasing His Horse, actor, medicine man
• Chris Chavis (Tȟatȟáŋka), WWE wrestler
• Crazy Horse (Tȟašúŋke Witkó)
• Lame Deer (Tȟáȟča Hušté), medicine man
• Kevin Locke (Tȟokéya Inážiŋ), Hunkpapa hoop dancer and flute player
• Billy Mills, Oglala Olympic Gold Medalist
• Rain-in-the-Face (Ité Omáǧažu), Hunkpapa war chief who fought in the Battle of Little Bighorn
• Red Cloud (Maȟpíya Lúta)
• Red Shirt (Ógle Lúta)
• Sitting Bull (Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake), Hunkpapa chief
• Surrounded By the Enemy (1865-1887), Oglala warrior
• Michael Spears, Lower Brulé actor
• Eddie Spears, Lower Brulé actor
• Paul Eagle Star (1866-1891), Brulé activist
• Moses Stranger Horse, Brulé artist
• Touch the Clouds (Maȟpíya Ičaȟtagye)
• John Two-Hawks, musician
• Black Hawk, Sans Arc artist, medicine man
• Karina Lombard (actress) Legends of the Fall
• Chief Long Wolf (1833–1892), Oglala activist, and warrior
• Chief Gall(Phizí) (c. 1840-1894)

Reservations[link]

Akta Lakota Museum in Chamberlain, South Dakota.

Today, one half of all enrolled Sioux live off the Reservation.

Lakota reservations recognized by the U.S. government include:

• Oglala (Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota and Nebraska)
• Sicangu (Rosebud Indian Reservation, South Dakota)
• Hunkpapa (Standing Rock Reservation North Dakota and South Dakota)
• Mniconjou (Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, South Dakota)
• Izipaco (Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, South Dakota)
• Siha Sapa (Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, South Dakota)
• Ooinunpa (Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, South Dakota)

Some Lakota also live on other Sioux reservations in eastern South Dakota, Minnesota, and Nebraska:

• Santee Indian Reservation, in Nebraska
• Crow Creek Indian Reservation in Central South Dakota
• Yankton Indian Reservation in Central South Dakota
• Flandreau Indian Reservation in Eastern South Dakota
• Lake Traverse Indian Reservation in Northeastern South Dakota and Southeastern North Dakota
• Lower Sioux Indian Reservation in Minnesota
• Upper Sioux Indian Reservation in Minnesota
• Shakopee-Mdewakanton Indian Reservation in Minnesota
• Prairie Island Indian Reservation in Minnesota

In addition several Lakota live on Wood Mountain Indian Reserve often Wood Mountain First Nation northwest of Wood Mountain Post now a Saskatchewan historic site.

See also[link]

Lakota people test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

Wikinews has related news: Lakota Indian tribe declares secession from US

• Lakota language
• Lakota mythology
• Native American tribes in Nebraska

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Christafferson, Dennis M. (2001). Sioux, 1930–2000. In R. J. DeMallie (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 2, pp. 821–839). W. C. Sturtevant (Gen. Ed.). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-050400-7.
• DeMallie, Raymond J. (2001a). Sioux until 1850. In R. J. DeMallie (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 2, pp. 718–760). W. C. Sturtevant (Gen. Ed.). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-050400-7.
• DeMallie, Raymond J. (2001b). Teton. In R. J. DeMallie (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 2, pp. 794–820). W. C. Sturtevant (Gen. Ed.). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-050400-7.
• Matson, William and Frethem, Mark (2006). Producers. "The Authorized Biography of Crazy Horse and His Family Part One: Creation, Spirituality, and the Family Tree". The Crazy Horse family tells their oral history and with explanations of Lakota spirituality and culture on DVD. (Publisher is Reelcontact.com)
• Parks, Douglas R.; & Rankin, Robert L. (2001). The Siouan languages. In R. J. DeMallie (Ed.), Handbook of North American Indians: Plains (Vol. 13, Part 1, pp. 94–114). W. C. Sturtevant (Gen. Ed.). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution. ISBN 0-16-050400-5.
• Pritzker, Barry M. A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture, and Peoples. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0-19-513877-1.
• Ullrich, Jan. New Lakota Dictionary. (Lakota Language Consortium). ISBN 0-9761082-9-1. (The most comprehensive dictionary of the language, the only dictionary reliable in terms of spelling and defining words). Available at http://www.lakhota.org/html/DictionaryPrint.html

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Lakota

• NAHA – The Official Charity Helping The People Of The Lakota Sioux Tribes & Reservations on South Dakota
• The Official Lakota Language Forum
• Dakota Blues: The History of The Great Sioux Nation^{[dead link]}
• Lakota Language Consortium
• Lakota Freedom Delegation to Withdraw from Treaties in DC 2007/12/14
• The Lakota Sioux Indians Declare Independence, Ibrahim Sediyani
• The Teton Sioux (Edward S. Curtis)
• Lakota Winter Counts a Smithsonian exhibit of the annual icon chosen to represent the major event of the past year
• Official Website-Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe

This article is an orphan, as few or no other articles link to it. Please introduce links to this page from related articles; suggestions may be available. (March 2010)

Many Horses was a holy man of the Oglala Lakota tribe. He was a friend of Sitting Bull and a believer in the Ghost Dance. In the spring of 1890, he organized a Ghost Dance ritual at Standing Rock Reservation to drive away the white soldiers camped nearby, but was distressed to see that they were still there at dawn the next day. He then said to the assembled people:

"I will follow the white man's trail. I will make him my friend, but I will not bend my back to his burdens. I will be cunning as a coyote. I will ask him to help me understand his ways, then I will prepare the way for my children, and their children. The Great Spirit has shown me - a day will come when they will outrun the white man in his own shoes."

Many Horses should not be confused with the daughter of Sitting Bull, who has the same name.

Sources[link]

• Armstrong, Virginia Irving. (1971). I Have Spoken. Sage Books, The Swallow Press Inc.

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Red Cloud (Lakota: Maȟpíya Lúta), (1822 – December 10, 1909) was a war leader and a chief of the Oglala Lakota (Sioux). He led as a chief from 1868 to 1909. One of the most capable Native American opponents the United States Army faced, he led a successful campaign in 1866–1868 known as Red Cloud's War over control of the Powder River Country in northeastern Wyoming and southern Montana.

After signing the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), he led his people in the important transition to reservation life. Some of his US opponents mistakenly thought of him as overall chief of the Sioux. The large tribe had several major divisions and was highly decentralized. Bands among the Oglala and other divisions operated independently, even though some individual leaders such as Red Cloud were renowned as warriors and highly respected as leaders.

Early life[link]

Red Cloud was born close to the forks of the Platte River, near the modern-day city of North Platte, Nebraska. His mother, Walks As She Thinks, was an Oglala Lakota and his father, Lone Man, was a Brulé Lakota chief. These were two of the major seven Lakota divisions.

As was traditional among the matrilineal Lakota, in which the children belonged to the mother's clan and people, Red Cloud was mentored as a boy by his maternal uncle, Old Chief Smoke (1774–1864). Old Chief Smoke played a prominent, major role in the boy's early-mid life and brought him in to the Smoke household when his parents died around 1825. At a young age, Red Cloud fought against neighboring Pawnee and Crow, gaining much war experience.

Red Cloud's War[link]

Red Cloud's War was the name the US Army gave to a series of conflicts fought with American Indian Plains tribes in the Wyoming and Montana territories. The battles were waged between the Northern Cheyenne, allied with Lakota and Arapaho bands, against the United States Army between 1866 and 1868. In December 1866, the Native American allies attacked and defeated a United States unit in what the whites would call the Fetterman Massacre (or the Battle of the Hundred Slain); it was the event on the Plains to that point with the highest US fatalities.^[1]

Red Cloud

Captain William J. Fetterman was sent from Fort Phil Kearny with two civilians and 79 cavalry and infantrymen to chase away a small Indian war party that had attacked a wood party days before. Captain Frederick Brown accompanied Fetterman; the two were confident in their troops and anxious to go to battle with the Indians. They disobeyed orders to stay behind the Lodge Trail Ridge and pursued a small decoy band of warriors, led by an Indian on an apparently injured horse. The decoy was the prominent warrior Crazy Horse. Fetterman and his troops followed the decoy into an ambush by more than 2,000 Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. Combined Indian forces suffered only 14 casualties, while they killed the entire 81-man US detachment.

Following this battle, a US peace commission toured the Plains in 1867 to gather information to help bring about peace among the tribes and with the US. Finding that the American Indians had been provoked by white encroachment and competition for resources, the commission recommended assigning definite territories to the Plains tribes. The Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho bands, and others settled for peace with the US under the Treaty of Fort Laramie. The US agreed to abandon its forts and withdraw completely from Lakota territory.

Treaty of 1868[link]

The treaty established the Great Sioux Reservation, covering the territory of West River, west of the Missouri River in present-day Nebraska (which had been admitted as a state in 1867), and including parts of South Dakota. Uneasy relations between the expanding United States and the natives continued. In 1870, Red Cloud visited Washington D.C., and met with Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ely S. Parker (a Seneca and U.S. Army General) and President Ulysses S. Grant.

In 1871, the government established the Red Cloud Agency on the Platte River, downstream from Fort Laramie. As outlined in the Treaty of 1868, the agency staff were responsible for issuing weekly rations to the Oglala, as well as providing the annually distributed supply of cash and annuity goods. The agent and Washington officials would determine how much of the annuity was to be paid in cash or goods, and sometimes the supplies were late, in poor condition, inadequate in amount, or never arrived at all. Red Cloud took his band to the agency (a predecessor of the Indian reservation) and tried to help them in the transition to a different way of life. In the fall of 1873, the agency was removed to the upper White River in northwestern Nebraska.

Great Sioux War of 1876–1877[link]

Red Cloud settled at the agency with his band by the fall of 1873. He soon became embroiled in a controversy with the new Indian agent, Dr. John J. Saville.

In 1874, General George Armstrong Custer led a reconnaissance mission into Sioux territory that reported gold in the Black Hills, an area held sacred by the local Indians. Formerly, the Army tried to keep miners out but did not succeed; the threat of violence grew. In May 1875, Sioux delegations headed by Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, and Lone Horn traveled to Washington, D.C. in an attempt to persuade President Grant to honor existing treaties and stem the flow of miners into their lands. The Indians met on various occasions with Grant, Secretary of the Interior Delano, and Commissioner of Indian Affairs Smith. He told them on May 27 that Congress was ready to resolve the matter by paying the tribes $25,000 for their land and resettling them into Indian Territory. The delegates refused to sign such a treaty, with Spotted Tail saying about the proposal:

“When I was here before, the President gave me my country, and I put my stake down in a good place, and there I want to stay.... You speak of another country, but it is not my country; it does not concern me, and I want nothing to do with it. I was not born there.... If it is such a good country, you ought to send the white men now in our country there and let us alone.”^[2]

Red Cloud, close-up in his war bonnet

Seated, L to R: Yellow Bear, Jack Red Cloud, Big Road, Little Wound, Black Crow; Standing, L to R: Red Bear, Young Man Afraid of his Horse, Good Voice, Ring Thunder, Iron Crow, White Tail, Young Spotted Tail, ca. 1860-1880

Although Red Cloud was unsuccessful in finding a peaceful solution, he did not take part in the Lakota war of 1876-1877, which was led by Tȟašúŋke Witkó (Crazy Horse) and Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (Sitting Bull).

In the fall of 1877, the Red Cloud Agency was removed to the upper Missouri River. The following year it was removed to the forks of the White River, in present-day South Dakota, where it was renamed the Pine Ridge Reservation.

His last days[link]

Red Cloud became an important leader of the Lakota as they transitioned from the freedom of the plains to the confinement of the reservation system. His trip to Washington, DC had convinced him of the number and power of European Americans, and he believed the Oglala had to seek peace.

Red Cloud continued fighting for his people, even after being forced onto the reservation. In 1887 Red Cloud opposed the Dawes Act, which broke up communal tribal holdings, and allocated 160-acre plots of land to heads of families on tribal rolls for subsistence farming. The US declared additional communal tribal lands as excess, and sold it to emigrant settlers. In 1889 Red Cloud opposed a treaty to sell more of the Sioux land. Due to his steadfastness and that of Sitting Bull, government agents obtained the necessary signatures for approval through subterfuge, such as using the signatures of children. He negotiated strongly with Indian Agents such as Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy.

He outlived all the other major Sioux leaders of the Indian Wars. He died in 1909 at the age of 87 on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where he was buried.

Legacy and honors[link]

Announcements of the death and recognition of Red Cloud's achievements was printed in major newspapers across the country. As had been typical of the US perception during Red Cloud's prominence in war, the article in The New York Times mistakenly described him as leader of all the Sioux bands and tribes, but noted his abilities as a leader and diplomat. While he was a prominent leader, the Lakota were highly decentralized and never had one overall leader, especially of the major divisions, such as Oglala and Brulé.^[3][4][5]

Red Cloud was among the Indians photographed by Edward S. Curtis. In 2000, he was posthumously selected for induction into the Nebraska Hall of Fame. He has been honored by the United States Postal Service with a 10¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.

Note: Red Cloud descendants have continued to be chosen as traditional chiefs of the Lakota Sioux:

• Jack Red Cloud, 1909–1928 (included as a younger man in photo to the right)
• James Red Cloud, 1928–1960
• Charles Red Cloud (his brother), 1960–1979, and
• Oliver Red Cloud, 1979–present.

Oliver Red Cloud (90 years old), is the fourth-generation direct descendant of Chief Red Cloud. Oliver is a chief of the Oglala Lakota Sioux people and Speaker of the traditional Lakota Sioux Nation. He is the Chairman of the "Black Hills Sioux Nation Treaty Council".

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Red Cloud

• "Red Cloud", New Perspectives on The West, PBS, 2001
• "Red Cloud". Chief of the Oglala Lakota. Find a Grave. Oct 25, 2002. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6878358. Retrieved Aug 18, 2011. 
• Red Cloud - bronze sculpture
• "Chief Red Cloud's Great-Great Grandson on Native American Issues", video interview by Democracy Now!