Sioux Indian Tribes
The Sioux Nation is a large and powerful tribe of Indians, who were found by the French, in 1640, near the headwaters of the Mississippi River. They occupied the vast domain extending from the Arkansas River, in the south, to the western tributary of Lake Winnipeg, in the north, and westward to the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.
The Sioux have been classed into four grand divisions – namely, the Winnebagoes, who inhabited the country between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi, among the Algonquians; the Assiniboines, or Sioux proper (the most northerly of the nation) ; the Minnetaree group, in Minnesota; and the Southern Sioux, who dwelt in the country between the Arkansas and Platte rivers, and whose hunting-grounds extended to the Rocky Mountains.
In 1679 Jean Duluth, a French officer, set up the Gallic standard among them near Lake St. Peter, and the next year he rescued from them Father Hennepin, who first explored the upper Mississippi.
The French took formal possession of the country in 1685, when the Sioux were divided into seven eastern and nine western tribes. In wars with the French and other Indians, they were pushed down the Mississippi, and, driving off the inhabitants of the buffalo plains, took possession.
Others remained on the shores of the St. Peter. Some of them wandered into the plains of Missouri, and there joined the Southern Sioux.
Sioux History
In the War of 1812 the Sioux took sides with the British.
In 1822 the population of the two divisions of the tribe was estimated at nearly 13,000. In 1837 they ceded to the United States all their lands east of the Mississippi, and in 1851 they ceded 35,000,000 acres west of the Mississippi for $3,000,000.
The neglect of the government to carry out all the provisions of the treaties for these cessions caused much bitter feeling, and a series of hostilities by some of the Sioux ensued; but after being defeated by General Harney, in 1855, a treaty of peace was concluded.
Many bands fled into what was then Dakota Territory, and the strength of the nation was greatly reduced. The most guilty bands fled into the British dominions, while others, from time to time, attacked settlements and menaced forts. Loosely made treaties were violated on both sides.
By one of these the Black Hills were made part of a reservation, but gold having been discovered there, the United States wished to purchase the tract, and induce the Indians to abandon that region and emigrate to the Indian Territory. They showed great reluctance to retreat, and to this day, hold and defend their claim to the Black Hills, which are sacred to them.
Sitting Bull, Spotted Tail, and Red Cloud visited the national capital in 1875, but President Grant could not induce them to sign a treaty. Commissioners met an immense number of them at the Red Cloud agency, in September, but nothing was done. The sending of surveyors under a military escort to the Black Hills caused the Sioux to prepare for war.
This conflict was called Red Cloud’s War.
The Battle of Little Big Horn
In the spring of 1876 a military force was sent against the Sioux, and in June a severe battle was fought, in which General Custer and all of his immediate command were slain. This battle will live in infamy, popularly referred to as “The Battle of Little Big Horn”, or “Custer’s Last Stand”.
By whatever name it is called, it will be remembered as one of the most significant victories of the Indian Nations. While in the end their cause was lost, they demonstrated their superb bravery and military skill in defeating Custer and humiliating the US Army.
The Battle of Wounded Knee
On Dec. 15 a body of Indian police, acting under orders from General Miles, attempted to arrest Sitting Bull in his camp, about 40 miles northwest of Fort Yates, North Dakota. A skirmish ensued, and in it the noted chieftain, together with his son Crowfoot and six other Indians, was killed.
The remnant of the band made its way to the Bad Lands for a time and eventually decided to surrender. While camped outside the fort waiting for their fate to be determined, they began a Ghost Dance, which alarmed the solders.
On Dec. 28 a battle occurred near Wounded Knee, South Dakota, between a cavalry regiment and the men of Big Foot’s band. Thirty of the whites were killed, while the Indian dead numbered over 200, including many of their women and children.
Over 3,000 Indians then fled from the agency and encamped near White Clay Creek, where, on the next day, another encounter occurred. The result of this engagement was the dispersal of the Indians with heavy loss, and the death of eight soldiers of the 9th Cavalry.
Several other skirmishes occurred during the week which followed, with loss of life on both sides. On Jan. 14, 1891, two councils were held with General Miles, and the chiefs, seeing the hopelessness of their cause, agreed to surrender their arms and return to the agency.
The war was practically ended, and on Jan. 21 the greater part of the troops were withdrawn from the neighborhood of the reservation. On the 29th, a delegation of Sioux chiefs, under charge of Agent Lewis, arrived in Washington for the purpose of conferring with the Secretary of the Interior. The conference began on Feb. 7, and continued four days, at the close of which the Indians were received by President Harrison at the White House.
They were assured that the cutting down of the congressional appropriation was an accident, and that the government desired faithfully to carry out every agreement made. On their return home the chiefs stopped for a short time at Carlisle, Pa., where the children of several of them were attending school.
In 1899 the total number of Sioux was 27,215, divided into nineteen bands, and located principally in South Dakota.
Remember the Dakota 38 Wašíčuŋ Tȟašúŋke or American Horse, the Younger
Assiniboin Tribe
Tribal Origin: Siouan FamilyAlso known as: Asiniibwaan, means ‘Stone Sioux’Native Name: Hohe NakotaHome Territories: Northern Great Plains of America and CanadaLanguage: LakotaAlliances: CreeEnemies: Atsina and Blackfeet
Brule Sioux
Tribal Origin: Siouan FamilyNative Name: Sichanghu, means ‘burnt thighs’Home Territories: The DakotasEnemies: Arikara
Dakota Sioux
Tribal Origin: Siouan FamilyAlso known as: Eastern SiouxNative Name: Dakota, means ‘Allies’ or ‘Friends’Home Territories: Dakotas, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Carolina, Manitoba and southern SaskatchewanLanguage: LakotaAlliances: Sioux Nation
Hunkpapa Sioux
Tribal Origin: Siouan Family (Lakota)Native Name: Hunkpapa, means ‘gatekeepers’Home Territories: North Dakota and South DakotaEnemies: All nearby tribes and Whites
Mdewakanton Sioux
Tribal Origin: Siouan Family (Insanti Dakota)Also known as: GattackaNative Name: Na-ishañ-dina, means ‘our people’Home Territories: NebraskaLanguage: mde wakan
Oglala Sioux
Tribal Origin: Siouan Family (Lakota)Native Name: Oglala, means ‘to scatter one’s own’Home Territories: Nebraska, South Dakota and WyomingLanguage: LakotaAlliances: CheyenneEnemies: All other surrounding tribes
Santee Sioux
Tribal Origin: Siouan family (Dakota)Also known as: Ati, means ‘to pitch tents at’Native Name: Isañyati, means ‘knife’Home Territories: NebraskaLanguage: Dakota
Teton Sioux
Tribal Origin: SiouxAlso known as: LakotaNative Name: Titonwan, means ‘dwellers on the prairie’Home Territories: Nebraska, North Dakota and South DakotaLanguage: Lakota
Modern Day Sioux Tribes:
Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation (F)
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe (F)
Crow Creek Sioux Tribe of the Crow Creek Reservation(South Dakota) (F)
Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe of South Dakota (F)
Fort Belknap Indian Community of the Fort Belknap Reservation of Montana (F)
Lower Brule Sioux Tribe of the Lower Brule Reservation (F)
Lower Sioux Indian Community in the State of Minnesota (F)
Oglala Sioux Tribe (F)
Prairie Island Indian Community in the State of Minnesota (F)
Rosebud Sioux Tribe of the Rosebud Reservation (F)
Santee Sioux Nation (F)
Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community of Minnesota (F)
Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Lake Traverse Reservation, South Dakota (F)
Spirit Lake Tribe (F)
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North & South Dakota (F)
Upper Sioux Community (F)
Yankton Sioux Tribe (F)
Origin stories tell of life beginning for the Lakota in a cave that is located in what is now Wind Cave National Park on the southern edge of the Black Hills of South Dakota.
The people emerged from the cave to join their relatives the Pte or buffalo, which were to assist the people by sustaining life and providing shelter, clothing and tools.
The Oceti Sakowin, or Great Sioux Nation pressed on in its fight against the Keystone Pipeline this week. In a press release dated April 29, 2015, (see below), the Lower Brule Lakota Sioux Tribe of South Dakota invoked a “Bad Man” clause from the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 where the U.S. Government agreed to “proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States.” The accused “offender” in this case: foreign tar sands pipeline company TransCanada.
Invoking the “Bad Man” clause of the treaty means roughly 40% of South Dakota is off limits to TransCanada. This would directly affect the proposed Keystone XL pipeline route and the access to transmission lines.
The people of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation are no strangers to hardship or to the risk of lives being cut short. But a string of seven suicides by adolescents in recent months has shaken this impoverished community and sent school and tribal leaders on an urgent mission to stop the deaths.
On Dec. 12, a 14-year-old boy hanged himself at his home on the reservation, a sprawling expanse of badlands on the South Dakota-Nebraska border. On Christmas Day, a 15-year-old girl was found dead, followed weeks later by a high school cheerleader. Two more young people took their lives in February and two more in March, along with several more attempts.
The drum is not just a musical instrument. To the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota people, it holds great cultural and symbolic power. They believe the drum has a life of its own, as well as its own powerful spirit. The drum is the heartbeat of the Indian Nation. It carries the heartbeat of Mother Earth and calls the spirits and nations together.
 Custer’s Last Stand Poster |
Representatives from many Native nations of the Plains will come together today for the 138th anniversary of the Battle of Little Big Horn, where a re-dedication ceremony of the newly completed Indian Memorial will take place.
The horizon line is the circle of life. Mother Earth and Father Sky meet at the horizon line. The hoops used in the Lakota hoop dance represent, among other things, the horizon line, the circle of life.
On Wednesday, residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation are expected to gather at Wounded Knee to protest a planned federal park arrangement that they say will strip them of their deeded land.
The Great Sioux Nation is actually made up of 18 separate tribes, or bands in the US, and 12 in Canada. These are divided into three divisions: the Lakota Sioux, Dakota Sioux, and the Nakota Sioux.
Origin stories tell of life beginning for the Lakota in a cave that is located in what is now Wind Cave National Park on the southern edge of the Black Hills of South Dakota.
The people emerged from the cave to join their relatives the Pte or buffalo, which were to assist the people by sustaining life and providing shelter, clothing and tools.
My people, Hude´shabina (the Red Bottom people), were one of forty bands of Assiniboines who roamed the northern Great Plains from York Factory on Hudson’s Bay, Lake Nipigon, and Lake Superior in the East to the Rocky Mountains of Alberta and Montana in the West.
A person must meet one of the following requirements to be enrolled in the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of Fort Peck:
American Horse, who succeeded to the name and position of an uncle who was killed in the battle of Slim Buttes in 1876, was one of the wittiest and shrewdest of the Oglalla Sioux peace chiefs.
Wašíčuŋ Tȟašúŋke or American Horse (1840 – December 16, 1908) was a chieftain of the Oglala Sioux during the Sioux Wars of the 1870s. He was also the nephew of the elder American Horse and son-in-law of Red Cloud. A more literal translation of his Lakota name (Wašíčuŋ Tȟašúŋke) is He-Has-A-White-Man’s-Horse.
When Columbus landed in 1492, the Indigenous Red Nations and Peoples he met were gracious and friendly, as they had always been. Unfortunately, Columbus murdered many of those “Indians” and took many back to Europe as slaves. This historical fact is discarded by US schools and instead the “Hitler-Columbus” is celebrated as some type of “hero” while Indigenous existence, human rights, and nationhood is ignored.
Today there are 18 First Nations in Canada and 17 Tribes in the United States who are the descendants of the Ocheti Sakowin. The Ocheti Sakowin speak three main dialects, Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota, that in time have evolved into a number of sub dialects.
MORTON, Minn. – Gripping a cane tightly, Ernest Wabasha slowly reached to touch a pair of heavy iron shackles hanging from his mantel – the same shackles his great-grandfather, the legendary Chief Wabasha, wore during a forced march across the southwestern Minnesota plains a century ago.
A portrait of Chief Wabasha hung nearby, surrounded by the strong faces of the Wabasha line before and after. The most recent are photos of Ernest and his son, Wabasha No. 6 and No. 7.
KEYWORDS: Chief Wabasha Lower Sioux Indian Community Minnesota Indians american indians Dakota Sioux Mdewakanton Dakota Bluestone Goodthunders Mdewakanton Dakota ancestors Indian Wars Jackpot Junction Indian Casino lower sioux casino Mankato hangings Cans’a yapi meaning of lower sioux traditional name Buffalo Horse Camp Minnesota Indian reservation lost tribal traditions Indian culture AUTHOR: Renee Ruble MORTON, Minn. […]
PINE RIDGE, S.D. – There is only the light of a quarter-moon and a canopy of shooting stars when Lakota voices in Stronghold camp say, “They are coming.”
In the distance, fourteen Lakota horseback riders, some riding bareback, are approaching on the same route that survivors of the massacre of Wounded Knee followed 112 years ago.
Poverty, starvation, and general suffering led to unrest that in 1862 culminated in the U.S.-Dakota Conflict, which launched a series of Indian wars on the northern plains that did not end until the battle of Wounded Knee in 1890, and resulted in the mass hanging of the Dakota 38..