What Are the Two Treaties Made With the Lakota That the United States Continues to Violate

Fort Laramie Treaty: Case Study

Did parties to the Fort Laramie Treaty honor their treaty obligations?

After the Horse Creek Treaty of 1851, Native Nations suffered numerous violent acts from individual settlers as well as the United States military, including attacks that became known as the Harney Massacre and the Sand Creek Massacre. Gold discovery in Montana intensified these violent confrontations, particularly following the opening of the Bozeman Trail, which represented an incursion into Native lands in the northern Great Plains. Native Nations resisted this growing invasion. Still reeling from the drain on military resources caused by the Civil War, the United States was unable to mount an effective offensive against this fierce Native resistance and was pressed to engage in treaty negotiations.

Conflict Leading to the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty

Explore this timeline to examine selected events that occurred after the 1851 Horse Creek Treaty and led to the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868.

EXPLORE

1851

Horse Creek Treaty

February 1851: Congress authorizes $100,000 to hold a great council with Plains Nations.

1854

Grattan Fight or "Mormon Cow Incident"

A Mormon emigrant's cow wanders into a Lakota camp and is killed for food. The military, led by Second Lieutenant John Lawrence Grattan, demands the person who killed it be turned over. Tribal leaders offer reparation, but they are refused. Lakota (Sioux) successfully defend themselves, killing twenty-nine U.S. soldiers.

 Hover over image to zoom

1855 (Sep 3)

Harney Massacre

Brigadier General William S. Harney leads a massacre against non-combatant Brule Lakota (Sioux) as revenge for the "Mormon Cow Incident."

 Hover over image to zoom

1856

Platte Bridge Incident

After a false accusation of horse stealing is made against a party of Cheyennes, one Cheyenne is shot and killed, another captured, and a third wounded. The horses in question actually belong to Two Tails, who was later to become the famed Chief Little Wolf.

 Hover over image to zoom

1857

Bear Butte Summit

Gathering of Oceti Sakowin (Sioux) Nations over invasion into their territory. The Seven Council Fires outline policy against U.S. encroachment into the Black Hills.

"Near here in 1857 a great council of the Indians determined to hold the Black Hills inviolate from the white man and for two decades this policy dictated their defensive actions."

 Hover over image to zoom

Bear Butte (Mato Paha) Indian Camp, photograph by J. Stephen Conn, September 26, 2009

1861

U.S. Civil War

The United States government is preoccupied with the war and ignores its treaty agreements with Native Nations.

 Hover over image to zoom

Interior View of Fort Sumter, April 14, 1861. NAID 532292. Photographs of Federal and Other Buildings in the United States, 1857–1942, Record Group 121, Records of the Public Building Service, 1801–2000, National Archives at College Park – Still Pictures (RDSS), College Park, MD.

1861 (Mar 2)

Dakota Territory Created by President James Buchanan

Dakota Territory is created by President James Buchanan. This act opens the way for the U.S. government to build forts in Indian territory.

 Hover over image to zoom

Dakota Territory, Department of the Interior, U.S. General Land Office, Oct. 2, 1866. Courtesy of David Rumsey Historical Map Collection

1862

Dakota War, Little Crow War

Dakota (Sioux) in Minnesota face confinement and starvation that ultimately leads to resistance and conflict, imprisonment in two concentration camps at Fort Snelling and Mankato, and the hanging of thirty-eight Dakota men on the day after Christmas.

 Hover over image to zoom

1862

Gold Strike

Major gold discovery in what would become Montana Territory.

 Hover over image to zoom

Sutro Tunnel Entrance, Comstock Mines vicinity, 1933. Photograph by W. Bailey, Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress.

1862

Pacific Railway Act

Pacific Railway Act passed to secure railroad passage through Indian lands.

Secretary of the Interior wrote in 1869:

"The railroad had changed everything. Settlement no longer slowly, gradually advanced. Now "the very center [of Indian country] has been pierced."

Report of the Secretary of the Interior, 1869, in House Executive Document no. 1, part 3, 41st Congress, 2^nd session, serial 1414.

1864

Sand Creek Massacre

Colonel Chivington and seven hundred Colorado Volunteers attack a camp of Southern Cheyennes and a small number of Arapahos; two-thirds of the camp were women and children. One hundred thirty-seven people, mostly Southern Cheyennes, were brutally massacred.

 Hover over image to zoom

1865

Powder River Expedition

The Powder River Expedition, a military operation of the United States government, was intended to crush the "hostile" Northern Plains tribes—in particular, the Cheyenne, Sioux, and Arapaho Nations.

 Hover over image to zoom

1865

Civil War Ends

Military turns its attention and resources to the West.

 Hover over image to zoom

Grant, Lt. Gen. Ulysses, S.; three-quarter-length standing. NAID 558720. Photograph by Mathew Brady. Personalities from the Civil War Era, 1860–1869, National Archives at College Park- Still Pictures (RDSS), College Park, MD. Lee, Gen. Robert E.; full-length, standing, April 1865. NAID 525769. Photograph by Mathew Brady. Record Group 111, National Archives at College Park-Still Pictures (RDSS), College Park, MD.

1866

Red Cloud's War

Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Northern Arapaho engage in conflict with U.S. military over invasion and expansion into Native territories.

 Hover over image to zoom

1868 (March)

Bozeman Trail Closed

President Grant orders the forts on the Bozeman trail to be closed and abandoned in response to pressure from the Sioux Nation and other Northern Plains tribes.

 Hover over image to zoom

Robertson, Brown, Campsey, McMee, compilers, Atlas of the Sioux Wars, Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

1868 (April)

1868 Fort Laramie Treaty

In the spring of 1868 a conference is held at Fort Laramie, in present day Wyoming, which results in a treaty with the Sioux. This treaty is intended to bring peace between the whites and the Sioux who agree to settle within the Black Hills reservation in the Dakota Territory.

 Hover over image to zoom

Cheyenne and Arapaho leaders meeting with members of the U.S. Indian Peace Commission, 1868. Fort Laramie, Wyoming Territory. Photograph by Alexander Gardner. National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution NAA INV 00514500

Listen

Fort Laramie Treaty:

Articles of a treaty made and concluded by and between Lieutenant General William T. Sherman, General William S. Harney, General Alfred H. Terry, General O.O. Augur, J.B. Henderson, Nathaniel G. Taylor, John G. Sanborn, and Samuel F. Tappan, duly appointed commissioners on the part of the United States, and the different bands of the Sioux Nation of Indians, by their chiefs and headmen, whose names are hereto subscribed, they being duly authorized to act in the premises.

These are the agreements made in a treaty between the United States and the Sioux Nation of Indians. It was made by commissioners who are the officially appointed representatives of the United States—Lieutenant General William T. Sherman, General William S. Harney, General Alfred H. Terry, General O.O. Augur, J.B. Henderson, Nathaniel G. Taylor, John G. Sanborn, and Samuel F. Tappan—and the chiefs and headmen of the different bands of the Sioux Nation of Indians who signed their names to it as the Sioux's authorized representatives for this purpose.

View Original Version View Paraphrased Version

Listen

Fort Laramie Treaty:

From this day forward all war between the parties to this agreement shall forever cease. The government of the United States desires peace, and its honor is hereby pledged to keep it.

From now on, there will be no more war between the nations that sign this agreement. The United States government wants peace and pledges its honor to keep peace.

View Original Version View Paraphrased Version

EXPLORE

Print

Article I: Red Cloud's Speech

"In 1868 men came out and brought papers. We could not read them and they did not tell us truly what was in them. We thought the treaty was to remove the forts, and that we should then cease from fighting. But they wanted to send us traders on the Missouri. We did not want to go on the Missouri but wanted traders where we were. When I reached out to Washington the Great Father explained to me what the treaty was, and showed me that the interpreters had deceived me. All I want is right and justice."

—Red Cloud, in a speech at a reception in his honor at the Cooper Union "The Great Chief: Red Cloud Meets His White Brethren at Cooper Institute," New York Times, June 17, 1870

Red Cloud, Oglala Lakota, explains to his audience the consequences of different understandings of the language contained in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. Language barriers often led to misunderstandings and even deceit in treaty negotiations.

Article I: Discussion Question

1. What do you think Red Cloud hoped to gain by traveling to New York and making this speech?

Listen

Fort Laramie Treaty:

The United States agrees that the following district of country . . . commencing on the east bank of the Missouri . . . shall be, and the same is, set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians herein named.

The United States agrees that the following section of land . . . beginning on the east bank of the Missouri River . . . shall be and is set apart for the sole and undisturbed use and occupation by the Indians named in this treaty.

View Original Version View Paraphrased Version

EXPLORE

 Hover over image to zoom

Custer's Black Hills Expedition in Castle Creek Valley, 1874. Photograph by William H. Illingworth, courtesy of the National Anthropological Archives

Print

Article II: Custer's Expedition

In early July 1874, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, in violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, led a thousand-man expedition into the Black Hills. He was under U.S. government orders to find a good location for a military post. Miners accompanied Custer's military forces. By mid-July Custer reported the presence of gold and within a year, more than a thousand miners had streamed into the Black Hills—territory that belonged to the Lakota (Sioux).

Article II: Lakota Chiefs Protest

In May 1875 a delegation of Lakota chiefs came to the White House to protest the government's failure to honor certain treaty obligations, including supplying adequate rations to the Lakota Nation. During meetings with Lakota chiefs, President Grant brought up the issue of miners overrunning the Black Hills. Grant claimed he could not stop the miners and that the Lakotas must either give up the Black Hills or lose their rations.

Print/Text

Article II: Talks Between Nations

"The discussions at Washington, D.C., in May and June had been unsuccessful, but officials still hoped to effect an arrangement whereby, in return for cash payment and other considerations, the Sioux  wouldcede the Black Hills or at least consent to the presence of American citizens on their land."

Wayne R. Kline, ed., The Black Hills Journals of Colonel Richard Irving Dodge (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press), 10

Colonel Richard Irving Dodge was one of several officers sent to the Black Hills post to expel unauthorized people in the area.

 Hover over image to zoom

"Richard Irving Dodge," frontispiece from Richard Irving Dodge, Our Wild Indians (Hartford, CT: A. D. Worthington and Co., 1884)

Print/Image

Article II: Talks Fail

Eventually talks between the Lakota chiefs and President Grant failed and Native leaders returned to their reservation. Meanwhile, more miners poured into the Black Hills.

 Hover over image to zoom

Red Cloud, 1880, photograph by Charles Milton Bell, taken while Red Cloud was on a delegation, courtesy of South Dakota State Historical Society

Print/Image

Print/Text

Article II: Grand Council Convenes

"Grant gave negotiation one more try. He appointed a commission to hold a grand council on the Great Sioux Reservation and buy mining rights to the Black Hills . . . The grand council convened that September but quickly foundered. Crazy Horse refused to come. So did Sitting Bull; when the commission sent a messenger to talk to him, he [Sitting Bull] picked up a pinch of dirt and said,

"I do not want to sell or lease any land to the government—not even as much as this."

Peter Cozzens, "President Grant's Uncivil War," Smithsonian Magazine, November 2016

Peter Cozzens's article traces President Grant's efforts to take the Black Hills from the Sioux Nation.

Article II: War Plan

"By October 1875, Grant was plotting a new course to break the impasse . . . on November 3, he convened like-minded generals and officials to formulate a war plan and write the necessary public script."

Peter Cozzens, "President Grant's Uncivil War," Smithsonian Magazine, November 2016

Article II: Discussion Questions

1. Why do you think that miners accompanied the military during Custer's expedition of the Black Hills?
2. Was the government or the citizenry driving the incursion into the Black Hills?
3. Could the government have prevented the incursion into the Black Hills?
4. Why do you think President Grant was determined to take the Black Hills, even at the risk of provoking war?
5. Was there any justification for Grant's actions given the pledges made in Article I of the Fort Laramie Treaty?

Listen

Fort Laramie Treaty:

No treaty for the cession of any portion or part of the reservation herein described which may be held in common, shall be of any validity or force as against the said Indians unless executed and signed by at least three-fourths of all the adult male Indians occupying or interested in the same . . .

No treaty giving away any part of the commonly held reservation described in this document shall be legal or enforceable against the Sioux Indians unless it is agreed to and signed by at least three-fourths of all the adult male Indians who live on or have an interest in that portion of the reservation land . . .

View Original Version View Paraphrased Version

EXPLORE

Article XII: Treaty Violation

In 1877, the U.S. Congress changed the terms of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty: the Black Hills would no longer be for the Lakota Nation's "absolute and undisturbed use and occupation." The Lakota Nation regarded this act as a violation of the Fort Laramie Treaty. The Lakota Nation argued that because only ten percent of the adult males agreed to the terms of the 1877 Act, the taking of the Black Hills was illegal according to the terms of the original 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty.

The issue of treaty abrogation was first brought to the courts in the early twentieth century. However, it was not until 1980 that the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case. The Supreme Court held that the 1877 Act constituted a taking of property under the Fifth Amendment.

Article XII: U.S. v. Sioux Nation

Print/Original "Under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the United States pledged that the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, would be 'set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation' of the Sioux Nation (Sioux), and that no treaty for the cession of any part of the reservation would be valid as against the Sioux unless executed and signed by at least three-fourths of the adult male Sioux population. The treaty also reserved the Sioux right to hunt in certain unceded territories. Subsequently, in 1876, an 'agreement' presented to the Sioux by a special commission but signed by only ten percent of the adult male Sioux population, provided that the Sioux would relinquish their rights to the Black Hills and to hunt in the unceded territories, in exchange for subsistence rations for as long as they would be needed. In 1877, Congress passed an act (1877 Act) implementing this 'agreement' and thus, in effect, abrogated the Fort Laramie Treaty."

Print/Paraphrased "Under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the United States pledged that the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, would be 'set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation' of the Sioux Nation (Sioux), and that no treaty giving up any part of the reservation would be valid unless agreed to and signed by at least three-fourths of the adult male Sioux population. The treaty also guaranteed to the Sioux the right to hunt in certain territories outside the reservation. Yet later, in 1876, an 'agreement' presented to the Sioux by a special commission—but signed by only ten percent of the adult male Sioux population—stated that the Sioux would give up their rights to the Black Hills and to hunt in the off-reservation territories, in exchange for the minimum amount of food necessary to survive for as long as it would be needed. In 1877, Congress passed an act (1877 Act) that carried out this 'agreement' and, in effect, broke the Fort Laramie Treaty."

View Original Version View Paraphrased Version

United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371 (1980) No. 79-639. Argued: March 24, 1980 Decided: June 30, 1980

The court found that the 1877 Act was indeed a taking of tribal property. Taking implied an obligation on the U.S. government's part to make "just compensation" to the Sioux.

Article XII: Today

In U.S. v. Sioux Nation, the court held that the Sioux were entitled to an award of interest on the principal sum of $17.1 million (the fair market value of the Black Hills as of 1877), dating from 1877. The Sioux Nation has refused to accept the money, choosing instead to seek the return of the land itself.

Article XII: Discussion Questions

1. Explain if you agree or disagree that a monetary award was "just compensation."
2. Was the taking of the Black Hills inevitable? Why or why not?
3. Did the United States suffer any consequences for not honoring its treaty obligations?

Lands of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty Nations

Explore the maps and notice how Native Nations' lands have changed over time. Consider what these changes tell you about whether or not nations honored their treaty obligations.

EXPLORE

Print

Prior to 1868

Click and drag to move map. Use the buttons to zoom.

Print

Following the Treaty

Click and drag to move map. Use the buttons to zoom.

Print

Lands Today

Click and drag to move map. Use the buttons to zoom.

charbonneauanscialtat.blogspot.com

Source: https://americanindian.si.edu/nk360/plains-treaties-fort-laramie

Share this post