The Souix Nation Essay Research Paper On

The Souix Nation Essay, Research Paper

On December 29, 1890 at Wounded Knee, South Dakota the soldiers of the U.S. 7th cavalry slaughtered unarmed Sioux men, women and children led by Chief Big Foot. The 146 corpses were gathered up and thrown casually into a mass grave. This massacre marked the end of the Sioux resistance and ultimately the Sioux Nation. The battle that had gone on for ten long years before this between the Great Sioux Nation and the United States came to a sad end, but not unnoticed by the rest of the country. The original Sioux tribes were not plains people at all, they were a forest people who occupied the area near the head of the Mississippi. They survived upon berries, fish and game. In the mid-eighteenth century they moved westward from this area due to a scarcity of game in the area. This was result of French fur traders who had moved in from the southeast. They kept moving westward past the Missouri River into the treeless prairies of the Midwest around 1760. Once there, they began to acquire two key gifts from the white man, firearms and the introduction of the horse. With these two new tools the Sioux were now able to hunt the buffalo which became the single most important animal to the Sioux. Every part of the buffalo was used from the hide, for clothing and teepees, to the droppings that were burned for fuel. The Sioux only hunted for necessity, but with the white settlers coming further and further west, the number of buffalo in the area soon decreased dramatically. With the influx of white settlers heading west, the United States government soon was faced with the problem of where to put the Sioux. They began to make treaties with the Sioux, the first of which took place in 1851. The more treaties the Sioux made, the less land they wound up with. The Sioux were allowed to roam from the Upper Missouri to the Arkansas River as the treaty allowed, but now the Sioux had an actual territory they could call home. The Heart, Missouri, White and North Platte Rivers and the Black Hills enclosed the territory. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 really established the Great Sioux Reservation by defining the borders of the reservation as well as saying that whites would no longer bother the Sioux on the reservation. It also stated that there would no longer be conflict between the United States and the Sioux. Other stipulations of the Fort Laramie Treaty included the United States government would .construct at some place on the Missouri river, near the center of the said reservation.the following buildings: a warehouse, a store room for the use of the agent in storing goods belonging to the Indians.an agency building for the residence of the agent.a residence for the physician.. The agent for the Sioux was to live among them and help them with their problems. The Sioux were forced by the treaty to send their children to the school on the reservation. The treaty basically gave the Sioux land as long as they agreed to the stipulations outlined in the treaty. The treaty tricked the Sioux into moving onto the land by giving them free rations and soon settled themselves at the agencies. Less than a decade after in 1875, the United States government ordered the Sioux to vacate the Powder River hunting grounds due to the discovery of gold in the Black Hills. The United States used the army to force the Sioux to stay on the reservation. This betraying by the white man sparked the Sioux War of 1876-1877. Some Sioux refused to return to the reservation. They were led by the great Sitting Bull. The Sioux soon became surrounded by army regiments on all sides and many Sioux set up camp around the Little Bighorn River in eastern Montana. In June of 1876, General George Armstrong Custer and his regiment were sent to scout out the area. The Seventh Cavalry was completely wiped out in one of the worst military disasters in United States commonly known as Custer.s Last Stand. This was a costly battle and sparked Congress to come up with alternatives on how to deal with the Sioux. Belligerent Sioux. One suggestion was to completely uproot them from South Dakota and move them south to the Indian Territory. Another alternative was to place the Sioux under permanent military control. This suggestion was put forth by General Sheridan who was in charge of a regiment in the Dakota Territory around the time of the Custer. He felt that the Sioux were incurable savages who could not be taught civilized methods. The only way to control the Sioux in his eyes was to keep them on reservations under strict military control. This was granted in 1876 as a war measure. The Sioux who were led by Sitting Bull remained off the reservation and were in constant pursuit by the United States military in the plains of Montana. The army was relentless even in the winter months and the Sioux.s morale was low. Their shelters and food had been lost, taken or burned and by February the Sioux who remained off the reservation felt that the war against the United States could not be won. The famished Sioux on reservations soon offered peace that meant unconditional surrender. In the early spring of 1877 three thousand Sioux on reservations surrendered. A small group led by an Indian named Lame Deer would not surrender. Soon the rebellious Sioux were discovered on the Rosebud River by soldiers and Lame Deer was killed. Their camp was burned and the surviving Sioux fled. After this defeat, Sitting Bull now seriously we