The Sioux
The Sioux had the misfortune of becoming intimately acquainted with the westward thrust of American expansion at a time when American attitudes toward Indians had grown cynical. In the East and Southeast, from early colonial times, there was much disagreement regarding the nature of the relations with the Indian nations. There was also a constant need to have allies among the Indian nations during the period of European colonial rivalry on the North American continent, a need that the newly formed United States felt with great urgency during the first generation of its existence. After the War of 1812, things changed rapidly in the East and Southeast. Indians as allies became much less necessary. It was the discovery of gold in 1828, however, at the far southern end of the Cherokee Nation near the border with Georgia that set off a Southern gold rush and brought an urgency to long-debated questions of what the nature of relations with the Indian nations should be.
Greed for gold would play a pivotal role in the undermining of Sioux national independence. At mid-century streams of men from the East first passed through Sioux lands on their way to the gold fields of California. They brought with them smallpox, measles, and other contagious diseases for which the Sioux had no immunity, and which ravaged their population by an estimated one-half. Later, in the 1870s, the discovery of gold in the heart of Paha Sapa (the Black Hills), the sacred land of the Sioux, brought hordes of miners and the U.S. Army, led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, into the center of their sacred "heart of everything that is" in a blatant violation of the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868.
The Sioux had no way of knowing about the process that had worked itself out in the East and Southeast, whereby, in direct contravention of a U.S. Supreme Court decision (Worchester vs. Georgia ), Indians would no longer be dealt with as sovereign nations. No longer needed as allies, and looked upon as merely being in the way, Indians entered a perilous time of being regarded as dependent domestic minorities. Many Eastern and Southern Indian nations were uprooted and forced to remove themselves beyond the Mississippi River. By the time American expansion reached Texas, attitudes had hardened to a point at which Texans systematically expelled or exterminated nearly all of the Indians within their borders; however, Sam Houston, during his terms as president of the republic of Texas and as governor of the state of Texas, unsuccessfully attempted to accommodate the needs of Indians into Texas governmental policy.
To the Sioux in the second half of the nineteenth century, the U.S. government was duplicitous, greedy, corrupt, and without conscience. The Sioux watched the great buffalo herds be deliberately exterminated by U.S. Army policy; and within a generation they found themselves paupers in their native land, with no alternative but to accept reservation life. They found it impossible to maintain honorable, peaceful relations with the United States. At first, attempts were made to acculturate the Sioux, to assimilate them out of existence as a separate people; then in the mid-twentieth century, the government attempted to legislate them out of existence through an official policy of "termination" of Indian nations. Only within recent decades have there been attempts on the part of the U.S. government to redress past wrongs. In the 1960s, under the occasional prod of court decisions and a national consciousness focused on civil rights legislation for minorities, attempts were made to recognize and respect significant remaining vestiges of Indian sovereignty. Finally, by legislation in 1979 Indians were allowed to openly practice their religions without threat of criminal prosecution. The gains have not come without bloodshed and strife, however, especially in the lands of the Sioux and especially during the mid-1970s—a time of virtual civil war on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Alarmed by the bold actions and the extent of the demands by some groups of Indians, particularly the American Indian Movement (AIM), the U.S. government tried to slow the pace of change by exploiting differences between the more acculturated Indians and the more traditional Indians. Since that time, much healing has occurred; but the question of what the nature of the relations between the Native peoples of this continent and the people of the United States will be remains open.
Greed for gold would play a pivotal role in the undermining of Sioux national independence. At mid-century streams of men from the East first passed through Sioux lands on their way to the gold fields of California. They brought with them smallpox, measles, and other contagious diseases for which the Sioux had no immunity, and which ravaged their population by an estimated one-half. Later, in the 1870s, the discovery of gold in the heart of Paha Sapa (the Black Hills), the sacred land of the Sioux, brought hordes of miners and the U.S. Army, led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, into the center of their sacred "heart of everything that is" in a blatant violation of the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868.
The Sioux had no way of knowing about the process that had worked itself out in the East and Southeast, whereby, in direct contravention of a U.S. Supreme Court decision (Worchester vs. Georgia ), Indians would no longer be dealt with as sovereign nations. No longer needed as allies, and looked upon as merely being in the way, Indians entered a perilous time of being regarded as dependent domestic minorities. Many Eastern and Southern Indian nations were uprooted and forced to remove themselves beyond the Mississippi River. By the time American expansion reached Texas, attitudes had hardened to a point at which Texans systematically expelled or exterminated nearly all of the Indians within their borders; however, Sam Houston, during his terms as president of the republic of Texas and as governor of the state of Texas, unsuccessfully attempted to accommodate the needs of Indians into Texas governmental policy.
To the Sioux in the second half of the nineteenth century, the U.S. government was duplicitous, greedy, corrupt, and without conscience. The Sioux watched the great buffalo herds be deliberately exterminated by U.S. Army policy; and within a generation they found themselves paupers in their native land, with no alternative but to accept reservation life. They found it impossible to maintain honorable, peaceful relations with the United States. At first, attempts were made to acculturate the Sioux, to assimilate them out of existence as a separate people; then in the mid-twentieth century, the government attempted to legislate them out of existence through an official policy of "termination" of Indian nations. Only within recent decades have there been attempts on the part of the U.S. government to redress past wrongs. In the 1960s, under the occasional prod of court decisions and a national consciousness focused on civil rights legislation for minorities, attempts were made to recognize and respect significant remaining vestiges of Indian sovereignty. Finally, by legislation in 1979 Indians were allowed to openly practice their religions without threat of criminal prosecution. The gains have not come without bloodshed and strife, however, especially in the lands of the Sioux and especially during the mid-1970s—a time of virtual civil war on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Alarmed by the bold actions and the extent of the demands by some groups of Indians, particularly the American Indian Movement (AIM), the U.S. government tried to slow the pace of change by exploiting differences between the more acculturated Indians and the more traditional Indians. Since that time, much healing has occurred; but the question of what the nature of the relations between the Native peoples of this continent and the people of the United States will be remains open.
"The Earth Only"
Wica’hcala kin
heya’pelo’
maka’ kin
lece’la
tehan yunke’lo
eha’ pelo’
ehan’kecon
wica’ yaka pelo’
The old men
say
the earth
only
endures
You spoke
truly
You are right.