Great Sioux Reservation
The Great Sioux Reservation was an Indian reservation in what is now the US states of South Dakota and Nebraska . In 1877 it was reduced by 33,000 square kilometers. These areas have been approved by the government for settlement and prospecting. Shortly before the admission of South Dakota as a state to the United States of America , the reservation was divided on March 2, 1889 into the Reserves Standing Rock Indian Reservation , Cheyenne River Reservation , Lower Brule Indian Reservation , Rosebud Indian Reservation and Pine Ridge Reservation . TheCrow Creek Indian Reservation and the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota never belonged to the Great Sioux Reservation, contrary to the opinion of many historians.
history
The reserve was created by the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868 . This treaty laid the area of the entire present-day US state of South Dakota west of the Missouri, including the Black Hills (from the northern border in Nebraska to the 46th parallel and from Missouri in the east to the 104th meridian in the west) as Indian land unrestricted and unmolested use and settlement by the Great Sioux Nation .
The treaty was preceded by the Red Cloud War (1866-1868), a war that meant a complete victory for the Lakota for the time being . That is why the Sioux Indians were in a good negotiating position and were able to “reserve” the large area in what is now South Dakota for themselves. In addition to the reservation area, the Indians were given extensive hunting and fishing rights in today's US states of Wyoming , Montana and Nebraska. Since the area was populated by several Indian tribes, several bases of the Bureau of Indian Affairs were established in the reservation area.
The reservation was divided into several small reservations by the United States Congress on March 2, 1889 . The Indians lost 36,000 square kilometers. With the Dawes Act they lost large areas. The Dawes Act provided individual land ownership for Indian families. Many Indians had no private ownership of land and often sold their land to white settlers or speculators out of ignorance or economic hardship. The undivided areas and parcels that fell to the state after the owners died were sold to white buyers at bargain prices. The reserve land was divided into 160 acres and given to each head of the Indian family for their sole use. All unmarried reserve residents over 18 years of age and minor orphans received 80 acres, children under 18 received 40 acres, wives nothing. The plots, which were often unprofitable, only became the property of the Indians after 25 years. The US government acted as trustee.
As a result of these measures, for example, the Rosebud Indian Reservation, which originally comprised four counties , was reduced to one county. Other areas were lost due to dam projects on the Missouri . In the 1930s, many white settlers left the former reserve area due to the Dust Bowl . Instead of giving these areas back to the Indians, it was reassigned to other federal agencies. The National Park Service took over large areas and converted them to United States National Grassland . Other areas have been awarded to the Bureau of Land Management . Wooded areas went to the United States National Forest . For example, the Black Hills National Forest in the Sacred Mountains of the Sioux and the Badlands National Park came into being .
Some of the most well-known historical events in the context of the American Indian wars and politics took place in the Great Sioux Reservation area. So z. B. the massacre of Wounded Knee and the occupation of Wounded Knee in 1973. The battle of Little Bighorn is also in the context of the reservation. In 1874, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer was commissioned with an expedition to the Black Hills area in violation of the contract. It was gold in French Creek found, resulting in a rush of thousands of prospectors led. Although the sites were located just across the western border of the Great Sioux Indian Reservation, they belonged to a huge area in which the Sioux had been granted exclusive hunting rights "as long as the buffalo populations justify the hunt". The US Army tried to prevent the prospectors from entering the reservation area, but it did not succeed. Individual Sioux troops hunted the invaders. Therefore, the US government started negotiations with the Oglala- Lakota of the reservation. However, the reservation Indians under Red Cloud declined to sell. Certain groups under Sitting Bull , Crazy Horse and Gall had never recognized the contract of 1868 anyway and stayed outside the Sioux reservation in the non-ceded hunting areas.
In December 1875 the government decided to wrest the Black Hills from the Indians by force. She gave the Indians an ultimatum to “return” to the reservation in the middle of winter and thus to clear the Black Hills for the whites. Aside from the fact that many Sioux and Northern Cheyenne did not come from reservations to return to, they would have been unable to meet the ultimatum in the dead of winter. In the Battle of Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, the 7th US Cavalry Regiment under George Armstrong Custer was made up of Indians of the Lakota Sioux, Arapaho and Cheyenne under their leaders Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and Gall on the Little Bighorn River in what is today Montana crushed.
Claims of the Lakota Indians
To this day, the Sioux refuse to provide financial compensation for the lost areas. In 1979 they were awarded $ 101 million in financial compensation for violating the Fort Laramie Treaty and other agreements. The compensation is worth over $ 700 million today. To this day, however, the Sioux refuse to accept the money. They want their ancestral land back, especially the Black Hills (Paha Sapa), which are sacred to them. In 2012, the United Nations Special Rapporteur James Anaya conducted a twelve-day tour of the area of the former reservations. In doing so, he recommended the return of state areas to the hands of the Indians, including the Black Hills area. Its full official report with recommendations was published in mid-2012.
Problems of the Ponca
In 1858 the tribe of the Ponca signed a contract with the US government in which the tribe ceded large areas to the federal government, but reserved areas in northeastern Nebraska for its members. In another treaty in 1865, the tribe swapped these reserved areas for areas south of the Niobarara River and Ponca Creek. One of the reasons for the swap of territory was problems with the Sioux, which led to armed conflict. These 96,000 acres were part of the Great Sioux Reservation. The drafters of the treaty had simply overlooked the 1865 treaty with the Ponca. 96,000 acres of land had now been reserved twice. The Fort Laramie Treaty resulted in the forcible relocation of the Ponca to Oklahoma .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Contract text in English
- ↑ www.nebraskastudies.org ( Memento of the original from March 11, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. The Story of the Ponca Broken Promises in Treaties
