01Summary
Powerful equestrian buffalo hunters who controlled the high plains north and west of Fort Laramie. The 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie tried to formalise safe passage in exchange for annuities, and both sides soon accused the other of breaking it. The trail's pressure on the buffalo herds was a major driver of the conflict that followed.
02History
The Lakota are the western division of the Sioux people, alongside the Eastern Dakota (Santee) and Western Dakota, and together the three divisions form the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, the Seven Council Fires. By the 1820s the Lakota had completed a century-long migration from the Great Lakes onto the high plains and become one of the dominant powers of the buffalo country, organised into seven sub-bands of their own: Oglála, Sičáŋǧu (Brulé), Húŋkpapȟa, Mnikȟówožu, Itázipčho (Sans Arc), Sihásapa, and Oóhenuŋpa.
Through the 1840s most Lakota and emigrant contact was peaceful trade at Fort Laramie. Emigrants bought moccasins, robes, and dried meat, and Lakota traders took sugar, coffee, and brass kettles in return. The trail itself, though, was a slow disaster. Wagons cropped the grass, killed the buffalo for sport, and brought cholera. The 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie tried to fix territorial boundaries and grant the U.S. safe passage in exchange for $50,000 a year in annuities. The terms eroded almost at once.
The 1854 Grattan affair near Fort Laramie, when a 24-year-old U.S. Army lieutenant ordered his small detachment to fire on a Lakota camp over a slaughtered cow, set off the first U.S.-Lakota war. Red Cloud's War (1866-68), the war for the Black Hills (1876-77), and Wounded Knee (1890) followed across the next four decades.
03Notable leaders
- Red Cloud (Maȟpíya Lúta)Oglála war leader, c. 1822-1909, who forced the U.S. to abandon the Bozeman Trail forts in 1868.
- Sitting Bull (Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake)Húŋkpapȟa holy man and chief, c. 1831-1890, who united the Lakota in resistance through the Black Hills War.
- Crazy Horse (Tȟašúŋke Witkó)Oglála war chief, c. 1840-1877, who led one of the main attacks that destroyed Custer's column at the Little Bighorn.
04Today
Modern Lakota communities are concentrated on five reservations in South Dakota and one each in North Dakota, Nebraska, and Montana. The Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Cheyenne River, Standing Rock, and Lower Brulé reservations together cover about 8 million acres.