Sioux Agreement

The treaty as a whole and in relation to the 1851 agreement represented an abandonment of earlier considerations of tribal customs and instead showed “the government`s heavier attitude towards tribal nations and… the desire to equate the Sioux with ownership agreements and social customs. [60] For 192 days until November 6, the contract was signed by 156 Sioux and 25 Arapaho, as well as the commissioners and 34 other signatories. [55] Although the commissioners signed the document on April 29 with the Brulé, the party dissolved in May, only two remained at Fort Laramie to complete the talks before going up the Missouri River to collect more signatures from tribes elsewhere. [44]:44 No further changes were made to the conditions during this process. As one writer put it, “The commissioners basically cycled Sioux in and out of Fort Laramie… Seek only the formality of the leaders` distinctive signs and move towards a true concordance in the spirit that the Indians understood. [33]:2537-8 Article 1 called for a cessation of hostilities and said: “Any war between the parties to this agreement will cease forever. When crimes were committed by “bad men” among white settlers, the government agreed to arrest and punish the culprits and to reimburse all losses suffered by the victims. The tribes agreed to hand over the criminals, all the “bad men among the Indians,” to the government for trial and punishment, and to repay all losses suffered by the victims. [31] If a Sioux has committed “false or impure misconduct by the person or property of an Indian, a white, a black or an Indian,” the United States could pay damages against the tribes. [7]:998 These terms effectively abandoned the authority of the tribes to punish crimes committed against them by white settlers. In 1868, the United States entered into a contract with a collective of Indian groups, historically known as Sioux (Dakota, Lakota and Nakota) and Arapaho. The contract founded the Great Sioux Reservation, a large part of the country west of the Missouri River.

He also called the Black Hills “indecensed Indian territory” for the exclusive use of natives. But when gold was found in the Black Hills, the United States rejected the agreement, redefined the boundaries of the treaty and limited the Sioux people – traditionally nomadic hunters – to an agricultural lifestyle on the reserve. It was a blatant repeal, which has since been at the centre of the legal debate. Under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the United States committed that the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills, would be “excluded for the absolute and quiet use and occupation” of the Sioux Nation (Sioux) and that no contract to transfer part of the reserve would be valid against the Sioux if they were not executed and signed by at least three quarters of the male population of the Sioux.