Fort Laramie and the Treaty Years, 1842 to 1871::

A New Era in Sioux-US Relations: 1852 to 1856

The signing of the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty inaugurated a new era in the relations between Euroamericans and Oglala Sioux. Because, once a year, the Teton Sioux camped near Fort Laramie to await the Indian agent and the annuity goods, there was often trouble from both Sioux and the soldiers stationed there. Harassment moved in all directions: from the Sioux, from the emigrants and from the soldiers. Many people of all groups began to get wounded or killed.

All this unrest made the government (and the traders) nervous, and they appointed Thomas Twiss as a new Indian Agent, and General W. S. Harney to command troops into Fort Laramie. Twiss ordered all the 'friendly' Teton to camp near the fort, and all 'hostile' Sioux to remain north. Harney's troops moved north in pursuit of the northern, so-called 'hostile' Sioux and many Sioux were killed during this campaign.

The western Sioux sent a pipe around among themselves, summoning all the Teton to council. The great council met, in the summer of 1857, near Bear Butte on the northern edge of the Black Hills. The Sioux were well aware of the intensification of white settlement along the Missouri in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Dakota, and of the harassment the border tribes were receiving in resisting to sell or leave their lands. The gathered bands of the western or Lakota Sioux decided that they would resist anymore encroachment on their land.

The Homestead Act of 1862 encouraged increasing numbers of white settlers to move upon the Plains. That same year, during the Civil War, the 'Sioux Uprising' took place in Minnesota, where Santee Dakota Sioux raided many settler camps in retaliation against the Americans taking their lands. US Troops stormed up the Missouri forcing the Santee to flee northward, or westward across the Missouri to join the Teton.

In the north, the Bozeman Trail into Montana brought many settlers into the region. In the south, the Sioux who were hunting along the Platte River began to feel the presence of heavy travel along the Overland and the Santa Fe roads. Moreover, increasing numbers of non-Indians were hunting buffalo for trade and sport and the herds were diminishing at an astonishing rate.

Diminishment of the buffalo meant that Indian nations had to increasingly rely on government rations. Discovery of gold in Colorado increased the rush of Americans across the plains and added to the southern Sioux's problems. In 1864, the troops wiped out two or three Cheyenne villages on the south Platte, stirring up the anger of both Cheyenne and Sioux. The Sioux were ordered to keep out of the Platte Valley and they agreed, for the sake of peace.

In 1864, over a hundred Cheyenne and Arapaho families, mainly women, were killed at Sand Creek in Colorado by US troops. The Sand Creek Massacre incensed Indians all across the Plains. In the winter of 1864, Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho gathered to plan a revenge attack on US troops in the southern Platte, which they carried out successfully early in 1865. They planned and executed another great raid along the Platte, moving north, attacking troops, settlers, and emigrant travellers. Some 1000 lodges moved up through the plains of western Nebraska, towards the Black Hills.

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