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whencyclopedia · 4 days

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Sioux Warrior Rain-in-the-Face (Eastman's Biography)

Rain-in-the-Face (Ite Omagazu, l. c. 1835-1905) was a Lakota Sioux warrior and war chief during Red Cloud's War (1866-1868) and at the Battle of the Little Bighorn (1876), after which he became famous as the man who killed Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, his brother Capt. Thomas Custer, or both of them.

How Rain-in-the-Face first became identified as Custer's killer is unclear, but the claim was popularized by the poem The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow – the bestselling American poet of his age – published in Keramos and Other Poems (1878). Although modern-day writers cite the poem as claiming Rain-in-the-Face killed Thomas Custer, it seems clear "White Chief with yellow hair" (line 9 of the poem) alludes to George Custer, and it is George's heart, not Thomas's, that Rain-in-the-Face rides off with at the end of the piece.

Rain-in-the-Face is best known today from two accounts of his life and the part he played at the Battle of the Little Bighorn – the 1894 report given by American journalist W. Kent Thomas based on an "interview" given at Coney Island, and the 1905 biography by the Sioux author and physician Charles A. Eastman (also known as Ohiyesa, l. 1858-1939) – which contradict each other.

In the Thomas interview, Rain-in-the-Face claims he killed Thomas Custer, cut out his heart, and spat part of it in his face at Little Bighorn as revenge for being unjustly arrested by Capt. Custer in 1874. In Eastman's account, he denies killing either of the brothers and, further, describes the Battle of Little Bighorn as so chaotic no one could have known who they had killed for certain.

As the W. Kent Thomas interview was given after the journalist got Rain-in-the-Face drunk, for the express purpose of getting the "real story" on Custer's death, while Eastman's account is a respectful transcript of the old warrior's life story, the latter is usually understood as more historically accurate.

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The following is taken from Eastman's Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains (1916), the 1939 edition, republished in 2016. It has been edited in the interests of space, but the full account will be found below in the External Links section.

The noted Sioux warrior, Rain-in-the-Face, whose name once carried terror to every part of the frontier, died at his home on the Standing Rock reserve in North Dakota on September 14, 1905. About two months before his death, I went to see him for the last time, where he lay upon the bed of sickness from which he never rose again, and drew from him his life-history.

It had been my experience that you cannot induce an Indian to tell a story, or even his own name, by asking him directly.

"Friend," I said, "even if a man is on a hot trail, he stops for a smoke! In the good old days, before the charge there was a smoke. At home, by the fireside, when the old men were asked to tell their brave deeds, again the pipe was passed. So come, let us smoke now to the memory of the old days!"

He took of my tobacco and filled his long pipe, and we smoked. Then I told an old mirthful story to get him in the humor of relating his own history.

The old man lay upon an iron bedstead, covered by a red blanket, in a corner of the little log cabin. He was all alone that day; only an old dog lay silent and watchful at his master's feet.

Finally, he looked up and said with a pleasant smile:

"True, friend; it is the old custom to retrace one's trail before leaving it forever! I know that I am at the door of the spirit home.

"I was born near the forks of the Cheyenne River, about seventy years ago…When I was a boy, I loved to fight," he continued. "In all our boyish games I had the name of being hard to handle, and I took much pride in the fact.

"I was about ten years old when we encountered a band of Cheyenne. They were on friendly terms with us, but we boys always indulged in sham fights on such occasions, and this time I got in an honest fight with a Cheyenne boy older than I. I got the best of the boy, but he hit me hard in the face several times, and my face was all spattered with blood and streaked where the paint had been washed away. The Sioux boys whooped and yelled:

"‘His enemy is down, and his face is spattered as if with rain! Rain-in-the-Face! His name shall be Rain-in-the-Face!'

"Afterwards, when I was a young man, we went on a warpath against the Gros Ventres. We stole some of their horses but were overtaken and had to abandon the horses and fight for our lives. I had wished my face to represent the sun when partly covered with darkness, so I painted it half black, half red. We fought all day in the rain, and my face was partly washed and streaked with red and black: so again, I was christened Rain-in-the-Face. We considered it an honorable name.

"I had been on many warpaths, but was not especially successful until about the time the Sioux began to fight with the white man…

"Some , Crow King, and others.

"This was the plan decided upon after many councils. The main war party lay in ambush, and a few of the bravest young men were appointed to attack the woodchoppers who were cutting logs to complete the building of the fort. We were told not to kill these men, but to chase them into the fort and retreat slowly, defying the white men; and if the soldiers should follow, we were to lead them into the ambush. They took our bait exactly as we had hoped! It was a matter of a very few minutes, for every soldier lay dead in a shorter time than it takes to annihilate a small herd of buffalo.

"This attack was hastened because most of the Sioux on the Missouri River and eastward had begun to talk of suing for peace. But even this did not stop the peace movement. The very next year a treaty was signed at Fort Rice, Dakota Territory, by nearly all the Sioux chiefs, in which it was agreed on the part of the Great Father in Washington that all the country north of the Republican River in Nebraska, including the Black Hills and the Big Horn Mountains, was to be always Sioux country, and no white man should intrude upon it without our permission. Even with this agreement Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were not satisfied, and they would not sign…

"It was when the white men found the yellow metal in our country, and came in great numbers, driving away our game, that we took up arms against them for the last time. I must say here that the chiefs who were loudest for war were among the first to submit and accept reservation life. Spotted Tail was a great warrior, yet he was one of the first to yield, because he was promised by the Chief Soldiers that they would make him chief of all the Sioux. Ugh! He would have stayed with Sitting Bull to the last had it not been for his ambition.

"About this time, we young warriors began to watch the trails of the white men into the Black Hills, and when we saw a wagon coming, we would hide at the crossing and kill them all without much trouble. We did this to discourage the whites from coming into our country without our permission…

"There were a few Indians who were liars, and never on the warpath, playing ‘good Indian' with the Indian agents and the war chiefs at the forts. Some of this faithless set betrayed me and told more than I ever did. I was seized and taken to the fort near Bismarck, North Dakota of the Long-Haired War Chief and imprisoned there. These same lying Indians, who were selling their services as scouts to the white man, told me that I was to be shot to death, or else hanged upon a tree. I answered that I was not afraid to die.

"However, there was an old soldier who used to bring my food and stand guard over me—he was a white man, it is true, but he had an Indian heart! He came to me one day and unfastened the iron chain and ball with which they had locked my leg, saying by signs and what little Sioux he could muster:

"‘Go, friend! Take the chain and ball with you. I shall shoot, but the voice of the gun will lie.'

"When he had made me understand, you may guess that I ran my best! I was almost over the bank when he fired his piece at me several times, but I had already gained cover and was safe. I have never told this before, and would not, lest it should do him an injury, but he was an old man then, and I am sure he must be dead long since. That old soldier taught me that some of the white people have hearts," he added, quite seriously.

"I went back to Standing Rock in the night, and I had to hide for several days in the woods, where food was brought to me by my relatives…

"In the spring the hostile Sioux got together again upon the Tongue River. It was one of the greatest camps of the Sioux that I ever saw…We had decided to fight the white soldiers until no warrior should be left."

At this point Rain-in-the-Face took up his tobacco pouch and began again to fill his pipe…

"There was excitement among the people, and a great council was held. Many spoke. I was asked the condition of those Indians who had gone upon the reservation, and I told them truly that they were nothing more than prisoners. It was decided to go out and meet Three Stars at a safe distance from our camp.

"We met him on the Little Rosebud. I believe that if we had waited and allowed him to make the attack, he would have fared no better than Custer. He was too strongly fortified where he was, and I think, too, that he was saved partly by his Indian allies, for the scouts discovered us first and fought us first, thus giving him time to make his preparations. I think he was more wise than brave! After we had left that neighborhood, he might have pushed on and connected with the Long-Haired Chief. That would have saved Custer and perhaps won the day.

"When we crossed from Tongue River to the Little Big Horn, on account of the scarcity of game, we did not anticipate any more trouble. Our runners had discovered that Crook had retraced his trail to Goose Creek, and we did not suppose that the white men would care to follow us farther into the rough country.

"Suddenly the Long-Haired Chief appeared with his men! It was a surprise."

"What part of the camp were you in when the soldiers attacked the lower end?" I asked.

"I had been invited to a feast at one of the young men's lodges . There was a certain warrior who was making preparations to go against the Crows, and I had decided to go also," he said.

"While I was eating my meat, we heard the war cry! We all rushed out and saw a warrior riding at top speed from the lower camp, giving the warning as he came. Then we heard the reports of the soldiers' guns, which sounded differently from the guns fired by our people in battle.

"I ran to my teepee and seized my gun, a bow, and a quiver full of arrows. I already had my stone war club, for you know we usually carry those by way of ornament. Just as I was about to set out to meet Reno, a body of soldiers appeared nearly opposite us, at the edge of a long line of cliffs across the river.

"All of us who were mounted and ready immediately started down the stream toward the ford. There were Ogallala, Miniconjou, Cheyenne, and some Hunkpapa, and those around me seemed to be nearly all very young men.

"‘Behold, there is among us a young woman!' I shouted. ‘Let no young man hide behind her garment!' I knew that would make those young men brave.

"The woman was Tashenamani, or Moving Robe, whose brother had just been killed in the fight with Three Stars. Holding her brother's war staff over her head, and leaning forward upon her charger, she looked as pretty as a bird. Always when there is a woman in the charge, it causes the warriors to vie with one another in displaying their valor," he added.

"The foremost warriors had almost surrounded the white men, and more were continually crossing the stream. The soldiers had dismounted and were firing into the camp from the top of the cliff."

"My friend, was Sitting Bull in this fight?" I inquired.

"I did not see him there, but I learned afterward that he was among those who met Reno, and that was three or four of the white man's miles from Custer's position. Later he joined the attack upon Custer but was not among the foremost.

"When the troops were surrounded on two sides, with the river on the third, the order came to charge! There were many very young men, some of whom had only a war staff or a stone war club in hand, who plunged into the column, knocking the men over and stampeding their horses.

"The soldiers had mounted and started back, but when the onset came, they dismounted again and separated into several divisions, facing different ways. They fired as fast as they could load their guns, while we used chiefly arrows and war clubs. There seemed to be two distinct movements among the Indians. One body moved continually in a circle, while the other rode directly into and through the troops.

"Presently some of the soldiers remounted and fled along the ridge toward Reno's position; but they were followed by our warriors, like hundreds of blackbirds after a hawk. A larger body remained together at the upper end of a little ravine and fought bravely until they were cut to pieces. I had always thought that white men were cowards, but I had a great respect for them after this day.

"It is generally said that a young man with nothing but a war staff in his hand broke through the column and knocked down the leader very early in the fight. We supposed him to be the leader, because he stood up in full view, swinging his big knife .

"After the first rush was over, coups were counted as usual on the bodies of the slain. You know, four coups is entitled to the ‘first feather.'

"There was an Indian here called Appearing Elk, who died a short time ago. He was slightly wounded in the charge. He had some of the weapons of the Long-Haired Chief, and the Indians used to say jokingly after we came upon the reservation that Appearing Elk must have killed the Chief, because he had his sword! However, the scramble for plunder did not begin until all were dead. I do not think he killed Custer, and if he had, the time to claim the honor was immediately after the fight.

"Many lies have been told of me. Some say that I killed the Chief, and others that I cut out the heart of his brother , because he had caused me to be imprisoned. Why, in that fight the excitement was so great that we scarcely recognized our nearest friends! Everything was done like lightning. After the battle, we young men were chasing horses all over the prairie, while the old men and women plundered the bodies; and if any mutilating was done, it was by the old men.

"I have lived peaceably ever since we came upon the reservation. No one can say that Rain-in-the-Face has broken the rules of the Great Father. I fought for my people and my country. When we were conquered, I remained silent, as a warrior should. Rain-in-the-Face was killed when he put down his weapons before the Great Father. His spirit was gone then; only his poor body lived on, but now it is almost ready to lie down for the last time. Ho, hechetu! "

#History #Sioux #RedCloud'sWar #Rain-in-the-Face

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olowan-waphiya · 1 year

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Tribes welcome return of ancestral lands

Tuesday, February 14, 2023 By Kevin Abourezk, Indianz.Com Kimberly Morales Johnson can’t help but imagine the land that today is Los Angeles as her ancestors would have seen it centuries ago. The Tongva people used the canyons of the San Gabriel Mountains as trading routes with the indigenous people of the Mojave desert. Last year, the Tongva reclaimed land in Los Angeles for the first time in almost 200 years after being forced to give up their lands and having their federal status terminated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1950.

Sharon Alexander, a non-Native woman, donated a one-acre property in Altadena, California, to the Tongva after learning about the #LandBack movement during the 2016 Democratic National Convention and discovering that the Tongva were the original inhabitants of Los Angeles.

Johnson, vice president of the Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy, a nonprofit set up by the community to receive the land, said the tribe has big plans for the property. “It needs a lot of work, but we’re all dedicated to it,” she said.

In 2022, thousands of acres of private and public land in America were returned to the care of Native peoples. Many of these lands were returned to their original inhabitants, including the one-acre property in Los Angeles.

A website called the Decolonial Atlas created a “Land Back” map charting the locations of land returns that occurred last year. Other land returns that occurred last year include 40 acres around the Wounded Knee National Historic Landmark, the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre. The Oglala Sioux Tribe and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe bought the land for $500,000.

“It’s a small step towards healing and really making sure that we as a tribe are protecting our critical areas and assets,” Oglala Sioux Tribe President Kevin Killer told The Associated Press.

Although not a land return, the Biden administration last year signed an agreement giving five tribes – the Hopi, Navajo, Ute Mountain Ute, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, and Pueblo of Zuni – greater oversight of the 1.3-million acre Bears Ears National Monument in Utah.

Last year, the Rappahannock Tribe celebrated the return of more than 400 acres along the Rappahannock River that is home to a historic tribal village named Pissacoack and a four-mile stretch of white-colored cliffs.

“Your ancestors cherished these lands for many generations and despite centuries of land disputes and shifting policies, your connections to these cliffs and to this river remain unbroken,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said at an event celebrating the land return. One of the largest land returns last year involved the purchase of more than 28,000 acres by the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa Tribe in Minnesota.

The Conservation Fund, an environmental nonprofit, sold the land to the tribe after purchasing the land from a lumber manufacturer in 2020. Emilee Nelson, Minnesota associate state director of The Conservation Fund, said her organization bought the land from the PotlatchDeltic Corporation after the company decided to divest of much of its Minnesota land holdings. The Conservation Fund bought 72,000 acres from the company, including 28,000 acres that were within the Bois Forte Reservation. The Boise Fort Band lost the land following passage of the Dawes Act of 1887, which led to the allotment of the land to private landowners. “Where this land was located made a lot of sense for the tribe to own it,” Nelson said.

However, he said, tribes don’t always want to purchase land or even accept a land donation, especially if they don’t think they’ll be able to put it into federal trust status. He offered advice to those considering donating their land to a tribe. “If you want to make a donation, sell the land and make a donation,” he said.

As for the one-acre land donation to the Tongva, Kimberly Morales Johnson said the tribe plans to use the land to create a community center where it will be able to host cultural workshops and where Tongva people will be able to gather plants sacred to their people, including the acorns from the oak trees on the property.

“This is about self-determination and sovereignty,” she said. The tribe is also allowing a tribal artist to live on the land and take care of it, she said. The Tongva have also begun working to return Native plants to the property and remove invasive species.

“This whole LandBack movement is rooted in healing, and instead of looking at land as a commodity, we’re looking at it as a way to have a relationship with the land and with each other and bringing back our traditions, our language, our food, our culture,” she said.

#land back #landback #land back movement #news #native news

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triski73 · 23 days

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I 100% agree with this. All of this happened within 45 miles of me and it feels super shady. His sister supposedly died similarly 6 mos ago......it just doesn't feel right. And there are conflicting details about DV and someone cutting his hair.

Rumors here are flying about the girlfriend lying about him assaulting, of her assaulting him, of her recanting her accusations against him. But he's already dead.

It is well known indigenous deaths are not well investigated. Indigenous people go missing all the time and are not made a priority.

Coco deserves justice. His family deserves justice.

#WWIMF #cole brings plenty #haskell indian nations university #social justice #indigenous

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workingclasshistory · 1 year

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On this day, 17 March 1876 US troops attacked sleeping Cheyenne and Oglala Lakota people in Montana in the Battle of Powder River, marking the beginning of the Great Sioux War. They destroyed the village and stole large amounts of the Native Americans' possessions. But despite firing nearly 2,000 bullets, US forces only managed to kill one Native American. On the other hand the Cheyenne and Lakota warriors, led by Éše'he Ôhnéšesêstse (Two Moons, pictured) with only around 200 bullets killed four and seriously wounded six soldiers. They also recaptured 500 of their horses the next morning. The US commanding officer, colonel Joseph Reynolds, was court-martialed following the failed assault and suspended from duty. The incident likely galvanised resistance to the enforced relocation of Native Americans from the Black Hills to a reservation. Learn more about Indigenous resistance in the Americas in this book: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/books/products/500-years-of-indigenous-resistance-gord-hill https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.1819457841572691/2232508416934296/?type=3

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3rdeyeblaque · 4 months

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On Dec 10th, we venerate Elevated Ancestor & Saint Maȟpíya Lúta aka Chief Red Cloud on the 113th anniversary of his passing 🕊 [for our Hoodoos of First Nations descent]

Red Cloud, Chief of the Oglala Sioux, was a political leader, a negotiator of peace, & fierce warrior who fought tirelessly to save his people from colonizer expansion into the midwest.

Maȟpíya Lúta was born near the forks of the Platte River, in what was at the time known as the Nebraska Territory; to his Ogala Lakota mother & Brulé Lakota leader father.

He showed great courage, strength, & leadership in battles against the Oglala's traditional competitors once he came of age; the Pawnees, Crows, Shoshones, & Utes. This ultimately earned him Chiefdom. He also successfully killed the usurper rival to his uncle's political leadership. This divided the Oglala for years to come.

Once European invaders discovered gold in Montana in the 1860s, they began dessimating habitats, sacred lands, & territories to build a road from Fort Laramie in present-day Wyoming to the gold fields. They constructed a series of forts to protect the road from interference, which became known as the Bozeman Trail. In 1865, Chief Red Cloud led the Ogala & their Cheyenne allies into a 2-year war against the colonizers along the Bozeman Trail. They were successful. The soldiers, miners, & others were forced to abandon their operation.

Being the peaceful negotiator that he was, at the end of the war, Chief Red Cloud signed the Second Treaty of Fort Laramie, which bound the U.S. to the promise that it would abandon the Bozeman Trail & return - what is now the western half of South Dakota, along with large parts of Wyoming, & Montana - to Lakota Sioux possession. In return, Red Cloud agreed to end his assault & relocate to a reservation in Nebraska known as the Red Cloud Agency.

In his older age, the great warrior became a diplomat of peace. In 1870s, Chief Red Cloud, along with several other First Nations leaders, traveled to D.C. to meet with U.S. President Grant. He later met with Grant again in 1875, when Grant has the caucasity to offer $25K to the Lakota if they would give up their rights to hunt along the Platte River in the Dakota Territory. Red Cloud, and other leaders, vehemently refused.

While Red Cloud pursued the path of peaceful negotiation & passive tactics, many other Indian leaders (including his own son) wanted to fight for their territory & ways of life. Red Cloud & President Grant sought to avoid war, but it was inevitable. After Sitting Bull's crushing defeat of a U.S. 7th Calvary in June of 1876, Whites began perpetuating aggressively negative campaigns & propaganda against First Nations in the West. Even still, Red Cloud resisted the call to war. He pursued diplomacy. In 1878, he successfully lobbied for the removal of the Indian agent at Pine Ridge Agency due to poor treatment. He returned to D.C. several more times to lobby for his people & defend the rights of all First Nations. This led him to become the most photographed Native of the 19th Century.

Red Cloud continued his work to preserve native lands & to maintain the authority of traditional First Nations leader until he was removed from political power; this may have been influenced by his shifting views in favor colonialism via Christianity & adopted the first name, "John". He later died on the Pine Ridge Agency with his wife; blind & ailing. There he rests in the cemetery so named after him.

"The Whites are the same everywhere. I see them every day. They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it. " - Chief Red Cloud.

We pour libations & give him💐 today as we celebrate him for his spirit of resistance & immense peace. May we look to him for wise counsel, peaceful resolutions, & as a lesson in the influential power of colonialism.

Offering suggestions: River water, peace pipe, Lakota music, bison meat served with wild potatoes & prairie turnips

‼️Note: offering suggestions are just that & strictly for veneration purposes only. Never attempt to conjure up any spirit or entity without proper divination/Mediumship counsel.‼️

#hoodoo #hoodoos #atr #the hoodoo calendar #ancestor veneration #Elevated Ancestors #Chief Red Cloud #Red cloud #Lakota #First Nations #Plains Indians #Oglala #Oglala Lakota #Lakota Nation

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littlefeather-wolf · 7 months

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Fool Thunder and family. Hunkpapa Lakota. 1880 ❤

The Hunkpapa (Lakota: Húŋkpapȟa) are a Native American group, one of the seven council fires of the Lakota tribe. The name Húŋkpapȟa is a Lakota word, meaning "Head of the Circle" (at one time, the tribe's name was represented in European-American records as Honkpapa). By tradition, the Húŋkpapȟa set up their lodges at the entryway to the circle of the Great Council when the Sioux met in convocation. They speak Lakȟóta, one of the three dialects of the Sioux language.

Seven hundred and fifty mounted Yankton, Yanktonai and Lakota joined six companies of the Sixth Infantry and 80 fur trappers in an attack on an Arikara Indian village at Grand River (now South Dakota) in August 1823, named the Arikara War. Members of the Lakota, a part of them "Ankpapat", were the first Native Americans to fight in the American Indian Wars alongside US forces west of the Missouri.

They may have formed as a tribe within the Lakota relatively recently, as the first mention of the Hunkpapa in European-American historical records was from a treaty of 1825.

By signing the 1825 treaty, the Hunkpapa and the United States committed themselves to keep up the "friendship which has heretofore existed". With their x-mark, the chiefs also recognized the supremacy of the United States. It is not certain whether they really understood the text in the document. The US representatives gave a medal to Little White Bear, who they understood was the principal Hunkpapa chief; they did not realize how decentralized Native American authority was.

With the Indian Vaccination Act of 1832, the United States assumed responsibility for the inoculation of the Indians against smallpox. Some visiting Hunkpapa may have benefitted from Dr. M. Martin's vaccination of about 900 southern Lakota (no divisions named) at the head of Medicine Creek that autumn. When smallpox struck in 1837, it hit the Hunkpapa as the northernmost Lakota division. The loss, however, may have been fewer than one hundred people.Overall, the Hunkpapa seem to have suffered less from new diseases than many other tribes did.

The boundaries for the Lakota Indian territory were defined in the general peace treaty negotiated near Fort Laramie in the summer of 1851. Leaders of eight different tribes, often at odds with each other and each claiming large territories, signed the treaty. The United States was a ninth party to it. The Crow Indian territory included a tract of land north of the Yellowstone, while the Little Bighorn River ran through the heartland of the Crow country (now Montana). The treaty defines the land of the Arikara, the Hidatsa and the Mandan as a mutual area north of Heart River, partly encircled by the Missouri (now North Dakota).

Soon enough the Hunkpapa and other Sioux attacked the Arikara and the two other so-called village tribes, just as they had done in the past. By 1854, these three smallpox-devastated tribes called for protection from the U.S. Army, and they would repeatedly do so almost to the end of inter-tribal warfare. Eventually the Hunkpapa and other Lakota took control of the three tribes' area north of Heart River, forcing the village people to live in Like a Fishhook Village outside their treaty land. The Lakota were largely in control of the occupied area to 1876–1877.

The United States Army General Warren estimated the population of the Hunkpapa Lakota at about 2920 in 1855. He described their territory as ranging "from the Big Cheyenne up to the Yellowstone, and west to the Black Hills. He states that they formerly intermarried extensively with the Cheyenne." He noted that they raided settlers along the Platte River In addition to dealing with warfare, they suffered considerable losses due to contact with Europeans and contracting of Eurasian infectious diseases to which they had no immunity.

The Hunkpapa gave some of their remote relatives among the Santee Sioux armed support during a large-scale battle near Killdeer Mountain in 1864 with U.S. troops led by General A. Sully.

The Great Sioux Reservation was established with a new treaty in 1868. The Lakota agreed to the construction of "any railroad" outside their reservation. The United States recognized that "the country north of the North Platte River and east of the summits of the Big Horn Mountains" was unsold or unceded Indian territory. These hunting grounds in the south and in the west of the new Lakota domain were used mainly by the Sicangu (Brule-Sioux) and the Oglala, living nearby.

The "free bands" of Hunkpapa favored campsites outside the unsold areas. They took a leading part in the westward enlargement of the range used by the Lakota in the late 1860s and the early 1870s at the expense of other tribes. In search for buffalo, Lakota regularly occupied the eastern part of the Crow Indian Reservation as far west as the Bighorn River, sometimes even raiding the Crow Agency, as they did in 1873. The Lakota pressed the Crow Indians to the point that they reacted like other small tribes: they called for the U.S. Army to intervene and take actions against the intruders.

In the late summer of 1873, the Hunkpapa boldly attacked the Seventh Cavalry in United States territory north of the Yellowstone. Custer's troops escorted a railroad surveying party here, due to similar attacks the year before. Battles such as Honsinger Bluff and Pease Bottom took place on land purchased by the United States from the Crow tribe on May 7, 1868.These continual attacks, and complaints from American Natives, prompted the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to assess the full situation on the northern plains. He said that the unfriendly Lakota roaming the land of other people should "be forced by the military to come in to the Great Sioux Reservation". That was in 1873, notably one year before the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, but the US government did not take action on this concept until three years later.

The Hunkpapa were among the victors in the Battle of Little Bighorn in the Crow Indian Reservation in July 1876.

Since the 1880s, most Hunkpapa have lived in the Standing Rock Indian Reservation (in North and South Dakota). It comprises land along the Grand River which had been used by the Arikara Indians in 1823; the Hunkpapa "won the west" half a century before the whites.

During the 1870s, when the Native Americans of the Great Plains were fighting the United States, the Hunkpapa were led by Sitting Bull in the fighting, together with the Oglala Lakota. They were among the last of the tribes to go to the reservations. By 1891, the majority of Hunkpapa Lakota, about 571 people, resided in the Standing Rock Indian Reservation of North and South Dakota ...

Since then they have not been counted separately from the rest of the Lakota ...

#lakota miniconjou #native american #littlefeather wolf #wayawolf412

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