Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) facts for kids

Quick facts for kids General William T. Sherman (third from left) and Commissioners in council with chiefs and headmen, Fort Laramie, 1868
Signed	April 29  – November 6, 1868
Location	Fort Laramie, Wyoming
Negotiators	Indian Peace Commission
Signatories	United States Brulé Oglala Arapaho Miniconjou Yanctonais
Ratifiers	US Senate
Language	English

The Treaty of Fort Laramie (also the Sioux Treaty of 1868) is an agreement between the United States and the Oglala, Miniconjou, and Brulé bands of Lakota people, Yanktonai Dakota and Arapaho Nation, following the failure of the first Fort Laramie treaty, signed in 1851.

The treaty is divided into 17 articles. It established the Great Sioux Reservation including ownership of the Black Hills, and set aside additional lands as "unceded Indian territory" in the areas of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Nebraska, and possibly Montana. It established that the US government would hold authority to punish not only white settlers who committed crimes against the tribes but also tribe members who committed crimes and were to be delivered to the government, rather than to face charges in tribal courts. It stipulated that the government would abandon forts along the Bozeman Trail and included a number of provisions designed to encourage a transition to farming and to move the tribes "closer to the white man's way of life." The treaty protected specified rights of third parties not partaking in the negotiations and effectively ended Red Cloud's War. That provision did not include the Ponca, who were not a party to the treaty and so had no opportunity to object when the American treaty negotiators “inadvertently” broke a separate treaty with the Ponca by unlawfully selling the entirety of the Ponca Reservation to the Lakota, pursuant to Article II of this treaty. The United States never intervened to return the Ponca land. Instead, the Lakota claimed the Ponca land as their own and set about attacking and demanding tribute from the Ponca until 1876, when US President Ulysses S. Grant chose to resolve the situation by unilaterally ordering the Ponca removed to the Indian Territory. The removal, known as the Ponca Trail of Tears, was carried out by force the following year and resulted in over 200 deaths.

The treaty was negotiated by members of the government-appointed Indian Peace Commission and signed between April and November 1868 at and near Fort Laramie, in the Wyoming Territory, with the final signatories being Red Cloud himself and others who accompanied him. Animosities over the agreement arose quickly, with neither side fully honoring the terms. Open war again broke out in 1876, and the US government unilaterally annexed native land protected under the treaty in 1877.

The treaty formed the basis of the 1980 Supreme Court case, United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, in which the court ruled that tribal lands covered under the treaty had been taken illegally by the US government, and the tribe was owed compensation plus interest. As of 2018 this amounted to more than $1 billion. The Sioux have refused the payment, demanding instead the return of their land.

Signatories

Notable signatories presented in the order they signed are as follows. Two exceptions are included. Henderson was a commissioner, but did not sign the treaty. Red Cloud was among the last to sign, but is listed here out-of-order along with the other Oglala.

Commissioners

Chiefs and headmen

Aftermath and legacy

Map of the 1868 Great Sioux Reservation, and the subsequent changes in reservation borders

Although the treaty required the consent of three-fourths of the men of the tribes, many did not sign or recognize the results. Others would later complain that the treaty contained complex language that was not well explained in order to avoid arousing suspicion. Yet others would not fully learn the terms of the agreement until 1870, when Red Cloud returned from a trip to Washington D.C.

The treaty overall, and in comparison with the 1851 agreement, represented a departure from earlier considerations of tribal customs, and demonstrated instead the government's "more heavy-handed position with regard to tribal nations, and ... desire to assimilate the Sioux into American property arrangements and social customs."

According to one source, "animosities over the treaty arose almost immediately" when a group of Miniconjou were informed they were no longer welcome to trade at Fort Laramie, being south of their newly established territory. This was notwithstanding that the treaty did not make any stipulation that the tribes could not travel outside their land, only that they would not permanently occupy outside land. The only travel expressly forbidden by the treaty was that of white settlers onto the reservation.

Although a treaty between the US and the Sioux, it had profound effect on the Crow tribe, since it held the title to some of the territories set aside in the new treaty. By entering the peace talks “... the government had in effect betrayed the Crows, who had willingly helped the army to hold the [Bozeman Trail] posts ...”.

When the Sioux Indians had stopped the advance of the US in 1868, they quickly resumed their “own program of expansions” into the adjoining Indian territories. Although all parties took and gave, the Sioux and their allies once again threatened the homeland of some of the Indian nations around them. Attacks on the Crows and the Shoshones were “frequent, both by the Northern Cheyennes and by the Arapahos, as well as the Sioux, and by parties made up from all three tribes”. The Crows reported Sioux Indians in the Bighorn area from 1871. This eastern part of the Crow reservation was taken over a few years later by the Sioux in quest of buffalo. When a force of Sioux warriors confronted a Crow reservation camp at Pryor Creek in 1873 throughout a whole day, Crow chief Blackfoot called for decisive actions against the Indian intruders by the US. In 1876, the Crows (and the Eastern Shoshones) fought alongside the Army at the Rosebud. They scouted for Custer against the Sioux, “who were now in the old Crow country”.

Both the tribes and the government chose to ignore portions of the treaty, or to "comply only as long as conditions met their favor," and between 1869 and 1876, at least seven separate skirmishes occurred within the vicinity of Fort Laramie. Prior to the Black Hills expedition, Army sources mention attacks in Montana north of the Yellowstone and north of the Sioux reservation in North Dakota carried out by unidentified groups of Sioux. Large war parties of Sioux Indians left their reservation to attack distant Indian enemies near Like-a-Fishhook Village. The first talks of actions against the Sioux arose. In his 1873 report, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs advocated, “that those [Sioux] Indians roaming west of the Dakota line be forced by the military to come in to the Great Sioux Reservation.”

The government eventually broke the terms of the treaty following the Black Hills Gold Rush and an expedition into the area by George Armstrong Custer in 1874, and failed to prevent white settlers from moving onto tribal lands. Rising tensions eventually led again to open conflict in the Great Sioux War of 1876.

The 1868 treaty would be modified three times by the US Congress between 1876 and 1889, each time taking more land originally granted, including unilaterally seizing the Black Hills in 1877.

United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians

On June 30, 1980, the US Supreme Court ruled that the government had illegally taken land in the Black Hills granted by the 1868 treaty, by unlawfully abrogating article two of the agreement during negotiations in 1876, while failing to achieve the signatures of two-thirds the adult male population required to do so. It upheld an award of $15.5 million for the market value of the land in 1877, along with 103 years worth of interest at 5 percent, for an additional $105 million. The Lakota Sioux, however, have refused to accept payment and instead continue to demand the return of the territory from the United States. As of 24 August  2011 (2011 -08-24)^[update] the Sioux interest on the money has compounded to over 1 billion dollars.

Commemoration

Marking the 150th anniversary of the treaty, the South Dakota Legislature passed Senate Resolution 1, reaffirming the legitimacy of the treaty, and according to the original text, illustrating to the federal government that the Sioux are "still here" and are "seeking a future of forward-looking, positive relationships with full respect for the sovereign status of Native American nations confirmed by the treaty."

On March 11, 2018, the Governor of Wyoming, Matt Mead signed a similar bill into law, calling on "the federal government to uphold its federal trust responsibilities," and calling for a permanent display of the original treaty, on file with the National Archives and Records Administration, in the Wyoming Legislature.

See also

In Spanish: Tratado del fuerte Laramie (1868) para niños