Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America and Two Essays on America, pp. 387-88.
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America and Two Essays on America, pp. 387-88.
Figures of 5,000,000 American Indians in 1491, 600,000 in 1800, and U.S. population of 5,000,000 in 1800, see Russell Thornton, American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492, p. 90 ("In sum the European expansion throughout North America in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries produced a demographic collapse of American Indians primarily because of disease, warfare, and destruction of Indian ways of life. The removal and relocation of Indians also contributed to the collapse, but probably only in a small way. The collapse was so severe that by 1800 the total American Indian population had been reduced to 600,000 from 5+ million in three centuries. Meanwhile, the non-Indian population of the United States had increased to over 5 million.").
Figure of 250,000 American Indians in 1890, see The National Museum of the American Indian, FAQ Page ("How many Indians lived in America before 1492? This is sometimes called an unanswerable question that historians nevertheless must try to answer. There is sadly little clear information about populations to be found in historic records or archaeological evidence. Even careful estimates differ widely, as they are based largely on assumptions. For America north of Mexico around 1491, these estimates range from perhaps 1.8 million people to more than 18 million—a difference of ten times. More recent population figures are clearer. Many historians believe that the Native population of the United States reached its lowest point—about 250,000—at the end of the 19th century. By the end of the 20th century, the population had rebounded to 4.1 million. National data from the 2010 U.S. census have not yet been published.")
Figures of 63,000,000 for the United States in 1890 and 106,000,000 in 1920, see Janet A. McDonnell, The Dispossession of the American Indian, p.4 ("From 1890 to 1920, the population of the country jumped from 63,000,000 to 106,000,000, a 68-percent increase.").
Figure of 350,000 American Indians in 1920, see U.S. Diplomatic Mission to Germany, ("The territorial wars, along with Old World diseases to which Indians had no built-up immunity, sent their population plummeting, to a low of 350,000 in 1920.").
2010 Figures, U.S. Census Bureau [pdf].
Note: The person depicted in the photo at the top of this section may not be Big Foot the Miniconjou, also known as Spotted Elk. See Calvin Spotted Elk.
The claim that Big Foot's body was left in the snow for days comes from PBS - The West ("Big Foot himself was among the first killed. His frozen corpse, half raised as though trying to warn his people of their imminent disaster, lay untouched for three days until it was unceremoniously dumped into a mass grave.").
See Edward Lazarus, Black Hills, White Justice, p. 9. ("Lewis and Clark distributed national medals (a tradition among French and British traders) and wrapped a newborn baby in an American flag, symbolically conferring American citizenship on the Sioux infant. Such friendly acts neither tempered Lewis's opinion of the Tetons, 'the vilest miscreants of the savage race,' nor brought home to the Sioux the full portent of the explorers' visit. They could not fathom that a man named Thomas Jefferson had bought the entire Sioux domain, and much more, for three million dollars, or that (under the white man's 'doctrine of discovery') their homeland was previously owned by Napoleon. The Sioux knew who controlled every bluff and creekbed from the Platte River to the Yellowstone — and it was neither a president nor an emperor.").
See Stacy Makes Good; see also Robert Larson, Red Cloud, p. 9 ("The Chippewa word for Lesser Adder, incidentally, was Nadoweisiw, the last syllable of which was garbled by the French into the word Sioux, the term by which most Americans know Red Cloud's people today. Unfortunately, it is a negative word meaning 'enemy.'").
For more information on the Horse Creek Council, see Lesley Wischmann.
For a good illustration of the diminution of Sioux lands, see National Geographic.
See Grace Raymond Hebard and Earl Alonzo Brininstool, The Bozeman Trail, p. 177 ("In 1865 the United States government wanted to build a wagon road into the Montana gold region by way of Powder River - right through the heart of the finest hunting grounds possessed by the Sioux. Very naturally Red Cloud entered a most emphatic objection to such a proposition. He declared it would drive away the game, which was the chief sustenance and support of his tribe. That country was then the very cream of the buffalo range - and the buffalo furnished everything required by the Indian in the way of food, clothing and skins for lodges - which was all he desired for his welfare and happiness.").
For an alternative interpretation of Fetterman's boast, see John H. Monnett.
See Robert M. Utley, The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull, pp. 104-05 ("When as old men the warriors of this time recounted the battles of their youth, they remembered mainly who were the bravest, who counted the coups, and who died. The details of battlefield movements, even of individual deeds, blurred in the shadow of the honor roll. When pressed, they would talk about their battles with the white soldiers, but they plainly preferred to recall the glories of war with enemy tribes. That was real war, war understood by both sides, war that conferred honor and prestige without threatening tribal survival. That threat came from the white people. They fought a different kind of war, a serious unremitting war not confined to the battlefield, one that the Sioux never really understood.").
See Larson, Red Cloud, pp. 114-15 ("Politically, the need to reconstruct the South had become the government's top priority. Economically, the need to complete the first transcontinental railroad had become paramount to most of the country's business interests.").
Red Cloud's quote comes from Larson at 132.
Tocqueville at 381.
The quote comes from the Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1875, p. 7. This quote is also mentioned in George Hyde, Red Cloud's Folk, p. 248.
See United States v. Sioux Nation, 448 U.S. 371, 378 (1980) ("In a letter dated November 9, 1875, to Terry, Sheridan reported that he had met with President Grant, the Secretary of the Interior, and the Secretary of War, and that the President had decided that the military should make no further resistance to the occupation of the Black Hills by miners, 'it being his belief that such resistance only increased their desire and complicated the troubles.' These orders were to be enforced 'quietly,' and the President's decision was to remain 'confidential.'").
Julia Face quote, see Jeffrey Ostler, The Lakotas and the Black Hills p. 98.
Kate Bighead quote, see PBS - The West.
Dodge quote from Andrew C. Isenberg, The Destruction of the Bison, p. 155, citing Sir William Butler, An Autobiography, p. 97
George Hyde, Red Cloud's Folk, p. 282, fn. 2.
Grace Hebard and Earl Brininstool, The Bozeman Trail, pp. 195-96.
James Creelman, On the Great Highway, p. 302.
The quote comes from James Creelman, On the Great Highway, p. 301.
Pratt quote from Ostler, The Lakotas and the Black Hills, p. 114.
"Pulverizing engine" quote attributed to Chief of Indian Affairs Commissioner William Jones by Janet A. McDonnell, The Dispossession of the American Indian, p. 6.
See also id at p. 122 ("The pattern of land loss established during the period 1887 - 1934 continues to this day. A survey of the four largest reservations in Montana illustrates the scope of this loss ... Tribes in Montana lost 5,332,317 of their original 11,631,407 acres. Over 80 percent of the best allotted land in Montana ended up in the hands of non-Indians.").
American Horse quote from James Mooney, The ghost-dance religion and the Sioux outbreak of 1890, p. 885.
Image via Wikipedia.
Alfred Koerner's text on the Hotchkiss Gun is available from forgottenweapons.com.
Red Cloud's quote comes from Hebard and Brininstool, p. 196.
For more on the trials and hangings of the 38 Santee Sioux in 1862 see Douglas Linder.
These figures come from McDonnell, p. vii.
Further information on tribal rights and obligations can be found on the Bureau of Indian Affairs FAQ page.
These statistics come from Nicolas D. Kristof.
For more on the Taos Pueblo precedent, see Diana Rico.
See also 25 USC § 465, authorizing the Executive, through the Secretary of the Interior, "to acquie, through purchase, relinquishment, gift, exchange, or assignment, any interest in lands, water rights, or surface rights to lands, within or without existing reservations, including trust or otherwise restricted allotments, whether the allottee be living or deceased, for the purpose of providing land for Indians."
Music: People Get Ready. Used with the kind permission of The Frames.
Hebard and Brininstool, p. 199.
The treaty image is Lone Dog's winter count of 1855-56, depicting a peace agreement between the Dakotas and General William Harney.