Retreats for the Sioux. About the Lakota Indians (Sioux) and not only about them Sioux Indians differently 6 letters

Please write about the Indians of North America. This interests not only me, but all the guys in our yard.
A. Osipov, Arzamas

Christopher Columbus not only discovered the New World and awarded its inhabitants the name "Indians", but also gave the first ever description of them. Not a scientific, of course, report, one of those that scientists who study the people make - Columbus did not study ethnography, and his goals were different. Having acquired new subjects for his master, Ferdinand, King of Castile and Leon, he had to give them a description, for you can manage them only if you know well their positive and negative qualities.

Such highly valued spiritual qualities of the Indians did not prevent, however, the conquerors from taking away from them "everything that they possessed", including life. True, at the same time, the whites proclaimed that they cared about the soul of the redskins, converting them with fire and sword and - much less often - with exhortations to the true faith.

In the south, the Spaniards and the Portuguese, in the north - the British and the French set about exploring the New World, which had already received the name of America. Europeans arrived in America to settle there forever, build houses, plow the land. The onslaught of the settlers was irresistible, and the Indians, divided into many disparate tribes, could not stop him.

The wars with the Indians continued for two and a half centuries - until December 29, 1891, the battle near the village of Wounded Knee. However, "battle" in this case, the word is inaccurate. A regiment of United States cavalry, supported by artillery, massacred the encampment of Sioux Indians: warriors, women, children.

So, on December 29, 1891, the Indian Wars ended with the victory of the white man and his civilization. The remnants of once numerous tribes were scattered over two hundred and sixty-three reservations. Most of the Indians survived in the desert state of Arizona. There are many in Oklahoma, New Mexico and South Dakota. And the largest number of reservations are in these states. The border between Wyoming and South Dakota divides the Black Hills - the Black Mountains - into two unequal parts. In not too distant times - the date can be precisely given: before 1877 - the elders of the Sioux clans gathered every spring in the Black Mountains. They discussed important issues of tribal significance, made sacrifices to the Great Spirit. A few days later, the smoke of the sacred fire rose over the mountains, and, carefully following its shape, the shamans recognized the will of their ancestors. We would call this forecast short-term, because it concerned plans for the next year: where which clans to roam, with whom to maintain peace and alliance, which of the neighbors to beware of. The Indians did not make long-term forecasts.

When the meeting of the elders made a decision, the whole tribe gathered, and the holiday lasted ten days: the Indians celebrated the beginning of the new year. It is difficult to say how many times the Sioux gathered in the Black Mountains - no one wrote the history of the tribe - but one thing is known: no matter how far this or that clan wandered, everyone arrived on time for the holiday.

When the time came for a young man to find a patron spirit for himself, he went to the caves of the Black Mountains, fasted to exhaustion, until one day in a dream a spirit appeared to him in the form of an animal or a bird. The spirit informed the young man of his new - adult - name, announced prohibitions that should be observed until the end of his life. Only one who had been in the Black Mountains was considered an adult full-fledged warrior. They believed that he was born again there. No Sioux warrior would dare to draw a weapon in a sacred place: even the worst enemies had to smoke the peace pipe.

We speak of the beliefs of the Sioux in connection with the Black Mountains in such detail as to show what role this area has played and still plays in the life of the tribe.

It was here that the sculptor Korczak-Zyulkowski decided to create a monument to the leader of the Sioux Tasanka Whitka - Crazy Horse, cutting it out of a whole rock. The tribal council decided to help the sculptor: the glorious past of the Sioux should be revived in this sacred place for them.

Long before the last battle of the Indian War, Wounded Knee, in 1868 the United States government ratified a treaty that guaranteed perpetual and inalienable rights to the Black Hills to the Sioux. "As long as the rivers flow, the grass grows and the trees turn green, the Black Mountains will forever remain the sacred lands of the Indians." The Sioux took seriously the paper on which the chiefs put their thumbprints. They did not wet their fingers with ink: each cut the skin with a knife and left a bloody seal. The representative of the authorities dipped his pen into the inkwell. For the government, it was just one of four hundred treaties and two thousand agreements made between Native Americans and the authorities.

The rivers still flow, the grass grows and the trees turn green. Not in all, however, places: in large areas in the Black Mountains there is no vegetation left, because the fertile layer of soil is completely torn down there - first with a spade, and nowadays with a bulldozer.

Who would have thought that it was in these inhospitable places that gold would be found! For some reason, it is always found in places with a harsh climate that are inconvenient for a white person. Moreover, the Indians get underfoot, either the damned savages are praying there, or they are doing something else, but it’s for sure that they are not busy with anything good and cannot be busy. That's why they are Indians. So - and even harder - believed in those days the whites.

With the Indians, however, they did not particularly philosophize. In 1877, the government revised the Black Mountains treaty. Eight-tenths of this territory was proclaimed "US Forests" - state forests. What the leaders of the Sioux tribe was announced in passing. No one asked for signatures from them. When the Indians, according to their custom, tried to assemble in the Black Hills, they were met by troops. The battle didn't happen. But outside the sacred territory, skirmishes began between the Sioux warriors and the soldiers. They continued until 1891, when the Battle of Wounded Knee was the last point in the history of Indian wars.

The gold-bearing land was sold by lot to miners for a ridiculously low price. A certain percentage of the proceeds - six million dollars - was offered by the Sioux to set up a decent reservation. The Sioux refused to take the money: the abode of the ancestral spirits cannot be sold for any money. Six million dollars was rejected by people deprived of their livelihood, a tribe where there were few healthy young men who could feed the elderly, women and children. But the decision was made unanimously - and not only by the elders.

The authorities did not persuade them. It was considered that due to the ignorance and illiteracy of the Indians and in connection with their depression, caused, obviously, by a military defeat, the money should not be imposed on them, but placed in a bank, where they were to be disposed of by an authorized department of Indian affairs.

How much of these funds went to the benefit of the Indians is obscure, but it is known that the then Commissioner, Mr. Hosea J. Ironside, retired, ended his days as a prosperous and respectable landlord on the East Coast, where there are no Indians nearby for hundreds of miles.

The owners of the mines at Home Stake in the Black Hills County have earned over a billion dollars over the past hundred years. These data are registered in the reports of the tax department. The Sioux Indians did not receive a cent of this sum. These figures were given at a meeting of the US Supreme Court by a lawyer for the tribe. But, he reminded him, the Sioux never demanded money, but the return of their own land. In total, he emphasized, sixty million hectares have been selected: in North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana. But he is only authorized to talk about seven million hectares, the sacred Black Hills, to begin with.

When the Indian Rights Movement arose two decades ago and representatives of two hundred and eighty-seven officially recognized tribes (and with them smaller groups that seemed to exist, but nevertheless did not make it to the lists) gathered to work out their demands, the question of the Black Mountains became one of the first. After all, the Sioux tribe - sixty thousand people who have preserved the language and consciousness of their community - is one of the largest in the country. It was then that the decision was made to act through the courts - "the white man's tomahawk."

Why did the Indians suddenly believe in the court? After all, the law has been rather partial to the Indians over the past centuries. But when the leaders wrapped in blankets with feathers in their hair came to sign the treaties, the whites drew up papers without breaking their heads too much. The savage, they say, will not read it anyway, and if he asks someone to read it, will he understand much? Moreover, officials and officers, if they were in a joking mood, they could write such things that they then rolled with laughter, remembering how the Redskin seriously listened to all this. And who could have imagined a century ago that a tribe of redskins would survive, and that the great-grandson of that Indian would become a lawyer and, moreover, a skilled chisel-maker? Those who drafted the treaties, of course, did not foresee this. By the way, the success of many Indians in jurisprudence is obviously not accidental: the ability to speak logically and eloquently was revered in all tribes along with military prowess. And this ability for logic, together with patience and courage, was inherited by the Indians from their glorious ancestors. The Sioux appeal continued in the Supreme Court for eleven years. On June 30, 1980, the US Supreme Court held that the Black Hills had been illegally taken from the Sioux. The court decided to pay the tribe one hundred and twenty-two and a half million dollars. Of these - seventeen and a half for land, and one hundred and five - for one hundred and three years of use (all at prices in 1877!). It should be noted that in the same year the commissioner of the Sioux Department of Indian Affairs had a salary of one hundred and two dollars a month, and he was considered a highly paid employee. Now for this money he would not have rented a more or less decent apartment.

The most deserted, waterless and inconvenient places for life, where the Indians were forced out at one time, turned out to be rich in minerals. The reservations alone, home to the twenty-three tribes of the American West, contain a third of the country's coal reserves, eighty percent of the uranium, oil, and gas below the surface.

And again in the press questions arise: should the Indians - these people of the past - be left in the possession of such riches? Wouldn't it be better to pay them compensation? With this money you can buy whiskey - fill up, Japanese Indian costumes and Hong Kong tomahawks - a hundred pieces for each, and besides, there will be left for the construction of the school ...

But the fact of the matter is that the current Indians are no longer the people of the Stone Age. They know their past, they understand that the Indian war is lost, but they also know their goals. current goals. Therefore, all Indian America was waiting for the outcome of the Sioux struggle in court.

The Sioux refused the money offered. They do not recognize the amount as sufficient, because their goal is to restore the originality of the Black Mountains. And most importantly, they need not money, but land. Own land.

The Plains Sioux were the westernmost part of the tribes of the Sioux group and, accordingly, belonged to the Sioux-speaking family. Their early history was no different from that of other Dakota tribes, but after the migration to the Great Plains in the late 18th century, they began to operate independently of their eastern kinsmen, and their culture completely changed.

Horned Elk - Chief Oglala (Sioux)

The name Sioux comes from the Ojibway word Nadoue-Sioux-eg, Vipers. The Plain Sioux were also commonly known as the Lakotas and Tetons and consisted of seven independent tribes: 1) the Oglals (Scatterers); 2) miniconju (Planting Seeds near the River Banks); 3) brulee (sichangu, Burnt Thighs); 4) ohenonpas (Two Cauldrons); 5) itazipcho (sans-arc, Without Bows); 6) Sihasaps (Blackfoot Sioux); 7) hunkpapas (Putting Tents at the Ends of the Camp Circle). The largest of these tribes were the Brule and the Oglals.

Many tribes called the Sioux Head Cutters or Throat Cutters, which was sign language by moving the hand along the throat. The Kiowas called them Kodalpa-Kiago, the Necklace People, referring to the so-called hairpipes, which the Kiowas believed the Sioux had brought to the Plains. In sign language, the sign for cut throat and hairpipe is identical. Most likely, this is a Kiowa mistake, and their name came from a misunderstanding of the designation of this tribe in sign language.

At various times, the Plains Sioux have fought the Hidatse, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, Shoshone, Bannock, Kooten, Ute, and Flathead. It was very difficult for the Sioux to maintain a lasting peace with any of the neighboring tribes - they were too numerous, warlike, scattered over a vast territory and ruled by different people. The main enemies of the various Sioux tribes were their neighbors. So, the main enemies of the brulee were the Arikars and the Pawnees. The main enemies of the Oglala were the Crow. “The war between these two peoples,” Denig wrote in 1855, “has been going on for so long that no one living today remembers when it started.” The minikonju until 1846 fought mainly against the Arikars, Mandans and Hidats. In addition, they have often joined the Oglail in expeditions against the Crow since ancient times. By 1846, the buffalo population began to decline, and the miniconjou realized that it was in their own interest to make peace with the arikar, from whom they received maize in exchange for skins and meat. The Hunkpaps, Sihasaps, and Itazipchos were also at peace with the Arikars at that time, but were at war with the Mandans, Hidats, and Crows.

The Sioux have always been fierce and brave warriors, proving this in numerous battles with Indian enemies and American soldiers. And although sometimes you have to deal with the opposite remarks, they can rather be attributed to annoying bragging. George Grinnell, for example, "heard the Cheyennes ... say ... about the Sioux, that fighting them was like chasing buffaloes, because the Sioux ran so fast that the Cheyennes had to drive their horses as fast as they could to overtake and kill them." The Pawnee, undoubtedly one of the greatest warriors of the Plains, boasted that the reason "there are so many communities of the Sioux is that every time a Sioux warrior manages to kill a Pawnee or count a" on it, it is considered an act of such significance that he becomes chief, takes his family and founds a new community." Denig wrote in 1855 that in the war of the Brule Sioux with the Pawnee and the Arikars, the former, as a rule, were more successful. He believed the miniconjou were "better fighters than the arikars and take more risks during battles". In the war between the Sioux and the Crow, he said, the Crow killed more Sioux and the Sioux stole more horses from them. The explanation for this lies in the fact that their war parties more often penetrated into the lands of the Crow, and the latter more often had to defend themselves by killing Sioux horse thieves.

The attitude of the plains Sioux with white people before the start of emigration to (the modern states of Oregon, Nevada, California) developed quite peacefully, although sometimes small groups of travelers were attacked by them. The first treaty with the US government was signed by the Tetons in 1815 at Portage de Sous, and was confirmed by a treaty dated June 22, 1825 at Fort Lookout, South Dakota. But by the beginning of the 1850s, the attitude of different Sioux tribes towards white people began to noticeably change. The Brûlée, the Oglals, and the Ochenonps were very affable and welcomed merchants and travelers to their camps. The traders rarely had problems with the Oglala, and they considered them "one of the best Indians in the land." The Miniconjou were more aggressive and, according to Denig, "have always been the wildest of all the Sioux". Regarding the remaining three tribes, Denig wrote in 1855: “The Hunkpaps, Sihasaps and Itazipchos occupy practically a single area, often set up camps next to each other and act together.” He noted that their attitude towards merchants had always been hostile, and reported: “Today, merchants cannot feel safe entering their camps ... They kill every white person they meet, commit robberies and destroy any property around the forts on Yellowstone. .. Every year they become more hostile and today they are even more dangerous than the Blackfoot.”

Oglala Chief Red Cloud

The path to Oregon and California along the "Oregon trail" along the river. The Platt passed through the country of the Sioux, and when the caravans of settlers began to move, problems began with the previously peaceful tribes. The settlers not only scared away and killed game, burned the already small number of trees growing on the Plains, but also brought new diseases to which the Indians had no immunity, which caused them to die by the hundreds. The Brule were the closest, and they suffered more than any other Sioux from smallpox, cholera, measles, and other diseases. If before, according to Denig, “brules ... were excellent hunters, usually well-dressed, had enough meat to live on and a huge number of horses, spent their time hunting buffalo, catching wild horses and waging war with aricars ... and Pawnee ”, then by the mid-1850s their situation had changed dramatically. “Today they are divided into small communities, poorly dressed, there is almost no game on their lands, and they have extremely few horses,” wrote Denig. The Oglals also became hostile, and the rest of the Sioux tribes, as indicated above, had not previously been particularly fond of the white race. Only the smaller and more peaceful ochenonpas showed no hostility. It was reported about them: "They fight little with anyone and hunt a lot, treat white people well and have many friends among them."

The situation escalated and eventually led to a war that, with temporary truces, continued until the end of the 1870s. The Sioux were too strong a people to watch their people die of disease and their children starve. Denig predicted very accurately in 1855 that the Sioux would undoubtedly attack caravans, rob and kill settlers until the government took measures "to their complete destruction." He noted with regret that the circumstances are developing in such a way that it is simply impossible to avoid such a development of events.

In the summer of 1845, the first soldiers appeared on the lands of the Sioux, whose task it was to protect the settlers. Colonel Stephen Kearney walked along the river. Platt leads a squad of dragoons to demonstrate to the tribes the power of American weapons. He met the Sioux on the river. Laramie warned that if they caused trouble for the settlers, the soldiers would severely punish them. As a result of epidemics of cholera, measles and smallpox in 1849 and 1850, hundreds of Indians died. The Sioux and the Cheyenne started talking about the war. In 1851, a grandiose council was held at Fort Laramie with Indians of different tribes: the Sioux, Cheyenne, Crow, Shoshone, and others. They promised to stop fighting each other and not attack the settlers, and the US government, in turn, would pay them an annual rent in goods . Since it was difficult to deal with the leaders of the numerous communities, the Indians were asked to appoint paramount chiefs for each tribe. The leader of all the Sioux was the insignificant leader Brule Attack Bear. It was hard for the Indians to understand how one man could be the leader of all the independent Sioux tribes, and later they were called paper chiefs. They did not enjoy authority among their fellow tribesmen.

The first skirmish between the Sioux and the US Army took place on June 15, 1853, when a miniconjou guest asked a soldier to take him by boat to the other side. The soldier sent the red man to hell, and he shot him with a bow. The next day, a detachment of twenty-three soldiers, led by Lieutenant Hugh Fleming, went to the Oglala camp to arrest the "criminal." It is not known who fired the first shot, but five Sioux were killed in the skirmish (according to other sources, 3 Indians were killed, 3 were wounded and 2 were taken prisoner). It was only thanks to the intervention of the leaders that the fight did not turn into a massacre. A few days later, the Oglals attacked a small settler camp, killing four. The soldiers again advanced from the fort and fired on the first Indians they met, killing one and wounding another.

The first serious clash between the Sioux and the army occurred on August 19, 1854, and in the history of the Great Plains was called the Battle of Grattan in the village of Brule and the Massacre of Grattan. The miniconjou-sioux, who was staying with the brulee, killed a cow abandoned by the settler, and he complained to the commander of Fort Laramie, Lieutenant Hugh Fleming. Chief Attack Bear immediately offered to pay the settler a horse, but Fleming did not consider the matter serious, intending to postpone it until the arrival of an Indian agent. But one of the officers of the garrison, Lieutenant John Grattan, who had no experience in dealing with the Indians, constantly boasting that with twenty soldiers he could defeat all the Sioux put together, persuaded Fleming to send him to an Indian camp to arrest the culprit. He set out from the fort accompanied by 31 volunteers, including the half-drunk interpreter Lucien Auguste, and with two mountain howitzers. Twice along the way he was warned of danger. A professional guide, Aubridge Allen, galloped up to him and pointed out that the Oglals were driving herds to the camp, which means they were preparing for battle. A little later, the merchant James Bordeaux asked him to stop: “She (the cow) lay exhausted from thirst and hunger and would soon die. She couldn't even walk because her legs were beaten to the bone." The Sioux were waiting for the soldiers, but did not want to fight. Firstly, the reason for the war with the white people was too small, and secondly, there were many women and children in their camps. Auguste rode around on his horse, brandishing a pistol and uttering war cries, shouting to the Indians that they were women and by dawn he would devour their hearts. Attack Bear, along with others, tried to negotiate with Grattan, but to no avail. None of the Sioux chiefs had sufficient power to extradite free community members. The foot soldiers fired a volley of howitzers, after which the Oglals and Brule pounced on them and killed every single one. Later, 24 arrows were counted in Grattan's body, one of which pierced through his skull. They could only identify him by his pocket watch. The attacking Bear was mortally wounded and died, asking his fellow tribesmen not to avenge his death. Bordeaux spent the night distributing his cattle and goods to the angry Indians, urging them not to attack the fort. By morning, he and the senior leaders managed to cool the ardor of the soldiers.

But many young warriors yearned for revenge. Attacking Bear's older brother, Red Leaf, along with four warriors, including the future leader Brule Spotted Tail, on November 13 in Horse Creek, Wyoming, attacked a post stagecoach. The Indians killed three people and seized a metal box containing $20,000 in gold. The money was never found.

Small-scale Sioux attacks on the settlers continued, and a punitive expedition was sent against them under the command of General Harney. At dawn on September 3, 1855, 600 soldiers attacked Little Thunder's small brulee camp on the river. Blue Water - 41 tips, 250 people. Within half an hour, 86 Indians (mostly women and children) were killed, women and children were captured, and the camp was destroyed. About a hundred survivors of the tragedy managed to escape. Harney lost 7 men killed and 5 wounded. This attack became known as the Battle of Ash Hollow or, more rarely, the Battle of Bluewater Creek. Harney took the captives to Fort Laramie, gathered the leaders of the peaceful communities there, and harshly warned them that retribution for the attacks would be inevitable. Wanting to further impress the Indians with the capabilities of the white man, he declared that the white man could not only kill, but also revive. A military surgeon gave the dog a dose of chloroform. The Indians examined her and confirmed to the general that she was "completely dead." "Now," Harney ordered the surgeon, "revive her." The doctor tried for a long time to bring the dog to his senses, but, probably, he overdose the medicine, and the miracle did not happen. The Laughing Indians dispersed, agreeing to meet secretly the following summer to unite all the Sioux against the white invaders.

The American Civil War in 1861 drew soldiers away from the military posts of the West, leaving settler routes largely unprotected until 1865, and the Sioux were free to make occasional small raids on white travelers. But this could not last long, and on July 12, 1864, the Sioux struck. When a caravan from Kansas, consisting of ten settlers, reached Fort Laramie, the people from the fort convinced them that the further journey was safe, and the Indians were very friendly. As they left Laramie, more wagons joined them. After crossing the river Little Box Elder about two hundred Oglals appeared, showing their friendliness in every way. The settlers fed them, after which they unexpectedly attacked the white people. Three men managed to escape, and five were killed on the spot. The Indians plundered the wagons and took away with them two women - Mrs. Kelly and Mrs. Larimer, as well as two children. At night, during the movement of the military party, Mrs. Kelly helped her little daughter to slide off the horse, hoping that she could escape, but she was not lucky. Later, the girl's father found her body, studded with arrows and scalped. Mrs. Larimer and her son managed to escape the next night. Fanny Kelly spent about half a year among the Redskins and in December was returned by the Sioux chiefs to Fort Sully.

The next serious battle took place on July 28, 1864 and was called the Battle of Mount Killdeer. General Alfred Sully, with 2,200 soldiers and 8 howitzers, in pursuit of the Santee Sioux fleeing Minnesota after the Little Crow Rebellion, attacked the Teton camp. The Sioux waited for his soldiers on the forested slopes of the Killdeer Mountains. The Sioux camp was huge, with about 1,600 teepis, in which lived 8,000 hunkpaps, santis, sihasaps, yanktonai, itazipchos, and miniconjus. In total, there were about 2,000 soldiers in the camp. Sully later claimed that there were more than 5,000 warriors, but this is nonsense. According to the Indians themselves, there were no more than 1600 warriors. Sally ordered the gunners to open fire. The Teton Sioux, led by Sitting Bull and Bile, took the right flank, while the Yanktonai and Santee, led by Inkpaduta, took the left. The fight was long and hard, but Sully did his best to avoid hand-to-hand combat, relying on long-range gun and cannon fire. In addition, the soldiers outnumbered the Indians. Most of the Indians were armed only with bows and arrows. The women managed to take away some of the tents and contents of the camp before the troops entered it. Sully burned hundreds of tips, forty tons of pemmican, and shot about three thousand dogs. Sully lost five men killed and ten wounded. According to Sally, his people killed at least one and a half hundred Indians, but this, like his reports about the number of the enemy, is nothing more than nonsense. In fact, about 30 warriors died on the part of the Sioux - mostly Santee and Yanktonai fugitives. During the night the Sioux left, and Sully claimed a crushing victory over them.

Sally's column continued west and on August 5 came to the edge of the Badlands (Badlands) - 40 miles of canyons 180 meters deep and impenetrable cliffs. However, knowing that on the other side - on the river. Yellowstone - supply boats are waiting for his people, Sully has entered the canyons.

Gall - Chief of the Hunkpapa Sioux

Two days later, on August 7, while the soldiers were camping on the river. Little Missouri, they were attacked by the Sioux. One group rained down on them a hail of arrows from a height of 150-meter cliffs, and the other took away part of the horses. The next day, Sully's column crossed the river and moved across the plateau, where the Sioux warriors were already waiting for them. They surrounded the soldiers from three sides, but howitzer fire drove them away. This did not cool the ardor of the Redskins, and the next morning, August 9, about a thousand soldiers appeared in front of the column. Once again, howitzers and long-range guns helped the soldiers repel the Indians. By evening, the Sioux left the battlefield, and the next day Sully went out into the open and reached the river. Yellowstone. These three days cost the heavily armed army nine men killed and hundreds wounded. With bows and arrows in their hands, the Sioux were able to show two thousand soldiers what they were worth. These events became known as the Battles in the Badlands.

The next Sioux strike was on September 2, 1864. James Fisk, who was leading a caravan of 88 wagons carrying 200 settlers and prospectors to the Montana mines, requested an army escort at Fort Rice, North Dakota. He was provided with 47 cavalrymen led by Lieutenant Smith. When the caravan was already 130 miles from Fort Rice, one of the wagons overturned, and the drivers of the other two stopped to help the injured. Nine soldiers were left to guard the stragglers, and the caravan continued on its way. Soon a hunkpapa leader appeared with a hundred warriors and attacked the straggler wagons. The caravan had already managed to retire a mile, but the people in it heard the shooting, and a detachment of 50 soldiers and volunteers, led by Fisk, hurried to the rescue. By then, the hunkpaps were already robbing the wagons. The Indians forced Fisk and his men to take up defensive positions and fight back until sunset. At night, they managed to sneak to the caravan set in a circle, but the Indians did not appear there. On this day, ten soldiers and two civilians died, and from the three wagons attacked, the Indians took guns and 4,000 rounds of ammunition. The next day, the caravan continued on its way, but before it had gone a few miles, it was again attacked by the Indians. Fisk, along with his men, managed to put the wagons in a circle and build an embankment around them. The besieged named their fortification Fort Dilts, in honor of the scout killed by the Redskins. The Sioux held the settlers and soldiers for several days, but were never able to break through the defenses. On the night of September 5/6, Lieutenant Smith, accompanied by thirteen men, slipped past the Indians and hurried to Fort Rice for help. The settlers had to wait on the spot for another two weeks before 900 soldiers sent by General Sully arrived to their rescue and escorted them to Fort Rice.

In early June 1865, the government decided to move the "friendly Sioux" who lived at Fort Laramie to Fort Kearny so that they would not interfere during the upcoming punitive campaigns - about 185 tipis, or 1,500 people. Fort Kearny was in Pawnee territory, and the Sioux feared that they would surely attack them with all their might. They set out east on June 11, accompanied by 135 cavalry, led by Captain William Fouts. About 30 civilians and Charles Elliston's Indian Police Department also went with them. The Indians were allowed to keep their weapons. This trip turned into a nightmare for the Sioux. The little boys who ran were tied to the wheels of wagons and whipped by the soldiers. For fun, they threw small children into the cold waters of the river. Platt, laughing at how the kids are trying to get ashore. At night, the soldiers took the young girls by force and raped them. Two days later they set up camp on the Horse Creek - the soldiers stood on the east bank, and the Indians on the west. That night Crazy Horse, the leader of the hostile Sioux, appeared at the Indian camp with a few oglalas. Other Oglala warriors took cover in the distance. He met with the leaders of the Sioux who were being resettled, and at the council they decided to leave the soldiers. On the morning of June 14, Captain Fouts rode into the Indian camp with several soldiers to force them on, but the Sioux no longer obeyed him. He and three privates were shot, the rest fled. Later, the military made several attempts to punish the apostates, but were repulsed. This event is called the Battle of Horse Creek or the Fouts Skirmish.

When Colonel Thomas Moonlight, commander of Fort Laramie, learned of what had happened, he quickly organized a pursuit and set out with 234 cavalry. The soldiers made the arduous march of 120 miles in two days. One hundred people were forced to turn back because their horses were exhausted. On the morning of June 17, the column traveled twenty miles before breakfast, after which they settled down for a halt. Moonlight ignored the warnings of experienced officers who told him to take horse protection more seriously. As a result, the Sioux drove away almost the entire herd (74 horses), while injuring a couple of soldiers. Left without horses, the cavalrymen were forced to destroy saddles and other riding accessories and return on foot to Fort Laramie. On July 18, 1865, General Grenville Dodge, commander of the Department of Missouri, reported: “Colonel Moonlight allowed the Indians to surprise his camp and steal a herd. I ordered him to be dismissed from the service."

At the end of July, Sitting Bull gathered four hundred warriors and attacked Fort Rice on the 28th. When the Sioux appeared on the hill, Lieutenant Colonel John Patty led the soldiers out of the gate, placing them around the stockade. The Sioux attacked with their bows, but gun and howitzer fire stopped them. The battle lasted three hours, but the Sioux could not break through the heavy fire of the defenders, although they managed to kill two soldiers and wound three, while losing about a dozen of their own.

In August 1865, on the territory of the river. Powder was sent on a punitive expedition by Connor, which ended in complete failure.

Sitting Bull - Hunkpapa Sioux Chief

In 1866, on the "Bozmenovsky path" - the road of settlers through the territory of the river. Powder since 1863 - two forts were founded to protect white settlers - Phil Kearney and Fort Reno. The influx of white people could not but provoke a war. On December 21, 1866, in the vicinity of Fort Phil Kearney, Wyoming, the combined forces of the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho killed a detachment of Fetterman's soldiers - 81 people, no one managed to escape. The fierce battle lasted only half an hour. And although the Indians were armed mainly with bows and arrows, they were full of determination. Losses of the Indians: Cheyenne - 2 warriors, Arapaho - 1, and Sioux about 60. In addition, about 100 Redskins were injured. It was the first time in the wars on the Great Plains that such a large body of soldiers had been completely slaughtered. The event shocked America and was called the Fetterman Massacre.

In 1867, the Union-Pacific Railroad was laid across the Sioux Bia, and the number of white people devastating their hunting grounds and pastures became catastrophic. The Sioux fought hard to contain them. After the annual Sun Dance ceremony, many Sioux and Cheyenne communities decided to attack the military posts along the hated "Boseman Road", which was used by settler caravans to move west. Approximately two and a half miles from Fort Smith, Montana, there was a small palisade that served as protection for the workers who made hay for the army herd. On the morning of August 1, twenty infantrymen under the command of Lieutenant Sigismund Sternberg went to guard six hayfields. Some time later, the stockade was attacked by a huge force of Sioux and Cheyenne, but the new Springfield repeating shotguns served the whites well. Retreating, the soldiers set fire to the hay. The flame was already about six meters from the stockade when the wind changed. The Indians attacked again. Lieutenant Sternberg tried to cheer up the soldiers: "Stand up, boys, and fight like a soldier!" But those were his last words, the bullet went through his head. Sergeant James Norton took command, but he soon fell. One of the soldiers managed to break through for help to Fort Smith, but reinforcements did not arrive until several hours later. The Indians killed six, and they themselves lost eight warriors. This battle went down in history as the Battle of the Hayfield or the Battle of Hayfield.

The next day (August 2, 1867), but already five miles from Fort Phil Kearney, Wyoming, a huge force of Sioux, mostly Oglala, Miniconjou and Itazipcho, attacked the camp of lumberjacks, who were accompanied by an escort of 51 infantrymen led by a captain James Powell and Lieutenant John Jennes. Some soldiers and loggers were attacked by the Indians outside the camp or on the way to the fort, and they fought back on their own. Behind the wagons placed in a circle, 24 soldiers and 6 lumberjacks took refuge. Several hundred mounted Sioux rushed to the wagons, but were beaten back by the new Springfield repeating shotguns. Then they dismounted and began to creep up. During the second attack, Lieutenant Jennes remained standing, ignoring the warnings of his comrades. "I myself know how to fight the Indians!" - He declared and fell with a forehead pierced by a bullet. In four and a half hours, the defenders fought off eight Sioux attacks. After a while, reinforcements of a hundred soldiers with mountain howitzers arrived from the fort, and the Indians retreated. When the battle was over, four more lumberjacks and fourteen soldiers who had been hiding there during the battle came out of the forest. In total, seven white people were killed and two wounded. Powell reported that his men had killed 60 Indians and wounded 120, but such loud claims of heroism by army officials were common. According to historian George Hyde, Indian losses were six killed and six wounded. This event became known in the history of the Great Plains as the Battle of the Wagon Box.

Colonel David Stanley

The 1873 Yellowstone Expedition, commanded by Colonel David Stanley, consisted of 1,500 soldiers, including ten companies of Lieutenant Colonel George Custer's 7th Cavalry, and 400 civilians. The soldiers were sent as an escort to the survey party of the Northern Pacific Railroad. When on August 4 the vanguard stopped for a halt and unsaddled their horses, six Indians appeared and tried to lead away the herd. The cavalrymen gave chase. When they stopped, the Indians also stopped, and the pursuers realized that the redskins were trying to lure them into a trap. About three hundred Sioux soon showed up. The soldiers dismounted, took up defensive positions and began to shoot back. The warriors did not attack them, but tried to set fire to the grass, but she did not do anything. The parties fired at each other from a long distance, after which the Indians began to leave. One of the cavalrymen was wounded, and among the Indians three were wounded. Three more Americans, taken by surprise on the plain, were killed. Expedition Stanley continued to move up the river. Yellowstone and on the evening of August 10 set up camp at the mouth of the river. Bighorn. The next morning, the Sioux and Cheyennes opened up such massive fire from the south bank that the cavalrymen had to move their herds farther away so that the horses would not be hurt. The fire was led by about five hundred soldiers. For some time, the parties fired at each other, after which two hundred redskins crossed the river downstream. The soldiers drove them away, but soon new warriors joined the Indians. However, the Indians failed to break through the American defenses, and they left.

In 1875, attacks by the Sioux and Cheyenne began against gold prospectors in the Black Hills, which escalated into a full-scale war called the Sioux War for the Black Hills. The two main events that triggered it were the research expedition of the Northern Pacific Railway to the lands of the river. Yellowstone in the summer of 1873 and confirmation of the presence of gold in the Black Hills, resulting in an influx of gold prospectors into the Sioux lands. It was reported that in the summer of 1875 at least 800 gold prospectors settled in the Black Hills. The government attempted to negotiate the sale of the Hills territory with Oglala chief Red Cloud and Brule chief Spotted Tail visiting Washington in June 1875, offering $6,000,000, but they refused, demanding ten times the amount offered. The general mood of the Sioux was expressed by the Hunkpapa chief Sitting Bull: “We don't need white people here. The Black Hills belong to me, and if they try to take them away from me, I will fight. The government solved the problem in its usual way. Messengers were sent out to all the Redskin winter camps telling them that they had to be on the reservation by the end of January 1876 or they would be considered hostile. To roam in winter snowstorms was tantamount to suicide, and the Indians remained in place. A punitive expedition was organized against them, the only success of which was the destruction of the Cheyenne camp of Two Moons on March 17, 1876 on the river. Powder by Colonel Joseph Reynolds. The summer campaign was planned more seriously. Hundreds of soldiers came from different sides to finally defeat the Indians.

General Crook

June 17, 1876 on the river. Rosebud, Montana, there was one of the most serious battles in the history of the conquest of the Great Plains - the Battle of Rosebud. Scouts from Sitting Bull's camp discovered a large force of General Crook's soldiers (47 officers, 1,000 soldiers, 176 Crows, and 86 Shoshone), and a huge force of Sioux and Cheyenne, making a night march, attacked them. For the soldiers, this was a complete surprise. In the morning an Indian scout appeared on the hill. He raced down the hill shouting "Sioux!" As he rode into the camp, he announced that the Sioux were about to attack, whereupon the soldiers immediately heard the war cry. Crow and Shoshone scouts were the first to take the brunt. It is believed that it was thanks to their participation in the battle that the soldiers avoided complete defeat. According to Walter S. Campbell, the old Sioux and Cheyenne Indians who fought in the battle, whom he knew personally, called the Battle of Rosebud the Battle with our Indian enemies. The forces of both sides were almost the same - approximately 1200 fighters each. Sioux leader Crazy Horse later said that 36 Sioux and Cheyenne were killed and 63 more were injured. It is known that Crook's red-skinned scouts captured 13 scalps. Crook's losses were 9 soldiers killed and 21 wounded, 1 Indian scout killed and 7 wounded. Despite small losses, Crook was forced to curtail the military campaign. His soldiers used up about 25,000 rounds of ammunition in battle, practically nullifying their entire ammunition supply. This amount would be enough to shoot every Indian who participated in the battle twenty times. After the battle, Crook retreated and withdrew the troops, while the Indians celebrated their victory. Handsome Shield, a Crow shaman whose husband Lead Walker was among Crook's scouts, spoke of the battle thus: . But it happened otherwise, and he himself received a good thrashing. And, of course, the Crow and Shoshone who were with him did not escape her either.

Colonel George Custer

The next major battle took place a few days later on June 25, 1876, and became known as the Battle of the Little Bighorn. George Custer's forces consisted of 617 soldiers, 30 scouts and 20 civilians. Custer's scouts discovered a huge Indian camp on the river. Little Bighorn - 1500 to 2000 warriors. Indian scouts warned Custer that there were more hostile Sioux and Cheyenne on the Little Bighorn than bullets from his soldiers, but this did not stop the white warrior. He divided his forces into three parts, a mistake that cost him his life. Custer, who planned to run for the presidency of the country, needed this victory, and he was ready to take the risk. But he did not imagine that the camp could be so huge. Crow scouts said that before the battle the general often took a drink and was already drunk by the beginning of the battle. One of the wives of a Crow Scout later said: "It must have been a lot of whiskey that made this great leader of the soldiers stupid on the day he died." In the ensuing battle, the Indians completely, to a single man, killed Custer's detachment (more than 200 people), and the other two detachments were forced to retreat and take up defense. In total, approximately 253 soldiers and officers, 5 civilians and 3 Indian scouts were killed, and 53 people were injured. The losses of the Indians amounted to about 35 soldiers killed and 80 wounded. According to Sioux Rain on the Face, killing soldiers "was like killing sheep." Beautiful Shield, a Crow woman, recalled: “All summer the lands surrounding the battlefield stank of corpses, and we even had to move our camps away from there because we could not bear the smell ... For more than a year, people of my tribe found the remains of soldiers and Sioux near the Little Bighorn River.

Chief Little Wound

When it became known about the complete defeat of Custer, America was shocked. The US Congress called for an increase in the size of the army and stop feeding the peaceful, reservation Sioux until they give up land in the area of ​​the river. Powder and Black Hills. The hungry Indians agreed. “We blushed with shame,” recalled one of the white officials who signed the agreement. Military action was also not long in coming. On September 9, 1876, Captain Anson Mills' soldiers of General Crook's column attacked and destroyed Chief American Horse's (Iron Headdress) camp at Slim Buttes in South Dakota. About 130 soldiers attacked a small camp of 37 teepees and drove the Indians into the hills. The Sioux fought back until General Crook approached with reinforcements and forced them to surrender. In the afternoon, warriors from Crazy Horse, who stood in the vicinity of the camp, rode to the rescue, but the soldiers drove them away, after which Crook ordered the camp to be destroyed. Crook's losses were 3 killed and 15 wounded. Sioux losses - 14 killed and 23 captured. Chief American Horse was mortally wounded and died the same day. Thus ended the Battle of Slim Buttes.

In October, Colonel Nelson Miles, with a column of 449 people, surveyed the area of ​​the river. Yellowstone in search of the Sioux. On October 20, he caught up with Sitting Bull's camp on the eastern tributary of the river. Cider Creek, Montana. Long negotiations followed, after which Miles and Sitting Bull returned to their camps, certain that instead of negotiations the next day they would have to fight. The next day, October 21, Miles pulled up infantrymen to the Indian camp. Negotiations began again, but, realizing their futility, Sitting Bull interrupted them, after which the soldiers attacked. According to some reports, there were about 900 warriors in the camp, but they could not withstand modern guns and artillery fire, and after a hard fight, the Sioux retreated, leaving their camp and tons of meat supplies. There were only two wounded among the soldiers, and five dead Sioux were found on the battlefield.

Colonel Nelson Miles

In the autumn of 1876, the War Department organized another powerful expedition, the purpose of which was to capture or destroy the last groups of hostile Indians who defeated Crook and Custer in June of that year. On November 25, Colonel Mackenzie destroyed the Cheyenne camp of Dull Knife and Little Wolf. On December 18, 1876, Colonel Nelson Miles attacked the 122 teepee community of Sitting Bull on Ash Creek. Miles began the fight by bombarding the camp with howitzers. When the soldiers burst into it, it turned out that the bulk of the soldiers were on the hunt. The Indians lost 60 horses and mules, 90 tipis and one man killed. In December 1876, several Sioux chiefs came to Fort Kef flying a white flag, but Crow scouts jumped out and killed them. On January 7, 1877, in the Wolf Mountains, Miles camped and, expecting an attack by the Indians, ordered the soldiers to make an embankment around the camp. The next morning Crazy Horse appeared with 500 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors and attacked the soldiers. However, howitzer fire prevented the Indians from approaching, and after five hours of fighting they left. Five Indians and three soldiers were killed.

It became increasingly difficult to resist US military power, and in January 1877, Sitting Bull visited the Crazy Horse camp on the river. Tank, saying that he wants to go to Canada. They discussed the possibility of surrender, to which Sitting Bull said, "I don't want to die yet."

In the spring of 1877, tired of the endless war, the Sioux began to lay down their arms and surrender. On April 5, over 600 Indians surrendered to General Crook after negotiations with Spotted Tail, who acted as peacekeeper. On April 14, about 900 itazipchos and miniconju led by Red Bear and Cloud Toucher came to Spotted Tail's agency and surrendered. On May 6, Crazy Horse himself capitulated. He brought 889 Oglals with him to the Red Cloud Agency - 217 adult men, 672 women and children. His soldiers surrendered 117 guns. But the American authorities continued to fear the great Sioux leader, and on May 7, 1877, he was treacherously murdered at Fort Robinson. But free Indians still remained in the United States, and on September 7, 1877, Miles, with a detachment of 471 people, attacked the camp (61 teepee) of the Lame Deer miniconge, who swore never to surrender. The leader was killed, the camp was overrun, and Miles nearly died during the fight. The soldiers killed about 30 miniconjou, wounded 20, captured 40, and 200 fled. Soldiers lost 4 killed and 9 wounded. In addition, Miles destroyed the camp and half of the horses from the captured herd of 450 heads.

Sitting Bull and his hunkpapas went to Canada, where he promised the authorities to live in peace and obey the laws. He refused to return to the US, saying, "That land is poisoned with blood." With him went the Black Eagle miniconju, the High Road oglala, and the Spotted Eagle itazipcho. In Canada, the Sioux felt safe, but due to lack of food, they were sometimes forced to cross the US border, which was patrolled by 676 soldiers and 143 Indian scouts of Colonel Nelson Miles. July 17, 1879 at the mouth of Beaver Creek on the river. Milk, Montana, soldiers discovered Sitting Bull's camp of 300 Sioux. There was a fight, as a result of which the Indians retreated. Both sides lost three men killed. In late 1880, several Sioux communities were forced to surrender to the Poplar River, Montana agency. They were very restless, and the Indian agent asked for more troops. On January 2, 1881, 300 soldiers marched towards the Indian camp, in which there were about 400 Sioux - men, women and children. The soldiers attacked, supported by two howitzer fire, and the Sioux fled. 8 Indians died, 324 surrendered, and 60 escaped. The army confiscated 200 horses and 69 guns and revolvers.

Indian Policeman Red Tomahawk

As a result of numerous attempts, the Americans managed to convince Sitting Bull and his people to return to the United States, where for some time he lived on a reservation, but on December 15, 1890, he was killed by Indian police, who intended to arrest him on the orders of an Indian agent. "Under no circumstances let him go" - that was their order.

In 1890, many of the Plains tribes embraced a new religious doctrine called the Dance of the Spirits. The Prophet Wovoka stated that if the Indians would observe certain rituals and perform the Dance of the Spirits, the white people would disappear, the bison would return, and the red-skinned relatives would rise from the dead. The authorities, fearing a new uprising, tried to stop the desperate Indians. On December 28, 1890, Colonel Forsyth's 470 soldiers at Wounded Knee surrounded Big Foot's miniconju-sioux camp—about 300 frozen, half-starved Indians. The next day, December 29, Forsyth tried to convince the leader that his people "would be completely safe in the hands of their old soldier friends, and hunger and other problems would, fortunately, end." But as the soldiers disarmed the Indians, a misunderstanding led to an unequal battle with artillery, during which 128 people, mostly women and children, were killed. This event is known as the Massacre at Wounded Knee. “Who would have thought that dancing could lead to such a disaster? said the Sioux Short Bull bitterly. “We didn't need trouble... we didn't even think about war. If we wanted war, why were we unarmed?" But the desperate, hungry and practically unarmed Indians were able to give a worthy rebuff. Forsyth lost 25 men killed and 35 wounded - on the Little Bighorn alone, the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry lost more men than in this battle.

Events infuriated the rest of the Sioux, and it was only thanks to the skillful actions of the authorities and peaceful leaders that a new uprising was avoided, although the next day the Sioux killed two more soldiers and wounded seven. The events at Wounded Knee were the last armed confrontation in the history of Indian wars.

Sioux population

The approximate number of plains Sioux in different years was: Lewis and Clark (1804): brulee - 300 warriors, oglala - 150 warriors, miniconju - 250. According to their information, the total number of Tetons was 4000 people, of which 1000 were warriors, but these data are undoubtedly very underestimated. Denig (1833): brulee - 500 tips, oglaly - 300 tipis, miniconjou - 260 tips, sihasaps - 220 tips, hunkpaps - 150 tipis, ohenonpas and itazipchos - 100 tips each. Denig indicated the number of Sioux in 1833 at the rate of 5 people. on tipis, that is, in total about 1630 tips for 5 people. in everyone. Thus, according to his calculations, the number of Tetons in 1833 was about 8150 people. According to the Indian Bureau, the total number of Tetons in 1843 was 12,000 people. Ramsay (1849) - more than 6,000 people Culbertson (1850): oglals 400 teepis, minikonjou 270 teepis, sihasapas 450 teepis, hunkpapas 320 teepis, ohenonpas 60 teepis, itazipchos 250 teepis. Riggs (1851) - less than 12,500 Agent Vaughan (1853): brulee 150 teepee, minikonjou 225 teepee, sihasapa 150 teepee, hunkpapa 286 teepee, ohenonpa 165 teepee, itazipcho 160 teepee. Warren (1855): minikonju 200 teepee, sihasapa 150 teepee, hunkpapa 365 teepee, ohenonpa 100 teepee, itazipcho 170 teepee. Warren wrote in 1855 of the Ochenonp that "today many of them are dispersed among other tribes" of the Sioux. Denig (1855): brulee - 150 tips for 5 people. in each, oglaly - 180 tips for 3-4 people. in everyone. Agent Twiss (1856): brulee - 250 tips. At the same time, Twiss noted that he carefully counted them when they came to receive annual gifts under the contract. According to the Indian Bureau for 1861, the total number of Tetons was 8900 people, but this figure is probably an underestimate, because in 1890 the Tetons numbered 16,426 people, of which only the Upper Brule made up 3245 people, and the Lower brulee - 1026.

Text by Y. Stukalin

A Sioux Indian named Amos Two Bulls in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. Photograph by Gertrude Casebeer. 1900 Library of Congress

1. Bison people

The Sioux are a group of Indian tribes living in the northern United States. The tribes included in this group are united by a more or less common language and some cultural unity. Most Sioux hunted American buffalo in the past, and it was around this animal that their spiritual, economic, and social life was built to a large extent, which is why the Sioux were formerly known as "buffalo people." Many tribes from this group lived in the traditional dwellings of nomadic Indians - tips, which allowed them to move from place to place during the year, following the herds of bison.

In the 17th century, French traders heard the name given to these tribes by their neighbors (and enemies) - the Ojibwe Indians. They called the Sioux nadewesioux - "little snakes" (thus contrasting them with the "big snakes", the Iroquois). In French, the name was shortened to "Sioux". The Sioux themselves never called themselves that, but used a word that, depending on the dialect of their language, sounds like "Lakota", "Dakota" or "Nakota" - "friends" or "allies". Hence the names of the three largest subgroups of the Sioux tribes: Lakota - those who live in the west, Dakota - in the east, Nakota - in the center.

2 Western Indians

The arrival of the colonialists initially not only did not harm the Sioux, but also benefited them: the Spaniards did not claim their territory, but they brought horses to America, which the Sioux began to use for hunting and crossings between camps. But in the second half of the 19th century, immigrants from Europe reached the northern steppes and first destroyed the bison population, and then began to build a railway through the territories occupied by the Sioux. In the late 1860s, when the Civil War ended and the US population began to grow rapidly, the Americans began to conquer the steppes - the so-called Sioux Wars began.

By this time, newspapers and magazines already existed in America, photographers were working with might and main. Therefore, the Americans were well informed about how the Sioux live. As a result, it was the Sioux who became stereotypical North American Indians: those Indians that we see in Westerns are copied from them.

Most often in historical writings we are talking about the Lakota - the western group of Sioux tribes. The Lakota were very powerful, they controlled the territory in which the states of North and South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana are now located. Among the leaders of the Lakota tribes were the famous Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in America.

3. The Great Sioux Reservation and the Black Hills Gold Rush

The Sioux lost the war, becoming the last wild Indians to be subjugated by the US. In 1851 and 1866, the Sioux signed two treaties with the government at Fort Laramie, according to which they gave the authorities vast territories, resources and rights in exchange for recognition of certain lands, including the Black Hills mountain range, which had for the Sioux special, sacred meaning. In 1868, the Great Sioux Reservation was created. In 1873-1874, gold was found in the Black Hills, after which the American army ousted the Indians from the territories guaranteed to them. The Indians were transferred to different reservations created on the territory of the original Great Sioux Reservation.

Today, the Sioux have about two dozen reservations, the largest of which are in South Dakota. In terms of a set of rights, a reservation is not much different from a state: each reservation has its own laws, its own license plates on cars, its own government, education and health systems, but they are controlled by the federal authorities - the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Today, the Sioux have generally become accustomed to the idea of ​​reservations, but they continue to fight for the expansion of their rights: they want to decide for themselves what and how to spend money, what kind of education system they will have, and other issues of this kind.

4. The most famous Sioux

Russell Means was born on the Pine Ridge Reservation. As a teenager, he used drugs and drank heavily. Suspected of murder, he was stabbed once and tried to shoot him several times. In 1968, Means joined the American Indian Movement, after which he participated in the capture of the Mayflower II ship (1970), the rock of the presidents on Mount Rushmore (1971), the building of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington (1972) and Wounded Knee - one of the villages of the reservation Pine Ridge, where activists declared traditional tribal rule (1973, military confrontation with the American authorities lasted 71 days). In 1987, he tried to run for President of the United States from the Libertarian Party.

Russell Means in 1992 Rex Features/Fotodom

In 1992, Means played Chief Chingachgook in the American film adaptation of The Last of the Mohicans, after which he starred in several more films, including the role of an old shaman in Natural Born Killers, and voiced one of the characters in the cartoon Pocahontas.

Already a well-known actor, in 2002, Means again tried to take part in the political life of the country, running for governor of New Mexico, but was again defeated. Then he tried to create a separate state on the territory of the United States. In 2012, at the age of 72, having failed not only to fulfill his requirements, but also to get any attention to his idea, Russell Means died of cancer.

5. Independent State

On December 17, 2007, Russell Means and several of his supporters announced the creation of an independent state of the Lakota tribes. Means said that he considers all treaties concluded by the tribes with the US government invalid, since the authorities themselves violated them by driving the Indians out of the Black Hills. He demanded to transfer the disputed territories (parts of the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana) to the new state - and turned to the embassies of several countries with a request to recognize the new state formation.

Not a single government responded to Means' appeals. Some Indian leaders officially dissociated themselves from the idea of ​​a republic, emphasizing that they intended to abide by the treaties that their ancestors had concluded with the United States in the middle of the 19th century.

“How my uncle came up with the idea of ​​the Republic of Lakota, I don’t know for sure. We talked with him about how it would be great to create a whole separate state for the Indians, but that was long before he got down to business. In December 2007, he announced that the Lakota is disconnecting from America, let everyone surrender American passports: citizens of the new republic will have new passports and new driver's licenses, and they will not have to pay taxes to the federal treasury. But of course, there was no real concept of what kind of state it would be, what kind of structure, management and everything else it would have. There were no attributes of a sovereign state: no flag, no anthem, no constitution. There was no understanding of how the president would be elected. My uncle said: "Anyone can come to me for citizenship, become a Lakota and move to the Republic of Lakota." Under the republic, he then meant 23 acres of his site. Therefore, everyone took it as a joke - not only the Americans, but even the inhabitants of our reservation. Like, Means joked with the guys, drove through. After Russell's statement, nothing else happened. Volunteers launched some website, but that too died out a year later.

Perhaps if one of the people who officially headed the government of the Lakota would have supported Russell, things could have turned out differently. But they reacted to this project as Putin did to Chechnya. And that's a pity, because the Lakota Republic could have been something worthwhile. It's just that the Lakota people don't believe in change. We have been tormented by the federal government for so long that no one believes anything will ever change for the better. The last time we had an election in the tribe, only twenty percent came to the vote.”

payu Harris, nephew of Russell Means

6. Who was interested in the Republic of Lakota

In the United States, the creation of the republic went practically unnoticed; not a single federal publication wrote about it. The Russian media reacted differently to Means’ initiative: Novye Izvestiya published an article “The Lakota Indians declared independence in the United States”, Nezavisimaya Gazeta published an article “Kosovo syndrome struck the Indians of the USA and Bolivia”, Komsomolskaya Pravda published an article “The Indians announced exit from the United States and threaten to detach several states from the country.

In 2011, that is, four years after the announcement of the creation of the republic, Margarita Simonyan also caught on. She held a teleconference with Means, which began with the words: “Chingachgook wants independence. And why are the Indians worse than Kosovo, we decided to ask Chingachgook himself.”

NTV has not abandoned the topic so far: the channel made its last report from the Republic of Lakota already in 2014, with the introduction “US Indians were inspired by the example of Crimea and headed for independence.”

Most of the representatives of the Lakota tribes with whom it was possible
contact the Arzamas correspondent, they could not remember at all what it was
for the republic.

For help with this material, Arzamas would like to thank Colin Calloway, Professor of Indian Studies at Dartmouth College; Wade Davis, professor in the Department of Indian Studies at the University of Montana; Russell Thornton, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Anthropology, UCLA; Philip Deloria, professor of history and American culture at the University of Michigan, and Frances Washburn, professor at the University of Arizona.