Fort Laramie Wyoming

Agreement over Sioux land compensation is hard to find

Arvol Looking Horse, center, from the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota and 19th -generation keeper of the sacred white buffalo calf pipe, conducts a blessing at the original site of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty signing at Fort Laramie National Historic Site in Wyoming on Saturday. Bands of the Great Sioux Nation met over the weekend to discuss a new campaign to enforce their long neglected treaty rights.

FORT LARAMIE, Wyo. — When Gen. George Armstrong Custer approached an American Indian encampment on June 25, 1876, he got the surprise of his suddenly very-short life.

In the time it would take a hungry man to eat a meal, as an Indian veteran later described it, thousands of Lakota warriors and their allies rubbed out Custer and his 7th Cavalry command near the Little Bighorn River of Montana.

Custer thus became the most famous casualty of the Great Sioux War. The first was a treaty between the Lakota and U.S. government signed at Fort Laramie eight years earlier.

On this year's anniversary of "Victory Day," as Lakota people declare the occasion of Custer's defeat, and 300 miles to the south, a meadowlark heralded the Sicangu Lakota Treaty Council at Fort Laramie National Historic Site and a gathering of Sioux bands. Their aim last weekend was to determine what might yet be retrieved from the ashes of old promises.

Ed Charging Elk, the treaty council's executive director, said it was fitting that the Rosebud Sioux Tribe should lead the way. The first Lakota signatory to the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, which established the Great Sioux Reservation, was Iron Shell, of the Brule band, followed by others including Chief Spotted Tail.

It was also appropriate, he said, that on the date of the Custer fight, bands of the Great Sioux Nation might begin a new campaign, this time in the hall of Congress, to secure long-neglected treaty rights and the return of the Black Hills.

"That's the last time we ever unified," he said.

Two landmark treaties were negotiated at Fort Laramie between the U.S. government and Plains Indian tribes. The treaty of 1851 attempted to secure safe passage for non-Indian migrants and set forth traditional territorial claims of the tribes.

The treaty of 1868 created the Great Sioux Reservation, which encompassed all of western South Dakota including the Black Hills. It was "set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation" of bands who were parties to the agreement.

Our Traveling Tribe: Fort Laramie, WY...

We are a full-time RV family, and this is the place where our littl' ole tribe of 13 jots down the fun memories we make on our cross-country travels. We love to check out new destinations, meet new friends, and hope to eventually collect Jr.Ranger badges from every National Park as we roadschool our way across the country! Feel free to join our adventure! The building below is called Old Bedlam, and was the bachelor officer quarters - it is the oldest building remaining on fort grounds, and the oldest military building in all of Wyoming. It was in poor shape due to neglect, but the park service has restored it, and all the rooms are furnished circa 1850s and 1860s. One of the questions in the Jr. Ranger booklet was 'how many When the kids finished the program, we were off to turn them in. We felt as if we rushed through the fort since we were only there for about 2 hours, but there were a couple of reasons that we hurried our visit. One was the weather - the wind was cold and relentless, and we all had to bundle up with hoods/earmuffs so we didn't get earaches. The other reason was the REST of the Jr. Ranger program. When we got our Jr. Ranger booklets, they were a little different than they normally are - while they are all unique, this one was 2 sided(!); one side was for Fort Laramie, and then you could turn the book over and upside down, and the other was for the nearby Guernsey State Park. And, the ranger was sure to tell the kids what they would earn if they did BOTH of the programs. Once the kids had been well-bribed, we had no choice but to complete the books in entirety! Here, the kids had several pages of information to find out via the displays in the visitor's center, and it took them a bit of time to complete them - and some of the kids, like Peanut, couldn't concentrate because they were much more interested in the dead mouse in the mousetrap in the corner. The center is open seasonally, and May 1st (the day we were there) was the first day that they were open for the 2011 year; and therefor the first day we could do the whole Jr. Ranger program! Sometimes I feel a bit guilty that my kids' motives at doing all the Jr. Ranger programs is to 'get' something. But, then I remember how much I detested doing schoolwork that had no apparent purpose - the teacher would look at it for a second, grade it, and then toss all that hard work into the trash can.

Fort Laramie and the pageant of the West, 1834-1890

Frommer's Montana & Wyoming

From Fort Laramie to Wounded Knee, In the West That Was

Our Documents, 100 Milestone Documents from the National Archives

Annals of Wyoming