SIOUX
22
siotrx
census. Among the official witnesses were Rev.
Hinman, the Episcopalian missionary, and Father
De Smet. This treaty brought the whole of the
Sioux nation under agency rest rid ion, and with its
ratification in February, 1809, the five years' war
came to a close.
In this war Red Cloud had been the principal leader, Spotted Tail having been won to friendship earlier through the kindness extended by the officers at Fort Laramie on the occasion of the death of his daughter, who was buried there with Christian rites at her own request. The Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho also acted with the Sioux. The chief fight- ing centered around Fort Kearney, Wyoming, which Red Cloud himself held under repeated siege, and near which on 21 December, 1866, occurred the "Fet- terman Massacre", when an entire detachment of 80 men under Captain Fetterman was exterminated by an overwhelming force of Indians. By treaties in 1867 reservations had been established at Lake Traverse, S. D. and at Fort Totten, N. D., for the Sisseton and Wahpeton Santee and the Cuthead Yanktonai, most of whom had been concerned in the Minne.sota outbreak. In 1870 a part of the Christian Santee separated from their kinsmen in Nebraska and removed to Flandreau, S. D., and became citi- zens. In 1871, despite the protest of Red Cloud and other leading chiefs, the Northern Pacific railway was constructed along the south bank of the Yellow- stone and several new posts built for its protection, and war was on again with the Teton Sioux, Chey- enne, and part of the Arapaho. Several skirmishes occurred, and in 1873 General G. A. Custer was or- dered to Dakota. In the next year, while hostilities were still in progress, Custer made an exploration of the Black Hills, S. D., and reported gold. Despite the treaty and the military, there was at once a great rush of miners and others into the Hills. The Indians refusing to sell on any terras offered, the military patrol was withdrawn, and mining towns at once sprang up all through the mountains. Indians hunting by agents' permission in the disputed terri- tory were ordered to report at their agencies by 31 January, 1876, or be considered hostile, but even the runners who carried the message were unable to return, by reason of the severity of the winter, until after war had been actually declared. This is com- monly known as the "Custer War" from its central event, 25 June, 1876, the massacre of General Custer and every man of a detachment of the Seventh Cavalry, numbering 204 in all, in an attack upon the main camp of the hostile Sioux and Cheyenne, on the Little Bighorn River in south-eastern Montana. On that daj' and the next, in the same vicinity, other detachment s under Reno and E5enteen sustained desper- ate conflicts with the Indians, with the loss of some sixty more killed. The Indians, probably numbering at least 2500 warriors with their families, finally with- drew on the approach of Generals Terry and Gibbons from the north. The principal Sioux commanders were Crazy Hor.se and Gall, although Sitting Bull was also present. Red Cloud and Spotted Tail had remained at their agencies.
Several minor engagements later in the year resulted in the surrender and return of most of the hostiles to the reservation, while Sitting Bull and Gall and their immediate following escaped into Canada (June, 1877). By a series of treaties negotiated 23 Sept.- 27 Oct., 1876, the Sioux surrendered the whole of the Black Hills country and the western outlet. On 7 Sent, 1877, Crazy Horse, who had come in with his band some months before, was killed in a conflict with the guard at I'ort Robinson, Neb. In the .same month the last hostiles s\irrcndered. Soon after the treaty a large delegation visited Washington, following which event the I<cd Cloud (Ogalala) and Spotted Tail (Brul6) agencies were permanently established in
1878 at Pine Ridge and Rosebud, S. D., respectively.
This date may be considered to mark the beginning
of civihzation in the.se two powerful hands. In ISSl
all the late hostiles in Canada came in and surren-
dered. Sitting BuU and his immediate followers,
after being held in confinement for two years, were
allowed to return to their homes on Standing Rock
reservation. On 5 August, 1881, Spotted Tail was
killed by a rival chief. On 29 July, 1888, Strike-the-
Ree, the famous Cathofic chief of the Yankton, died
at the age of 84.
In the allotment of Indian agencies to the manage- ment of the various refigious denominations, in accord with President Grant's "peace policy" in 1870, only two of the eleven Sioux agencies were assigned to the Catholics, namely. Standing Rock and Devil's Lake, notwithstanding that, with the exception of a portion of the Santee and a few of the Yankton, the only missionaries the tribe had ever known from AUouez to De Smet had been Cathofic, and most of the resident whites and mixed-bloods were of Cathcfic ancestry. Santee, Flandreau, and Sisseton (Lake Traverse) agencies of the Santee divi- sion were assigned to the Presbyterians, who had already been continuously at work among them for more than a generation. Yankton reservation had been occupied jointly by Presbyterians and Episco- palians m 1869, as was Cheyenne River reservation in 1873. Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Lower Brule and Crow Creek reservations, comprising nearly one-half the tribe, were given to the Episcopalians, who erected buildings between 1872 (Crow Creek) and 1877 (Pine Ridge). At De\'irs Lake an industrial boarding school was completed and opened in 1874 in charge of Benedictine Fathers and Grey Nun Sisters of Charity. At Standing Rock a similar school was opened in 1877 in charge of Benedictine priests and Sisters. Thus by 1878 regular mission plants were in operation on every Sioux reservation. Other Catholic foundations were begun at Crow Creek and Rosebud in 1886, at Pine Ridge in 1887, and at Chey- enne River in 1892. In 1887 the noted secular mis- sionary priest, Father Francis M. J. Craft, opened school at Standing Rock and later succeeded in organizing in the tribe an Indian sisterhood which, however, was refused full ecclesiastical recognition. In 1891 he removed with his community to the Fort Berthold reservation, N. D., where for some years the Sioux Indian Sisters proved valuable auxiliaries, particularly in instructing the women and nursing the sick of the confederated Grosventres, Arikara, and Mandan. Later on several of them won com- mendation as volunteer nurses in Cuba during the Spanish War. This zealous sisterhood is no longer in existence. In 1889, after long and persistent opposition by the older chiefs, the "Great Sioux Reservation" was cut in two and reduced by about one half by a treaty cession which included almost all territory between White and Cheyenne Rivers, S. D., and all north of Cheyenne River west of 102°. The ceded lands were thrown open to settlement by proclamation in the next spring, and were at once occupied by the whites. In the mean- time payment fcr the lands was delayed, the annuity goods failed to arrive until the winter was nearly over, the crops had failed through attendance of the Indians at the treaty councils in the preceding spring, epi- demic diseases were raging in the camps, and as the final straw Congress, despite previous promise, cut down the beef ration by over fovn- million pounds on the ground of the stipulated money payment, which, however, had not arrived.
A year before rumours had come to the Sioux of a new Indian Messiah ari.sen beyond the niounlnins to restore the old-time Indian life, together with their departed friends, in a new earth from which the whites should be excluded. Several tribes, inclu<ling
