The Lakota are a Native American people. Also known as the Teton Sioux, they are one of the three prominent subcultures of the Sioux people, with the Eastern Dakota (Santee) and Western Dakota (Wičhíyena). Their current lands are in North and South Dakota. They speak Lakȟótiyapi—the Lakota language, the westernmost of three closely related languages that belong to the Siouan language family.
The Sioux or Oceti Sakowin are groups of Native American tribes and First Nations people from the Great Plains of North America. The Sioux have two major linguistic divisions: the Dakota and Lakota peoples. Collectively, they are the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, or "Seven Council Fires". The term "Sioux", an exonym from a French transcription of the Ojibwe term Nadowessi, can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or to any of the nation's many language dialects.
Fort Yates is a hamlet in Sioux County, North Dakota, United States. It is the tribal headquarters of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and county seat of Sioux County. Since 1970 the population has declined markedly from more than 1,100 residents, as people have left for other locations for work. The population was 176 at the 2020 census.
Sitting Bull was a Hunkpapa Lakota leader who led his people during years of resistance against United States government policies. Sitting Bull was killed by Indian agency police on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation during an attempt to arrest him at a time when authorities feared that he would join the Ghost Dance movement.
The Grand River is a tributary of the Missouri River in South Dakota in the United States. The length of the combined branch is 110 mi (177 km). With its longest fork, its length is approximately 200 mi (320 km).
The Oahe Dam is a large earthen dam on the Missouri River, just north of Pierre, South Dakota, United States. Begun in 1948 and opened in 1962, the dam creates Lake Oahe, the fourth-largest man-made reservoir in the United States. The reservoir stretches 231 miles (372 km) up the course of the Missouri to Bismarck, North Dakota. The dam's power plant provides electricity for much of the north-central United States. It is named for the Oahe Indian Mission established among the Lakota Sioux in 1874.
The Ghost Dance War was the military reaction of the United States government against the spread of the Ghost Dance movement on Lakota Sioux reservations in 1890 and 1891. The U.S. Army designation for this conflict was Pine Ridge Campaign. White settlers called it the Messiah War. Lakota Sioux reservations were occupied by the U.S. Army, causing fear, confusion, and resistance among the Lakota. It resulted in the Wounded Knee Massacre wherein the 7th Cavalry killed over 250 Lakota, primarily unarmed women, children, and elders, at Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890. The end of the Ghost Dance War is usually dated January 15, 1891, when Lakota Ghost-Dancing leader Kicking Bear decided to meet with US officials. However, the U.S. government continued to use the threat of violence to suppress the Ghost Dance at Lakota reservations Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Cheyenne River, and Standing Rock.
Gall, Lakota Phizí, was an important military leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota in the Battle of the Little Bighorn. He spent four years in exile in Canada with Sitting Bull's people, after the wars ended and surrendered in 1881 to live on the Standing Rock Reservation. He would eventually advocate for the assimilation of his people to reservation life and served as a tribal judge in his later years.
The Standing Rock Reservation lies across the border between North and South Dakota in the United States, and is inhabited by ethnic "Hunkpapa and Sihasapa bands of Lakota Oyate and the Ihunktuwona and Pabaksa bands of the Dakota Oyate," as well as the Hunkpatina Dakota. The Ihanktonwana Dakota are the Upper Yanktonai, part of the collective of Wiciyena. The sixth-largest Native American reservation in land area in the US, Standing Rock includes all of Sioux County, North Dakota, and all of Corson County, South Dakota, plus slivers of northern Dewey and Ziebach counties in South Dakota, along their northern county lines at Highway 20.
The Hunkpapa are a Native American group, one of the seven council fires of the Lakota tribe. The name Húŋkpapȟa is a Lakota word, meaning "Head of the Circle". By tradition, the Húŋkpapȟa set up their lodges at the entryway to the circle of the Great Council when the Sioux met in convocation. They speak Lakȟóta, one of the three dialects of the Sioux language.
The Great Sioux Reservation was an Indian reservation created by the United States through treaty with the Sioux, principally the Lakota, who dominated the territory before its establishment. In the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, the reservation included lands west of the Missouri River in South Dakota and Nebraska, including all of present-day western South Dakota. The treaty also provided rights to roam and hunt in contiguous areas of North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, and northeast Colorado.
James McLaughlin was a Canadian-American United States Indian agent and inspector, best known for having ordered the arrest of Sitting Bull in December 1890, which resulted in the chief's death and contributed to the Wounded Knee Massacre. Before this event, he was known for his positive relations with several tribes. His memoir, published in 1910, was entitled, My Friend the Indian.
Thunder Butte is a prominent butte landmark located in the northwest corner of Ziebach County, South Dakota, in the United States. Thunder Butte is a large, isolated hill that can be seen for many miles in every direction, and has served throughout history as an important orientation point for area residents or a navigational aide for travelers crossing the surrounding plains. The butte gives its name to a small community at its base, and to a small creek that runs into the Moreau River.
The Great Sioux War of 1876, also known as the Black Hills War, was a series of battles and negotiations that occurred in 1876 and 1877 in an alliance of Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne against the United States. The cause of the war was the desire of the US government to obtain ownership of the Black Hills. Gold had been discovered in the Black Hills, settlers began to encroach onto Native American lands, and the Sioux and the Cheyenne refused to cede ownership. Traditionally, American military and historians place the Lakota at the center of the story, especially because of their numbers, but some Native Americans believe the Cheyenne were the primary target of the American campaign.
The United States government illegally seized the Black Hills – a mountain range in the US states of South Dakota and Wyoming – from the Sioux Nation in 1876. The land was pledged to the Sioux Nation in the Treaty of Fort Laramie, but a few years later the United States illegally seized the land and nullified the treaty with the Indian Appropriations Bill of 1876, without the tribe's consent. That bill "denied the Sioux all further appropriation and treaty-guaranteed annuities" until they gave up the Black Hills. A Supreme Court case was ruled in favor of the Sioux in 1980. As of 2011, the court's award was worth over $1 billion, but the Sioux have outstanding issues with the ruling and have not collected the funds.
LaDonna Brave Bull Allard, known as Tamakawastewin, was a Native American Dakota and Lakota historian, genealogist, and a matriarch of the water protector movement.
The Standing Rock Rural Water System (RWS) is a $30 million water system funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in 2009 for about 10,000 residents of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota. The RWS includes the Standing Rock Water Treatment and the "Indian Memorial Intake Pump Station, a raw water pipeline, two transmission pipelines and Kline Butte Storage Reservoir." The main regulation reservoir of the Standing Rock Rural Water System is the $3.6 million Kline Butte Storage Reservoir, located southwest of Kenel, South Dakota, which consists of a 5 million gallon ground storage reservoir. Currently, the intake valve for the water system is "located in a shallow part of the Missouri River near Fort Yates, North Dakota, roughly 20 miles from the planned river crossing of the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline also known as the Bakken pipeline. The Bakken oil pipeline Dakota line is to be "buried 92 feet (28 m) below the riverbed in hard clay." A new valve came online in 2016 in Mobridge, South Dakota which is seventy miles south of the proposed Bakken Pipeline Missouri River crossing. This Mobridge intake valve is intended to service the entire Standing Rock Sioux reservation.
Eagle Woman That All Look At was a Lakota activist, diplomat, trader, and translator, who was known for her efforts mediating the conflicts between white settlers, the United States government, and the Sioux. She is credited with being the only woman recognized as a chief among the Sioux.
Avis Red Bear is an American journalist and the founder of the Teton Times, an independent Native American newspaper. She is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.
Harold C. Frazier is an American politician and tribal leader who is the former chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, serving in that position since 2014. A member of the Democratic Party, Frazier serves concurrently as the chairman of the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Association, a position he was elected to in 2018.
