Sioux

Member of an American Indian people who inhabit the Great Plains region; the largest group of Plains Indians. Their language belongs to the Siouan family, and they are divided into three groups: Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota. Originally hunter-gatherers living around Lake Superior, Michigan, they were forced into North and South Dakota by the Cree and Chippewa around 1650, and took up a nomadic, buffalo-hunting lifestyle. They developed a warrior culture in which status was achieved by bravery in warfare. With reservations in the Dakotas, and other parts of the USA and Canada, they now number about 108,200 (2000) in the USA and 60,000 in Canada (1991).

Today, many Sioux raise cattle and a large number work as wage-labourers in neighbouring towns. The Sioux language and culture are vigorously maintained although most Sioux are now nominally Christian. Many also follow the Native American Church, which uses the hallucinogenic peyote cactus in traditional sacred medical ritual. In 1973, Dakota Sioux occupied the site of Wounded Knee, which raised the awareness of the American Indian Movement (AIM). Gold, uranium, coal, oil, and natural gas have been found on their reservations. The Dakota pressed for and were awarded US$160 million compensation in 1980.

The Dakota and Nakota languages are closely related in the Siouan linguistic family, and comprise a number of dialects. Dakota contains the Santee, Dakhota, and Santee-Sisseton dialects; and Nakota includes Nakoda, Yankton, and Yankton-Yanktonais. The Lakota language is also known as Lakhota or Teton.

The Sioux gathered wild rice, hunted, and fished on their ancestral lands in Minnesota, but on the Great Plains the buffalo provided most of their material needs. They lived in portable tepees covered in buffalo hides, and wore buffalo-skin clothes. The Sioux believed four powers governed the universe and their main ceremony was the sun dance, performed at the summer solstice. As with many Plains Indians, men acquired status through exhibiting bravery in warfare, scalping their enemies, and stealing their horses. On the Plains they continued to war with the Chippewa, and also came into conflict with the Arikara and Pawnee, but by the 19th century had formed an alliance with the Arapaho and Cheyenne.

In 1851 the Sioux signed the first Treaty of Fort Laramie, ceding 24 million acres of territory for a payment of US$1.4 million. Most of them settled on a reservation in Minnesota, where they were expected to take up farming. However, they were never paid for their land, and treaty violations and crop failures led to an uprising in 1862, after which over 300 Sioux were imprisoned and 38 hanged in a mass execution. The Sioux were subsequently removed from their homeland in Minnesota to reservations in South Dakota and Nebraska. A further uprising, led by the Oglala Sioux chief Red Cloud, was sparked by the US government's attempt to establish a series of forts to protect the Bozeman Trail which ran through Sioux territory in Wyoming and Montana. On 21 December 1866, Chief High Backbone and his band of warriors killed over 80 US cavalry in Fetterman's Massacre.

The Sioux signed the Second Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868, which gave them most of South Dakota west of the Missouri River; the US government promised to abandon two new forts between Bozeman and Laramie. The treaty was abrogated, however, when gold was discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1874 and thousands of miners invaded Sioux territory. US troops were sent to remove the Sioux, leading to the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Montana, on 25 June 1876, in which Lt-Col George Custer and over 200 cavalry were killed by the warriors of chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull. The Sioux broke camp and moved on before further US forces arrived. Crazy Horse was defeated and captured at Wolf Mountain in 1877, and later killed on the way to prison, while Sitting Bull and his followers fled to Canada.

In 1890–91 the Ghost Dance spiritual movement spread throughout the Sioux and other Plains Indian tribes and ultimately contributed to their massacre by US troops at Wounded Knee in December 1890.