Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868
The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 was a significant agreement between the United States government and the Sioux Nation, established in response to ongoing conflicts amid westward expansion. After the Civil War, pressures from settlers, miners, and the military intensified, leading to armed confrontations and previous treaties failing to ensure lasting peace. The treaty aimed to create the Great Sioux Reservation, granting the Sioux extensive territory in present-day South Dakota, including the sacred Black Hills, and establishing provisions for self-sufficiency through agriculture. It also set aside additional lands as "unceded Indian territory" and outlined hunting rights. Despite these promises, the treaty faced challenges from influential Sioux leaders such as Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, who rejected its terms and continued to resist governmental authority. Ultimately, the treaty struggled to achieve its objectives, as violations by settlers and government forces persisted, leading to a tragic decline of the Sioux way of life by the 1880s. This historical context highlights the complexities of indigenous rights and U.S. policies during a transformative period in American history.
Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868
Date: April 29-November 5, 1868
Place: Laramie fork of the North Platte River in modern Wyoming
Tribe affected: Sioux
Significance: This treaty was meant to provide a lasting peace through mutual concessions involving territorial rights and peaceful behavior; the treaty ultimately failed
By the mid-1800’s the vast area of land claimed by the Sioux Nation was subjected to inexorable pressures from America’s westward expansion, which accelerated after the end of the Civil War in 1865. Pioneers, settlers, farmers, gold prospectors, railroads, and the army all encroached on Sioux territory. Inevitably, armed conflict between whites and Indians occurred. Attempts to arrive at a peaceful solution and compromise, such as the treaties of 1851, 1865, and 1866, provided only short-lived respites.
On July 20, 1867, after vigorous debate over whether to subdue the Indians militarily and punish them or reach a peaceful accord with them, both houses of Congress approved a bill which authorized a government commission to make peace with the Plains tribes. The commission was directed by Congress to establish peace, remove if possible the causes of war, safeguard frontier settlements and the rights-of-way for the transcontinental railroads, and establish reservations for the Plains Indians with adequate arable land so they could become self-sufficient farmers.
Terms of the Treaty
The peace commission, headed by Commissioner of Indian Affairs Nathaniel Taylor, worked its way west, meeting various tribes of Sioux and listening to their demands. In April, 1868, the commission convened at Fort Laramie with a draft treaty that met many of these demands. Article 2 established the Great Sioux Reservation, which gave to the Sioux all of present-day South Dakota west of the Missouri River, including the sacred Black Hills, “for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupancy of the Sioux.” Article 16 established the Powder River Country to the north and west of the Great Sioux Reservation as “unceded Indian territory,” where whites were not permitted to go unless given permission by the Sioux. Article 11 gave the Sioux hunting rights along the Republican River and above the Platte River in Nebraska and Wyoming for “so long as the buffalo may range thereon in such numbers as to justify the chase.” Other articles promised that all Sioux who resided within the Great Sioux Reservation would be provided with food for the next four years (until they learned to become farmers). The reservation was promised schools, mills, blacksmiths, doctors, and teachers and an agent to administer the various programs and maintain order. Additionally, no chief could unilaterally sign away treaty rights, as any sale of land had to be approved by three-fourths of all adult Sioux males.
In return, the United States asked for peace and asked that the Sioux make their permanent residence within the boundaries of the reservation. The Sioux relinquished the right to occupy any lands outside the reservation permanently, including the unceded territory. The Sioux were not to oppose the building of railroads on the plains and were not to attack settlers and their wagon trains or take white prisoners. Additionally, provisions would be distributed by the government not at the western end of the reservation, near traditional hunting grounds and where the Sioux customarily traded with whites, but at agencies established along the Missouri River in the eastern part of the reservation, in order to reorient Sioux life to these agencies.
Failure of the Treaty
Red Cloud was the final Sioux chief to sign the treaty, on November 5, 1868, only after the government abandoned its forts along the Bozeman Trail in Sioux territory. The treaty was rejected, however, by the influential and powerful Sioux chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, who remained in the unceded territory and refused to live on the reservation.
In the end, this treaty proved no more effective in maintaining the peace and Sioux way of life than previous ones had been. Violations of Sioux territory by white emigrants and the army, the Black Hills gold rush (and the taking of the Black Hills by the government in 1877 without compensation), problems administering the reservation, and the refusal of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull to live on the reservation despite government threats of war undermined any hope that the treaty’s terms would be honored and observed. By 1880 the Sioux had been either killed or defeated and were confined to the reservation.