Black Hills tribes
The Black Hills, located in southwestern South Dakota, hold profound cultural, economic, and spiritual significance for the Lakota and Teton Sioux tribes. Known as Paha Sapa, meaning "Black Hills" in the Sioux language due to their densely wooded appearance, this region features a rugged landscape rich in natural resources, sacred sites, and wildlife. Historically, the Black Hills were integral to the Sioux way of life, providing essential materials for shelter, food, and healing, as well as serving as a spiritual center connected to Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit.
In the late 1800s, the US government violated treaties by seizing the Black Hills without compensation, particularly following the discovery of gold in the area, leading to a long-standing legal and cultural dispute. The 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie had marked the Black Hills as part of the Sioux's permanent reservation, yet the Manypenny Agreement of 1877 unlawfully transferred these lands, an action later echoed in a Supreme Court decision. Since then, Sioux tribes have sought the return of the Black Hills through various legislative efforts, all of which have failed to secure the return of these sacred lands. The ongoing dialogue between the Sioux Nation and the federal government reflects the enduring significance of the Black Hills to the tribes and their resilience in advocating for their rights and cultural heritage.
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Black Hills tribes
- TRIBES AFFECTED: Lakota and Teton Sioux
- SIGNIFICANCE: The Black Hills have had both economic and spiritual significance to the Sioux, or Oceti Sakowin; the US Congress took the Black Hills with no compensation in 1877, violating an earlier treaty
The Black Hills are located in southwestern South Dakota along the Wyoming and Nebraska borders. Formed in the Pleistocene era, they form a remote ridge of limestone and granite 110 miles long, 40 miles wide, and 4,000 feet high. They provide a panoramic view of the vast prairie of buffalo grass below. The hills themselves are heavily wooded with dark pine and contain abundant animal and plant life, as well as numerous springs and small lakes.
The Black Hills were reached in the late 1700s by the Sioux chief Standing Bull and his followers as the Sioux migrated westward. The Sioux called these hills Paha Sapa (Black Hills) because they were so heavily wooded with dark pine that, from a distance, they looked black. By 1814, the Sioux had expelled the Kiowa from the area and extended this border further west in the next few years.
The Black Hills acquired a special significance to the western Sioux and were perhaps the most loved area in the Sioux domain. They provided water and abundant food, lodge poles for tipis, and medicinal plants for healing. The steep canyons protected from the severe winter weather. Spiritually, the Black Hills were holy. They were the site of vision quests and the home of Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit. According to legend, two-legged animals raced four-legged animals to see who would dominate the Earth. The thunder-being proclaimed that the Black Hills were the heart of the Earth, and the Sioux would come back someday and live there. The hills were seen as a reclining female figure whose breasts provided life-giving forces and to whom the Teton went just as a young child would go to its mother.
White encroachment into Sioux territory led to war in the mid-nineteenth century. The Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868 ended this war and created the permanent Great Sioux reservation, of which the Black Hills formed a part. However, the pressures of White settlement and the discovery of gold in the Black Hills led the government to try to purchase or lease them. The Sioux refused. In 1877, Congress ratified the Manypenny Agreement, which took the Black Hills without compensation. This violation of the 1868 treaty was upheld in the 1903 Supreme Court decision Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock. In 1911, the Sioux began what was to become a protracted legal process to regain the Black Hills. In 1980, the Supreme Court affirmed a 1979 Court of Claims ruling that the Sioux were entitled to $106 million in compensation for taking the Black Hills. The Sioux, however, refused to take this money, as they viewed it as inadequate compensation for their sacred lands. Various attempts to return the Black Hills to the Sioux, such as Senator Bill Bradley’s land return legislation in 1985, have not succeeded.
There have been several unsuccessful attempts to return the Black Hills to the Sioux. Proposed in 2009, the Sioux Nation Black Hills Act attempted to enact legislation that would return over one million acres of federal land in the Black Hills National Forest to the Sioux tribes. However, this bill failed to gain enough votes to pass. In 2012, the Black Hills Sioux Nation Land Return Act proposed returning the land to the Sioux and establishing a Sioux National Park. This bill also did not pass. Although discussions continued in the mid-2020s between the federal government and the Sioux Nation, no meaningful legislation to return their sacred lands has come to fruition.
Bibliography
"Fighting for the Black Hills: Understanding Indigenous Perspectives on the Great Sioux War of 1876-1877." US National Park Service, 26 July 2023, www.nps.gov/articles/000/fighting-for-the-black-hills-understanding-indigenous-perspectives-on-the-great-sioux-war-of-1876-1877.htm. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.
"Return Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills to the Lakota!" Lakota People's Law Project Action Center, action.lakotalaw.org/action/land-back. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.
"Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)." National Archives, 17 Apr. 2024, www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/fort-laramie-treaty. Accessed 27 Sept. 2024.