David Paul
HIST3216 - First Nations in Canada: Historical Perspective
Instructor: Daniel E. Shaule, M. A.
Monday, April 8, 2013
The Sioux nation was a powerful proud nation which migrated and traveled over the Great Plains; their hunter gather lifestyle was encroached upon after the civil war in the United States. The Sioux were victimized socially politically and genocidal. The need to develop the western hemisphere of the United States, seen the lifestyle of the Sioux, as savage and a threat to settlers moving west. The government of the United States philosophy was that a good Indian was a dead Indian represented little hope of peace. Though peace treaties were inspired by the American government they held no validity and integrity as they were a means to eradicate the Sioux’s lifestyle. The American perspective in taming the west was to impose boundaries in the form of reservations on the Sioux and take away their freedom to hunt buffalo non-compliant Indians were deemed as hostile and classified an enemy of the United States, this ramification led into the Plains Indian wars.
The Dakota are first recorded to have resided at the source of the …show more content…
government on the basis of the Second Treaty of Fort Laramie, which guaranteed the Sioux a reservation, in the Black Hills. The Sioux were content they felt they had finally been allowed to live in peace with the white man. in 1874, when an expedition led by General George A Custer confirmed that gold had been discovered in the Black Hills of Dakota Territory. This area sacred to many tribes and placed off-limits to white settlement by the Fort Laramie Treaty. Despite the ban, prospectors began a rush to the Black Hills. By 1875, the demand for gold was on the rise and the government wanted the Black Hills.(Berger,