Black Hills: White Man Made Crazy by Yellow Metal

Route 16 winds slowly through South Dakota's Black Hills, meandering leisurely toward the Pine Ridge reservation and Wounded Knee. The road is the same one that Sitting Bull traveled on his way to Canada in the 1880s, and it goes through some of the most scenic land in the United States.

Today, tourists flock to the Black Hills to see its beauty and commune with nature at one of the many campgrounds located in the Hills. For most Americans, Paha Sapa-the Indian name for the Black Hills-remains a place to go for a summer vacation, a "must" stop when the family decides to show the kids the U.S.A.

But for American Indians, Paha Sapa was the center of the world. As the first settlers moved west, they pushed the Indians back to the Black Hills, and it was there that the Indian wars began in earnest, highlighted by the battle known as Custer's Last Stand.

After the Civil War, the U.S. government sent a treaty commission to Fort Laramie in the Dakota Territory, now Wyoming. The commission was headed by Newton Edmunds, governor of the Territory, well-known for his ability to swindle the Indians.

Edmunds and the other members of the commission tried to persuade the Indians to allow the Federal government to build roads across the Indian country. The government was particularly interested in fortifying the Bozeman Trail, which ran along the Powder River and was the only route from Fort Laramie to Montana.

The Indian tribes in the area blockaded the Trail, and throughout the next three years (1865-1868), the Indian chief Red Cloud, an Oglala Sioux, spearheaded a running battle with the U.S. cavalry for control of the Powder River area.

The treaty commission never intended to accept a compromise with the Indians, and only Red Cloud's resistance forced the government to abandon its plans for the Powder River country. The numerous peace commissions-three in two years-that arrived at Fort Laramie always sought Red Cloud's signature, and the great Sioux leader was willing to meet with the commissions.

But too often, military outfits accompanied the peace commissions to the negotiations, and although some Indian tribes agreed to give up the Powder River country in exchange for ammunition, blankets and other supplies, Red Cloud withheld his endorsement.

The treaty commission, however, pretended that the agreement was in effect, and the U.S. cavalry built forts along the Powder River. Red Cloud, angered by the white man's presumptuousness, defended his territory from the bluecoated invaders, setting off a series of skirmishes that included some of the cavalry's worst defeats.

Red Cloud's personal war in defense of the Powder River ended in 1868, when he signed the Laramie treaty on November 6. The treaty ended hostilities, but more importantly, it gave the Black Hills to the Indians permanently. The U.S. government was not being generous-it considered the Paha Sapa a worthless piece of land.

The Federal government soon regretted that treaty. Four years later, a white man discovered gold in the Black Hills, and a flood of white men descended onto Indian land, armed with a gleam in their eyes and a total disregard for the 1868 treaty.

The Federal government curses that treaty even now. The members of the militant American Indian Movement who occupied the historic site of Wounded Knee made the 1868 treaty-the critical pact of what they term a long "trail of broken treaties"-their rallying cry.

Under the terms of the 1868 agreement, the Black Hills belong exclusively to the Sioux. The treaty makes the Federal government responsible for keeping white men out of the Black Hills.

Article 2 states: "no persons except those designated herein...and except officers, agents, and employees of the government may be authorized to enter upon the Indian reservation."

In the 1870s, the government made token attempts to discourage gold seekers while simultaneously pursuing expansionist land policies. When the Indians protested the presence of "white men made crazy by yellow metal," the government's response was another treaty commission. The government wanted the Paha Sapa, but it took Custer's Last Stand to get it.

The new treaty commission set up shop in 1875 on the White River-at a site that is now the border between Nebraska and South Dakota-not far from the agencies given to Red Cloud and Spotted Tail by treaty with the U.S. (Agencies were parts of a reservation assigned to an Indian chief and his tribe.)

In exchange for the Paha Sapa, the U.S. offered $6 million, a paltry sum compared to the $500 million in gold which the Black Hills eventually produced.

The Indians were not impressed by the sale price. The government had welched on less money in the past. To the Indians, the Black Hills were not a dollars-and-cents question. Even the tribes that readily signed treaties in the 1860s to obtain horses and blankets refused to sell the Black Hills.

Under the 1868 treaty, the U.S. could not buy the Black Hills unless "three-fourths of all adult male Indians" agreed to a new treaty. When Red Cloud and Spotted Tail pointed this out, the treaty commissioners explained that this applied only to friendly Indians, not to non-reservation Indians like Sitting Bull, who was considered to be at war with the United States.

Red Cloud and other Oglala Sioux eventually signed the treaty, primarily because they had no real choice. The cavalry had already assumed control of the Hills, although one non-signer-Sitting Bull-managed to inflict a horrible defeat on General George A. Custer.

Only 10 per cent of the Indians signed the agreement that gave the Black Hills to the U.S. Sitting Bull took his tribe to Canada and Crazy Horse, an Oglala, drifted about the Black Hills. In 1875, Crazy Horse's emissary. Little Big Man, told the treaty commission that Crazy Horse would never give the white man the Paha Sapa.

Two years later, Red Cloud and Spotted Tail-now reservation Indians-convinced Crazy Horse to accept his own reservation from the government. Crazy Horse did so reluctantly, aware that reservation life would deprive him of his leadership role.

While the reservation plans were being approved, some of Crazy Horse's braves sold themselves to the cavalry as scouts in a war against another tribe. Unable to stomach his people's disloyalty, Crazy Horse decided to return to the Powder River country, which was unalloted Indian land.

The cavalry caught up with him at Spotted Tail's agency, and arrested him. Under the grasp of his former comrade, Little Big Man (now an Indian policeman), Crazy Horse was led to the agency jail. When he refused to enter, a guard stabbed the Oglala chief with his bayonet, while Little Big Man held him captive. Crazy Horse was buried, ironically enough, at Wounded Knee.

The struggle between reservation Indians and non-reservation Indians, between Indians co-opted by the government and those who remain outside the government's grasp, erupted again at Wounded Knee. AIM asked for more than adherence to the 1868 Laramie treaty-it asked for the young Oglala to remember that Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull died at the hands of Indian police working for the U.S. government.