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The Diminishment Of The Great Sioux Reservation Treaties, Tricks, And Time, Alan L. Neville, Alyssa Kaye Anderson

Great Plains Quarterly

Historically, Indian-white relations have been marred by mistrust and dishonesty. This is especially true in numerous land dealings between the United States government and the Lakota/ Dakota/Nakota people of the northern Great Plains. Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court noted, "A more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings will never, in all probability, be found in our history."¹

Our focus here is to chronicle and analyze the tragic diminishment of the Great Sioux Reservation, first established by the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851.² The land loss progressed with the Homestead Act of 1862, Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, …