Seventeen years after the great council of 1851, the United States and the Lakota and their allies negotiated a second major agreement at Fort Laramie. The 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie is one of the most important documents in the history of federal relations with Native nations, and its promises and betrayals still echo in the courts today.
The road to 1868
The 1868 treaty grew out of conflict. In the 1860s, the United States sought to open routes through Lakota territory, including a trail to the goldfields of Montana that passed through prized hunting grounds. Lakota leaders resisted, and the resulting struggle led the government to seek peace. The treaty was the product of these negotiations.
What the treaty promised
The 1868 treaty established the Great Sioux Reservation, a large territory that included much of present-day South Dakota west of the Missouri River, among other provisions. The Black Hills, a region of deep spiritual and cultural importance to the Lakota, lay within this reservation. The treaty also recognized additional lands as unceded territory reserved for hunting.
The agreement set out that the Great Sioux Reservation was set apart for the use and occupation of the Lakota and that, in general, unauthorized non-Native people were not to settle there. It also contained provisions requiring broad consent from adult male members of the nation before further land cessions could take place. For the Lakota, these terms were meant to secure their homeland.
Promises soon broken
The security promised in 1868 did not last. Within a few years, the discovery of gold in the Black Hills drew a flood of prospectors and settlers into the reserved territory in violation of the treaty. Rather than keeping intruders out, the United States ultimately moved to take the Black Hills, and in 1877 Congress acted to seize the region. This taking disregarded the consent requirements the treaty had established.
The seizure of the Black Hills became one of the most significant treaty violations in United States history and the basis for a long legal struggle that continued into the twentieth century and beyond.
A lasting legacy
The 1868 treaty remains a living document in law and in the ongoing relationship between the Lakota and the United States. It is central to disputes over the Black Hills and to broader questions of treaty rights and sovereignty. To read more, see our articles on the Black Hills and the breaking of the treaty and United States v. Sioux Nation, or browse the legal and land disputes category.
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