On this date, April 29, 1868, a number of Lakota tribes and the Arapaho signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie, which recognized the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation.  The rest, as the say, his history. 

Source: http://www.historicaldocuments.com/TreatyofFortLaramielg.htm

Historical Documents
Treaty of Fort Laramie

In this treaty, signed on April 29, 1868, between the U.S. Government and the Sioux Nation, the United States recognized the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation, set aside for exclusive use by the Sioux people.

Source: http://puffin.creighton.edu/lakota/1868_la.html

FORT LARAMIE TREATY APRIL 29, 1868

TREATY WITH THE SIOUX-- BRULÉ, OGLALA, MINICONJOU, YANKTONAI, HUNKPAPA, BLACKFEET, CUTHEAD, TWO KETTLE, SANS ARCS, AND SANTEE--AND ARAPAHO

15 Stat., 635.
Ratified, Feb. 16, 1869.
Proclaimed, Feb. 24, 1869

Articles of a treaty made and concluded by and between Lieutenant-General William T. Sherman, General William S. Harney, General Alfred H. Terry, General C. C,. Augur, J. B. Henderson, Nathaniel G. Taylor, John B. Sanborn, and Samuel F. Tappan, duly appointed commissioners on the part of the United States, and the different bands of the Sioux Nation of Indians, by their chiefs and head-men, whose names are hereto subscribed, they being duly authorized to act in the premises.

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On this date, April 6, 1976, the U.S. Senate investigated the American Indian Movement and whether they were a "security threat." 

Source: http://users.skynet.be/terrorism/html/usa_indians.htm

UNITED STATES. CONGRESS. SENATE. COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY. SUBCOMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNAL SECURITY ACT AND OTHER INTERNAL SECURITY LAWS. Revolutionary activities within the United States: the American Indian Movement: report of the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-fourth Congress, second session. Washington, D.C., U.S.A.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976. iii+44 p., ill., 24 cm.
American Indian Movement.
LC 76602958.

__________. __________. __________. __________. __________. Revolutionary activities within the United States: the American Indian Movement: hearing before the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-fourth Congress, second session, April 6, 1976. Washington, D.C., U.S.A.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976. ii+207+xiv p., index, 24 cm.
American Indian Movement.
LC 76603641.

Lakota scholar and thinker Vine Deloria, Jr.On this date, March 26, 1933, Lakota scholar and thinker Vine Deloria, Jr. was born.

Sources: http://www.bookrags.com/biography-vine-deloria-jr/ and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vine_Deloria,_Jr.

Vine Deloria, Jr. (born 1933) is known as a revolutionary thinker who speaks out against the decadence of U.S. culture and insists that young Native Americans receive traditional teachings before exposing themselves to the philosophies of the dominant Euro-American culture. Through his widely published books, he has brought greater understanding of Native American history and philosophy to a vast global audience.

Quote from Vine Deloria, Jr.: 

Source: http://www.indigenouspeople.net/vine.htm

"Western civilization, unfortunately, does not link knowledge and morality but rather, it connects knowledge and power and makes them equivalent. Today with an information `superhighway' now looming on the horizon, we are told that a lack of access to information will doom people to a life of meaninglessness -- and poverty. As we look around and observe modern industrial society, however, there is no question that information, in and of itself, is useless and that as more data is generated, ethical and moral decisions are taking on a fantasy dimension in which a `lack of evidence to indict' is the moral equivalent of the good deed."

President Andrew Johnson.On this date,  March 22, 1866, President Andrew Johnson ordered the release of the 177 surviving Dakota prisoners of the 1862 Sioux Uprising that occurred in Minnesota and eastern South Dakota. They were moved to the Santee Reservation near Niobrara , Nebraska.

Source: http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/dakota/Dak_account.html

On this date, February 15, 2005, the ACLU filed a voting rights violation lawsuit against Charles Mix County, alleging that it was diluting the votes of Native Americans.

Source: http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1096410358

LAKE ANDES, S.D. - A lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union's voting rights division accused Charles Mix County of diluting the votes of the American Indian population, a frequently heard accusation in a state that has seen its share of voting rights lawsuits.

District lines are drawn north and south in a county that is shaped as a near-rectangle, diluteing the American Indian vote, the ACLU claims.

The southern portion of the county is occupied by the Yankton Sioux Tribe.

The plaintiffs claim that the county violates the ''one person, one vote'' rule of the constitution and dilutes American Indian voter strength, a violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

 

On this date, February 12, 1991, Indian activist Leonard Peltier, who was convicted of killing two FBI agents in the 1970s on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, was denied a new trial by a federal judge in Kansas.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEED9153BF930A25751C0A967958260&n=Top%2fNews%2fNational%2fU%2eS%2e%20States%2c%20Territories%20and%20Possessions%2fSouth%20Dakota

Indian Leader Denied New Trial in Slayings

A Federal district judge today denied a new trial for Leonard Peltier, a former leader of the American Indian Movement who has been imprisoned 15 years in the slayings of two Federal agents at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

Feds to the Lakota: "You don't sell the Black Hills, we declare you hostile."On this date, January 31, 1876, the federal government decreed that all Lakota not on a reservation were considered hostile.  The Lakota had rebuffed the government's attempt to purchase the Black Hills.

Source: http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/sittingbull.htm

When government efforts to purchase the Black Hills failed, the Fort Laramie Treaty was set aside and the commissioner of Indian Affairs decreed that all Lakota not settled on reservations by January 31, 1876, would be considered hostile. Sitting Bull and his people held their ground.

On this date, January 30, 1976, Byron DeSersa, OSCRO (Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization) organizer and American Indian Movement supporter, suspiciously died in Wanblee, South Dakota during the height of intra-Indian turmoil on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Source: The Hippie Dictionary: A Cultural Encyclopedia of the 1960s, by John Bassett McClear, found at http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN1580085474&id=vYvL4yFI2AQC&pg=PA652&lpg=PA652&dq=%22january+30%22+%22south+dakota%22&prev=http://books.google.com/books%3Fq%3D%2522january%2B30%2522%2B%2522south%2Bdakota%2522%26lr%3D&sig=RIENq6nNl3ZJWfkCywjtMs1krUA

Arrests by local authoritizes resulted in Dale Janis and Charlie Winters serving two years of five year sentences for manslaughter. Charges were dropped against two others, Manny Wilson and Chuck Ricards, on the basis of self-defense, despite the fact DeSersa was unarmed when shot to death. P. 652

On this date, Janaury 27, 1973, Wesley Bad Heart Bull was murdered in Buffalo Gap, SD, triggering events that lead to the takeover at Wounded Knee.

Source: http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:2GwFzY3bsLIJ:www.sdpb.org/learning/Resources/NativeAm/TATTOO.pdf+%22January+27%22+%22south+dakota%22+history&hl=en

On January 27 , 1973 , a Lakota man named Wesley Bad Heart Bull is murdered in Buffalo Gap, SD and the white suspect is only charged second-degree manslaughter. Protests in Custer , SD resulted in rioting, with 27 protesters arrested and 11 police officers were injured. Further fighting in nearby Rapid City led to 40 more arrests, including the dead man’s mother.

On this date, January 26, 1996, the Yankton Sioux Tribe lost a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.  The Court ruled in favor of the South Dakota that a portion of the reservation had been diminished in 1894 and was no longer part of "Indian country."

Source: http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/96-1581.ZS.html

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

SOUTH DAKOTA v. YANKTON SIOUX TRIBE et al.

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

 

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No. 96—1581. Argued December 8, 1997 –Decided January 26, 1998

The Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota was established pursuant to an 1858 Treaty between the United States and the Yankton Tribe. Congress subsequently retreated from the reservation concept and passed the 1887 Dawes Act, which permitted the Government to allot tracts of tribal land to individual Indians and, with tribal consent, to open the remaining holdings to non-Indian settlement. In accordance with the Dawes Act, members of the respondent Tribe received individual allotments and the Government then negotiated with the Tribe for the cession of the remaining, unallotted reservation lands. An agreement reached in 1892 provided that the Tribe would “cede, sell, relinquish, and convey to the United States ” all of its unallotted lands; in return, the Government agreed to pay the Tribe $600,000. Article XVII of the agreement, a saving clause, stated that nothing in its terms “shall be construed to abrogate the [1858] treaty” and that “all provisions of the said treaty … shall be in full force and effect, the same as though this agreement had not been made.” Congress ratified the agreement in an 1894 statute, and non-Indians rapidly acquired the ceded lands.

In this case, tribal, federal, and state officials disagree as to the environmental regulations applicable to a solid waste disposal facility that lies on unallotted, non-Indian fee land, but falls within the reservation’s original 1858 boundaries. The Tribe and the Federal Government contend that the site remains part of the reservation and is therefore subject to federal environmental regulations, while petitioner State maintains that the 1894 divestiture of Indian property effected a diminishment of the Tribe’s territory, such that the ceded lands no longer constitute “Indian country” under 18 U.S.C. § 1151 (a), and the State now has primary jurisdiction over them. The District Court declined to enjoin construction of the landfill but granted the Tribe a declaratory judgment that the 1894 Act did not alter the 1858 reservation boundaries, and consequently that the waste site lies within an Indian reservation where federal environmental regulations apply. The Eighth Circuit affirmed.

Held: The 1894 Act’s operative language and the circumstances surrounding its passage demonstrate that Congress intended to diminish the Yankton Reservation. Pp. 11—27.

In sum, we hold that Congress diminished the Yankton Sioux Reservation in the 1894 Act, that the unallotted tracts no longer constitute Indian country, and thus that the State has primary jurisdiction over the waste site and other lands ceded under the Act. Accordingly, we reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.