In a sacred manner I live
To the heavens I gazed
In a sacred manner I live
My horses are many
In my part
of the west the Sioux were the largest tribe. It was the tribe of Sitting Bull,
Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, Roman Nose, American Horse and Old Man
Afraid of His Horses, to name a few.
At the
height of its glory the seven divisions of the tribe stretched from Yellowstone
in the west to the middle of Wisconsin on the east. Of the seven divisions, the
Teton Sioux of South Dakota, Nebraska and Wyoming was by far the largest with
an estimated number of more than 20,000 in 1890. So big in fact that it too was
divided into seven groups.
Before the
wars on the plains started the Sioux were a happy wandering people. As more and
more of their land was taken from them the Tribes were backed into a corner and
fought. Outnumbered, it was a losing battle from the start. Most historians
today agree that the government’s failed Indian policy is what started the
wars. And why did the government’s Indian policy fail? The government planned
and wanted it that way. Sad but true!
