Themes In Saga Of The Sioux

For the Lakota Indians, stories were passed down through the generations as a way of teaching lessons. Their creation story places an emphasis on maintaining a balance between man and nature. This balance was broken for the Indians when, after violating the Dawes Act, a treaty that gave them full rights to their sacred land, white men pushed them out of their homeland and forced them into a society that they never wanted to be a part of. In doing this, their culture was greatly diminished, along with their hope of a better future. Today, the Lakota Indians face poverty and other challenges that all stem from a time when their rights were violated, peace broken, and stories forgotten.

The Sioux creation story and the book of Genesis in the Bible both mirror an image of how the world along with human life was created. When forming their creations they were dissimilar in the way they produced water and land. In Genesis God created water by just a spoken word and it would appear. However, the Creating Power would form his creations with objects using his hands to form land from mud the story states “He sang all the while that he shaped the mud in his hands and spread it on the water to make a spot of dry land for himself.” Additionally, he completely covers everything with land by a command and using feathers from an eagle by waving them over the spot he had produced. Both of these stories reveal that in a previous time their God was unpleased with what he had created so he destroyed the world because of the people’s acts of immorality and unruliness. Also, this gives reflection on the role of the natural world being impure, failed and contaminated by sin and only the grace of “God” can save them. When God or the “Creating Power” recreated the world in their effort to maintain order people needed to understand how powerful and almighty they were by being able to create life or to end it.

"My People the Sioux" is a good literary work written in 1928. This book leaves an everlasting impression with some because it definitely intensifies the sympathy for the Indians. Luther Standing Bear, also known as Plenty Kill, portrays the dramatic and traumatic changes about the Sioux throughout their traditional way of life. As a young boy growing up, he experienced many of these hardships first hand between his people and the whites. This autobiography is quite valuable as it helps allow us to envision what really happened in the battling times of the Indians. Luther stated this quote, which to me, is unforgettable and very well said. It reads:

​The Great Sioux War or The Black Hills War (1876- 1877) was a series of battles trying to force the Sioux and Cheyenne people back into the Great Sioux Reservation. In 1868, the Treaty of Laramie was signed by Sioux leaders to give up their lands and move west onto the reservations. In 1874 LTC George Custer was tasked to reconnoiter the Black Hills (part of the Sioux reservation). His primary task was to survey the land and look for natural resources during a time of great economic depression. After the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, rumors spread and miners flooded into the hills. Lakota Warrior, Crazy Horse, led many attacks on LTC Custer’s surveying parties in the hills. Crazy Horse and his warriors were trying to keep the white

Decades of discrimination against the Native American people including the Indian Removal Act, the Trail of Tears, and the Massacre at Wounded Knee has led to a so called “compromise” and the much needed formation of the American Indian Movement to try and keep Native American culture and customs alive. This unfair treatment and discrimination has been fueled by many different people and reasons, but ultimately boils down to the greed and intolerance of the white man. Numerous indian tribes were already living in the United States when the european people settled here. The act of living and existing in nearly complete peace for a great deal of years started its swift decline in the years leading up to 1830, again fueled by greed for land and materials along with intolerance of the indians obliterated any chance of fair treatment, or the two groups living in complete peace again.

Our nation’s history has been deep rooted in the conflict involving Native Americans, ever since the beginning of America and it is one hard to get rid of even as the days go by. The impact of colonialism can be seen in Native American communities even today, and it can only be understood through a cultural perspective once you experience it. Aaron Huey, who is a photographer, went to Pine Ridge reservation and it led him to document the poverty and issues that the Sioux Indians go through as a result of the United States government’s long term actions and policies against them. One must question all sources regarding these topics because there is a lot of biased and misinformation about Native American struggles, and sometimes schools do not thoroughly teach the truth so students can get an insight. There are also different sociological perspectives in this conflict, along with many differing opinions on how to approach the problem and deal with it. This is where ideas clash because people believe their views are right regarding how to handle it.

In a New York Times article “Why Dakota Is The New Keystone,” written by Bill McKibben he uses word choice that envelops a certain tone to the reader, varying sentence structure that make the piece interesting, and appeals to both pathos and logos. All of these writing skills are used to encourage Americans to stand up with the Sioux tribe. McKibben uses a strong choice of words that portray the Sioux tribe as the “heroes of the standing rock reservation, sometimes on horseback, have peacefully stood up to police dogs, pepper spray and the bizarre-looking militarized tanks and SWAT teams that are the stuff of modern policing” (McKibben). When the reader sees the words such as ‘heroes’ and ‘peacefully’ it is easy for them to see that the tribe is not the enemy in this situation.

There has been a common theme in several pieces of literature read and analyzed this semester; some of the authors convey the struggle of home in their works. It should be noted that the authors this essay will analyze are people of color, adding another complex layer to the idea of a home. The short stories and poems of authors such as: Langston Hughes, Zitkala Sa, and Sandra Cisneros each express the uncertainty, longing, and issues for what a home means.

Just like this century actually runs longer thematically than just 1800 to 1900, the story of the Indians extends backward before the first shots of the Civil War were fired and stretches forward past Reconstruction. Throughout this elongated era, different tribes had different experiences. Some, like the nations of the Iroquois, started their travails with warfare of white Americans as far back as choosing between the French and British during the French and Indian War. Others, like the Seminole, had fought many independent wars against America (or Spain or Britain) in their homelands long before they faced the Civil War. Still others, like the Cherokee, had attempted to assimilate into white culture, were forced off their lands, thought they were “safe” on guaranteed reservation lands, and then were forced again to participate when the Civil War bled westward into Indian Territory. The concepts of racism and “whiteness” that flowed like a river through themes of religion, progress, immigration, territory, slavery, and Reconstruction during the “long nineteenth century” also affected Native Americans; the “war of a thousand deserts” fought by the native tribes of the Southwest was both a unique experience and a shared experience as almost every tribe fought their own wars against whites and sometimes against other tribes

The tribe is living in rural and substandard conditions of housing and healthcare simply because the United States would like to obtain the resources that their land provides. With this knowledge, the tribe now faces pressure from more than just the government because their land produces a natural resource. Globally, the Blackfeet will have to deal with the economic issues of knowing that they have a resource on their land that can produce income for the state and they do not use it. Already having to deal with the problem of simply being Native American, having the stress and pressure of possibly having to destroying their land for income is a large problem that the Blackfeet face. Though the tribe faces may problems in their societies and economically, they still grow and persevere as a tribe. The Native American tribe of the Blackfoot Indians are a large native society that have a very eclectic form of religion and an incredible spirit of endurance. Although they are being persecuted for their land and resources, the Blackfeet find ways to keep their society in positive

By 1876, gold had been discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The gold was found on Sioux land, and this region was considered sacred to the Lakota Sioux Indians. The he land was to be protected and respected by the United States Army, because of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 18681, but the Army could not keep miners off the Sioux ground, which led to the increase of Sioux grievances towards the Americans; some grievances that are still taken offense to today. These battles and negotiations soon were known at the Great Sioux War of 1876.

Luther Standing Bear’s account of his life growing up as a Sioux Native American amidst a nation flourishing with change is a powerful and poignant narrative that draws us deeper into the history of The United States. My People the Sioux and the life of Luther Standing Bear are both crucial in examining the positive connotations of Indian Boarding Schools and the use of education to challenge the inferiority complex surrounding Native Americans.

We're going to tell you about a tribe of Indians known as the Sioux Indians. The Sioux Indians lived on the great plains. The Sioux's tribe is partially and fully located in 7 states. The states are known as Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. Their natural resources include deer, beans, wild rice, and buffalo.

The Native Americans (Indians) found themselves pushed from their homelands and trapped into treaty after treaty with the American government. “The 1851 For Laramie Treaty [stated] the chiefs of the Plains tribes agreed to accept definite tribal borders and allow white immigrants to travel on their trails unmolested” (Tindall 804). Although it’s fair to say that when these treaties were signed both parties intended to abide by them; however greed always seems to get the best of society. The desire to expand westward would result in the dismissal of the treaties causing fights between settlers and Indians. The “Great Sioux War” is a prime example of just how ruthless things got for Indians during the westward expansion. The war lasted one year and three months across 4 (present day) states (Tindall 805). Ultimately, a lack of understanding of how settlers fought their wars would result in Indians losing the war and being subjected to reservations. Once there they were usually stripped of their traditions, culture and basic way of life. They were then forced to adapt to an “Anglo-Saxon” way of life. This meant anything from wearing the same clothes as settlers, to learning to read and write English instead of their native tongues. Once the Indians had reached a reservation they themselves were “conquered” right along with the

The Sioux war was fought over gold that the U.S. government found in the mountains occupied by the Sioux Indians, and it ended with the Indians being forced to live on reservations. In 1861, settlers wanted land that Indians occupied, so that led them to move them to the Sand Creek reservation. The local whites in the area ended up massacring 400 Indians that were under protective custody. Apparently even the Indians that were supposed to be protected by treaties were not safe from the wrath of the U.S. government. The Song “One Tin Soldier” by Coven describes the discovery of gold in the Black Hills and shows just how far the United States would go to gain wealth at the expense of the Indians. The Natives wanted to live in peace, but the whites wanted the treasure that was buried there. “Now the valley cried in anger, mount your horses, draw your sword. And they killed the mountain people, so they won their just reward.” This describes the situation that was faced when the whites found a valuable resource on Indian territory. The whites usually bought out the Indians and when they couldn’t they killed them and got what they wanted. Among the most famous of the men who massacred Indians for the benefit of the whites was General Custer. He had no problem with massacring women and children to help the government gain money. However, the whites were not always successful in pushing the Indians around. In the Battle of Little Bighorn, General