Lakota History Timeline

In September 1804, the Lewis and Clark Expedition entered Sicangu territory near the mouth of the Bad River. This was the first contact between Lakota peoples and individuals officially representing the United States government under a presidential commission.

Image source: Lewis and Clark Expedition

Some Lakota bands became the first Indigenous allies of the U.S. Army under Colonel Henry Leavenworth during the Arikara War. The Lakota were unimpressed by the American soldiers’ battlefield performance.

Image source: Arikara War

An American Horse ledger records an Oglála council in which elder headmen presided, wakíčhuŋza served as decision-makers and heralds, and akíčhita societies enforced order. The account documents established Lakota political institutions.

The Atkinson-O'Fallon expedition secured the first formal treaty between the United States and the Plains Lakota. Lakota winter counts largely treated the treaty as insignificant, recording the Missouri River flood instead.

A treaty made between the Lakota and Cheyenne in 1840 or 1841 was one of the few exceptions to the intertribal warfare affecting the Lakota during this period.

In 1843, southern Lakota attacked the Pawnee village of Chief Blue Coat near the Loup River, killing many people and burning approximately half of the earth lodges.

In January 1846, the Oglála and Sičháŋǧu wrote to the President of the United States invoking iglúwašte, or reciprocity. They presented themselves as equal negotiating partners and demanded compensation under the terms of the 1825 treaty.

After the U.S. Army built Fort Laramie without permission on Lakota and Arapaho land, the United States convened a large council at Horse Creek. The resulting treaty recognized Lakota sovereignty over much of the central Plains in exchange for allowing passage along the Oregon Trail.

Image source: Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851)

Several Lakota winter counts for 1851 ignored the American treaty and instead recorded a peace made with the Crow. The agreement was negotiated privately and reflected the intertribal geopolitics most important to the Lakota.

General William S. Harney led roughly six hundred soldiers against a village of Sicangu, Oglala, Miniconjou, and Cheyenne near Blue Water Creek at Ash Hollow, Nebraska. At least 86 people were killed and 70 women and children were captured, making it the Lakota’s worst defeat in more than a century.

The U.S. Army fought the Lakota and their allies along the Bozeman Trail while constructing forts to protect the route. Oglala leader Red Cloud led the Lakota to victory, forcing the United States to abandon the trail.

Image source: Red Cloud's War

The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty closed the Bozeman Trail and established the Great Sioux Reservation across the western half of present-day South Dakota. It also closed the Black Hills to white settlement for as long as the river flowed and the eagle flew.

Image source: Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)

Although Sitting Bull opened talks at Fort Peck and accepted government rations, his followers continued to oppose a proposed railroad route through territory they regarded as protected by the 1868 treaty. Lakota warriors confronted survey parties along the Yellowstone and Powder rivers.

Image source: Sitting Bull

Surveys for the Northern Pacific railroad resumed in 1873 with Custer’s Seventh Cavalry. Lakota forces engaged the expedition twice along the Yellowstone in August, producing the first encounters between Custer and bands he would meet at Little Bighorn.

The Northern Pacific railroad project was halted primarily by financial failure rather than military defeat. Jay Cooke and Company defaulted, triggering the Panic of 1873 and leaving the railroad insolvent.

Image source: Panic of 1873

Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer led an expedition into the Black Hills in 1874 and confirmed the presence of gold. Prospectors flooded the region in violation of the 1868 treaty, while the government did not remove them.

Image source: Black Hills Gold Rush

A united force of Lakota, Arapaho, and Northern Cheyenne defeated General George Crook at the Battle of the Rosebud. The victory prevented Crook from locating the allied camp but also convinced many Lakota that the army would seek retaliation.

Image source: Battle of the Rosebud

Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho forces destroyed Custer’s column at the Little Bighorn. Twelve officers, 247 soldiers, and three Arikara scouts were reported lost, making the battle a defining victory for the Indigenous forces and a shock to the United States.

Image source: Battle of the Little Bighorn

Some Lakota bands signed a treaty ceding the Black Hills to the United States in 1877. The legitimacy of the cession has remained disputed, and Lakota nations have continued to reject the land as a settlement of their claims.

Crazy Horse surrendered at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, on May 6, 1877, after the United States intensified its campaign against remaining Lakota resistance. He was killed by a soldier later that year while resisting arrest.

Image source: Crazy Horse

Indian police sent to arrest Sitting Bull shot and killed him at Standing Rock on December 15, 1890. His death intensified the crisis surrounding the Ghost Dance movement and federal military intervention.

Two weeks after Sitting Bull’s death, the 7th Cavalry killed more than 250 Lakota men, women, and children at Wounded Knee. The massacre became a defining symbol of United States policy toward Native nations.

Image source: Wounded Knee Massacre

The Lakota population was estimated at approximately 8,500 in 1805, providing a baseline for later comparisons as the population increased during the nineteenth century.

The Lakota population was estimated at 16,110 in 1881. This represented substantial growth from the estimated 8,500 Lakota recorded in 1805.

The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 made most Lakota tribal members citizens of the United States, allowing them to vote in local, state, and federal elections, subject to applicable state restrictions at the time.

Image source: Indian Citizenship Act

The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 authorized frameworks under which many Lakota tribes developed constitutions, bylaws, and electoral procedures. Each tribe retains authority to determine its own citizenship criteria and government structure.

The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 established legal protections for Native children and preferences for placing them with extended family, tribal members, or other Native families. It became central to later disputes over Lakota children in state foster care.

In United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, the U.S. Supreme Court awarded the Sioux nations $122 million for the taking of the Black Hills. The decision affirmed the legal basis of the claim, but the funds remained unaccepted in a Bureau of Indian Affairs account.

Image source: United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians

The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 authorized tribes to operate gaming on their lands as a means of promoting economic development, self-sufficiency, and strong tribal governments.

In September 2007, the United Nations adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The declaration provided an international framework relevant to Lakota sovereignty, treaty rights, and self-determination movements.

Image source: Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

In December 2007, a group led by American Indian Movement activist Russell Means traveled to Washington, D.C., as the Lakota Freedom Delegation. It announced a unilateral withdrawal of the Lakota Sioux from treaties with the United States, but elected tribal governments repudiated the declaration.

By 2010, the Lakota population exceeded 170,000 people, although only about 2,000 still spoke Lakȟótiyapi according to the cited account.

The Sioux nations continued to decline the Black Hills settlement. Because the award remained in a Bureau of Indian Affairs account and accrued interest, its value exceeded one billion dollars by 2011.

The Sioux Valley Dakota Nation’s self-government agreement took effect in 2014, providing a modern framework for governance among Dakota people in Canada.

In Haaland v. Brackeen, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7–2 that the Indian Child Welfare Act does not exceed Congress’s authority under the Indian Commerce Clause and does not violate the Tenth Amendment’s anti-commandeering doctrine.

On July 15, 2024, Canada apologized to nine Dakota and Lakota First Nations, affirmed their constitutional status as Aboriginal peoples, and committed to negotiating modern treaties and self-government arrangements. The nine bands reside in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

Native American children made up approximately 70 percent of South Dakota’s foster-care population at the close of fiscal year 2025, despite representing a much smaller share of the state’s child population. The disparity continues a concern documented by investigations since 2011.

After Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull and approximately 400 Hunkpapa followers took refuge in Saskatchewan between Wood Mountain and Fort Qu'Appelle, an area remembered as Grandmother’s Land. Sitting Bull later returned to the United States and surrendered at Fort Buford.

Sitting Bull surrendered at Fort Buford on July 19, 1881, after several years in Canada. Following detention, he eventually rejoined the Hunkpapa at Standing Rock.

Drought, crop failure, starvation, and inadequate federal rations deepened despair on Lakota reservations in 1890. The Ghost Dance, which promised the restoration of the old world and disappearance of white settlers, spread rapidly; federal officials misinterpreted it as preparation for war.

Image source: Ghost Dance

Wind Cave, associated with the Lakota emergence story, became a national park in 1903. It was the first national park created specifically to protect a cave, although it lies within the territory underlying Sioux land claims.

Image source: Wind Cave National Park