1. UNITED STATES AT WAR
Composition of the United States Military during WWI ( ) …
18% foreign born
25% of eligible Native Americans
African Americans
Women in the military
Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 … Granted full U.S. citizenship
Recognition of military service in WWI

2. Traditional Lands of the Oceti Sakowin

3. Important Local Events:
Great Sioux Reservation of 1868
1874 – Custer Black Hills Expedition
– Black Hills Gold Rush
1876 – Battle of the Little Bighorn
1877 – Black Hills Cession
1879 – American Indian Boarding
School Movement (first Lakota children taken)
1883 – Court of Indian Offenses
1887 – Dawes Act
1889 – Sioux Act of 1889

4. Assimilation
* Assimilation – to be “absorbed into American society”; more adequately means being forced to adopt the dominant, American culture.
(1860 – 1870’s) American Indian Boarding Schools
(1883) Court of Indian Offenses
(1887) Dawes Act

5. Assimilation
Boarding Schools – Based upon the theory of “Kill the Indian, Save the Man”
Cultural genocide
Forbidden to speak Native languages & practice traditional practices
The “Outing” program …

6. “Court of Indian Offenses”
Read the handout …

7. Assimilation
(1887) - Dawes Act – communal tribal lands divided into 160 acre allotments per family
Two cows and yoke of oxen
Farm tools
$20 cash
Seed for five acres for two years
40 Acres
40 Acres
160 Acre Allotments
40 Acres
40 Acres

8. - The Black Hills Cession of 1877 was later considered illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. Government vs. Sioux Nation (1980) …
The Black Hills Cession violated the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868:
** Why was this illegal?
“A more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealing will never, in all probability, be found in our history …” U.S. Claims Court, 1985

9. - Why the Black Hills Cession of 1877 was later considered illegal by the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. Government vs. Sioux Nation (1980) …
The Black Hills Cession violated the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868:
(1) The number of Lakota males that agreed to give up the Black Hills never reached the ¾ requirement.
(2) The U.S. Government cut-off food and annuity payments to Lakota people or the “surrender or starve” policy.

10. Excess lands opened for homesteading Loss of 9 million acres of land
Sioux Act of 1889 – Creates six much smaller reservations in Western South Dakota with break-up of Great Sioux Reservation, including today’s …
Pine Ridge
Rosebud
Cheyenne River
Standing Rock
Allotment of lands
Excess lands opened for homesteading
Loss of 9 million acres of land