Ethnos

Lakota

The Lakota ("friends" or "allies", sometimes also spelled "Lakhota", and pronounced "Lakxóta" by the Lakota people) are a Native American tribe, also known as the Sioux (see Names). The Lakota are part of a band of seven tribes that speak three different dialects, the other two being the Dakota and the Nakota. The Lakota are the western most of the three groups, occupying lands in both North and South Dakota. The Nakota, the smallest division, reside on the Yankton reservation in South Dakota, while the Dakota live mostly in Minnesota and Nebraska.

The Lakota after the adoption of the horse were part of the Great Plains Culture, living in the northern Great Plains, which centered on the buffalo and the horse. There were 30,000 Lakota in the mid-18th century. The number has increased to 70,000 nowadays, of which perhaps a quarter still speak their ancestral language.

Because the Black Hills are sacred to the Lakota, they object to mining in the area that was attempted since the 19th century. In 1868, the Federal government signed a treaty with them exempting the Black Hills from all white settlement forever. Four years later, gold was discovered there, and an influx of prospectors descended upon the area, abetted by army commanders like General George Armstrong Custer. The latter attempted to administer a lesson of noninterference with white policies. Instead, the Lakota with their allies, the Arapaho and the Cheyenne, defeated the 7th U.S. Cavalry in 1876 at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, known also as Custer's Last Stand, since he and 300 of his troopers perished there. But, like the Zulu triumph over the British three years later, it was a Pyrrhic victory. The Lakota were defeated decisively by the U.S. Army subsequently, culminating, fourteen years later, at the Massacre of Wounded Knee. ***