In the nineteenth century the most dominant nation in the western plains was the Sioux Nation. This nation was divided into seven tribes: Oglala's, Brule', Minneconjou, Hunkpapa, No Bow, Two Kettle, and the Blackfoot. Of these t

Since the civil war the American economy was booming. Railroad stocks led the way. On, September 18 1873, banking crashed. Farm prices plummeted, grasshopper plaques ruined crops, yellow fever struck in the Mississippi Valley, and unemployment went sky high. The government figured that it's role was to pour money into the economy. The gold supply was insufficient. President Grants solution to the economy was to open new territory for exploration. So in the spring of 1874 troops were sent to open a fort in the Black Hills. The government, exaggerated at the best or lied at the worst, said the Indians were not keeping up their part of the treaty. Custer was in charge of this expedition. During this expedition Custer claimed that there was gold in the Black Hills. Grant looked at this as an opportunity to show the country he could pull them from the depression and he opened the Black Hills for prospecting. This broke the treaty of 1868 again (Ambrose 343-346). The Black Hills was a sacred place to the Sioux. It was a place where spirits dwelled, a holy place called Pa Sapa by the Sioux. The whites had only the crudest concept of what the hills meant to the Indians. By 1876 ten thousand whites lived in Custer City, the frontier town of the southern Black Hills.

Crazy Horse was finally persuaded to bring his people in to live on the reservation. Crazy horse was lied to when a government official told him that he was needed at a conference. He realized this was a trap when he saw bars on the windows. He drew his knife and attempted to break loose. A white soldier, William Gentiles, lunged at Crazy Horse with a fixed bayonet that punctured his kidney. Crazy Horse died September, 5 1877 (Kadlecek 53).

The Indians had divided into those who agreed with the treaty, the "friendly" and those who wanted nothing to do with the treaty, the "hostile". The U.S. government did not recognize these separate groups. They forbid trade with the Powder River Indians until all Indians moved to the reservation. This was not in the Treaty of 1868, (Guttmacher 76).

Crazy Horse was not given this name, on his birth date in the fall of 1841. He was born of his father, Crazy Horse an Oglala holy man, and his mother a sister of a Brule' warrior, Spotted Tail. As the boy grew older his hair was wavy so his people gave him the nickname of Curly (Guttmacher 23). He was to go by Curly until the summer of 1858, after a battle with the Arapaho's. Curly's brave charged against the Arapaho's led his father to give Curly the name Crazy Horse. This was the name of his father and of many fathers before him (Guttmacher 47).

The government had changed or disturbed nearly every part of the Indians lives. They had taken their horses (their wealth), taken their land, taken the buffalo and taken their tipis. They still had their religion. They had seven ceremonial rites of which two were the most beneficial; the Vision Quest and the Sun Dance. The Vision quest was an individual dance and the Sun Dance a community affair. In June 1877 the biggest Sun Dance seen on the reservation, twenty thousand strong, was held to honor Crazy Horse. This was the last big Sun Dance (Kadlecek 37-42).

In the 1850's, the country where the Sioux Nation lived, was being invaded by the white settlers. This was upsetting for many of the tribes. They did not understand the ways of the whites. When the whites tore into the land with plows and hunted the sacred buffalo just for the hides this went against the morale and religious beliefs of the Sioux. The white government began to build forts. In 1851, Fort Laramie was built along the North Platte river in Sioux territory (Matthiessen 6).

The Sioux Indians had lost nearly everything that made them a strong nation. In 1881 the government prohibited all reservations from allowing the Sun Dance. The government went against the First Amendment and took away the Sioux's greatest religious ceremony. General Sherman, never known as an Indian love

Some common words found in the essay are:
Crazy Horse, Oregon Trail, Powder River, Agency Indians, Black Hills, Sitting Bull, American Indians, Dawes Act, Bozeman Trail, Horn Mountains, crazy horse, black hills, powder river, powder river country, sun dance, river country, treaty 1868, fort laramie, sioux nation, indians allow, bozeman trail, name crazy horse, crazy horse name, battle little horn, whites bozeman trail,
Approximate Word count = 2750
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)