The Lakota: A History from Beginning to Present

The most common depictions of Native Americans feature mounted warriors and iconic events such as the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Wounded Knee Massacre. The best-known Native American leaders include Chief Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, and most people’s impression of such a leader includes the wearing of a feathered headdress. All these archetypes have one thing in common: they are all Sioux, and many are Lakota, one of the coalition of seven Sioux Nations.

In the mid-seventeenth century, the Lakota were an obscure group of hunter-gatherers with no knowledge of horses or metal. Two hundred years later, they had become the dominant power in a vast tract of land that stretched from Canada to the Great Plains. Their mounted warriors were feared both by other Native American people and by the increasing numbers of white settlers they encountered. From the mid-nineteenth century, the Lakota found themselves involved in a bitter conflict with the US Army. By the beginning of the twentieth century, their power had been broken, and most were forced to live on reservations that lacked natural resources. Even today, many Lakota continue to live in poverty.

This is the fascinating story of the Lakota people.