The Next Day : Arrival to Dawes (Part 2)

Episode 3 Part 2 starts with George Custer’s foray into He Sapa just four years after the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty recognized it as part of the Great Sioux Reservation, which had been created for the Lakota’s exclusive use. It goes on to discuss the “Sell or Starve” rider to the 1876 Indian Appropriations Act and the rider to the 1877 Indian Appropriations Act that seized the Black Hills in direct contradiction to the terms of the Fort Laramie Treaty.

After looking at creation of the White Clay Extension, we highlight the inception of the 1883 Code of Indian Offenses, which forcefully restricted the traditional cultural practices of Keya Wita’s indigenous people for the next 95 years. We then turn to the culmination of a devastating process that began with westward expansion, the near-annihilation of our relative the buffalo as a means to eradicate our main source of survival.

This part ends with a discussion of the Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887 which dramatically marked the shift of U.S. federal policy from colonization to assimilation.