The Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868): “…prohibited any whites from entering Indian land without express permission of the Indians. Defined a reservation making up most of South Dakota and allowed the Plains Indians to hunt north of the Platt River.” Basically it sectioned off relatively small areas for the Indians to live on, and stated that as long as there are enough buffalo for them to justify hunting them they can hunt them off of the reservation. However, the white Americans had found a loophole: General Phil Sheridan even told people to lend a hand to the (white) Buffalo hunters, to give them lead and powder and to, "Let them kill, skin and sell until the buffalo is exterminated, as it is the only way to bring lasting peace and allow civilization to advance.” So that’s what they did, they hunted the buffalo to near extinction, and that’s not even the worst part; instead of making use of the …show more content…
Without the buffalo their very essence of life was taken away, and they would be forced to move somewhere else (hence the loophole). This caused them to become dependent on the government for food and supplies. This in turn led to them making the trek across the Plains in the fall and winter to Montana, with a majority being captured or killed. The “Battle” of Wounded Knee (1890), which in all reality was a massacre, took place on December 29th when soldiers went with the intention of relieving the Lakota of their weapons. Of course there are multiple versions of why the massacre took place. One such account states that when a soldier tried to disarm a deaf Indian, who didn’t know what was going on, the gun went off and firing on both sides ensued. Resulting in some of the 7th Cavalry shooting some of their own because of all the chaos. Most of the Lakota that survived and attempted to flee were tracked down and