Skip to Main Content

Native Americans: History, Culture, & Tribes: Sioux

This guide covers the history and culture of Native American tribes. This guide is an ongoing project. As such, additional content will be added throughout the academic year.

Sioux

The Sioux is an alliance of tribes in North America that includes the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota. 

Archives & Primary Sources

Sitting Bull: Chief of the Lakota Nation

Profile of the great Sioux warrior and mystic medicine man who led his people in a bloody struggle for survival against the encroachment.

Source: Kanopy

Young Lakota

In this award-winning documentary, Cecilia Fire Thunder- the first female President of the Oglala Sioux tribe, defies a proposed South Dakota law criminalizing all abortions, with no exceptions for rape or incest, by threatening to build a women's clinic on the sovereign territory of the reservation. She ignites a political firestorm that sets off a chain reaction in the lives of three young Lakotas on the Pine Ridge Reservation, forcing each of them to make choices that define who they are and the kind of adults they will become.

Source: Kanopy

Perspectives

The Sioux: The Dakota and Lakota Nations

This book covers the entire historical range of the Sioux, fromtheir emergence as an identifiable group in late prehistory to theyear 2000. The author has studied the material remains of the Siouxfor many years. His expertise combined with his informative andengaging writing style and numerous photographs create a compellingand indispensable book. A leading expert discusses and analyzes the Sioux people withrigorous scholarship and remarkably clear writing. Raises questions about Sioux history while synthesizing thehistorical and anthropological research over a wide scope of issuesand periods. Provides historical sketches, topical debates, and imaginaryreconstructions to engage the reader in a deeper thinking about theSioux. Includes dozens of photographs, comprehensive endnotes andfurther reading lists.

The Heart of Everything That Is

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An astonishing untold story of the American West The great Sioux warrior-statesman Red Cloud was the only American Indian in history to defeat the United States Army in a war, forcing the government to sue for peace on his terms. At the peak of Red Cloud's powers the Sioux could claim control of one-fifth of the contiguous United States and the loyalty of thousands of fierce fighters. But the fog of history has left Red Cloud strangely obscured. Now, thanks to the rediscovery of a lost autobiography, and painstaking research by two award-winning authors, the story of our nation's most powerful and successful Indian warrior can finally be told. Born in 1821 near the Platte River in modern-day Nebraska, Red Cloud lived an epic life of courage, wisdom, and fortitude in the face of a relentless enemy--the soldiers and settlers who represented the "manifest destiny" of an expanding America. He grew up an orphan and had to overcome numerous social disadvantages to advance in Sioux culture. Red Cloud did that by being the best fighter, strategist, and leader of his fellow warriors. 

My People the Sioux

Born in 1868 the son of an Oglala chief, Luther Standing Bear was in the first class at Carlisle, witnessed the Ghost Dance uprising from the Pine Ridge Reservation, toured Europe with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, and devoted his later years to the Indian rights movement of the 1920s. His autobiography, first published in 1928, gives a rare inside view by an Indian who successfully made the transition from tribal life to the white man's world.

The Plains Sioux and U. S. Colonialism from Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee

Through the interpretive lens of colonial theory, Jeffrey Ostler presents an original analysis of the tumultuous relationship between the Plains Sioux and the United States in the 1800s. He provides novel insights on well-known aspects of the Sioux story, such as the Oregon Trail, the deaths of "Crazy Horse" and "Sitting Bull", and the Ghost Dance, and offers an in-depth look at many lesser-known facets of Sioux history and culture. Paying close attention to Sioux perspectives of their history, the book demonstrates how the Sioux creatively responded to the challenges of U.S. expansion and domination, revealing simultaneously how U.S. power increasingly limited the autonomy of their communities as the century came to a close. Ostler's innovative analysis of the Plains Sioux culminates in a compelling reinterpretation of the events that led to the Wounded Knee massacre of December 29, 1890. History Department Head at the University of Oregon, Associate Professor Jeffrey Ostler has held honors such as the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship and has published articles in Western Historical Quarterly, Great Plains Quarterly, and Pacific Historical Review.

Land of the Spotted Eagle

When Standing Bear returned to the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation after sixteen years' absence, his dismay at the condition of his people may well have served as a catalyst for the writing of this book, first published in 1933. In addition to describing the customs, manners, and traditions of the Teton Sioux, Standing Bear also offered general comments about the importance of Native cultures and values and the status of Indian peoples in American society. With the assistance of Melvin R. Gilmore, curator of ethnology at the University of Michigan, and Warcaziwin, Standing Bear's niece and secretary, Standing Bear sought to tell the white man "just how" they "lived as Lakotans." Land of the Spotted Eagle is generously interspersed with personal reminiscences and anecdotes, including chapters on child rearing, social and political organization, family, religion, and manhood. Standing Bear's views on Indian affairs and his suggestions for the improvement of white-Indian relations are presented in the two closing chapters.

The Killing of Crazy Horse

He was the greatest Indian warrior of the nineteenth century. His victory over General Custer at the battle of Little Bighorn in 1876 was the worst defeat inflicted on the frontier Army. And the death of Crazy Horse in federal custody has remained a controversy for more than a century. The Killing of Crazy Horse pieces together the many sources of fear and misunderstanding that resulted in an official killing hard to distinguish from a crime. A rich cast of characters, whites and Indians alike, passes through this story, including Red Cloud, the chief who dominated Oglala history for fifty years but saw in Crazy Horse a dangerous rival; No Water and Woman Dress, both of whom hated Crazy Horse and schemed against him; the young interpreter Billy Garnett, son of a fifteen-year-old Oglala woman and a Confederate general killed at Gettysburg; General George Crook, who bitterly resented newspaper reports that he had been whipped by Crazy Horse in batt≤ Little Big Man, who betrayed Crazy Horse; Lieutenant William Philo Clark, the smart West Point graduate who thought he could “work” Indians to do the Army’s bidding; and Fast Thunder, who called Crazy Horse cousin, held him the moment he was stabbed, and then told his grandson thirty years later, “They tricked me! They tricked me!” At the center of the story is Crazy Horse himself, the warrior of few words whom the Crow said they knew best among the Sioux, because he always came closest to them in battle. No photograph of him exists today. The death of Crazy Horse was a traumatic event not only in Sioux but also in American history. With the Great Sioux War as background and context, drawing on many new materials as well as documents in libraries and archives, Thomas Powers recounts the final months and days of Crazy Horse’s life not to lay blame but to establish what happened.

Across the Creek

Across the Creek explores both the unbridled dreams and the painful reality of Lakota people from South Dakota. In the face of unfathomable challenges, they are taking steps to better their lives. "It's still here." That's the assurance of Lakota elder Albert White Hat that the spirituality, songs and power of Lakota people are fully present today. "It's still here," he says again, for emphasis. These words seem at odds with appearances on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge reservations, with their broken-down villages, deadly addictions and the sense of hopelessness.

Source: Kanopy