Time Line

1851
JULY 23	Treaty of Traverse des Sioux signed between the U.S. Government and the Wahpeton and Santee Sioux.
AUGUST 5	Treaty of Mendota signed between the U.S. Government and the Mdewakanton and Wahpekute Sioux.

1862
AUGUST 17	Little Crow’s War starts when four hungry Sioux warriors make a raid in Acton Township, Minnesota.
AUGUST 23	The Battle of New Ulm. After an initial attack four days earlier, the Sioux make a second effort to capture the village. The battle ends in a draw.
SEPTEMBER 23	The Battle of Birch Coulee. The battle ends in a draw.
SEPTEMBER 26	Two thousand Santee Sioux surrender. Military court trials against them begin.
NOVEMBER 5	Sioux trials end with 303 Santees being sentenced to death. Sixteen receive prison terms.
DECEMBER 6	President Lincoln orders that 39 Sioux may be executed.
DECEMBER 26	After one Santee Sioux is granted a pardon, 38 Sioux are executed by hanging. Two of those executed were not on the execution list.

1863
JULY 3	Little Crow is shot and killed by settlers near Acton Township, Minnesota.

1865
JULY 4	General Patrick E. Connor starts his campaign against the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes living in the Powder River country.
AUGUST 28	The Battle of Tongue River, an Arapaho defeat.

1866
JUNE 5	Peace conference begins between U.S. government representatives and the Sioux led by Red Cloud. Its purpose is to open the Bozeman Trail that cuts through the Powder River country.
JUNE 13	Troops led by Colonel Henry Carrington arrive at Fort Laramie planning to build forts on the Bozeman Trail even though the treaty granting them the right to do so has not yet been signed.
JUNE 14	Red Cloud breaks off negotiations. The Indians leave Fort Laramie, and the conference ends in failure.
JULY 13	Construction of Fort Phil Kearny begins in the disputed Powder River country.
DECEMBER 21	The Fetterman Massacre—or the Battle of the Hundred Slain—a Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho victory.

1867
AUGUST 1	The Hayfield Battle is fought between Cheyenne and U.S. cavalry followed by the Wagon Box Battle between the Sioux and U.S. cavalry the next day. Both battles end in a draw.
SEPTEMBER 19	A peace delegation led by General William T. Sherman arrives at Platte City, Nebraska, to try to restart treaty negotiations. Red Cloud refuses to attend.
NOVEMBER 9	General Sherman’s delegation arrives at Fort Laramie. Red Cloud again refuses to attend. After a few days of parleys with lesser chiefs that go nowhere, the peace commission leaves, having failed to sign a new treaty.

Young-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses. [LOC, USZ62-121245]

1868
JULY 29	U.S. Army troops abandon Fort C. F. Smith, one of the forts on the Bozeman Trail. Red Cloud and his warriors burn it to the ground. A month later, the army abandons Fort Phil Kearny and the Cheyenne destroy it.
NOVEMBER 6	Red Cloud signs the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) that recognizes Sioux ownership of the Powder River region, the Paha Sapa (Black Hills), and the surrounding areas.

1874
JULY 2	In a violation of the terms of the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer leads a gold-hunting expedition into the Paha Sapa and returns with the announcement that the Black Hills are filled with gold. Gold miners soon arrive by the hundreds.

1875
SEPTEMBER 20	A commission arrives at Camp Robinson, Nebraska, with orders to buy the Black Hills from the Sioux. About a week later, the commission leaves in failure.
DECEMBER 3	Commissioner of Indian Affairs Edward P. Smith orders all nonreservation Indians to voluntarily report to agencies by January 31, 1876, or “military force would be sent to compel them.”

1876
JANUARY 31	Commissioner Smith’s deadline passes without any nonreservation Indians arriving. Because of heavy snow and severe winter weather, many bands did not receive the news by the deadline.
FEBRUARY 7	Secretary of War William W. Belknap authorizes General Philip Sheridan to begin military operations against the “hostile Sioux.”
MARCH 17	Troops under the command of Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds attack a mixed Cheyenne and Sioux camp on the Little Powder River. The camp is destroyed, but most Indians escape and join Crazy Horse in his camp.
JUNE 17	The Battle of the Rosebud—known to the Indians as the Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother—is fought, ending in a Sioux and Cheyenne victory.
JUNE 25	The Battle of Little Bighorn, the greatest victory by American Indians against the U.S. Army.
OCTOBER 20	Colonel Nelson Miles meets with Sitting Bull to try to persuade Sitting Bull to surrender and live on a reservation. Sitting Bull refuses, and the Battle of Cedar Creek is fought the next day. In the spring of 1877 Sitting Bull takes his band up into Canada.

1877
JANUARY 8	Battle of Wolf Mountain. Crazy Horse and his warriors defeat a cavalry force led by Colonel Miles.
APRIL 14	A large group of Sioux led by Chief Touch-the-Clouds surrenders to the U.S. Army.
APRIL 27	Red Cloud meets Crazy Horse and persuades him to bring his followers to Camp Robinson and surrender.
AUGUST 31	Angry that some of his warriors are joining the U.S. Army to help fight Nez Percé, Crazy Horse rejects the government offer of a reservation and plans to leave.
SEPTEMBER 5	Crazy Horse is captured and killed by U.S. Army soldiers at Chief Spotted Tail’s reservation in Dakota Territory.
OCTOBER 17	General Alfred Terry goes to Fort Walsh, Canada, to persuade Sitting Bull to return to the United States. The meeting ends in failure.

1881
JULY 19	After four years of exile in Canada, Sitting Bull and 186 remaining followers arrive at Fort Buford, Dakota Territory. Though promised a pardon if he returned, Sitting Bull is imprisoned at Fort Randall.
AUGUST 5	Spotted Tail is killed by Crow Dog. Many Sioux believe it is a plot created by the U.S. government to split the Sioux leadership.

1883
MAY 18	The first in a series of three government commissions begins to investigate suspicious claims of new Sioux land purchases by a group of whites led by Reverend Samuel D. Hinman. The most important commission was led by Senator Henry L. Dawes. All discover that the group lied, and the sale is stopped.

1889
JULY 27	General George Crook and a commission arrive at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in Dakota Territory and trick the Sioux into selling nine million acres of land to the government.

1890
OCTOBER 9	Kicking Bear, a Minneconjou, visits Sitting Bull and brings him word of the new Ghost Dance religion. So many Sioux become followers that the U.S. government becomes alarmed.
NOVEMBER 20	The Office of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., orders reservation agents to provide a list of names of Ghost Dance leaders. One of the names on the list is Sitting Bull.
DECEMBER 12	Lieutenant Colonel William F. Drum receives orders to arrest Sitting Bull.
DECEMBER 15	Sitting Bull is shot and killed by agency policemen when Ghost Dance followers try to prevent his arrest.
DECEMBER 17	The War Department orders the arrest of Chief Big Foot of the Minneconjou, who is accused of being a Ghost Dance leader.
DECEMBER 28	Big Foot and his followers are captured by a cavalry force led by Major Samuel Whitside. They are ordered to make camp near Wounded Knee Creek, Dakota Territory.
DECEMBER 29	The Wounded Knee Massacre. Cavalry troops fire on the mostly unarmed Sioux. As many as 300 are killed. The massacre ends the influence of the Ghost Dance on the Sioux nation.

1909
DECEMBER 10	Red Cloud dies of natural causes.