Oglala Sioux Buffalo Division
Over the Years, the staff at the OSPRA Game and Fish Program has put forth the effort to maintain a strong Buffalo herd. This not only has provided benefits to our tribal members, but through good management protect this sacred resource for future generations.
Currently we have approximately 800 head of Buffalo feeding in our pastures.
Buffalo Wake Meat
Posted 9/10/21 (Fri)
Buffalo Wake Meat will be distributed out of Bamm Brewers Charging Buffalo Meathouse 605-867-1119 until further notice.
Charging Buffalo Meathouse is located on Slim Buttes Road west of Pine Ridge village.
Oglala Sioux Back Away From Bison Reserve Plan
Rapid City Journal Dec 16 2013
RAPID CITY, SD –
The Oglala Sioux Tribal Council has backed away from a plan to force cattle ranchers from their leased lands for a 100,000-acre bison reserve in the South Unit of Badlands National Park in southwestern South Dakota.
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Oglala Sioux Tribe evicting tribal ranchers to make way for bison park
Rapid City Journal Dec 5 2013
But she and other Lakota ranchers face the possibility of losing their grazing rights to make way for a huge bison reserve planned by the Oglala Sioux Tribe.
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THE SIOUX
Sept. 23rd 1876
The Inter Ocean
The Commissioners Have Another Big Talk Regarding the Black Hills
Under Protest the Chiefs Affix Their Signature to the Treaty
Another Big Tale
Red Cloud Agency, Sept. 20, via Fort Laramie, Wy. T., Sept. 22.-10:30 this morning the Indians sent word to the commission that they were ready for another council, and the Commission at once prepared for a “talk.” The attendance of the Indians was much larger than yesterday.
The First Speaker
was Little Wound, who said yesterday that he heard something that made him almost cry. He has always considered that when they Great Father made arrangements for the railroad through the Indians country, he would pay for it for fifty years. He has always considered this his own country, it made him cry. The different kinds of animals that he wanted were not for one band, but for all the bands, for all time. He wanted the President to give them, each year, three kinds of wagons. He wishes that all the white men who married into the tribe would live with them always, and that it be not possible to send them away at any time. “Whenever you have set bounds to our reservations, you make a law that we should not go beyond them, and we wish you to give $25 each year to each of our women and children.” He wished that the white men who are living among the Brules, who are married to the Ogaliala women, to come and live with them. He was willing to sign the papers which the Commission had brought here, on condition that while the young men are gone into Indian country, those who stayed here should be fed, and that the commission should see to it that rations are brought here until spring, and he wanted the annuity goods issued to them before the end of the present new moon, as though weather will soon be cold. “You have forbidden us to hunt the buffalo.” He understood that there was $25 each to be given them yet, in addition to the $25,000 that they had already received for hunting privileges in Nebraska. When the agency was established here they had a right to go and hunt, but he understood when the new agency was established that they would be deprived of $25 per head in place of it.
Bishop Whipple,
on the part of the commission, replied that with reference to the things which he asked for, they are all, and more, provided for in the paper which they are asked to sign. This commission will use all their power to secure rations for them through the winter, and he himself would promise to go to the Great Council at Washington to do all he could in behalf of their people. With reference to the annuity goods, the commission could not say what time they would get here. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs had gone to New York to purchase them. They might now be on the way, and the commission would write a letter today about the matter. As for the white men who had married into tribe, they would not be interfered with, but bad white men who come here to stay a few days, and do the Indians injury, would not be allowed to stay.
Little Wound then said he wanted the commission to make haste and lay the matter before the Great Council, and the Indians themselves desired to go to Washington and see the Great Father. They also wished a copy of everything that was said here given to them, so that they could take it to Washington, so there could be no mistake.
Colonel Boone said that the commission had no right to change the paper presented to them. He was glad that they had shown an interest in the half-breed children. A full copy of all that was said should be given to them, and the paper presented for them to sign, as soon as the Secretary could make it out.
Bishop Whipple said it was for them to select the Indians whom they wish to sign the treaty, and it would be presented to them in the afternoon. In the meantime, the provision for the feast would be given them.
Little Wound said that the Commission had said nothing about the additional $5000 that was promised them for their hunting rights; to which Judge Gaylord replied that the President had tried to get it for them last winter, that could not. The Commission would do all they could this winter to secure them that money, but could not promise than any money certainly.
The Indians were then informed that the Commission wanted the chief and two headmen of each band selected to sign the treaty at 3 o’clock this afternoon.
Red Cloud Agency, Neb., Sept.20, via Sidney, Neb.,Sept. 22. –This evening
The Commission Consummated A Treaty
with the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahoe’s at this agency, the Indians agreeing to the propositions made to them on the 7th inst. without the change of a single word, which proposition has already been published in full. The following named Indians were selected by their people to sign for the Ogallalas, after the treaty had been read over, and interpreted to them before signing. Red Cloud, Young-Man_Afraid_of-his-Horses, Red Dog, Little wound, American Horse, Afraid-of-the-Bear, Three Bears, Fire Hunter, Quick Bear, Red Leaf, Fire Eyes-Man, White Bow, Good Bull, Sorrel Horse, Weasel Bear, Two Lance, Bad Wound, High Bear, He-Takes_The-Evenving_Solider, Slow Bull, High Wolf, Big Foot. The Cheyennes and Arapahoe’s will not sign until tomorrow, after which the Commissioners will start at once for the Spotted Tail Agency in consummate the treaty there.
To the surprise of the commissioners, after they had offered their signatures to the treaty,
The Indians Hung Back
and speeches were made by a number of them before they would touch the pen and make their mark. Red Cloud said: “I am the friend of the President, and you men who have come here to see me are the chief men and men of influence. You have come here with the words of the Great Father; therefore, because I am his friend, I have said yes to what he has said to me, and I suppose that makes you happy. I don’t like it that we have a soldier here to give us food. It makes our children’s hearts go back and forth. I wish to have Major Howard for my agent, and I want to have you send word to Washington so that he can come here very soon. If my young men come back and say teat country is bad, it will not be possible for me to go there. As for the Missouri River country, I think if my people should move there to live they would all be destroyed. There are a great many bad men there, and bad whiskey: therefore, I don’t want to go there. A great many of my white relatives have no money: if they are employed to go to the Indian Territory and look at the country, I hope they will be paid out of the money of the Great Father that you have with you. In addition to this, I mentioned yesterday that I want to go with my young men, who are Mr. Foot, Charlie Gneru, E.W.Raymond, Austin Leodean, and Sam Don.
Young-Man-Afraid said: “This is the country where I was born. I have never made any man’s heart feel bad. I have thought the Great Spirit intended I should.
Live Here And Raise My Children Here
I wish that the Great Father should take care of me, and I should leave here with my children. These white people who have married among us give notice that it will take me a long time to learn to labor, and I expect the President will see me for hundred years- perhaps a great deal longer. The promises that have been made by the Great Father heretofor have not been carried out: therefore, I have been unwilling to go see him, though I have been often invited. Dr. Daniels will remember bringing back from Washington the word that there was where we were to raise our children. I have appointed to live here: therefore, I have never traveled about to see other countries. You never heard of me behaving badly.” With this he took the pen in his hand, and, as he made his mark, said: “That a is to signify that the Great Father has fed and clothed me 100 years, and given the wagons and cattle.”
Red Dog said; “I want the Great Father to make haste and send me that Man-Painting (Maj. Howard) for Agents also Bennett and Daniels, to assist me.”
Little Would: “I told you before that I must have my annuities within two months, and provisions to last me until spring.”
American Horse said: “In regard to this arrangement about the Black Hills,, it is to last along as we last.”
Man-Afraid-of-the-Bear took hold of the pen, saying: “The others have said enough,” and signed and returned to his seat.
Three Bears inquired for how many years they would stay. He thought it should be for five generations.
Fire Thunderer came up holding his blanket over his eyes and signed blindfolded, returning to his place in silence.
Big Foot, who has been engaged in agricultural several years, said: “I am a farmer. I wanted 100 wagons, but have never seen them yet. I am the man that is going down to see that country.”
Crow, with a good voice, refused to sign the treaty, and walked away with quite a show of indignation, but all the others who had been solicited and were present affixed their cross paper, a copy of which was given to them at their request.
Bull Eagle And The Band
Special Telegram to the Inter Ocean}
Sioux City, Iowa, Sept. 22.- Since Bull Eagle and his band refused to surrender their ponies and guns to General Buell at Cheyenne Agency, nothing has been heard from there or any other point where trouble was anticipated.
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THE FRONTIER ARMY AND THE
DESTRUCTION OF THE BUFFALO: 1865-1883
DAVID D . SMITS
Yet another Canadian historian of the early twentieth century, C. M. Maclnnes, detailed the manner in which the United States army starved Sitting Bull and his band into surrendering. The American army, according to Maclnnes, formed a cordon
of soldiers, Indian auxiliaries, and Red River “half-breeds”to drive the buffalo southward whenever they moved north toward the border. Sandoz echoed Maclnnes and added that it was in the region between the Missouri River and the Yellowstone, shut
in by a line of prairie fire and guns, that the last and greatest slaughter of the northern herd took place
The scholar inclined to believe that Sheridan was responsible for the slaughter ought not be deterred by a letter that he wrote on 31 October 1879 to Adjutant General Edward D. Townsend. In that letter, Sheridan did indeed express his belief that
the “wholesale slaughter of the buffalo should be stopped.” But the killing to which Sheridan objected was taking place, General Alfred Terry had assured him, on the Great Sioux Reservation itself.62 Sheridan opposed that destruction because the
reservation was off limits to unauthorized whites and, more importantly, because the buffalo there helped to feed and thus pacify hungry Indians, who were inadequately supplied with food by the federal government. As for the animals outside the reservation, Sheridan hoped to deal with them just as he had dealt with the southern herd. To provide the hide hunters with an easily accessible railroad, Sheridan was determined to push the Northern Pacific tracks westward from Bismarck, Dakota Territory where they had arrived in the summer of 1873. In promoting the westward extension of the Northern Pacific, Sheridan was acting on Sherman’s advice. The latter wrote to Sheridan in 1872, “I think our interest is to favor the undertaking of the Road, as it will help to bring the Indian problem to a final solution.” Sheridan zealously assisted the Northern Pacific, for he viewed the railroads as “new factors that cannot be ignored in the settlement of the Indian question.
60 Archibald Oswald MacRae, Historyo f the Provinceo f Alberta ([Calgary?]1, 912),
1:377;N orman FergusB lack, Historyo f Saskatchewanan d the Old NorthW est (1913; 2d ed., Regina, Saskatchewan, 1913), 200. 61 C. M. Maclnnes, In the Shadow of the Rockies (London, 1930), 145-46; Sandoz, Buffalo Hunters, 340.
62 Sheridan to Adjutant General E. D. Townsend,3 1 October 1879, Sheridan Papers, microfilm reel no. 62.335
The Anaconda Standard
Anaconda, Montana 14 Jan 1923
BACK – TRAILING ON THE OLD FRONTIERS (extracted)
INDIANS AS HUNTERS
Twice every year the Indians sallied forth on their spring and autumn hunt. Certain favorite feeding grounds of the buffalo were held in possession as hunting grounds through many years by one tribe, and the right to hunt there was defended to the death. In those days the chase not infrequently ended in warfare. Not only did the buffalo cause hostilities among tribes, but it is said that they also were the cause of internal strife. It is handed down that the Assiniboines, or Sioux of the mountains, separated from the plains Sioux, which formed the main body of the tribe, because of a dispute between the wives of the two rival chiefs, each of whom insisted in having for her portion the entire heart of a fine cow slain in the chase. Thus began a feud which split the Sioux nation into independent, antagonistic tribes.
Although the buffalo were hunted by the Indians and supplied them with almost every article of utilitarian nature, the great herds were never appreciably depleted by the red men of the plains. The utmost economy was used and practiced by them in their use of the buffalo and virtually every portion of the animal’s body was turned to some account.
Apache – Arapaho – Blackfeet – Carrizo Comecrudo – Cherokee – Cheyenne – Chickasaw – Choctaw
Comanche – Cree – Crow – Kickapoo – Kiowa – Modoc – Osage – Quapaw – Senaca – Shoshone – Sioux Lakota – Sioux Oglala – Tejas