page_title: Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868)
section_title: Article II
hierarchical_section_title: Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) / Articles / Article II
caption_attribution_description: English: Rediscovery #03708 Job A1 08-135 Treaty of Ft. Laramie
context_page_description: The Treaty of Fort Laramie is an agreement between the United States and the Oglala, Miniconjou, and Brulé bands of Lakota people, Yanktonai Dakota and Arapaho Nation, following the failure of the first Fort Laramie treaty, signed in 1851.
  The treaty is divided into 17 articles. It established the Great Sioux Reservation including ownership of the Black Hills, and set aside additional lands as "unceded Indian territory" in areas of South Dakota, Wyoming, and Nebraska, and possibly Montana. It established that the US government would hold authority to punish not only white settlers who committed crimes against the tribes but also tribe members who committed crimes and were to be delivered to the government, rather than to face charges in tribal courts. It stipulated that the government would abandon forts along the Bozeman Trail and included a number of provisions designed to encourage a transition to farming and to move the tribes "closer to the white man's way of life." The treaty protected specified rights of third parties not partaking in the negotiations and effectively ended Red Cloud's War.
context_section_description: Article two of the treaty changed the boundaries for tribal land and established the Great Sioux Reservation, to include areas of present day South Dakota west of the Missouri River, including the Black Hills. This was set aside for the "absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians". In total, it allocated about 25% of the Dakota Territory as it existed at the time. It made the total tribal lands smaller, and moved them further eastward. This was to "take away access to the prime buffalo herds that occupied the area and encourage the Sioux to become farmers."
  The government agreed that no parties, other than those authorized by the treaty, would be allowed to "pass over, settle upon, or reside in the territory". According to one source writing on article two, "What remained unstated in the treaty, but would have been obvious to Sherman and his men, is that land not placed in the reservation was to be considered United States property, and not Indian territory."
  As in 1851, the US recognized most of the land north of the Sioux reservation as Indian territory of the Arikara, Hidatsa and Mandan. In addition, the US still recognized the 1851 Crow claim to the Indian territory west of the Powder. The Crow and the US came to an agreement about this expanse on May 7, 1868.
  With the reservation border following “the northern line of Nebraska”, the Peace Commission ceded to the Sioux the little Ponca reservation, which had already been guaranteed the Ponca in multiple treaties with the government. “No one has ever been able to explain” this blunder, which was nonetheless enforced by the government, irrespective of their earlier agreements.
caption: Front page of 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, from the US National Archives
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