South Dakota: Gold Fever and the End of Sioux Resistance

Rumors of gold in the Black Hills, confirmed by a military expedition led by George A. Custer in 1874, excited national interest, and wealth seekers began to pour into the area. However, much of the Black Hills region had been granted (1868) to the Sioux by treaty, and when they refused to sell either mining rights or the reservation itself, warfare again broke out. The defeat (1876) of Custer and his men by Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Gall in the battle of the Little Bighorn (in what is now Montana) did not prevent the whites from gradually acquiring more and more Native American land, including the gold-lined Black Hills.

The near extinction of the buffalo herds, Sitting Bull's death (1890) at the hands of army-trained Native American police, and the subsequent massacre of Big Foot's band at Wounded Knee Creek were among the factors leading to the permanent end of Native American resistance in South Dakota. Tribal organization was weakened by the Dawes Act of 1887. Although the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 attempted to restore tribal ownership of repurchased lands, younger generations have moved to the cities in increasing numbers. During the 1870s the gold fever mounted; Deadwood had its day of gaudy glory, Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane created frontier legends, and the town of Lead began its long, productive history.

Sections in this article:

• Introduction
• Postwar Changes
• Railroads, Droughts, and the Great Depression
• The Dakota Land Boom, Statehood, and Agrarian Reform
• Gold Fever and the End of Sioux Resistance
• Settlement
• Early Inhabitants, European Exploration, and Fur Trading
• Government and Higher Education
• Economy
• Geography
• Facts and Figures
• Bibliography

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