THE YANKTON SIOUX (NAKOTA)


Map Source - Bureau of Indian Affairs (U S Department of Interior)

The Yankton Sioux, or Nakota, are one of three main groups composing the Great Sioux Nation. They in turn are divided into three groups; the Yankton, currently occupying the Yankton Reservation at Fort Randall, and sharing the Crow Creek Reservation with their Santee Cousins; the Upper Yanktonai, and the Lower Yanktonai, both of whom share reservations with their Dakota (Santee), or Lakota (Tetom) neighbors. It was the Yankton who met with the Corp of Discovery.

**In reality this clean cut Dakota/Lakota/Nakota division seems somewhat arbitrary and artificial, and is not universally acknowledged. For example, Zitkala-Sa, the famous Yankton writer and advocate constantly referred to herself and her people as "the Bronzed Dakota."**

Once the Yankton Sioux roamed freely throughout what is now southeastern South Dakota, northern Nebraska, northern Iowa, and even southwestern Minnesota. Today the tribal home land covers about 40,000 acres near Fort Randall, South Dakota (see map above.) They also share about 125,000 acres at Crow Creek just upriver from Fort Randall. Theirs is not a happy story.

The Yankton were well acquainted with Europeans, their trade goods and their diseases, when they encountered the Corp of Discovery. Contact had left them relatively impoverished. They hoped that the Corp expedition would result in trade agreements with the Americans. Their hopes got them a few medals, a chance to send representatives to Washington, and promises for the future. The U S Government entered into a treaty of friendship with the Yankton in 1815, but it would be 1825 before a treaty fostering trade agreements was completed, and even then the Americans considered the Teton Sioux, not the Yankton as the significant party to the treaty.

There is a legend that says a chief-to-be, Pa-la-ne-a-pa pe, (the man that was) Struck by the Ree was born while Lewis and Clark were visiting the Yankton. The babe

Pa-la-ne-a-pa-pe, Struck by the Ree (1804 - 1888)

was wrapped in an American flag. Perhaps this was an omen, for until his death in 1888, Struck by the Ree attempted to remain friendly to the 'whites" but at the same time maintain the dignity of his people. Indeed the word "Nakota", native tongue of the Yankton, means "strong friend," or "ally," (as contrasted to the term, "Sioux," a French aberration of an Ojibwa term "Nadowesioux," meaning "little snake,"or "enemy.") To a certain extent he was successful. The Yankton generally played no part in the bloody Sioux wars of the mid 1800's.

Their home land constantly shrinking as a result of incursion by both "whites" and other tribes, the Yanktons were a party to the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty. In exchange for their peace and friendship (and land) the Yankton were afforded protection to reside in a large tract of land along the Missouri in South Dakota and Nebraska. Then in 1858, the Yankton ceded to the U S Government claims to all land except for a 400,000 acre tract of land along the Missouri River in an area near the newly created Fort Randall. In return the Americans agreed to offer protection from incursion onto the Reservation and to provide the Tribe with schools to educate their children. In addition the Tribe was to receive annuities amounting to a cumulative $1.6 million over the next fifty years.

But the treaties did not protect the Yankton from the Dawes Act. In 1892 the allotment process began, and in 1894, "surplus land," amounting to about 360,000 acres (more than nine tenths of the reservation lands,) was made available to whites. The Yankton received $600,000, less tha $2 per acre, in compensation. As was the case in so many other allotments, there was never enough money or land to make agriculture a viable method of supporting individual families. More land was sold to whites or simply abandoned. Many Yankton left the reservation when they were allowed to do so.

In 1932, the Yankton created their first Tribal Constitution. They became a recognized Tribe shortly after the implementation of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.

Neither the treaties not tribal recognition would protect the Yankton from the ravages of the Pick-Sloan Plan, the blueprint which lead to major dam construction on the Missouri. The Fort Randall Dam flooded thousands of acres of fertile bottom land on the Crow Creek Reservation, an area where most of the people lived and raised livestock, a major means of support. The Sioux were "relocated" to an area near Fort Bennettm also scheduled for flooding. Within two years the people were "relocated" for a second time. All of this was accomplished without an agreement by the Sioux, or approval by Congress. The Sioux believe, with good reason, this to be an illegal act, violating legislation passed by Congress in 1920. Today homes, farms, villages, and the graves of ancestors lie at the bottom of Lake Andes. Once again compensation was inadequate and there was no comparable area to which the people could relocate. The result was yet another exodus from the Reservation.

Reservation education was late in coming, and when it did arrive it was often inadequate and abusive. The Sioux, including the Yankton, were among the first to have their children sent, often without their concent, to distant boarding schools. This was done to "civilize" the Indian. It was only in the 1930's that any "real" reservation education was afforded the Yankton. In 1997 the Yankton received a formal apology from the Catholic Church for abuses perpetrated on Yankton children over a thirty year period.

The treaties, tribal recognition, and resort to the courts could not protect the Yankton from the location of a South Dakota and EPA approved toxic waste dump located on land "ceded" to the government in 1894, but unalloted. The U S Supreme Court turned a deaf ear to the claims that the dump would contaminate scarce water supplies and pose new problems for the already sub standard health conditions of the people.

Today the Reservation Yankton live in poverty. So far the Yankton have received little of the benefits of the irrigation projects made possibly by the flooding of their land. The Tribe, health services, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and a casino are the major sources of employment for the people. The casino has not proved to be the economic boon the Tribe had hoped for. The area simply does not attract sufficient tourists, despite the best efforts of the State Tourism Bureau.

But the Yankton have survived despite these adversities. They are a resillient people. They have to be. The strategy designed to destroy their culture, the boarding schools, may in the long run turn out to be their salvation.

In 1876 Gertrude Simmons, daughter of a Yankton mother and a white father, was born. At the age of eight, "lured by the promise of red apples," she would say later, she was sent to White's Indian Manual Labor Institute, a Quaker sponsered school in Indiana. Unlike many others she was able to transfer the ordeal of separation into something positive. Despite poor health she graduated from the Institute and then from Earlham College. She then attended the New England Conservatory of Music. She became a skilled orator and a gifted author and musician. In 1898 she was hired as a teacher at the Carlyle Indian School, but in 1902 she returned to the Yankton and her mother. (The ties could never be broken.) She published a series of autobiographical essays under the Yankton name. Zitkala-Sa (Red Bird.) These essays would be published as American Indian Stories in 1921, regarded today as one of the best pieces of literature expressing the feelings of those trying to bridge the gap between the worlds of Indian and 'White." In 1911 she became a charter member of The Society of American Indians, the first organization of Native Americans to foster a ran Indian movement. She lobbied in Washington, with some success, on behalf of Indian rights everywhere. She fought for better health care on the Reservations, for Indian citizenship, and for decent Reservation education. She became president of the Society in 1916. She also edited the Society.s magazine. Later she would join the Indian Rights Association and the American Indian Defense Association. Later she and her husband would found the National Council of American Indians. These organizations would serve as the intellectual and spiritual foundation of the Indian Civil Rights movement of the 1060's and the "awakening" of the 1990's. She taught in reservation schools and spoke on behalf of Indian rights until her death in 1938.

In their own way and as best they can the Yankton have responded to the words of Zitkala-Sa. They have begun to resist the heavy hand of government - to unite with others.Their legal representatives did provide formidable resistance to the waste dump, and the tribe has joined MNI Sosa, an organization which pools resources in order to protect water rights of the Missouri River Tribes. The Nakota have taken their place in the United Sioux Nation. Perhaps some day the federal government will repay the kindness shown to Lewis and Clark and the peace afforded by Struck by the Ree. Perhaps they will gain not just the rights, but their deserved respect as envisioned by Zitkala-Sa. The spirits of Pa-la-ne-a-pa-pe and Zitkala-Sa are waiting, and watching.

BackTop of Page