Some Treaty Lines and Maps

I found some interesting treaty maps online. This first one is most intriguing. Note that the Dakota Cession of 1837 included a big chunk of Wisconsin, along with Minnesota. In a way I am gobsmacked that, less than 40 years before the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the Sioux still had a large presence in Wisconsin. It is astounding how fast things can change

Lest one say the Wisconsin Sioux were Dakota and thus different from the Lakota of the Little Bighorn, we need to recognize that there were Eastern Sioux riding against Custer at the Little Bighorn and they got there the hard way.

I had not planned to do the Little Bighorn for awhile, but I think the next post might jump ahead to the Little Bighorn and take a quick look at the Eastern Sioux that were there and whose role is almost totally forgotten by history.

The second map shows the large 1851 Treaty of Traverse des Sioux Cession by the Dakota that included most of southern Minnesota, except for a 20-mile wide band along the western part of the Minnesota River. These reserved lands were very important during the 1862 Dakota Uprising.

Note the "Dakota-Ojibway Treaty Line of 1825" running through the center of the state. This was an attempt to stop the fighting between the tribes. We will be looking closer at this line later.