The Hard Way to the Little Bighorn

The first post in "The Smoke of the Sioux" outlined as best I can the structure of the Sioux Empire.

https://thesmokeofthesioux.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-7-council-fires-of-great-sioux.html

One way to illustrate the unity of the Sioux Empire and honor the Eastern Sioux who were at the Little Bighorn after a tough 15 years is to point out their presence at the Little Bighorn.

Everybody knows about the Lakota and Cheyenne at Custer's Last Stand, but few know of the Dakota and Nakota presence there.

Doane Robinson in "A History of the Dakota or Sioux Indians" says:

"and seventh, the Santees and the Yanktonais, being the remnant of the unsubdued hostiles from the War of the Outbreak in Minnesota, under Inkpaduta."

Santee is another name for the Eastern Sioux, or Dakota. Inkpaduta ties things way back to the 1857 Spirit Lake Massacre in Iowa.

There weren't many Santee and Yanktonais there, they had come a hard way to get there, but they were there, riding with their Lakota cousins.

The best information I have seen places the Santee and Yanktonais as camping on the south end of the Indian camp with the Hunkpapa. This was the area Reno attacked in the early stages of the battle.

We will come back to the Little Bighorn later, but it seemed fitting to tie the Dakota and Nakota to the Lakota at their last great moment as free warriors.