FORT LARAMIE – 150 years ago, Native American tribes from across the region came together at Fort Laramie to sign the 1868 treaty, in hopes it would bring peace to the region for the settlers and the Plains Indians. 

The document, which came to be known 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, included the Back Hills of South Dakota as exclusive use as part of the Great Sioux Reservation and recognizing the sovereignty of the Lakota Nation ending the conflict with Red Cloud. It also established rules and regulations that were supposed to govern treatment of and interactions with the indigenous peoples across the country.

On Saturday, these same tribes gathered at the spot their ancestors did to express their anger at the treatment of the nations of the people of the plains, to search for answers to their fight for what was once theirs and the government deeded to them, only to let it be taken away.

Speakers from each of the Nations spoke to all the peoples, including 300 braves who rode their ponies to the ceremony to show their unity as a people. 

Harold Frazer, from the Cheyenne River Lakota Sioux, rode with the 300 to the Fort Laramie site and spoke to the people: “Before the treaty we had (natural) law and when the treaties came, we started living under man made law. These laws are no good for our people. I carry this staff to remind me that I am a warrior for our people. What is disappointing, is to come all this way by horseback not to see President Trump or Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke here.”

While emotions did run high, some who spoke also issued pleas for peace.

“Hundreds of us have traveled thousands of miles to come here on this day, and a momentous day it is,” said Roy Brown, Tribal Chairman of the Northern Arapaho. “Early today I sat in the sun. I wanted to get a better understanding of what my ancestors went through, what they were feeling a 150 years ago

“I sat there with the rays of the sun shining down on me and I listened,” he said. “I know they felt anguish. This was not our first time, we have suffered through this before. I know they were frustrated, they were angry, but through all of that there was hope. They sat here with hundreds from the other tribes hoping for a better future for their children. Through the hope came resiliency and courage. It is through those things that we can say we are still here.”

An important aspect of the gathering was education. Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, one of several local, state and federal dignitaries who also spoke during the opening ceremony Saturday, noted positive steps that have been, and are being, taken to address wrongs of the past.

In the 2017 legislative session, one item passed and signed by Mead was the Indian Education for All Act, which adds the history of the Native Tribes to the curriculum for all Wyoming schools.

“This is a historic event,” Mead said following the ceremony. “The speakers all had different feelings about the treaty, which the U.S. entered in to and broke.

“I heard anger, I heard frustration, but I also heard the prayers for all of us,” he said. “The learning process will lend itself well to solutions for the future.”

It was a vision of that hoped-for future – much of which has, admittedly, not come to pass yet – which brought the signatories together in the first place.

“Red Cloud taught me a lot about the human rights of the human people,” said Marie Randel, 98, a descendent of the Sioux chief. “Thank God that you are all gathering. Teach the young people.

“Let us forget this evil suppression thing that is going around,” Randel said. “Let’s all be human and have human thoughts and a human way of life together, peacefully. That is why Mister Red Cloud signed that paper – for peace
to live.”