The payment to these Indians would be $50,000 in goods each year for fifty years. That comes to about $5.00 per Indian per year. The fifty years was later reduced to fifteen years without the Indians' consent.
Not all the chiefs signed, and those who did sign could only speak for those members of their own bands. This was a situation that would be repeated many times over as the whites forced their treaties on the Native Americans. These situations worsened due to the fact that the whites never seemed to understand, or chose not to understand, the Indian's point of view that there were many leaders of many bands. No one Indian held rule over an entire Indian Nation such as the President of the United States did, or a king of another land.
To learn more about this treaty and read its content, on the Internet, please see:
Treaty with the Sioux, 1851, at Fort Laramie, Wyoming http://www.usd.edu/iais/siouxnation/trea...
Sources:
Utley, Robert M. The Indian Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890. University of New MexicUtleyss, Albuquerque. 1984.
Utley, Robert M. The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull. Henry HoltWillisonpany, New York, 1993.
Willison, George F. The Gold Rush: The Search for Treasure in the American West. Indian Head Books, New York. 1992.
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