S Sioux (pron. Soo), the principal tribe of the Dakota (i.e. 'confederate') family of American Indians (q.v.), now settled mostly in South Dakota and Nebraska. Forced by the Chippewas south and west, they made their first cession of lands to the United States government in 1830, and in 1837 ceded all their lands east of the Mississippi, and in 1849-51 those in Minnesota. For all these lands annuities were promised, which were, however, allowed to fall into arrears; and meanwhile the Indians were demoralised by the introduction of whisky. In 1862 a number of famishing men broke into a government warehouse, and so began a desperate war which desolated thousands of square miles of territory, cost a thousand whites their lives and the government $40,000,000, and ended in the execution of the leaders. After some years of further disgraceful mismanagement and wrangling between the various government departments, the Santee Sioux were placed on a small reservation near Yankton, where they have developed into industrious and peaceful farmers, and are permitted to hold their lands in severalty (see AMERICAN INDIANS, Vol. I. p. 227). Meanwhile the hostile
Sioux had retired to the northern parts of Dakota, where, under Sitting Bull, they gathered the young braves who were exasperated by the government's failure to send supplies to the several agencies. The war which began and ended in 1876 is chiefly memorable for the disaster in which General Custer (q.v.) perished; it was ended in a few months, and Sitting Bull took refuge in Canada, but in 1880 was induced by the Dominion officials, on a promise of pardon, to surrender. The Brulé Sioux and the Ogallala Sioux were afterwards settled on the Rosebud and Pinewood agencies in South Dakota. In 1890 there was a general rising of the Indians in the North-west, under a 'Messiah;' and in its course Sitting Bull was slain—whether killed in fight or slaughtered was questioned—on 15th December.