CASPER, Wyo. (AP) — For many Native American tribes in the West, the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 stands out in a list of broken agreements. It wasn't the treaty that was so bad. Settlers and soldiers were pressing deeper into Indian lands in a rapid expansion of the U.S., and the Fort Laramie treaty offered a deal for survival, for sovereignty and a government-to-government relationship with the United States. Then it was broken.
At the Fort Laramie National Historic Site in Goshen County, a commemoration of the signing of the 1868 Fort Laramie treaty includes exhibits, demonstrations and a series of talks on the history of the treaty through Tuesday, the Casper Star-Tribune reported Saturday. There will be Native American food, dances and trips across the river to the site of the signing. Some tribal members will be camping out at the fort during the event, recreating what their families did 150 years ago.
But it's not a celebration for native groups.
"This is the treaty that my nation looks to as the definitive treaty between the United States and the Lakota," said Jeffrey Means, a professor of Native American history at the University of Wyoming and an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. "It created this expectation for the Lakota especially, but also for all these other tribes that were involved, that this was their land."
But the two sides didn't view the agreement the same.
"The Lakota saw the United States as entering into an agreement where this land would be the native nations," he said. "The U.S. saw (reservations) as temporary.... They were supposed to be temporary until the Native Americans either died or were assimilated into U.S. culture."
Wyoming today holds a mixed view of this history, said Sen. Affie Ellis. The Republican representing Cheyenne is a member of the Navajo tribe.
Some Wyomingites know quite a bit about the Fort Laramie Treaty and the history of the tribes in the state. Others know very little.
"Certainly there are some people who are very unaware of that history and often refer to native people as relics of the past," she said.
Ellis introduced a joint resolution in the Senate during the legislative session to commemorate the Fort Laramie Treaty. The bill, which started in the Select Committee on Tribal Relations, laid out a measured take on the historical context of the treaty, the fort and the U.S. government. It notes the convergence of cultures at Fort Laramie and persistence of the tribes as part of the country's development, but is cautious to avoid assigning blame for the wars or the erosion of the treaty.
Ellis said she didn't want to make people today feel guilty about the past, but to understand it.
The treaty is a mixed bag as well. On the one hand, treaties established a government-to-government relationship that continues today, she said.
But there is another way to look at the treaty period.
"They mark the end of a way of life for a lot of tribal people," she said.
Devin Oldman, deputy director of the Northern Arapaho Tribal Historic Preservation Office, said the tribes don't set much store by the commemoration bill. Also this legislative session, senators approved a bill to reduce tribal review of historic sites before oil and gas development if they're found on private land.
The issue has arisen largely in eastern Wyoming in recent years, and many of the landowners affected view tribal consultation as trespass on their property rights. For the tribes, blocking examination of tribal sites and potential protections from development is a trespass on their rights under federal law.
The bill failed to make it through the House.
"I guess it's a statement on behalf of Wyoming of their views of our treaty rights," Oldman said of the legislation. "It's kind of hypocritical to turn around and pass a bill commemorating something that they don't honor today."
The Treaty of Fort Laramie was broken in small and large ways after it was signed. By the early 1870s, an economic depression had spurred a rush for more resources in the country. Rumors of gold in the Black Hills made the Indian land protected under the treaty infinitely more attractive to the U.S. government, said Means, the UW professor.
In order to get to Indian land, the government would have needed a three-fourths vote from all adult Lakota men. Along with various treaty obligations, the Northwest Ordinance — adopted in 1787 by the Second Continental Congress — barred seizure of Indian lands outside of just trade or a just war.
So the U.S. began manufacturing a war, Means said. The Black Hills were taken. The wars continued until a number of Native American heroes, like Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, had surrendered or gone into exile.
"All of these things are counter to the treaty of 1868," Means said.
What was gained in the Treaty of Fort Laramie was lost to history. For some, the events this weekend at the fort commemorate an agreement that is still in default, and where feasible should be honored today, he said.
For others it's a reminder of what Native American life was before the treaty, before the war ended, before the reservations and boarding schools that sapped so much of Native American history from memory.
"That's why the treaty is important to us," said Oldman, from Wind River. "It reminds us of a time in our history when we were free."