| Official Name: | Crow Creek Indian Reservation |
| Native Name: | |
| Settlement Type: | Reservation |
| Flag Size: | 200px |
| Subdivision Type: | Country |
| Subdivision Name: | United States |
| Subdivision Type1: | State |
| Subdivision Name1: | South Dakota |
| Subdivision Type2: | Counties |
| Subdivision Name2: | Buffalo / Hughes / Hyde |
| Leader Title: | Governing body |
| Leader Name: | Crow Creek Sioux Tribal Council |
| Area Total Km2: | 508.248 |
| Area Total Sq Mi: | 196.235 |
| Population As Of: | 2004 |
| Population Total: | 1,230 |
| Timezone: | CST |
| Utc Offset: | -6 |
| Timezone Dst: | CDT |
| Utc Offset Dst: | -5 |
| Website: | South Dakota Tribal Government Relations: Crow Creek Sioux Tribe |
The Crow Creek Indian Reservation (Dakota: Khąǧí wakpá okášpe, Kȟaŋğí Wakpá Oyáŋke[1]), home to Crow Creek Sioux Tribe (Dakota: Khąǧí wakpá oyáte[2]) is located in parts of Buffalo, Hughes, and Hyde counties on the east bank of the Missouri River in central South Dakota in the United States. It has a land area of and a 2000 census population of 2,225 persons. The major town and capital of the federally recognized Crow Creek Sioux Tribe is Fort Thompson.
The town is located adjacent to the Big Bend Dam, which holds back Big Bend Reservoir (also known as Lake Sharpe), one of the four Missouri Mainstem reservoirs constructed by the US Army Corps of Engineers in the Pick-Sloan Plan. Authorized in 1944 for flood control and hydropower, the dam and lake were completed in the 1960s.
The people of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe are mostly descendants of the Mdewakanton Dakota Tribe of south and central present-day Minnesota. They were expelled from Minnesota, along with the Santee Dakota Tribe and Ho-Chunk Nation after all reservations in the southern part of that state were abolished in December 1862 following the Dakota War.[3] [4]
The land was poorly suited for people accustomed to their former woodland terrain, as it was dry and lacked game for hunting. For six weeks after their arrival at Crow Creek, three or four expelled people died every day from starvation or disease.[5] This caused the Santee and Ho-Chunk to flee the reservation downriver, the Santee settling at what is now the Santee Indian Reservation in north-central Nebraska and the Ho-Chunk settling on part of the Omaha Indian Reservation, northeast Nebraska, later purchasing that part from the Omaha.
Some Yankton and lower Yanktonai Dakota also reside on the reservation. Although some writers consider this to have been part of the Great Sioux Reservation, which was established west of the Missouri River, the Crow Creek Reservation, founded in 1862, has always been separate.
The reservation originally included bottomlands along the Missouri, which had been farmed previously by Mandan and Arikara, and other indigenous peoples prior to these tribes. These peoples were decimated in smallpox and other infectious disease epidemics in the 18th century. Surviving Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara moved northwest and formed the Affiliated Tribes, whose descendants have occupied the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota. Today several former Mandan and Arikara villages within the Crow Creek Reservation are preserved as archaeological sites.
Within the reservation are two pre-contact archeological sites that have been designated as National Historic Landmarks. Fort Thompson Mounds is an archeological site consisting of six miles of burial mounds along the river, constructed from c. 800 CE. They have yielded evidence of some of the first pottery makers on the plains. During salvage excavation of one site, some older materials were radiocarbon dated to c. 2450 BCE, showing nearly 5,000 years of indigenous settlement.[6]
The Crow Creek Massacre Site has revealed evidence of fierce conflict between Native American cultures about 1325 CE, likely when they were competing for resources at a time of climate and habitat change. They are believed to have been Siouan-speaking and Caddoan-speaking indigenous peoples who were ancestral to known historic tribes.[7] [8]
The 20th-century development of Lake Sharpe following completion of the Big Bend Dam flooded much of this bottomland. It also forced relocation of Fort Thompson and other settlements. Loss of the most productive, fertile bottomlands worsened the economic conditions for the Mdewakanton and other Native Americans. Allotment and land sales since the late nineteenth century had reduced the amount of land in both tribal and Indian ownership, and the size of the Reservation was reduced by governmental action between its establishment in 1862 and modern times.
The reservation and the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe is organized into three districts. The tribe runs its own school, the Crow Creek Tribal Schools system, with an elementary school at Fort Thompson and a K-12 boarding and day school at Stephan, approximately 10miles north of Fort Thompson. The tribe leases most of its land for grazing to a few large ranching families, as it is not suitable for subsistence farming. Unemployment is high.
The tribe operates the Lode Star Casino and Hotel on its reservation, attracting tourists and area residents. The archeological sites are also featured for heritage tourism. Recreational travelers use Lake Sharpe's fishing and boating.
The Lower Brule Indian Reservation, originally part of the Great Sioux Reservation, is located on the west bank of the Missouri River. It is directly across from the Crow Creek Reservation. Its people also lost fertile bottomlands in the flooding that accompanied the construction of the dam.
In 2002 a monument was dedicated at Big Bend Dam. The Spirit of the Circle Monument honors the more than 1,300 people who died of malnutrition and exposure over a three-year period in the 1860s at the reservation after the Santee Dakota had been expelled from Minnesota. Deaths in early years at Crow Creek included many members of the Ho-Chunk nation, who had also been forced to relocate to Crow Creek by an act of Congress—even though they were uninvolved in the Dakota War of 1862.[9] [10]
On May 10, 2013, about 150 years after Minnesota's State Governor Alexander Ramsey had called for the extermination or removal of the Dakota people from Minnesota, his modern-day successor Mark Dayton observed a "day of reconciliation". He repudiated his predecessor's encouragement of vigilante violence against innocent people, and offered condolences to descendants who had lost ancestors in the Dakota War of 1862.[11]
" Link