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Post by Dietmar on Aug 8, 2011 9:49:12 GMT -5
Two Bears & Running Antelope (Hunkpapa) by Hamilton and Hoyt 1872
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Post by ladonna on Jan 30, 2013 11:14:48 GMT -5
Chief Two Bears Mato Nunpa was one of the prominent chiefs of the Upper Yanktonais Lakota. The Yanktonais hunting territory ranged from the eastern Dakota territory to the Missouri River on the east side of the Missouri River. Chief Two Bears was involved in the Whitestone Massacre in 1863 in which some 150 to 300 Sioux Indians were killed. An Indian encampments was camped at Whitestone Hill (near Kulm, ND) 85 miles east of the Missouri River where the Yanktonais lived for 125 years between the James River and the Missouri River. They were at home planting, hunting, and harvesting for the coming winter. In 1862, the Minnesota uprising created concern about hostile Indians toward homesteaders in the Dakota Territory. Two regiments of Calvary were sent from Minnesota and Iowa to hunt Indians and put down any uprising in Dakota Territory. The Indian encampment was attacked and many Indians were killed over a three day period. Chief Two Bears survived the Whitestone Massacre and returned to Standing Rock. Around 1865, Two Bears' band camped near Fort Rice. Two Bears served as interpreter at the July 1867 treaty commission meeting at Fort Rice with the Lakota. At the council at Fort Rice, On July 2, 1868, Chief Two Bears voiced his objections to the reservation proposal: "Now I will tell you one thing that I don't like; you are going to put all the tribes together and I do not approve of it. I speak for my own band; our country is on the other side of the river-we are Yankconais…The trouble was begun by the whites rushing into selling our country…There is one thing that I must tell you; though I want to make peace, yet I don't want to sell my land to the whites. It is the whites who will break the treaty, not us. I don't give permission to any white men to chop wood and get hay in our country." By 1873, the Burnt Lodge, Lower Yanktonais settled 40 miles above the Grand River Agency on the East Side of the Missouri River. Two Bears' band included 55 lodges (families). In the 1885 Ration List for Standing Rock Two Bears is shown to have 61 lodges and 258 people under his care. Chief Two Bears also signed the treaty of Laramie in 1868. He also participated in the Battle of Little Big Horn in 1876 and later fled to Grand Mothers Country - Canada.
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