SIOUX  , a tribe of

North American Indians . The name is an abbreviation of the French corruption Nadaouesioux of the Algonquian name Nadowesiwug, " little snakes . " They call themselves Dakotas (" allies ") . They were formerly divided into seven clans: hence the name they sometimes used, Otceti Cakowin, " the seven council-fires . " There was a further distribution into eastern and western Sioux . The former were generally sedentary and agricultural, the latter nomad horsemen . The Sioux were ever conspicuous, even among Indians, for their physical strength and indomitable courage . Their original home was east of the Alleghanics, but in 1632 the French found them chiefly in Minnesota and Wisconsin . Thereafter driven westward by the Ojibwa and the French, they crossed the Missouri into the plains . The Sioux fought on the English side in the War of Independence and in that of 1812 . In 1815 a treaty was made with the American government by which the right of the tribe to an immense tract, including much of Minnesota, most of the Dakotas, and a large part of Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri and Wyoming, was admitted . In 1835 missions were started among the eastern Sioux by the American Board, and schools were opened .

In 1837 the tribe sold all their

land east of the Mississippi . In 1851 the bulk of their Minnesota territory was sold, but a hitch in the carrying out of the agreement led to a risingand massacre of whites in 1857 at Spirit Lake on the Minnesota-Iowa border . There was peace again till 1862, when once again the tribe revolted and attacked the white settlers . A terrible massacre ensued, and the punitive measures adopted were severe . Thirty-nine of the Indian leaders were hanged from the same scaffold, and all the Minnesota Sioux were moved to reservations in Dakota . The western Sioux, angry at the treatment of their kinsmen, then became thoroughly hostile and carried on intermittent war with the whites till 1877 . In 1875 and 1876 under their chief, Sitting Bull, they successfully resisted the government troops, and finally Sitting Bull and most of his followers escaped into Canada . Sitting Bull returned in 1881 . In 1889 a treaty was made reducing Sioux territory . Difficulties in the working of this, and religious excitement in connexion with the Ghost Dance craze, led to an outbreak in 189o . Sitting Bull and three hundred Indians were killed at Wounded Knee Creek, and the Sioux were finally subdued . They are now on different reservations and number some twenty- four thousand .

See INDIANS, NORTH AMERICAN .