Yellow Hawk, Sans Arc

(Courtesy National Archives, Washington D.C.)

This paper examines in detail the social and political organization of one of the seven tribal divisions of the Lakota or Western Sioux, the Sans Arcs or Itazipcho (Without Bows). A chronological vantage point in the 1850s is used to focus this paper to look at earlier developments in the robe trade period of Lakota history, and later developments in the Sioux Wars and early reservation period. The Sans Arcs were the smallest of the seven tribal divisions probably less than 200 lodges by 1865 with a population of approximately 1,200 according to the papers author.