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Fort Laramie National Historic Site - Wyoming
Named for Jacques Laramee, a leading French-Canadian fur trapper, explorer and mountain man in the early days of the white presence in the west.
It was originally built as a fur-trading depot, but was eventually bought by the U.S. Army to help protect and supply the wagon trains that began to pour along the nearby Oregon Trail as of the 1840's.
It was here that two major treaties, in 1851 and in 1868, were signed with the Plains Indian tribes of the region, acknowledging their ownership of hundreds of millions of acres of the surrounding land.
Neither held up, however - especially once gold was found in the Black Hills - leading to the court action that produced the Supreme Court's 1980 ruling in favor of the Sioux (which included the statement that ''A more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings will never in all probability be found in our history''...).
Fort Laramie National Historic Site - Wyoming
Named for Jacques Laramee, a leading French-Canadian fur trapper, explorer and mountain man in the early days of the white presence in the west.
It was originally built as a fur-trading depot, but was eventually bought by the U.S. Army to help protect and supply the wagon trains that began to pour along the nearby Oregon Trail as of the 1840's.
It was here that two major treaties, in 1851 and in 1868, were signed with the Plains Indian tribes of the region, acknowledging their ownership of hundreds of millions of acres of the surrounding land.
Neither held up, however - especially once gold was found in the Black Hills - leading to the court action that produced the Supreme Court's 1980 ruling in favor of the Sioux (which included the statement that ''A more ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealings will never in all probability be found in our history''...).