The Yankton, Yanktonai, and Assiniboine all belong to the what is called the
"N-speakers" group of the Sioux language. Apparently all of the Dakota, Nakota
(and Assiniboine), and Lakota dialects are very close and mutually intelligible
(unfortunately I don't speak any of them myself), so your father's telling you
that he can easily understand the Assiniboine language doesn't surprise me.
Lakota and Nakota speakers should also be able to do the same thing with very
little problem.
The Assiniboine name comes from a Cree word meaning "those who cook with
stones." For this reason they were often called the Stoney by the Canadian fur
traders. In their own language they refer to themselves the Nakota. The
Cheyenne called the Assiniboine the Hohe, but this name appears to have been
borrowed from a Sioux word meaning "rough speakers."
>From what white historians have been able to reconstruct, all of the Sioux
people originally lived in Minnesota before the arrival of the Europeans
disrupted everything. Their territory extended east along both shores of Lake
Superior across northern Wisconsin; north into southwestern Ontario and
southeastern Manitoba; west into the eastern Dakotas; and south into Iowa.
Unlike many groups, they had a strong sense of being one nation that rivaled
that of the Iroquois ... Dakota meaning either "allies" or "people of the same
speech." During this time they met annually in a highly organized council to
discuss problems, and the early French explorers at first referred to the Sioux
as the "Iroquois of the West."
Yankton means "at the edge" and indicates that this group originally lived on
the western edge of Sioux homeland near their present location on the Missouri
River. I don't know what it means when "ai" is added to the end of a Sioux name
(perhaps a form of diminutive), but the Yanktonai lived north of the Yankton at
the western edge, and the Assiniboine who were the northernmost of the original
Sioux (and part of the general council at the time) lived north of the Yanktonai
in northwestern Minnesota extending across the present border into Canada to the
southern shores of Lake Manitoba.
Into this stable arrangement came the European. The French had first become
aware of the Sioux by 1640 (probably through the Ojibwa...hence the name Sioux
from the French corruption of the Ojibwa name for an enemy - Nadouessioux, or
rattlesnake) although the first actual contact was not made until 1658 by
Radisson along the the shores of Lake Superior. The Sioux before this time had
also become well aware of the French because Wisconsin had been overrun after
1640 with refugees from the east (Ojibwa, Fox, Sauk, Ottawa, Wyandot,
Potawatomi, etc.) who were fleeing an Iroquois offensive of annihilation during
the Beaver Wars. To aid these allies against the Iroquois, the French had been
trading guns to these peoples, and they had been using them not only against the
Iroquois, but also to fight and seize territory from the resident Sioux.
Needless to say to initial Sioux reception of the French was somewhat frigid.
Some limited trade developed, but the French preferred to work with people who
were more receptive (the Ojibwa) who were enemies of the Sioux and made sure
that the French did not supply too many weapons to them. Although this
arrangement was not really satisfactory, the majority of the Sioux were drawn
into the web of French trade interests. Meanwhile the British had done an end
run in 1670 around the French position in the St. Lawrence valley and Great
Lakes and established trading posts on Hudson Bay. Remaining very close to
their outposts on the shore, they had first traded with the local Cree
(Algonquin-speaking) who then acted as middlemen in trade with other tribes.
Although the Cree and Assiniboine had formerly been enemies, this new trade
relationship with the British eventually grew into a military alliance against
tribes that traded with the French. This included the other Sioux tribes, but
did not bother the Assiniboine since they had been gradually distancing
themselves from the other Sioux tribes for many years.
Naturally, the French felt threatened by this British presence on Hudson Bay,
but lacked the military power to directly end it. In these circumstances,
French policy was to manipulate the various tribes under their influence into
wars to protect French trade interests. In its own way this self-serving French
diplomacy was ultimately more destructive to Native Americans than the British
taking of their land or the Spanish mission system destruction of to their
culture, but that is another story. In 1680 the French arranged an alliance
between the Sioux and Ojibwa to counter influence of the Cree and Assiniboine
who were trading with the British. So it was that the Sioux and the
Assiniboine, relatives who had once shared the same council fire, became
enemies.
For the reasons already mentioned the French alliance between the Dakota and the
Ojibwa never really worked, and as the Ojibwa used their advantage in French
weapons to expand west and occupy their territory, the Dakota became
increasingly alarmed. The final blow came in the 1730s when the French began to
trade guns to the Assiniboine and Cree in an attempt to lure them away from
Hudson Bay. The Sioux responded by killing twenty French traders at Lake of the
Woods in 1736, and the Ojibwa went after the Sioux. The resulting war in
Wisconsin and Minnesota during the next hundred years is one more story.
The British-French trade rivalry ended in 1763 with the French departure after
their defeat. The Hudson Bay company dominated trade in the region but began to
replace their Assiniboine and Cree middlemen with their own employees. During
the previous seventy years the Assiniboine and Cree had taken their trade with
Hudson Bay west into the northern plains. As such they had introduced the first
firearms to the area through trade with the Mandan and Blackfoot. Following the
arrival of the Spanish horse from New Mexico in the early and mid-1700s and
their displacement from the direct employ of the Hudson Bay Company after 1763,
the Cree and Assiniboine began to move west onto the plains in force to stay.
It was a move that coincided with the move of the Lakota farther to the south
and continued the hostile relationship that had originated back in Minnesota.
The Assiniboine spread southwest down the the Assiniboine River to eventually
occupy an area adjacent to the upper Missouri River in northwestern North Dakota
and northeastern Montana. This migration brought them into frequent conflict
with the resident Gros Ventre, Blackfoot, Shoshone, Crow, and Mandan, but by
retaining their former alliance with the Cree, the Assiniboine were formidable.
By 1800 the Assiniboine were one of the dominant tribes along the upper
Missouri. Then disaster struck!
The power of the Assiniboine was not broken by any military action, but by the
same destructive force that destroyed so many other tribes Q epidemic. Their
population in 1780 was about six thousand, but almost half of the Assiniboine
died of smallpox during the following year. During the next fifty years, their
population managed to recover to near its previous level, but another four
thousand Assiniboine died of smallpox during the great epidemic of 1837. No
longer numerous enough to resist both the Blackfoot and the encroaching Lakota,
the Upper Assiniboine allied with the Crow and Gros Ventre while the Lower
Assiniboine joined the Santee and Yanktonai Sioux who were being forced into the
area following their expulsion from the eastern Dakotas by the military
campaigns of Generals Sibley and Sulley 1862-64. By 1871 the Yantonai had moved
into northestern Montana among the Assiniboine. As such several Lower
Assiniboine warriors are known to have participated as Sioux allies in the
Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876.
Well there you have it. I am a little puzzled that in the face of present-day
solidarity between all native peoples the Assiniboine want to remind you that
they were once your enemies. However, the Fort Peck and Belknap reservations
contain one of the interesting collections of former enemies ever assembled by
the wisdom of our federal government. I suppose this could in part explain why
your Assiniboine friends do not like being confused with the Sioux to whom they
are so closely related. Another reason for this could be jealousy over the fact
that the Sioux are so well-known to the American public while their own people,
who were once so powerful are almost invisible. I'll leave you to ponder on
this.
Anyway, I hope all of this proves helpful. Any comments can be addressed to
wisicu@eskimo.com. Meanwhile...good luck!
Lee Sultzman