Lower Brule Sioux Tribe
The Kul Wicasa Oyate is a band of related families of the Lakota Nation called the Sicangu or Burnt Thighs. Brule comes from the French word brulé (burnt), the name French fur traders used for the Sicangu in the late 1600s. The Sicangu divided into the Lower Brule and the Heyata Wicasa, or Upper Brule, in the late 1700s. The Lower Brule favored lands where the White River empties into the Missouri River, while the Upper Brule lived further south and west.
The Lower Brule Indian Reservation occupies an area of more than 400 square miles on the west side of the Missouri River Valley and in the uplands that roll westward from the Missouri River to the Black Hills. The construction of the mainstem dams along the Missouri River in the 1950s and 1960s flooded about 35 square miles of the tribe’s prime forests, hunting, fishing and gathering grounds, agricultural lands, and settlements, creating the Lake Sharpe and Lake Francis Case reservoirs. The Crow Creek Indian Reservation is on the eastern side of these reservoirs.
Chief Iron Nation (1815-1894) led the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe through some of its most challenging years. He worked diligently, both as a warrior and statesman, to ensure the survival of his people. Iron Nation signed the treaty to establish the Great Sioux Reservation in 1868. He has been described as a just and noble leader.