[soo] 
[duh-koh-tuh] | 1. | a former territory in the United States: divided into the states of North Dakota and South Dakota 1889. |
| 2. | North Dakota or South Dakota. |
| 3. | the Dakotas, North Dakota and South Dakota. |
| 4. | Also called Sioux. a member of the largest tribe of the Siouan stock of North American Indians, who originally occupied Minnesota and Wisconsin and later migrated westward to the Great Plains. |
| 5. | Santee (defs. 3, 4). |
| 6. | a Siouan language spoken by the Dakota and Assiniboin Indians. |
| Sioux (sōō) n. pl. Sioux (sōō, sōōz)
[North American French, short for nadouéssioux, from Ottawa naadowesiwag.] Sioux adj. |
A common name for the Dakota people, a tribe of Native Americans inhabiting the northern Great Plains in the nineteenth century. They were famed as warriors and frequently took up arms in the late nineteenth century to oppose the settlement of their hunting grounds and sacred places. In 1876, Sioux warriors, led by Chief Sitting Bull, and commanded in the field by Chief Crazy Horse, overwhelmed the United States cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. (See Custer's last stand.) A group of Sioux under Chief Big Foot were massacred by United States troops at Wounded Knee in 1890.