Crow Creek Indian Agency (South Dakota)

Indian Tribes Associated With This Agency
Lower Yanktonai Sioux, Lower Brule Sioux

History
Crow Creek Agency at Fort Thompson, South Dakota was established in 1874 for the Santee, Sisseton, and Wahpeton Sioux Indians. It was the successor to the Upper Missouri Agency, which had commonly been known as Crow Creek as early as 1866 when it was relocated to a site near Crow Creek below the Great Bend of the Missouri River. From 1882 to 1896, Crow Creek and Lower Brulé Agencies were consolidated and called the Crow Creek and Lower Brulé Agency. In 1896, they were separated again and remained so until 1924, when Lower Brulé Agency became a subagency of Crow Creek. In 1954, Crow Creek Agency and Lower Brulé Sunagency were merged with the Pierre Industrial School to form the Pierre Indian Agency.

Records
Many of the records of the Crow Creek Agency have been transferred to the Central Plains Regional Archives of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in Kansas City. Their holdings have been inventoried by the National Archives. Some of the records in their holdings, of interest to family historians, include:


 * Census rolls and related records, 1881-1937
 * Vital statistics, 1881-1939
 * Allotment records, 1886-1922
 * Tribal court records, 1889-1911
 * Annuity payrolls, 1894-1933
 * Land transactions, 1914-1939
 * Indians in military service, 1918-1940
 * School records, 1922-1939
 * Estates and heirships, 1926-1934

Most of these records have been microfilmed and are available through the Family History Library and its family hsitory centers.

Letters received from the Crow Creek Agency, 1871-1876, are included among Letters Received by the Office of Indian Affairs, filmed by the National Archives as their Microcopy M248, Roll 249. This set of records is also available at the Family History Library and its family history centers (their microfilm number 1660979).

Reports of Inspection of the Field Jurisdictions of the Office of Indian Affairs, 1873-1900 have been microfilmed by the National Archives as part of Microcopy Number M1070. The reports for Crow Creek Agency, 1875-1900, are on roll 9 of that Microcopy set. Copies are available at the National Archives, their Regional Archives, and at the Family History Library and its family history centers (their microfilm roll number 1617682).

The 1900 federal census included population schedules for the Crow Creek Reservation. The census includes the non-Indian employees of the Crow Creek Agency, as well as many pages of Indian Population Schedules for the native population of the Reservation. They are recorded as District 376, Crow Creek Agency, in Buffalo County, South Dakota.

Microfilm copies of ...Narrative and Statistical Reports... for the Crow Creek Agency, 1907-1938, are included in National Archives Microcopy M1011, Rolls 31-32, available in the National Archives system and in the collections of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, beginning with their microfilm numbers 1724249-1724250.

Annual Indian Census Rolls were taken at this agency for 1886-1939, and 1942. These rolls have been microfilmed by the National Archives as part of their Microcopy Number M595, rolls 87 thru 92. Copies of these records are also available at the National Archives, their Regional Archives, and at the Family History Library and its family history centers (their microfilm roll numbers 575779-575784). These census rolls are also available online at Ancestry.com's subscription web site.