For thousands of years, ancestors of the Kul Wicasa Oyate, members of the Lakota band known as the Sicangu, lived in the valleys along the Missouri River and favored the lands where the White River emptied into the river. In the 18th century, French traders began calling these people the Brûlées, which led to the name Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, while the remaining Sicangu, known as the Heyata Wicasa Oyate, eventually relocated to the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the U.S. government used treaties and federal acts to force the Lower Brule Sioux into a small area of their traditional lands. Tatanka Wakan, or Medicine Bull, led the Lower Brule Sioux between the 1860s and 1890s. Today, the Lower Brule Sioux protect and preserve their cultural traditions, work to return to their traditional state of self-sufficiency, and pursue the return of lost lands through an aggressive land re-purchase and consolidation program.