growing opposition to schools, Little Crow once again focused his energies on trading and gambling for furs in the west. According to fur trader Martin McLeod, in 1848, Little Crow and nearly everyone in Kaposia were allegedly involved in trading whisky for furs, a venture which put them in direct competition with Henry Hastings Sibley and his traders. Sibley, McLeod and others attempted to patrol the rivers, and eventually got the army involved in stopping any Dakota canoes that might be carrying "contraband," as the activity had been made illegal by statute. McLeod also identified Little Crow and one of his brothers as having had considerable success in gambling for furs within their kinship networks in Lac qui Parle. Furthermore, Little Crow was believed to have been involved in at least one incident of stealing furs from a lodge of Ojibwe who had been found hunting on Dakota lands. By trading and gambling for furs, and sometimes hunting, Little Crow and the men of Kaposia found additional ways to contribute to the village economy rather than relying solely on the farming program and the annuities they were entitled to according to the 1837 land cession treaty signed between the Dakota and the United States. Treaty negotiations In 1851, Little Crow played a pivotal role in negotiating the Treaty of Mendota, which stated that the Mdewakanton and Wahpekute bands would receive US$1,410,000, most of which would be held in trust and paid in annuities, for ceding their lands to the U.S. government. The terms of the treaty required them to relocate to a reservation on either side of the Minnesota River. In 1858, he led the Mdewakanton-Wahpekute delegation to Washington, D.C., where Little Crow and other leaders were pressured into giving up the northern half of their remaining holdings along the Minnesota River, as part of a further land cession treaty. Little Crow was present at Traverse des Sioux and signed the Mendota treaty, by which the bands agreed to move to land set aside along the Minnesota River to the west of their traditional territory. The treaty as ratified by the United States Senate removed Article 3 of the treaty, which had set aside this land. The tribe was compelled to negotiate a new treaty, under threat of forcible removal to the Dakota Territory, and was granted land only on one side of the river. In the spring of 1862,