Native American Struggles

The Battle for the West

Focus Question

• Was the U.S. Native American policy (1865-1890’s) and its subsequent result a genocide?

Causes of White Settlement

• Gold Rushes

• Homestead Act –1863

• Transcontinental RR – Union Pacific & Central Pacific– Promontory Point, Utah– 1869– “The Golden Spike”

• By 1860’s Native Americans had been pushed beyond the Mississippi

• As white settlers moved west, NA’s were further isolated

• U.S. Gov’t adopts the “Reservation Policy”

• The Indian Wars begin

Plains Indians

•Lived Nomadic Life•Followed Buffalo Herds•Whites killed Buffalo as they moved West–Trapping, sport, policy?

Buffalo Bill Cody – obfuscation of history begins

New “Indian” Policy

•Started in late 1860’s•Native Americans moved to Reservations

•Poor land•Government Trickery•Many Native Americans resisted

Nez Perce

• NW – semi-nomadic tribe• By 1870’s are being force from their land• Nez Perce lead U.S. army on 1800 mile

chase into Canada• Surrender in 1877• Last great battles of the Indian Wars• Chief Joseph – “I will fight no more

forever”

Chief Joseph

The Indian Wars Overview

Butchery on Both Sides

•Indians raided white settlements

•U.S. Army Troops slaughtered entire villages

•Indians won some battles but were outnumbered & outgunned

Battle of Little Big Horn

•1876•General George Armstrong Custer

•Sitting Bull •Sioux tribe defeats Custer

Fort Laramie Treaty

• Lakota, Sioux, Arapaho were granted land in the Black Hills (1868)

Discover of gold > white incursion > Black Hills War

U.S. Gov’t seizes Black Hills in 1877

Apache Wars

• Apache tribe of the South West Desert

• 10 year uprising led by Geronimo

• US troops chased him all over desert

• “Last Native American to surrender”

The Genocide Continues?

• Dawes Act of 1887

• Native Americans stripped of culture (assimilation)

• Forced to accept white ways

• Reservations broken up

• Land bought up by land speculators

Wounded Knee

• “Ghost Dance” to regain Sioux greatness

• Police killed Sitting Bull while trying to arrest him

• Sioux fled in fear• 150 Sioux & 25 soldiers killed near

Wounded Knee Creek

The Struggle Continues

AIM & 2nd Wounded Knee

• American Indian Movement (AIM) 1960’s & 70’s – NA activist org

• Takeover of Bureau of Indian Affairs 1972– “Trail of Broken Treaties”– 500 AIM members take over building to bring attention

to NA plight after failed negations

• Standoff @ Wounded Knee ’73– Sioux @ Pine Ridge hold res. For 77 days– AIM had gathered for meeting & were surrounded by

police & fed marshals