Native Americans in the West

By Danielle Fox and Sam DePue

The First Sparks

Immigrants were pouring into western land after the civil war, regardless of the fact that it was already inhabited by thousands of Native Americans

The first federal action concerning Native Americans is federal agents took delegation of multiple Indian tribes and took their chiefs eastward in order to impress them in 1863

Before Gov’t invasion

In 1865, nearly a quarter million Native Americans lived in the west

2/3 of them lived on the Great Plains

At this time, submission tactics by the government started to come into place

Chivington Massacre

1864- Chief Black Kettle camped his tribe on Sand Creek in Colorado

A Colorado militia led by Colonel John Chivington led a brutal attack killed nearly 200 Indian men, women, and children

As a result, Congress appointed an investigating committee that concluded a treaty with Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians

Were still forced to surrender their Sand Creek reservation

Great Sioux War

1865-1867

Started by the invasion of Indian lands by gold miners and intensified by the announcing of plans to connect the mining towns by the construction of the Bozeman Trail through Sioux hunting grounds

Chief Red Cloud lured Captain William Fetterman into the wilderness where he then ambused and wiped out all of his soldiers

Great Sioux War cont. 2

This was known as the Fetterman Massacre

Halted work on the trail

Congress created a Peace Commission of 4 civilians and 3 generals in order to end the war and eliminate permanently the causes Indian warfare

Their solution: small reservations, teaching Indians modern farming, and gradually civilizing

Great Sioux War cont. 3

54,000 Native Americans residing on the Northern Plains would be moved to reservations North of the Black Hills in Dakota Territory

86,000 Native Americans residing on the Southern Plains would be moved into present day Oklahoma

Both areas were to be supervised by government agents

Great Sioux War cont. 4

The Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, and Arapaho agreed to the plan in 1867

The Sioux in 1868

The Ute, Shoshone, Bannock, Navajo, and Apache tribes also accepted small reservations

Young warriors and minor chiefs soon denounced treaties and drifted back to old land

Black Hills Gold Rush of 1875

Rain-in-the-Face, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull led the Sioux army after gold miners were entreating on their land

US Army sent several columns of troops but Lt. Colonel George Armstrong pushed recklessly ahead

On June 25, 1876, Cluster divided his column and took forward 265 men under the impression he had the small Indian band surronded

Black Hills cont. 2

Instead found a 2500 warrior camp instead of small band

US was hungry for revenge, beat Sioux into submission

3000 surrendered in October 1876

Sitting Bull and his followers fled to Canada after the war

Start of Wounded Knee

1890- Teton Sioux of South Dakota began performing Ghost Dances which grew from a vision of a Paiute Messiah, Wovaka

Dances were supposed to reunite the tribes and banish the whites from the Earth

Army tried to stop the dances which caused violence that led to the killing of Chief Sitting Bull

Frightened forces fled southwest to join Chief Big Foot

Wounded Knee

Troops of the 7th Cavalry caught them and took them to an army camp on Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota

A Native American first opened fire which was returned by the US’s new machine guns

Wounded Knee Massacre killed 200 Native Americans

An Attempt to Civilize

The next hassle of Indian life came by way of Assimilationists

Assimilationst- uses education, land policy, and federal law to eradicate tribal society

Native American youth were gathered from multiple tribes and brought to Indian schools were they were taught modern, Christian ways

Dawes Severalty Act

Congress thought that owning land will make Native Americans more responsible so they passed the Dawes Severalty Act

This act divided tribal lands into small plot to give to tribal members

A Family received 160 acres, Single Adult 80 acres, and a child 40 acres

Surplus sold to white with the profits going to Native American Schools

Dawes Severalty Act cont. 2

It is to be noted that the Surplus land was the most fertile, the Indians being given the worst, barren, undesirable land

American Citizenship was granted to Indians who accepted their land and “adopted the habits of a civilized life”

47 million acres of Indian land was distributed this way

1934- Gov’t returned to the idea of tribal land ownership but by then, the 138 million acres of Tribal Land had shrunken to 48 acres

Half of which was barren, useless land