Section 3: Native American Fight to Survive

The introduction of horses by Europeans to the Plains Indians changed Native Americans to a nomadic lifestyle. Horses allowed them to follow the buffalo herds which provided them with food, shelter and tools.

While traveling across the Great Plains, white settlers began to realize the area west of the Mississippi could be a rich agricultural territory. White settlers saw the nomadic lifestyle of the Native Americans as a lack of interest by the Native Americans in owning land or becoming farmers. The white settlers urged the government to make the valuable land available to settlement by removing the Native Americans.

The First Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851) set new and smaller boundaries for the Native American tribes. Tribes that took this deal were promised government aid in exchange for their removal. However, the Sioux resisted the white settlers attempts to take more of their land.

In 1864, Cheyenne warriors left their reservation in search of food after the promised government aid and food was never received. The Colorado Militia, seeing this departure by the warrior as an act of war, raided the peaceful Cheyenne village in retaliation.

As many as 200 Cheyenne men, women and children were killed in what became known as The Sand Creek Massacre.

Upset by this massacre, many tribes began raiding white settlements. The government sought to end the fighting with the Second Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868). This time the Native Americans were moved to the Black Hills in South Dakota.

But only six years later gold was discovered in the Black Hills and thousands of white miners flocked into the reservation. Despite government warnings that the area legally belonged to the Native American tribes, the miners broke the law and moved in anyway.

Two Sioux Chiefs united their tribes to push back the miners, who they saw as being invaders.

Sitting Bull Crazy Horse

When the Cheyenne decided to join the fight with the Sioux, the U.S. government dispatched Civil War hero, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry to deal with the Indian uprising.

Greatly underestimating the size of the Sioux and Cheyenne forces and their willingness to fight, Custer made the decision to split his troops into three wings. Custer’s group would engage the Native Americans and force them into a fortified position held by Major Reno. Additionally, Custer was counting on Major Benteen to support his advance if anything went wrong.

At the Battle of Little Bighorn, Custer having greatly underestimated the opposing forces and failing to get reinforcements he need on time, was killed along with all of his men.

Despite popular accounts that Custer and his men fought bravely after being surrounded, most historians believe that Custer was simply overwhelmed by the sheer number of opposing Native Americans.

As a result of Custer’s defeat at The Battle of Little Bighorn, the U.S. government adopted a policy of increased military action against the Native American tribes.

The increased military push resulted in the attempted removal of the Nez Perce Indians from their reservation in what today is parts of Idaho, Oregon and Washington. Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce resisted this removal and instead fled with his entire tribe to Canada. The US Government pursued the Nez Perce for four months and over 1,00 miles. Tired and short on food the Nez Perce finally agreed to go to the reservation, but not before embarrassing the U.S. military because of their inability to track an entire tribe of people.

After the U.S. military suppressed the Apache and Navajo in the southwest by burning their villages, they were forced to go on a journey that has become known as The Long Walk. Hundreds died on this brutal journey of over 300 miles to the new reservation.

The last Apache tribe to surrender was lead by the fierce warrior Geronimo. Geronimo had been fighting the advancement of white settlers to his area for over 25 years. When the government attempted to relocated his tribe he and his tribe disappeared into the deserts of the southwest. Geronimo managed to elude the U.S. military for over ten years, despite being capture on several occasions only to escape each time. In 1886, Geronimo became the last Native American chief to formally surrender to the United States.

While the increased military presence in the plains played a major role in the end of the Native American resistance, the near extinction of the buffalo herds was by far the biggest factor in the end of Native American resistance.

With the buffalo being hunted by skinners to the point of extinction, the Native Americans lost their primary source of food. It was not uncommon for Native Americans to find piles of dead buffalo rotting on the prairie.

Skinners would take the hide leaving the rest behind. Later other men would poison the carcass, hoping wolves would eat it and die. Allowing them to skin the wolves as well.

This mound of buffalo skulls is a grim reminder of the near extinction of the buffalo by 1890.

The Dawes Act was an attempt by the U.S. Government to assimilate the Native Americans into American culture. The act was intended to encourage Native Americans to farm the lands of the Great Plains along side the white settlers that were coming in.

The Dawes Act divided up reservation lands into farming plots that were given to each tribe member. Another part of the Dawes Act allowed for schools to be built that would educate the Native Americans on how to become more American.

In the end, the Dawes Act did little to actually help the Native Americans. Often times the Native Americans who got the land didn’t want to be farmers and those that did often lacked the tools or the money to make the farm productive. Most native Americans ended up selling their lands to white prospectors for a fraction of the actual value.

Native American culture was disappearing now alongside their land. As a result some tribes turned to a prophet named Wovoka who taught them the prophetic powers of the Ghost Dance.

According to Wavoka, the Ghost Dance created visions of ancestors and buffalo who prophesized of a time when the white man would leave the plains and the buffalo would return.

The military guards confusing the Ghost Dance for a war dance opened fire on the Native Americans.

Over 200 Sioux men, women and children where killed in an event that came to be known as The Wounded Knee Massacre.