tragedy of the plains indians

7/29/2019 Tragedy of the Plains Indians

1/23

THE TRAGEDY OF

THE PLAINS

INDIANS

PROF. MICHAEL STAFFORDADJUNCT/LECTURER

MERCY COLLEGE


2/23

HORACE GREELEY

In 1854 Horace Greeley, aNew York newspapereditor gave Josiah B.Grinnell a famous piece ofadvice. "Go West, young

man, and grow up with thecountry."

Grinnell took Greeley'sadvice, moved west, andlater founded Grinnell,

Iowa. Before 1830 Iowa was

Indian land, occupied bythe Sauk, Fox, Missouri,Pottowatomi, and other

Indian tribes.


3/23

A THIRTY YEARS WAR

TIMELINEThe New UlmMassacre

The SandCreekMassacre

The BlackHawk War

The FettermanMassacre

The Battle ofthe Little BigHorn

Nez PerceTragedy

WoundedKnee

August, 1862 Nov. 29, 1864 April 9, 1865-68

Dec. 21, 1866 June 25, 1876 Oct. 5, 1877 Dec. 29, 1890

The New UlmMassacre in1862 was themurder ofapproximately800 Whitefarmers alongthe MinnesotaRiver. A major

factor in thishuge loss oflife, thelargest-evermassacre of

Americans,was the lackof rifles in thehands of thefarmers andtownsfolk.

ColoradoVolunteerssurroundedSand Creek.ColonelChivington"Kill and scalpall, big andlittle." The told

his troops. theregimentdescendedupon thevillage, killingabout 400people, mostof whom werewomen andchildren.

The BlackHawk Warerupted as aresult of thewhiteexpansion intothe UtahTerritory.Whites

altered crucialecosystemsand destroyedsubsistencepatterns whichcausedstarvation.Those who didnot starveoftensuccumbed to

Determined tochallenge thegrowing

Americanmilitarypresence intheir territory,Indians innorthern

Wyoming lureLieutenantColonelWilliamFetterman andhis soldiersinto a deadlyambush onthis day in1866.

LieutenantColonelGeorge A.Custer and the7th Cavalrycharged intobattle againstLakota Siouxand Northern

CheyenneIndians.Quicklyencircled bytheir enemy,Custer and265 of hissoldiers werekilled in lessthan an hour.

On October 5,1877, NezPerce leaderChief Josephformallysurrenderedhis forces toGeneralNelson A.

Miles andGeneral OliverOtis Howardat Bear PawMountain,MontanaTerritory. Thiseffectivelyended the NezPerce War of1877.

WoundedKnee Creekwas aconvenientplace for theSeventhCavalry todisarm BigFoot's band

during theLakota GhostDance"uprising" in1890. But thena shot rangout, and some300 Lakotawere gunneddown.


4/23

THE GREAT PLAINS

The Plains Indianslived in the areafrom theMississippi River

to the RockyMountains andfrom Canada toMexico.

The mostimportant tribeswere the Sioux,Blackfoot,Cheyenne, Crow,

Kiowa, and


5/23

FORT LARAMIE

Fort Laramie was a socialand economic center forseveral tribes of PlainsIndians.

Early relations between thetraders at the Fort and theIndians were amicable.

As the tide of emigrantsswelled along the OregonTrial, friction began toemerge.

A treaty was signed byrepresentatives of the UnitedStates and the Indians nearFort Laramie in 1851.

In return for $50,000 per yearof annuities, the Indians

agreed to stop harassing thewa on trains.


6/23

THE OREGON TRAIL


7/23

THE TREATY OF 1868

The Bozeman Trail was soon swarming withemigrants who passed through the prime bisonhunting lands of the Sioux and the Cheyennetribes.

The Army constructed three Forts along the Trailto provide for the safety of the travelers.

The Native Americans resented the intrusions,

and the high plains were soon aflame withconflict.

The Treaty of 1868 was signed: The Armyagreed to withdraw from the Bozeman Trail and

evacuate the forts along it.


8/23

THE BOZEMAN TRAIL


9/23

THE BLACK HILLS

The Treaty of 1868 did notbring a lasting peace to thehigh plains.

In 1874, gold wasdiscovered in the Black Hills

and miners soon flocked tothe area.

Attempts by the U.S. Armyto keep prospectors out ofthe area were unsuccessful.

The influx angered theSioux, because the BlackHills region was a sacredarea and it was also part ofthe reservation lands

guaranteed to the Indians bythe Treaty of 1868.


10/23

A THIRTY YEARS WAR

Beginning in the 1860s, a 30year conflict arose as thegovernment sought toconcentrate the Plains tribes onreservations.

Philip Sheridan led manycampaigns against the PlainsIndians, is famous for saying"the only good Indian is a deadIndian.

But even he recognized the

injustice that lay behind the late19th century warfare:

We took away their country andtheir means of support, broke uptheir mode of living, their habits oflife, introduced disease and decay

among them, and it was for thisand against this that they made


11/23

MINNESOTA

The Santee Sioux were confined to aterritory 150 miles long and just 10 mileswide.

Denied a yearly payment and agriculturalaid promised by treaty, these people roseup in August 1862 and killed 500 white

settlers at New Ulm. President Lincoln appointed General John

Pope to crush the uprising.

The general announced that he woulddeal with the Sioux "as maniacs or wildbeasts, and by no means as people withwhom treaties or compromises can bemade.

When the Sioux surrendered inSeptember 1862, about 1,800 were takenprisoner and 303 were condemned todeath.

Lincoln commuted the sentences of most,

but he authorized the hanging of 38, thelargest mass execution in American


12/23

COLORADO

In 1864, warfare spread toColorado, after thediscovery of gold led to aninflux of whites.

Because the regular armywas fighting theConfederacy, the Coloradoterritorial militia wasresponsible for maintainingorder.

On November 29, 1864, a

group of Coloradovolunteers, under thecommand of Colonel JohnM. Chivington, fell on ChiefBlack Kettle'sunsuspecting band of

Cheyenes at Sand Creekin eastern Colorado.


13/23

SAND CREEK

Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell ofColorado called it "one of the mostdisgraceful moments in American history."

After unleashing cannon fire into thevillage, the volunteers swept the Creekbed, killing every Indian they could find,

often hunting down fleeing children. Lt. Joseph Cranmer described "a squaw

ripped open and a child taken from her.Little children shot while begging for theirlives."

Capt. Silas Soule said, "it was hard to seelittle children on their knees have theirbrains beat out by men professing to becivilized.

A congressional committee concluded thatChivington "deliberately planned andexecuted a foul and dastardly massacre.

The Cheyenne and Arapaho were

promised reparations in an 1865 treaty,but none were paid.


14/23

UTAH

The Black Hawk War: Between 1865 and1868, conflict raged in Utah.

The traditional date of the war'scommencement is 9 April 1865 buttensions had been mounting for years.

Dispute over cattle killed by starvingIndians.

An irritated Mormon lost his temper andviolently jerked a young chieftain from hishorse. A young Ute named Black Hawk,abruptly left, promising retaliation.

In the fall of 1867 Black Hawk made peacewith the Mormons. Without his leadershipthe Indian forces, which never operated asa combined front, fragmented even further.The war's intensity decreased and a treatyof peace was signed in 1868.


15/23

WYOMING

In 1866, the Teton Sioux,tried to stop constructionof the Bozeman Trail,leading from Fort Laramie,

Wyoming to the VirginiaCity, Wyoming, and itsgold fields.

It is here we the Whites

first encounter a youngCrazy Horse.

The Indians lured out thenattacked and killedCaptain William J.Fetterman and 79 soldiers.


16/23

GEORGE CUSTER

Custer graduated last in his class at West Pointin 1861, but by the age of 25 he had risen to therank of brevet major general, the Army'syoungest.

He fought in many Civil War battles includingGettysburg, and became one of the heroes of

the Union army.

At the end of the Civil War, he reverted to hisArmy rank of captain and served stints inLouisiana and Texas before being placed incommand of the 7th Cavalry on the Great Plains.

Writers still debate whether Custer was a racistmurderer; a swaggering, egotistical self-promoter; or a martyred hero betrayed by hissubordinates.

Historians tend to view him as an officer whosevanity, youth, and desire for victory clouded his

tactical judgment.


17/23

LITTLE BIGHORN In 1874, Custer led an expedition into

the Black Hills where gold wasdiscovered. This led to a stampede ofprospectors and miners into the BlackHills.

President Ulysses Grant ordered allIndians to register at reservations.

Many Sioux and Cheyenne gathered insoutheastern Montana and decided toresist.

On June 25, 1876, Custer's scouts hadobserved what they thought was aretreating Indian village along the LittleBig Horn River in what is now Montana.

The Indian village contained 8,000Indians and more than 3,000 warriorsand was led by Sitting Bull and CrazyHorse.

Custer divided his command of 645soldiers into three columns.

Major Reno's detachment approached

the Indian camp from the southeast.Major Benteen would attack thecenter.

Custer and his 210 men tried to openan attack on the Indians' flank.

1,500-2,500 warriors attacked Custer's

forces. Within an hour, every soldier in

Custer's command had died.

Many of the dead soldiers werestripped naked and mutilated.

Custer's "Last Stand" also marked the

Plains Indians' last stand. Theshocking news of Custer's defeatencouraged a thirst for revenge.

Within a year, nearly all the PlainsIndians had been confined onreservations.


18/23

SITTING BULL

Sitting Bull was the principal chief and medicine manof the Dakota Sioux, who were driven from theirreservation in the Black Hills by miners in 1876, andtook up arms against the whites and friendly Indians,refusing to be transported to the Indian territory.

In 1881 Sitting Bull returned to the Dakota territory,where he was held prisoner until 1883.

In 1885, after befriending Annie Oakley, he joinedBuffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show.

In 1889 Native Americans began to take up the GhostDance, a ceremony aimed at ridding the land of whitepeople and restore the Native American way of life.Sitting Bull soon joined it.

Fearing the powerful chief's influence on the

movement, authorities directed a group of Lakotapolice officers to arrest Sitting Bull.

On December 15, 1890, they entered his home. Afterthey dragged Sitting Bull out of his cabin, a gunfightfollowed and the chief was shot in the head and killed.


19/23

CRAZY HORSE In 1877, during a meeting under a flag of

truce in Fort Robinson, Nebraska, anAmerican soldier killed Crazy Horse bystabbing him with a bayonet.

His body was buried in an unmarked grave

and never found. Black Elk, an Indian medicine man, said

that before his murder Crazy Horse hadtold him: "I will return to you in stone." In1998, a Connecticut sculptor, Korczak

Ziolkowski, completed an 87 foot tall bustof Crazy Horse in South Dakota's BlackHills

Crazy Horse's face rises higher than theWashington Monument and is more than

twice the height of the Statue of Liberty.


20/23

THE NEZ PERCE The hostilities that had been developing during the 1870sbetween settlers and the Nez Perce turned into violent conflict

during mid-June, 1877

The first engagement between the Army and the Nez Percewarriors was at White Bird Canyon, Idaho Territory, on June 17.For the Nez Perce it was a major victory. At White Bird Canyonthey proved to be an effective fighting force.

Throughout the summer and early fall of 1877, the fighting skillof the Nez Perce warriors and the military tactics of Nez Percemilitary leaders, such as Chief Looking Glass and Chief WhiteBird, enabled the Nez Perce to evade almost certain defeat bysuperior U.S. Army forces.

The Nez Perce and the Army would engage several times asthe Nez Perce traveled from their homeland in the WallowaValley through the Montana and Idaho Territories towards their

goal of Canada.

The last engagement between the Nez Perce and the Armywas fought at Bear Paw Mountain, Montana Territory. Thisbattle took place between September 30 and October 5, 1877.It was after Bear Paw Mountain, when continuing to fightseemed futile, that Chief Joseph surrendered his remainingforces to Miles and Howard.

Chi f


21/23

Chief

JosephI am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are

killed. Looking Glass is dead.Toohulhulsote is dead. The old menare all dead. It is the young men whosay yes or no. He who led the youngmen is dead.

It is cold and we have no blankets.The little children are freezing to death.My people, some of them, have runaway to the hills and have no blankets,no food. No one knows where theyare--perhaps freezing to death. I wantto have time to look for my children andsee how many I can find. Maybe I shallfind them among the dead.

Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired. Myheart is sick and sad. From where the

sun now stands, I will fight no moreforever.


22/23

WOUNDED KNEE

The once proud Sioux found their free-roaming lifedestroyed.

Many sought salvation in a new mysticism preached bya Paiute shaman called Wovoka.

A tidal wave of new soil would cover the earth, burythe whites, and restore the prairie. To hasten theevent, the Indians were to dance the Ghost Dance.

After the assassination of Sitting Bull Chief Big Footwas next on the list.

On the morning of December 28, 1890, the Sioux chiefBig Foot and some 350 of his followers camped on thebanks of Wounded Knee creek in the Dakota Territory.

The next morning the chief, racked with pneumoniaand dying, sat among his warriors and powwowed with

the army officers. Surrounding their camp was a force of U.S. troops

charged with the responsibility of arresting Big Footand disarming his warriors.

When the smoke cleared and the shooting stopped,approximately 300 Sioux were dead, Big Foot amongthem.


23/23

Conclusion

If the Battle of the Little Big Horn hadbeen the beginning of the end,Wounded Knee was the finale for the

Sioux Indians. This was the last major engagement

in American history between the

Plains Indians and the U. S. Army. Gone was the Indian dream, pride

and spirit.

tragedy of the plains indians

Documents