Indians

1. Indians By: Shelby Lopaz, Janelle Banner, Lindsay Jarman

2. Indian life • Horses gave the Indians speed and mobility • Buffalo provided many of their basic needs such as: • -food • -shelter • -clothing • They believed that powerful spirits controlled events in the natural world. • Men or women who showed particular sensitivity to the spirits bercame medicine men or women, or shamans. • Children learned proper behavior and culture through stories and myths, games, and good examples.

3. The lure of silver and gold • The thought of becoming rich was a powerful attraction of the West. • The discovery of gold in Colorado in 1858 drew tens of thousand of miners to the region. • Most mining camps and tiny frontier towns had filthy, ramshackle living quarters. • Some of the hard working women tried to work as laundresses, freight haulers, or miners.

4. Massacre at sand creek • One of the most tragic events in 1864 • The Cheyenne thought they were under the protection of the U.S. government and thought that they would have peace. • A U.S. army commander sent a telegram that read: “ I want no peace till the Indians suffer more.” • On Nov. 29, 1864 a man named Chivington and his troops attacked the Cheyenne Indians and killed over 150 people, mostly women and children.

5. Death on the bozeman trail • The trail ran through Sioux hunting ground in the Bighorn Mts. • The Sioux Chief, Red Cloud, asked the government to stop white settlement but he was unsuccessful. • In December 1866 a warrior named Crazy Horse attacked Captain Fetterman and his company at Lodge Trail • During the attack over 80 soldiers were killed • Native Americans called this ambush “battle of the Hundred Slain” • The whites called it “Fetterman massacre” • The Sioux agreed to live on a reservation it was called “The Treaty of Fort Laramie.

6. Gold Rush • The Indians were kicked out of many places then given the land, The Black Hills, by the whites then the whites discovered gold on the land and tried to move the Indians to a new place, but the Indians would not let them because they had already had so much land taken from them.

7. Custers last Stand • During a sun dance the Indian chief Sitting Bull had a vision of soldiers and some Native Americans falling from their horses. • Because of this vision the Indians were prepared when Custer and his troops reached Bighorn. • The Indians were lead by Crazy Horse, Gall, and Sitting Bull and they crushed Custers troops. • Within an hour Custer and all the men of the Seventh Calvary were dead. • Although the Indians won this time they were later beaten in late 1876 when Sitting bull eventually had to surrender.

8. The dawes act • In 1887 the government passed the Dawes Act aiming to ‘Americanize’ the Indians. • The act broke up reservations and gave some of the reservation land to individual Native Americans. (Depending on status the families got different amounts of land) • By 1932 the whites had taken about 2/3 of the territory that was supposed to be the Native Americans. • In the end the Native Americans received no money from the sale of the land.

9. The battle of wounded knee • The Sioux performed a ghost dance in attempt to end poverty and disease. • Because of the dance Sitting Bull was arrested. • The police killed Sitting Bull after his body guard shot one of the police. • On December 28, 1890 the seventh Cavalry rounded up about 350 starving and freezing Sioux and took them to camp at wounded knee. • The soldiers demanded that the Indians give up all their weapons. • A shot was fired but no one knew what side it came from. • After the first shot the soldiers opened fire with a deadly cannon. • Within minutes 300 unarmed Native Americans were dead. • The battle of wounded knee brought the Indian wars and an entire era to a bitter end.

10. Map • Map of Indian population decrease ( page 205 )