Native Americans in the West

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

Native Americans in the West