Chapter 14: The Western Crossroads(1860-1910)

Section 1: War in the West

Indian Country

By 1850, most American Indians (approximately 360,000) lived west of the Mississippi River.

Treaties and Reservations

The 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramieguaranteed American Indians land rights on the Great Plains

As non-Indians moved west, the U.S. government tried to acquire more land. The government negotiated new treaties to require American Indians to move onto reservations.

Treaties and Reservations

Indians received some money, guarantees that the reservations would be theirs forever, and promises of yearly supplies for 30 years. Some government officials hoped that keeping American Indians on reservations would force them to become farmers and to abandon many of their traditional ways of life.

The BIA

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was the government agency responsible for managing American Indian issues.

The BIA supported the reservation system.

The U.S. government often failed to uphold these treaties, sometimes supplies never arrived, and the size of the reservations was reduced as white settlers moved west.

Differences of Opinion

BIA commissioner Luke Lea declared in 1850 that American Indians should “be placed in positions where they can be controlled, and finally compelled by stern necessity to resort to agricultural labor or starve.”

Thomas Fitzpatrick was an Indian agent who helped to negotiate several treaties and saw the reservation system as “expensive, vicious, [and] inhumane.”

Anger and ViolenceAnger turned into violence on the Santee Sioux reservation in 1862. A government official refused to release food to the starving people, and the Sioux attacked the Indian agency and nearby farms and towns. Army troops ended the uprising, executed 38 Sioux, and the tribe was relocated.

Question 1

What did the U.S. government give American Indians in exchange for their land?

money

30 years of supplies

guarantees of other land

Years of StruggleMany Plains Indians refused to live on the reservations due to the cultural importance of following the roaming buffalo.

Violence

Approximately 20,000 U.S. Army troops (many Civil War veterans) were assigned to confine the tribes to the reservations.

Violence often broke out.

Sand Creek

Cheyenne and Arapaho forces fought with local militia throughout the summer of 1864.

Cheyenne chief Black Kettle had tired of the fighting.

Sand Creek

On the way to make peace the group camped on Sand Creek.

Sand Creek

While most of the men of the group were hunting, U.S. Army Colonel John M. Chivington and 700 Colorado volunteers arrived and opened fire.

Approximately 200 were killed – most were women and children.

Results

Many Americans were horrified, and the shock led many in Congress to call for reform of the government Indian policy.

The massacre prompted raids by the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Sioux.

The U.S. government created a peace commission.

Results

The Southern Plains Indians signed the Treaty of Medicine Lodge and agreed to give up much of their land for reservations in Indian Territory and the Treaty of Fort Laramie moved them to a reservation in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Question 2

How did the Sand Creek Massacre lead to new treaties?

Shock over the massacre led Congress to call for reform of government Indian policy.

Little Bighorn

In 1874 the U.S. government violated the terms of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie by sending an army expedition into the Black Hills to search for gold. When it was discovered there, the government tried to negotiate a new treaty, and the Sioux refused.

Little BighornTatanka Iyotake, a Lakota Sioux also called Sitting Bull, emerged as an important leader of the Sioux resistance.He strongly opposed the intrusion of non-Indians into Sioux lands. Many followed him, and by the spring of 1876 thousands of Sioux and their Cheyenne allies joined his camp.

Little Bighorn

The Indians were camped near a stream known as Little Bighorn River.

By late June the camp contained 2500 men ready to fight.

Little Bighorn

On the morning of June 25, 1876, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and about 600 members of the U.S. Army 7th Calvary attacked.

Little Bighorn

Custer led a 200-man battalion into the camp, and he and every one of his battalion were killed in the battle.

This was the last victory for the Sioux.

The Ghost Dance

Unhappy on reservations, many Sioux accepted the message of Wovoka, a Paiute who began a religious movement known as the Ghost Dance.

The Ghost Dance

It featured a dance ritual designed to bring Indian ancestors back to life and that it could bring about the return of the buffalo herds and traditional Indian ways of life.

Sitting Bull joined the cause, and some government officials feared that the movement would spark rebellion.

His arrest was ordered, and a skirmish later broke out in which he was killed.

Wounded Knee

Many Sioux further west joined with Big Foot, a Sioux leader.

Government officials wanted to arrest him for fear that he would start rebellion.

Wounded Knee

Hoping to avoid conflict, Big Foot was leading his group to the Pine Ridge Reservation.

They made camp along Wounded Knee Creek.

Wounded Knee

On December 28, 1890, army troops found Big Foot and 350 members of his group. Colonel James Forsyth of the 7th Calvary ordered the seizure of Indian rifles. 500 soldiers surrounded the camp. Soldiers searched the tepees. Shooting began.

Wounded Knee

At least 150 Sioux and 30 U.S. soldiers were killed.

This massacre marked the end of bloody conflict between the U.S. government and the Plains Indians.

Question 3

What events led to the end of conflict between the Plains Indians and the U.S. government?

the death of Sitting Bull

the Massacre at Wounded Knee

The End of Resistance

American Indians west of the Great Plains were also forced to reservations.The Nez Percé tried to remain in their homelands of northeastern Oregon and parts of Washington.

Moving In

They surrendered much of their land in 1855 and moved onto a reservation.

When settlers moved onto reservation land, the Nez Percé did not turn to violence.

Chief JosephThey were ordered to move to an Idaho reservation, and their leader Chief Joseph agreed.

Some young Nez Percé killed four white settlers, however, and the Nez Percé fled in fear.

Surrender

They hoped to escape to Canada, but surrendered less than 40 miles from the border in the harsh winter conditions.

Surrender

When he surrendered in 1877, Chief Joseph said the following:

“I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed…It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death…My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.”

The ApacheIn the mid-1870s the government forced the Apache in New Mexico and Arizona to settle on the San Carlos Reservation, along Arizona’s Gila River.

Geronimo

When Army troops moved into the territory in 1881, Apache leader Geronimo fled the reservation, and he and his followers raided settlements until they surrendered in 1886.

He was sent to a Florida prison, and this ended armed resistance in the Southwest.

Voices of Protest

Those who opposed the U.S. government’s treatment of American Indians formed such groups as the Indian Rights Association and the Women’s National Indian Association.

Protest

Helen Hunt Jackson of Massachusetts supported the cause of urging the federal government to craft a more humane Indian policy, and she wrote an influential book, A Century of Dishonor, that criticized the government for its broken promises and mistreatment of Indians.

Protest

An American Indian woman called Sarah Winnemucca called attention to the treatment of American Indians by lecturing to non-Indian groups.

Question 4

How did American Indians resist and protest white Americans’ treatment of them in the late 1800s?

Many Indians no longer resisted violently.

Some formed reform groups such as the Indians Rights Association and the Women’s National Indian Association.

Assimilating American Indians

Many saw assimilation, which is the cultural absorption of Indians into “white America,” as the only long-term way to ensure Indian survival.

The U.S. government established American Indian Schools, which were boarding schools that many Indian children were forced to attend.

Indian Schools

There the children were forced to speak only English, wear “proper” clothes, and change their names to “American” ones.

One example is the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, PA.

Assimilation

It was hoped that the Indians would become farmers.

The Dawes Act

The Dawes General Allotment Act gave 160 acres to each Indian family on a reservation for farming. The rest would be sold. In less than 50 years the Indians lost two thirds of their land.

The Navajo

Many Indians rejected farming.

In 1863 the U.S. Army led the Navajo on the Long Walk – a forced march to a reservation in eastern New Mexico. The land was not suitable for farming, and many died from malnutrition and disease.

Question 5

Why did attempts to force the Plains Indians to become farmers fail?

They rejected individual family farming.

The land was not suitable for farming.