The Closing of the FrontierIndian Removal in the West 1862 - 1900

Homestead Act - 1862

• Legal mandate for Manifest Destiny

• 160 acres for a small fee

Fort Laramie Treaty - 1868

• Cedes the Black hills to the Sioux

• Black Hills = Gold

• Black Hills war

• Custer’s Last Stand / Custer’s Blusterhttp://www.custerwest.org/accueileng.htm

“The more Indians we can kill this year, the less will have to be killed the next war, for the more I see of these Indians, the more convinced I am that they all have to be killed or be maintained as a species of paupers [beggars].”

- General William Tecumseh Sherman 1867

In a letter from Gen. Sherman to Gen. Sheridan of date October 15, 1868

"As to extermination; it is for the Indians themselves to determine… As brave men, and as the soldiers of a government which has exhausted its peace efforts, we, in the performance of a most unpleasant duty, accept the war begun by our enemies, and hereby resolve to make its end final.

If it results in the utter annihilation of these Indians, it is but the result of what they have been warned again and again, and for which they seem fully prepared.

I will say nothing and do nothing to restrain our troops from doing what they deem proper on the spot…. [and] will use all the powers confided to me to the end that these Indians, the enemies of our race and of our civilization, shall not again be able to begin and carry on their barbarous warfare on any kind of pretext that they may choose to allege.”

Battle of the Little Big Horn

Crazy Horse - 1877

We had buffalo for food, and their hides for clothing and for our tepees. We preferred hunting to a life of idleness on the reservation, where we were driven against our will. At times we did not get enough to eat, and we were not allowed to leave the reservation to hunt.

We preferred our own way of living. We were no expense for the government. All we wanted was peace and to be left alone. Soldiers were sent out in the winter, who destroyed our villages.

The “Long Hair” [Custer] came in the same way. They say we massacred him , but he would do the same thing to us had we not defended ourselves and fought to the last. Our first impulse was to escape with our [women], but we were so hemmed in that we had to fight.

Sitting BullWhat treaty have the Sioux made with the white man that we have broken? Not one. What treaty have the white man ever made with us that they have kept? Not one.

When I was a boy the Sioux owned the world; the sun rose and set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle. Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them?..

..What law have I broken? Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am a Sioux; because I was born where my father lived; because I would die for my people and my country?

The Dawes Act - 1887[to be civilized is to]… "wear civilized clothes...cultivate the ground, live in houses, ride in Studebaker wagons, send children to school, drink whiskey [and] own property."

– Congressman Henry Dawes

The Dawes Act - 1887

•The Dawes Act divided tribal lands into individual parcels.

Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado was one of the most outspoken opponents of allotment.

In 1881, he said that allotment was a policy "to despoil the Indians of their lands and to make them vagabonds on the face of the earth."

Teller also said,"the real aim [of allotment] was "to get at the Indian lands and open them up to settlement. The provisions for the apparent benefit of the Indians are but the pretext to get at his lands and occupy them....If this were done in the name of Greed, it would be bad enough; but to do it in the name of Humanity...is infinitely worse."

VISION:

The Dawes Act codified the idea of dividing Indian lands into individual holdings to promote assimilation by deliberately destroying tribal relations. Surplus land was given to whites.

Allotted land for specific tribe and left other tribal allotments to the discretion of the President.

“Civilize” the Indians through education, private property, and introduction of agriculture.

Support from paternalistic Easterners

REALITY:

Supporters of the Dawes Act either knew or should have known that in many cases it would mean allotting land that could not be farmed.

The Indians, for the most part, did not become self-supporting farmers or ranchers.

Inheritance caused problems as allotments were further and further subdivided.

The Dawes Act prescribed the assimilation of Native Americans and the loss of their traditional ways of agriculture, but most significantly, it resulted in the loss of Indian lands.

Native Americans didn’t get the right to vote until 1924.

http://www.csusm.edu/nadp/asubject.htm

Oklahoma Land Runs - 1889

• From 1891 to 1895, lands runs were used to “settle” lands in Oklahoma given to the Iowa, Sac and Fox, Pottawatomie, Shawnee, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Cherokee and Kickapoo in various treaties.

Ghost Dance - 1888

• Wovoka

• Native American apocalypse

• A return to life without the white man

Wounded Knee - 1890

The frozen body of one of the victims at Wounded Knee. The caption written on this photograph identifies him as the medicine man who triggered the conflict with a handful of dust tossed into the air to illustrate how the power of the Ghost Dance would sweep the whites from the plains. (Library of Congress)

Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

When the madness ended, Big Foot and more than half of his people were dead or seriously wounded; 153 were known dead, but many of the wounded crawled away to die afterward. One estimate placed the final total of dead very nearly 300 of the original 350 men, women and children. The soldiers lost 25 dead and 39 wounded, most of them struck by their own bullets or shrapnel.

A detail of soldiers went over to the Wounded Knee battlefield, gathering up Indians who were still alive and loading them into wagons. As it was apparent by the end of the day that a blizzard was approaching, the dead Indians were left lying where they had fallen. (After the blizzard, when a burial party returned to Wounded Knee, they found the bodies, including Big Foot’s, frozen into grotesque shapes.)

The wagonloads of wounded Sioux reached Pine Ridge after dark. Because all available barracks were filled with soldiers, they were left lying in the open wagons in the bitter cold while an inept Army officer searched for shelter. Finally the Episcopal mission was opened, the benches taken out and hay scattered over the rough flooring.

In was the fourth day after Christmas. When the first torn and bleeding bodies were carried into the candlelit church, those who were conscious could see the Christmas greenery hanging from the open rafters. Across the chancel front above the pulpit was strung a crudely lettered banner: PEACE ON EARTH, GOOD WILL TOWARD MEN.

Assimilation

“A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one, and that high sanction of his destruction has been an enormous factor in promoting Indian massacres. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”

-Richard H. Pratt, founder of the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, 1892

20th Century• Pan-Indian identity• American Indian Movement (AIM)• Incident at Oglala (1975)• Wounded Knee Occupation (1973)

I.What approaches did white take to the “Indian problem”?

II.Explain different Indian responses.

III.What was the purpose of the Dawes Act? What effect did it have on the Indians?

IV.What imaginary myths of the West developed through time?

Recommendations for Indian Policy 1886The Native Americans lead a strong resistance against their forced relocation evidenced in

the Battle of the Greasy Grass, Red Cloud’s war, the Nez Perce trail, etc. Write a government policy arguing one of the following solutions for Native American-White relations. Mention specific ways in which it could be implemented. Present your policy.

1. State the purpose of the policy.

2. Give a reason for the policy.

3. Discuss the implementation of the policy.

POLICY OPTIONS

a. No regulation

b. Return to Homeland

c. Reservation System

d. Assimilation

e. Annihilation