Wednesday Red Earth

Nothing happened after that

We just livedTwo

Leggings

Following Pequot war 1636-7Native population into first “Indian Reservations”Known as “Praying Towns”First in Nantick 1651

Eventually 14 in total

1851, Indian Appropriations Act authorized the creation of Indian reservations in modern day Oklahoma.

Fully developed reservation system emerged in 1867-1887

System have been described as

“the purgatorial mechanisms by which whites could begin to assimilate Indians”

Many Native Americans forced onto reservations

For some there was a desperate logic

Reservation boundaries secured at least a part of traditional lands

For white population an area where

They could be cared for and civilized

The reservation system part of a process of assimilation

Attempt by US Government and other concerned citizens to turn Native Americans in “Americans”

DetribalizationPractice ChristianitySedentary lives Fixed plots of landSingle size fits all

Fort Marion Prison, Florida Captain Richard Henry Pratt

72 “ringleaders” from southern plainsCivilization by immersion

Took off shacklesCut hair and handed out army uniformsRapid and complete assimilation?

Reservations areas were detribalization to begin

long-term policy was to remove the need for Reservations

Stage on the road to total assimilation

Effectiveness of action depended on Agent

Often not a friend to the Indian but simply a political appointee

Supporting the agentWere a cast of helpers

ClerksDoctorsField matronsFarmersTeachersBlacksmiths

All usually whiteCourts of Indian offensesReservation Police

Staffed by Native Americans

Ration Day, Pine Ridge, 1891

Big Aspect

of

Assimilation

Both on and

off the

reservations

Education

Education

for

Extinction

Paiute1860 reservation in Nevada1879 relocated to OregonSarah WinnemuccaGave over 400 public

speechesIndians will “never be

civilized if you keep sendign us such agents as have been sent to us year after year, who do nothing but fill their pockets, and the pockets of their wives and sisters, who are always put in as teachers, . . .and yet they do not teach”

Reservation life did not mean the end of resistance

Wooden Leg, Northern CheyenneFought at Little Big Horn

Later served as tribal judge on reservation

Government banned PolygnyHe sent away one of his wivesWhen others ignored law“Just listened and did nothing”

Crow Judges evolved into “government sanctioned elders who worked to reconcile their oaths of office with individual behavior and the standards of their community”

Fred Hoxie

1869 Wodziwob, Paiute holy man Nevada- California border

Began preaching that world would soon end and whites would be removed form Native America

Assisted by Tavivo began to pray and sing to bring on the apocalypse

End did not come and ghost dance ended in the region

Ghost Dance

Tavivo’s sonWovokoWould once again

popularize the ceremony

Travelled throughout the west

January 1 1889Seriously illAn eclipse of the sun

marked Wovoka’s death

Travelled to heavenMet the creatorLater told anthropologist James

Mooney“he saw God, with all the people who

had died long ago engaged in their old-time sports and occupations, all happy and forever young”

“must go back to his people and they must be good and love one another, have no quarrelling, and live in peace with the whites; they must work, and not lie or steal; that they must put away all the old practices that savored war”

To Native Americans living impoverished lives on reservations the idea was appealing

Delegations travelled to meet Wovoka from many regions

He urged people to dance every six weeksKnown as ghost dance by whites as

participants appeared ghost like singing and dancing until exhausted

1889 Lakota delegation led by Kicking bear visited Wovoko

Summer 1890 Lakota began to learn dance

Many whites feared that the Ghost Dance was first step in renewed war by the Lakota

Many Lakota wore “Ghost dance shirts”

Said to be impervious to bulletsIndian Agents banned Ghost Dance

in November 1890Ordered the arrest of several

leaders on reservationsIncluding Sitting BullDecember 12 1890, 2 Indian

policemen moved to arrest sitting bull

In confusion of arrest Sitting Bull shot and Killed

Shock and anger spread quickly

Rumors began Army planned to round

up all Ghost Dancers or possibly kill them

Several hundred dancers under the leadership of Big Foot a Miniconjou Soiux fled into the bad lands

Eventually they began to move towards Pine Ridge Reservation to surrender but were intercepted by 7th cavalry

Soldiers moved people to Wounded Knee creeknext day all men ordered out as soldiers began to search fo concealled weapons

Wounded Knee Massacre