Native Americans Conflict with American Expansion

Tribes of the Great Plains Omaha Osage Sioux – Lakota Comanche Blackfoot Cheyenne Pawnee Crow

The economy and livelihood of the Plains Indians depended on the buffalo food clothing weaponry artistic material Extinction of Extinction o f the The Buffalo Plains Indians

Effect on the American Buffalo 1800 - 15 million 1870 - 1,000 1886 - Less than 600 1996 - 200,000

Wars with Native Americans Chief Joseph – Nez Perce Led several hundred Indians on a march to freedom in Canada Defeated US troops in a battle, but then captured and placed in an Oklahoma reservation

Sand Creek Massacre US officials forced Cheyenne to give up claims to land Chief Black Kettle led raids on camps in response US forces surprised 500 (mainly women and children) Over 270 dead

Promises Broken Laramie Treaty No white settlement in the Dakotas The Sioux gathered with Sitting Bull to fight for their lands.

Battle of the Little Big Horn “Custer’s Last Stand” Sioux tribe vs. General Custer’s 7th Calvary Native American First and only victory Custer was sent to move the Native Americans to reservations Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse (10,000 people – 2,000 warriors) Unaware of the camp’s size and disobedience caused the massacre of 7th Calvary – no survivors, most scalped

Wounded Knee Last notable armed conflict Sitting Bull returned home the Sioux began practicing a religion involving a ghost dance Bring back the Buffalo, return Native American land, and banish the white man from the earth Frightened by the rituals, US troops arrested Sitting Bull Shots broke out – Sitting Bull and 170-370 Sioux killed

Massacre at Wounded Knee

Chief Big Foot’s Lifeless Body Wounded Knee, SD, 1890

A Century of Dishonor Helen Hunt Jackson published A Century of Dishonor (1881) describes how often the US government had violated its treaties with Native Americans.

Dawes Act In 1887, Congress passed the Dawes Act - which offered 160-acre plots on reservations to the heads of Indian households. Assimilate – to have the Indians become more like the white people and give up their distinctive culture Huge failure

Assimilation

Reservations Reservations were often barren and supported little wild life for hunting. Native Americans were reduced to poverty and hopelessness. U.S. agents who ran the reservations often pocketed funds intended for the inhabitants.

Crazy Horse Monument: Black Hills, SD Lakota Chief