Culture of the Plain Indians Nomads roamed vast distances main source of food -the Buffalo Similarities Between Them Extended family networks Close relationship with nature Assignment of tasks Women generally performed domestic tasks: Rearing Children Cooking Preparing hides Men performed a variety of tasks that included: Hunting Trading Supervising the military life of the band

The Dakota Sioux Uprising Government issued annuities Payments to reservation dwellers Abuses August, 1867 Late Payments starving to death. Chief Little Crow food on credit. Trader Andrew Myrick replied, “If they are hungry, let them eat grass or their own dung.” Myrick dead Grass stuffed in this mouth. Military Tribunal 307 Dakota to death President Lincoln reduced to 38. Troops to the Plains Sioux – The Lakota The Lakota offered refuge to fleeing Dakota Indians Chief Red Cloud Chief Crazy Horse Chief Sitting Bull

Fetterman’s Massacre Bozeman Trail Captain William Judd Fetterman Link the mining towns with the East. Sioux Indian hunting grounds Chief Red Cloud warned Fort Phil Kearney Northern Wyoming Frequently attacked Captain William Judd Fetterman 82-man force sent to its rescue. Trapped-Dec. 21, 1866 1,500 Sioux Chief High Backbone "The Fetterman Fight" by J. K. Ralston.

Sand Creek Massacre Trading Stopped Raiding wagon trains & stealing cattle and horses from ranches. Estimate 200 settlers killed. November, 1864 Chief Black Kettle Negotiate Peace To await at Sand Creek Colonel John Chivington Ordered to attack the Cheyenne at Sand Creek Fourteen soldiers died 69-600 Native Americans were killed.

A Doomed Plan for Peace Fetterman’s Massacre & Sand Creek Massacre, Congress that something had to be done. In 1867 Congress formed an Indian Peace Commission. Two large reservations Pressured Native American leaders into signing treaties Those who refused Poverty Despair Corrupt American Traders Demise of the Buffalo The Army encouraged buffalo killing. By 1889 very few of the animals remained Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor and Ramona Criticism of policy towards American Indians

Battle of the Little Bighorn 1876 Lakota Sioux Reservation Gold Mines Expeditionary Force General Alfred H. Terry. Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer, Seventh Cavalry June 25, 1876 Custer launched attack in broad daylight 2,500 Lakota and Cheyenne Warriors Custer commanded about 210 soldiers Newspapers portrayed the battle as a massacre. The United States Army responded quickly October of 1877, Chief Joseph surrendered “Our chiefs are killed…The little children are freezing to death. My people…have no blankets, no food…Hear me, my chiefs; I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.” -quoted in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Tragedy at Wounded Knee The Ghost Dance Banned Religious ceremony Celebrated “Day of Reckoning” Reunite with deceased ancestors Sitting Bull Blamed for defiance Resisted Arrest Died Wounded Knee Ghost Dance participants fled 12-29-1890 200 Men/Women/Children Dead

Assimilation Assimilate, or be absorbed, into American society as landowners and citizens. That meant breaking up the reservation system into individual land allotments This became law in 1887 with the Dawes Act. 160 acres of reservation land for farming Like many homesteaders, they found the land allotments too small to be profitable and life too harsh to withstand.

Americanization of the Indians Same young Indians a short time later Young Indians upon arrival at Carlisle School in Penn.

The Turner Thesis Fredrick J. Turner …American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West. The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward explain American development. The frontier Americanized Americans. The individual was rapidly acclimatized, though the process lasted 300 years. Cheap or even free land provided a "safety valve" which protected the nation against uprisings of the poverty-stricken and malcontent.