Cultures Clash on the Prairie

Treaty of Fort Laramie Bozeman Trail closed by government Sioux agreed to live on a Reservation on the Missouri River

Bloody Battles Continue 1868 Comanche and Kiowa engaged in a 6 year raid Led to the Red River war in U.S. Army responded by herding people of friendly tribes onto reservations while opening fire on all others Orders to destroy villages and ponies, kill and hang warriors, and bring back all women and children This crushed resistance on the southern plains

Custer’s Last Stand Found gold in the Black Hills Were encroaching on Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho lands Custer brought his troops to Little Bighorn River Native Americans were ready for them Led by Crazy Horse, Gall, and Sitting Bull, outflanked and crushed Custer and his troops Later that year (1876) the Sioux were beaten and Sitting Bull was forced to take refuge in Canada

Government Supports Assimilation Dawes Act Aimed to “Americanize” Native Americans Broke up reservations and gave some of the reservation land to individual Native Americans 160 acres to each head of household 80 acres to unmarried adults Government would sell remainder of the land to settlers Would use resulting profit to allow Native Americans to buy farm implements By 1932, whites had taken 2/3 of land set aside for Native Americans

Battle of Wounded Knee 1890 the Seventh Calvary rounded up around 350 starving and freezing Sioux and took them to a camp at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota Demanded they give up their weapons Shots fired…within minutes the Seventh Calvary had slaughtered nearly 300 mostly unarmed Native Americans This event brought the Indian wars, and an entire era, to a bitter end

Cattle Becomes Big Business Horses and cattle flourish now that herds of buffalo disappearing Cowboys emerge Growing demand for beef Creation of the Chisholm Trail

End of the Open Range Overgrazing of land Extended bad weather Invention of barbed wire – Plains turned into a series of fenced-in ranches