1. Objectives
Describe the importance of the buffalo to the Native Americans of the Plains.
Explain how Native Americans and settlers came into conflict.
Summarize how Native American groups struggled to maintain their traditional ways of life.
Explain why Congress passed the Dawes Act in

2. Terms and People travois – small sled
tepee – cone-shaped tent made of buffalo skins
reservation – land set aside for Native Americans to live on
Sitting Bull – Sioux leader who fought against white settlement of the West

3. What were the consequences of the conflict between Native Americans and white settlers?
As settlers rushed into the West, they increasingly came into conflict with the people already living there—Native Americans.
Native
Americans
settlers

4. By the end of the Civil War, some 360,000 Native Americans lived in the West, many on the Great Plains.
European explorers and the flood of settlers who followed had changed their lives.
Native Americans now used horses and guns, and traveled faster and farther.

5. Many Plains people wandered from place to place, following buffalo herds.

6. Native people had come to depend on the buffalo for survival.
meat
for
food
hides
for
clothing
buffalo
horns
and bones
for
tools
hides
for
tepees
tendons
for
thread

7. Government treaties promised Native Americans protection.
Fort Laramie
Treaty, 1851
native people agreed to stop wandering and settle permanently
the government would protect their land
However, as miners and settlers scrambled west, the treaties were routinely broken.

8. The massacre ignited the Indian Wars.
When new treaties forced Native people from their lands in Colorado, some Indian warriors resisted, attacking settlers and their homes.
Sand
Creek
Massacre
In response, the army attacked a band of peaceful Cheyennes, killing men, women, and children.
The massacre ignited the Indian Wars.

9. At the same time, Native Americans faced another devastating crisis—the buffalo were dying out.
By the 1870s, the giant herds began to shrink, slaughtered by railroad crews and hunters.
Traditional native life was changing forever.

10. The government urged Native people to move to reservations, where they could farm the land.
Americans
Native
Americans
But the soil was poor, and hunger and disease made life on reservations difficult.

11. Custer and all of his men were killed in the battle that followed.
In 1876, Colonel George Armstrong Custer rode into Montana with orders to force Native Americans onto a reservation.
Battle of
Little
Bighorn
Custer and all of his men were killed in the battle that followed.
Soldiers soon flooded the area, forcing the Indians from their land.

12. In the Northwest, the Nez Percés also resisted being moved to a reservation.
Chief Joseph fled toward Canada with a large band of Nez Percés.
Chief Joseph surrendered to the army near the Canadian border.

13. In the Southwest, Navajos and Apaches fought a series of wars to defend their lands.
Despite fierce resistance from Geronimo and others, government troops eventually forced both groups onto reservations.

14. In the 1880s, native groups from the Plains began performing the Ghost Dance, dreaming of returning to the old ways.
In one Sioux village, police tried to stop the dance. Sitting Bull was killed. Troops killed others trying to flee.
After the defeat at the Battle of Wounded Knee, the Indian Wars were over.

15. By 1890 Native Americans were forced off their lands in the west and relocated to reservations.

16. A law designed to help native people, however, failed.
Reformers outraged at the treatment of Native Americans pushed Congress to act.
Dawes Act, 1887
Gave each Native American male 160 acres to farm
Built schools
Resisted by native groups longing for their traditional way of life
A law designed to help native people, however, failed.
Confined to reservations, many Native Americans fell into poverty.

17. Section Review
QuickTake Quiz
Know It, Show It Quiz 17