1. 1.2: Vanishing Buffalo – Vanishing Tribes
Brainstorm Activity
General Information
Buffalo & Railroads
Evolution of Tensions
Sand Creek Massacre
Battle of Little Big Horn
Assimilation
Dawe’s Act
Wovoka
Ghost Dance
Battle of Wounded Knee
Reasons Native Americans Lost
Helen Hunt Jackson
Civil Rights for Native Americans

2. 1.2: Brainstorm Activity
Trace the increasing tensions between American settlers & Native Americans

3. General Information Many of the Plains tribes were nomadic
They moved – followed food
Lived in small extended families
Buffalo was most important animal
Provided clothes, weapons, shelter, toys, etc.
Land was for tribal use = no land ownership
Many tribes were relocated to the Great Plains during the 1830s
Moved onto reservations
Land did not support buffalo & soil was poor quality
Those in charge of reservations often took the money without improving life on the reservations

4. Railroads & the Buffalo
Railroads expanding westward
Killed millions of buffalo to create tracks & for fun
Disappearing Buffalo
1800: 15,000,000
1886: < 1,000
Devastated the Plains Tribes
Their way of life was disappearing – how will they live?
Almost all the buffalo were killed, but they are making a slow return.

6. Mounting Tensions Begins Indian Wars Native Americans pushed west
Settlers want
Native American
Land (gold, soil)
Native Americans
pushed further
west
Native Americans
began attacking
white settlers
1867 land treaties
violated
1867: Several
treaties signed.
Temporary peace
Fighting btwn.
Native Americans
& Army escalates
US Military gets
Involved!
1870s: Miners
enter Black Hills
searching for gold
Sioux Tribe
heads west to
Montana searching
for new land
Movement scares
crap out of Army
Begins Indian
Wars
Black Hills land
promised to Native
Americans in 1867

7. Sand Creek Massacre, 1864
Under command of Col. Chivington, the US Army attacks Cheyenne & Arapaho living at Sand Creek
Chivington gave direct orders to kill everyone – no prisoners
US Army slaughtered hundreds of women, children & elderly

8. “The massacre lasted six or eight hours…
“The massacre lasted six or eight hours….I tell you Ned it was hard to see little children on their knees have their brains beat out by men professing to be civilized….there was no organization among our troops, they were a perfect mob….You would think it impossible for white men to butcher and mutilate human beings as they did there, but every word I have told you is the truth….It was almost impossible to save any of them. When the women were killed the Bucks did not seem to try and get away, but fought desperately….Charly Autobee saved John Smith….They were going to murder Charlie Bent, but I run him into the Fort….I expect we will have a hell of a time with the Indians this winter.”
-Captain Silas Soule 1st Colorado Cavalry (USV) to Major Edward Wynkoop, former commander, Fort Lyon, Colorado Territory. December 14, 1864
“I heard Colonel Chivington give no orders in regard to prisoners. I tried to take none myself, but killed all I could…I think and earnestly believe the Indian to be an obstacle to civilization and should be exterminated.”
-Major Jacob Downing 3rd Colorado Cavalry (USV

9. Battle of Little Bighorn June 1867
United under tribal elders, Crazy Horse & Sitting Bull, Sioux tribe moving west to find new land
General Custer sent to capture them & bring them back to the reservation
Sitting Bull & Crazy Horse ambush Custer’s 7th Cavalry & slaughter the military
“1st” battle of the Indian Wars
Custer & his men were dead within minutes
Scalped, etc.

10. More Resistance
In 1877, the Nez Perce, under Chief Joseph, fled & fought the US Army to avoid being put onto a reservation
In 75 days, they traveled 1300 miles trying to get to Canada
Unsuccessful, stopped just short of the Canadian border 
Forced onto reservations
The Apaches under Chief Geronimo were relocated to Florida, then back to Oklahoma
The Arizona Apache tribe was the last to continue resisting forced resettlement onto reservations

11. Chief Joseph: I will fight no more, forever.
Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me
before, I have it in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our
Chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead, Ta Hool Hool
Shute is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men
who say yes or no. He who led on the young men is dead. It
is cold, and we have no blankets; the little children are
freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away
to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows
where they are - perhaps freezing to death. I want to have
time to look for my children, and see how many of them I
can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. 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.
Chief Joseph - Thunder Traveling to the Loftier Mountain Heights

12. Assimilation To “Americanize”
Give up beliefs, try to look & act like white people
Make more like white Americans
Dawe’s Act 1887: Attempt to assimilate Native Americans
Taught their culture was savage
Reservations were broken up
Forced Native Americans to be farmers
Bad tools, soil & services
Good land was swindled from Native Americans in bad land deals
Children forced to attend American schools
Taught English language, dress,
culture, etc.

13. Wovoka Wanted to make things the way were before white men came
Piute Chief
Wanted to make things the way were before white men came
Practiced the Ghost Dance: Purification dance that would bring back their traditional life
Cleanses the Native American spirit & prepares him/her for the afterlife
Cleanses Native Americans of white influences

14. Battle of Wounded Knee 12/29/1890
Ghost Dance was performed by the Native American to restore buffalo & make whites vanish.
Alarmed military leaders & settlers: they’d never seen this before
Sitting Bull was killed & sparked conflict
A gun suddenly went off…
300 unarmed Native Americans were slaughtered
Mostly women, children & the elderly
Ended the Indian Wars

15. Reasons Why Native Americans Lost the Indian Wars
Often fought against the US Army as individual tribes – they did not unite
Were no match for Army artillery

16. Helen Hunt Jackson Land deals, agricultural education, treaties etc.
Wrote A Century of Dishonor: about the broken promises to the Native Americans
Land deals, agricultural education, treaties etc.
Brought Native American issue into the homes, just like Uncle Tom’s Cabin brought slavery into the home!

17. Native American Civil Rights
1924: Native Americans declared citizens of the US
1932: Native Americans can consolidate land
1964: Finally given the right to vote during the Voting Rights Act