Transcript Native American PowerPoint

Unit 1

Plains Indians
• Great Plains – the vast
grassland extending
through the west-central
portion of the U.S.
• Highly developed ways of
life existed.
 Planting of crops & settled
villages
 Nomadic tribes produced
and traded goods
• Tribal laws = social order
• The Plains Indians way
of life was changed
when they were
introduced to horses
(Spanish)
 Travel farther
 Hunting more efficient
 Farming was secondary
to roaming the plains
• Buffalo
 Destroyed by tourists and
fur traders
 In just less than 100 years
the number of buffalo in
the U.S. went from
approximately 15 million
in 1800 to fewer than 600
in 1886.
 Indians used buffalo for
food, clothing, shelter and
fuel

1862 – Congress passed
the Homestead Act
• Offered 160 acres/cultivate
for 5 years
• 1862-1900 – between
400,000 and 600,000
families move west
 Several thousand settlers
were known as the
exodusters – African
Americans who moved from
the South to Kansas in the
great exodus
 Free
land was not the
only lure
• 1869 – the
transcontinental
railroad was finished.
• Made travel easier. It
took about 10 days to
travel from coast to
coast.
• Provided
transportation for
good and supplies
 “bargain” fare from
Omaha to Sacramento
was about $40 (more
than a month’s pay for
the average person)
How efficient was transportation
before the railroad? Give examples!
 American
Character
• Rugged Individual –
out to tame the land
• These characteristics
were found in the
frontier and its
opportunities
• Character is formed
by interaction with the
environment: use,
settle, and improve
land
Image from 1900
• The measure of a
person is economic
 how much wealth is
accumulated
 The white man is
looking to better his
place in society, so as
to turn opportunity
into prosperity
• Owning land and a house,
staking mining claims, or
starting a business were
some of the way white
settlers improved their
stations in society
• Prospectors, settlers and
ranchers alike argued that
the N.A.s had forfeited
their rights to the land
because they hadn’t
settled down to “improve”
it.
• Since the plains were
“unsettled”, it was an
open invitation for settlers
to move in!
• Native Americans
 Success is based on
character
 Character is created
by bravery and loyalty
 Interaction with the
land – very spiritual /
the land sustains them
Chief Joseph
• Land was the source of most conflicts:
 Whites believed the Indians used the land inefficiently
(underutilized)
 Thus it was the justification for taking it

As more and more settlers and the
railroads moved westward, the
government’s policies changed
toward the N.A.’s
• 1834 the federal gov. passed an act that
designated the entire Great Plains as a
large reservation for N.A. tribes
• 1850s, more settlers meant policies
changed again, less land for the N.A.
tribes
 Government officials signed treaties with
some Chiefs
Chief Wolf Robe of the
 Unfortunately, those Chiefs did
Southern Cheyenne, June
necessarily represent all of the tribes
(not all agreed to sign the treaties)
1909
 INCREASED tension!
 Cheyenne and Sioux continued to hunt
their traditional lands, clashing with
settlers and miners – often tragic results


1864 – the Cheyenne, forced
onto a barren area of the
Colorado Territory known as
Sand Creek Reserve, began
raiding nearby trails and
settlements for food and
supplies
Territorial governor, John
Evans orders militia to attack
the raiders.
• He also encouraged the
Cheyenne who didn’t want to
fight to report the Fort Lyon
near the reserve
• Most returned to their winter
camps on the reserve
1999

General S.R. Curtis sent a
telegram to militia Colonel
John Chivington that read, “I
want no peace till the
Indians suffer more.”
What do you think happened next?
•November 29, 1864 –
Chivington and 500 of his men
attacked the Cheyenne at
dawn, killing about 200
inhabitants, mostly women
and children
Revenge for his family
•Afterward treated like a
hero in his home town of
Denver

The Sioux were angry that
whites were settling along the
Bozeman Trail which was
opened during the Civil War
• The Bozeman Trail ran right
through the Sioux’s favorite
hunting ground in the Bighorn
Mountains

Sioux chief, Red Cloud
appealed to the govern. to
stop settlers from using the
trail, but soldiers continued to
build forts along it


When the attempts of
negotiation proved futile, the
Sioux, Arapaho, and Cheyenne
resorted to guerrilla warfare
Dec. 21, 1866 – Crazy Horse
and many others lured Capt.
Fetterman and his company
into an ambush at Lodge Trail
Ridge.
• N.A.’s called it “The Battle of the
Hundred Slain”
• Whites called it “The Fetterman
Massacre”


After two more years of
skirmishes, the gov. agreed
to close the Bozeman Trail
In return – Oglala & Brulé
Sioux signed Treaty of Fort
Laramie(1868)
• Sioux agreed to move onto a
reservation along the Missouri
River

Sitting Bull – leader of the
Hunkpapa Sioux never
signed the treaty and
expected to be able to
continue using their
traditional hunting grounds

Late 1868 – Kiowa and
Comanche refuse to move onto
a reservation in the Texas
Panhandle
• 6 years of raiding followed


The raiding led to the Red
River War of 1874-75
U.S. Army dealt with the
guerrilla tactics by rounding
up all friendly tribes onto
reservations
• U.S. Army opened fire on all
others, crushing the resistance
on the southern plains
Gen. Sheridan’s orders…
“to destroy their villages and
ponies, to kill and hang all
warriors, and to bring back
all women and children.”



1872 – miners began
moving into the Black
Hills in search for gold
Sioux, Cheyenne, and
Arapaho protested
The Army sent Civil War
hero George Armstrong
Custer to investigate the
situation
• Custer reported that the
Black Hills had gold “from
the grass roots down”
1876 - Sitting Bull had a
vision which he interpreted
as a sign of victory for his
people
The Sioux win a small battle
against Custer’s 7th Cavalry
at Rosebud Creek (south
central Montana)
June 25, 1876 – Custer rode
out in search for glory



•
He expected to send his
disciplined regiment
against 1,500 warriors.
Custer’s plan had some
flaws
1.
2.
3.
He underestimated the #
of N.A. warriors (2,000 3,000)
His men and horses were
exhausted
Custer split up his
regiment and attacked
with 200 troops
•
Crazy Horse and his
warriors outflanked and
overpowered Custer and
his troops at what is know
as the Battle of Little
Bighorn
•
Within 20 minutes Custer
and his men were all
dead

Sioux suffering
continued…
• Reduced rations, increased
restrictions, and loss of
cattle to disease
• Wovoka (a prophet) had a
vision that the Native
American lands were
restored, the buffalo
returned, & the whites
disappeared
• He promised this would
come true if the ritual
called the Ghost Dance
was performed
 The
Ghost Dance
movement spread
rapidly among the
25,000 Sioux on the
Dakota reservation
 The dance’s
popularity alarmed
the military and local
reservation agent
• The reservation agent
decided to have
Sitting Bull arrested
 40
Indian policemen
were sent to arrest
Sitting Bull
 Sitting Bull’s
bodyguard, Catchthe-Bear shot one of
the policemen
• Police then returned
fire, killing Sitting Bull
 The
army was not satisfied with the death
of Sitting Bull
 On
December 29, 1890 – the 7th Cavalry
rounded up 350 starving and freezing
Sioux and took them to a camp at
Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota
 The
soldiers demanded that the Indians
give up all of their firearms
 One
Indian resisted
the order and fired
his rifle
 Soldiers fired back
 Within minutes the
7th Cavalry
slaughtered 300
unarmed Native
Americans (women
and children
included)
 The Battle of
Wounded Knee
brought the Indian
wars - and an entire
era - to a bitter end


Assimilation – a plan
under which Native
Americans would give up
their beliefs and way of
life and become part of
the white culture
Native Americans had
already lost much of the
land and their means for
independent living, they
didn’t want to lose their
culture also

1887 – Congress passed the
Dawes Act
• The plan was to “Americanize” the
Indians by cultivating in them the
desire to own property and farm
• Dawes Act – broke up the
reservations and distributed some
of the land—160 acres for farming
or 320 acres for grazing—to each
adult head of a Native American
family
Was the land broken up for the Native Americans
good for farming? No, in fact most of the land
that was left for the Indian
was useless for farming
 The
Dawes Act
addressed their
physical assimilation
and education
addressed their mind
and spirit.
 Off-reservation
boarding schools
flourished—set up to
“kill the Indian and
save the man.”
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Ethnocentrism-belief that ones own
ethnic group is better than others
groups.
Assimilation
The Dawes Act
Transcontinental railroad
Increased military action against Native
Americans