1. The Fight for the West

2. Wovoka was a shaman of the Northern Paiute Indians in Nevada He became known as a healer who could bring rain Wovoka promised if a special Ghost Dance was performed for five nights in a row, a messiah would come to save only the Indians

3. The Ghost Dance was an expression of deepest grief about the loss of Native American ways of life The Plains Indians thrived thanks to an abundance of buffalo Plains Indians lived a nomadic lifestyle, following the buffalo herds as they moved

4. Instead of continuing to push the Indians west, the government changed its policy and began sending Indians to reservations, then seizing their lands For Plains Indians, reservation life threatened their buffalo- centered way of life

5. The U.S. Army adopted a policy of encouraging the destruction of the buffalo to force the Indians onto reservations With the expansion of railroads across the Plains, buffalo hides could easily be shipped east, where demand for them increased in the 1870s

6. Tensions between the settlers and the Plains Indians escalated into decades of violence that swept the Indians from most of the West

7. Cheyenne Indians raided ranches in the Colorado Territory in 1864 Army officials offered amnesty if the Indians returned to their reservation Cheyenne chief Black Kettle wanted peace and led his people back to their reservation at Sand Creek

8. Before dawn, Army colonel John Chivington arrived at Sand Creek with about 700 troops Chivington’s troops opened fire and killed about 150 people, mostly women, children, and elderly people After burning the camp to the ground, the troops returned to Denver with scalps that they displayed to cheering crowds

9. Officials pressured the Sioux to sign the Second Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868, forcing them to live on a reservation along the Missouri River Officials also pressured many southern nations (Including the Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne, and others) to sign the Medicine Lodge Treaty, forcing them to move to reservations in Oklahoma

10. When the Lakota Sioux refused to return to their reservation, the situation was turned over to the military About 2,000 Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho gathered near the Little Bighorn River They were led by Sitting Bull

11. On June 25, 1876, Colonel George Armstrong Custer led his troops into a headlong attack against superior numbers Custer and his troops were quickly surrounded and slaughtered The Battle of Little Bighorn was a great victory for the Sioux