Native Americans By Mr. Bruce Diehl

I. Culture of the Plains Indians A.Life for the Plains Indians 1.Some Native American nations of the Great Plains lived in communities and farmed and hunted. 2.Most Native Americans of the Great Plains were nomads who moved from place to place in search of food. 3.They followed the herds of buffalo.

B.Native American groups of the Great Plains had several things in common. 1.They lived in extended family networks and had a close relationship with nature. 2.They were divided into bands with a governing council. 3.Most Native American groups practiced a religion based on a belief in the spiritual power of the natural world.

II. Cultures Under Pressure A.1862 Sioux Uprising 1.Native Americans had been under pressure for years from advancing white settlement. 2.In 1862 the Sioux in Minnesota launched a major uprising.

B.The 1862 Treaty 1.The Dakota Sioux agreed to live on a small reservation in Minnesota, 2.In exchange they agreed to received annuities paid by the federal government to the reservation dwellers. 3.The annuities were very small and often taken from them by American traders. 4.In 1862 Congress delayed payments of the annuities.

5.Some Sioux began starving. 6.Chief Little Crow asked traders to give his people food on credit. 7.His request was denied. 8.The Dakota began an uprising that led to the deaths of hundreds of settlers.

9.After defeating the Sioux, 38 braves were hung 10. The U.S. army sent patrols into the northern Great Plains to prevent further uprisings among the Sioux there.

C. The Lakota Sioux The Lakota were nomads who feared losing their hunting grounds. In December 1866, Chief Red Cloud’s forces defeated a U.S. army detachment in Montana in what is called Fetterman’s Massacre.

D.In the 1860’s, tensions between the Cheyenne and Arapaho Native American and the miners in Colorado increased. 1.Bands of Native Americans attacked wagon trains and ranches in Colorado. 2.The territorial governor ordered the Native Americans to peacefully surrender at Fort Lyon. 3.Chief Black Kettle brought hundreds of Cheyenne to the fort to negotiate. 4.Instead of negotiating peace with the Cheyenne, the U.S. army, led by Col John Chivington, attacked them in what has been known as the Sand Creek Massacre.

E.In 1867 Congress formed an Indian Peace Commission, which proposed creating two large reservations on the Plains. 1.The Bureau of Indian Affairs would run the reservations. 2.The U.S. army would deal with any groups that did not report to or remain on the reservations.

F.This plan was doomed to failure. 1.Signing treaties did not ensure that the government or Native Americans would abide by the terms. 2.The American people saw Indian land as uninhabited and available to settle.

III. The Last Native American Wars A.The Plight of the Buffalo 1.By the 1870s, buffalo were rapidly disappearing, by 1889 very few buffalo remained.

2.The buffalo were killed in large numbers by a.migrants crossing the Great Plains, b.professional buffalo hunters who wanted their hides, c.sharpshooters hired by railroads, 3.and hunters who killed them for sport.

B.Treaty violations 1.Many Native Americans left their reservations to hunt buffalo on the open plains. 2.In addition, when American settlers violated the treaties, the Native Americans saw no reason to abide by them.

C.In 1876 the Lakota left their reservation to hunt near the Bighorn Mountain in southeastern Montana. 1.The U.S. government sent army troops after the Lakota. 2.George A. Custer, commander of the Seventh Calvary, divided his forces an attacked the Lakota and Cheyenne warriors camped at Little Bighorn River. 3.Led by Crazy Horse. The Native Americans killed all the soldiers. 4.Sitting Bull and his followers fled to Canada. 5.Other Lakota were forced to return to the reservation.

D.The Nez Perce 1.led by Chief Joseph, refused to move to a reservation in Idaho in They led the Army on a 1000 mile chase across the plains and Rockies. 3.They successfully attacked and repelled attacks until they were finally forced to surrender. 4.They were then sent to Oklahoma.

E. The Ghost Dance 1.At the Lakota Sioux reservation in 1890, the Lakota were ordered by a government agent to stop the Ghost Dance 2.The Ghost Dance was a ritual that was celebrating the hope that the whites would disappear, the buffalo would return and Native Americans would reunited with their ancestors. 3.The dancers fled the reservation and were chased by the U.S. troops to Wounded Knee Creek. 4.Many Lakota were killed. 5.This was the final Native American resistance to federal authority.

IV. Assimilation A.A Century of Dishonor 1.In 1881, Helen Hunt Jackson published A Century of Dishonor 2.It described the years of broken promises and assaults on Native Americans. 3.The book caused a popular movement to want to help Native Americans

B.Becoming White 1.Some thought relations between whites and Native Americans could be improved if Native American could assimilate, or be absorbed into American society as landowners and citizens. 2.This included breaking up reservations a.Native Americans would then be given individual allotments of land b.Native Americans would live in families and support themselves. 3.This became the policy when Congress passed the Dawes Act in 1877.

C.The Dawes Act was a failure. 1.Few Native Americans had the training or enthusiasm for farming or ranching. 2.They found the allotment too small to be profitable. 3.Few Native American were willing or able to adopt the American settlers’ lifestyle in place of their own culture.