Ch5, Changes on the Western Frontier Section 1: Cultures Clash on the Prairie

The Great Plains are located in the west-central USA For centuries, numerous Indians lived in villages or nomadic communities Tribes such as the Sioux and the Cheyenne were nomadic, and gathered wild foods and hunted. The Spanish introduced horses to the Great Plains Indians, as far back as the late 1500s

Guns and horses changed Great Plains Indian life by allowing them to hunt buffalo over extended distances By the 1700s, many of the Great Plains tribes had adopted a buffalo-oriented economy The Great Plains Indians did not have the same ideas about property lines as did Europeans and Americans

White (American) settlers argued that Indians had forfeited their claims to the Great Plains since these nomadic tribes had not “settled” the land By the mid-1800s, Americans developed strong economic incentives to move west of the Mississippi River. Many Americans aspired to be land-owning farmer Many were lured by the prospects of finding gold and silver

Also, by the mid-1800s, railroads were becoming common east of the Mississippi River. By the 1850s, there was political pressure to build a transcontinental railroad, a rail road that would link the east coast of the U.S. with the west coast, that is In the 1830s, however, the Federal Government had designated all of the Great Plains as a giant Indian reservation, in other words, a land set-aside for Indians

In the 1850s, however, the U.S. government changed policy and made treaties that set boundaries for the various Indian tribes Many Great Plains Indians rejected these new policies In 1864, U.S. troops massacred hundreds of Cheyenne Indians at Sand Creek, Colorado Violent clashes between U.S. forces and Indians would continue In 1866, Sioux warrior Crazy Horse led an ambush of U.S. troops in what is now Wyoming

Per an 1868 treaty, the U.S. kept the Sioux restricted to an area near the Missouri River Most treaties did not last long, and conflict resumed In the early 1870s, Americans began moving into the Black Hills (Sioux Territory) due to discoveries of gold In 1876, Sioux and Cheyenne defeated U.S. forces under George Custer at Little Big Horn in Montana. Custer and his 7th Cavalry force were all killed.

It became known as “Custer’s Last Stand.” In fact, it should have been called “Custer’s Last Mistake” in that he divided his forces and walked into an Indian trap Sioux forces under Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were eventually defeated, however. In 1887, the U.S. government passed the “Dawes Act,” an act seeking to “Americanize” the Indians

Under the Dawes Act, reservation lands were parceled out to individual Indian families, 160 acres each Other reservation lands were sold to settler, and the proceeds were supposed to be used for Indian agricultural development By 1932, two-thirds of these lands belonged to white settlers

American settlers destroyed the great buffalo herds through reckless sport hunting By 1890, only around 1000 buffalo were alive in the Great Plains In 1890, an Indian prophet convinced many Sioux that via the “Ghost Dance” the former glory of the Sioux way of life could be restored Sitting Bull was ordered arrested

Police forces ultimately killed Sitting Bull In December 1890, U.S. forces rounded up around 350 Sioux and demanded surrender of Indian weapons Someone fired a shot, and in its wake, U.S. forces massacred over 300 unarmed Sioux Indians, including some children This so-called Battle of Wounded Knee ended the era of Indian Wars on the Great Plains

As Indians were increasingly restricted to smaller reservation lands, cattle ranching become more profitable on the Great Plains The American cowboy tradition was derived from Spanish and Mexican cattle ranching techniques going back centuries The expansion of railroads made cattle ranching more profitable as well

As the U.S. became more urbanized back east, the demand for store-bought beef increased After the Civil War, Chicago became an important meat packing center due to its location as a railroad hub Beef that was processed in Chicago was shipped back east By the late 1800s the invention of barbed wire allowed for the fencing of the open range and cattle-raising became a more settled operation.