Crushing the Native Americans

The Plains Indians In 1865, 2/3 of all Indians lived on the Great Plains Their culture was dependent upon the buffalo & the horse Tribes of several 1,000 people were subdivided into bands of 100s which made it difficult for the U.S. to negotiate treaties

Searching for an Indian Policy Before the Civil War, the West was “one big reservation” The Indian Intercourse Act (1834) forbade whites from entering “Indian country” without a license The Wagon trains to OR & CA, gold rush, transcontinental RR

Searching for an Indian Policy But…rapid Western expansion in the 1850s brought a new Indian “concentration policy” with distinct boundaries for each tribe “as long as the waters run and grass grows”

Searching for an Indian Policy “Kill and scalp all, big and little” Concentration did not last as whites ignored these boundaries: Sand Creek Massacre (1864)—Col John Chivington attacked 700 sleeping Indians in CO after a peace agreement was signed Sioux War (1865-1867)—gold miners wanted a Bozeman Trail (across Sioux hunting grounds) to connect mining towns; Sioux murdered 88 U.S. soldiers Congress investigated & condemned Chivington’s attack

Searching for an Indian Policy In 1867, the U.S. formed the Indian Peace Commission : Ended Bozeman Trail plans Made “small reservations” in the Dakota & Oklahoma territories Few Native Americans settled into these reservations peacefully: Red River War (1874) Little Big Horn (1876) Wounded Knee Massacre (1890) The discovery of gold in South Dakota led a Sioux army of 2,500 to ambush & kill Lt Col Custer & his 197 soldiers Black soldiers in the U.S. army called “buffalo soldiers” were used to fend off Indian attacks in the West “Custer’s Last Stand” set off demands for revenge among Americans The U.S. army was ordered to stop Sioux “ghost dances” & machine gunned 200 men, women, & children

The End of Tribal Life “Kill the Indian and save the man” —Richard Pratt, founder of Carlisle In 1871, the U.S. adopted its 4th Indian policy: Assimilation U.S. citizenship was offered to all Indians who farmed, lived away from their tribe & “adopted the habits of civilized life” Dawes Severalty Act in 1887 offered farms (160 acres to families & 80 to men) & the protection of U.S. laws

The End of Tribal Life The final blow to Indian culture came with annihilation of buffalo: Began with the construction of the transcontinental RR in 1860s From 1872 to 1874, 3 million buffalo were killed each year

1 hunter = 100 buffalo per day

The Final Fling In 1889, Congress responded to demands to open the Oklahoma Territory to white settlement On April 22, 1889, about 100,000 “Boomers” & “Sooners” flooded into the last “Indian land” White migrants claimed 2 million acres in Oklahoma homesteads Moved out Creeks & Seminoles “Sooners” couldn’t wait until noon Oklahoma “Boomers” waiting for noon

Lands Lost by Native Americans (1894) Indian Reservations Today

Conclusions: The End of the Frontier By 1890, the western frontier ended Miners, ranchers, & cowboys flooded West at the expense of Indians who were restricted to smaller & smaller reservations Westerners were commercially connected to Eastern markets but would grow increasingly frustrated by the economic & political concentration of power in the East With no more West to conquer, where would American expansion go next? A continuation of antebellum “Manifest Destiny”