 What conflicts would have arisen between all the different types of people who were settling the last (western) frontier of America? And who was the perpetual loser in all this?

 Indians have been left alone in the Western Planes while the area was deemed unusable for Americans, but…  With John Deere’s steel plow; the discovery of gold and silver in the West; and railroads crossing the continent, settlers now see this “Great Desert” as inhabitable…  By late1860’s most Native Americans will have been forced onto reservations, a policy begun by Andrew Jackson’s government in the 1830’s.

 Disease: killed tribesmen and weakened the native peoples.  Killing the Buffalo: The Buffalo herds supported the Plains Indian’s way of life. They are wiped out by over-hunting and by the spread of the railroads.

 Many Native Americans, especially Plains Indians (ex. Sioux & Comanche), rebel as their way of life is threatened, as treaties are broken, and as they are forced into smaller and smaller (& impoverished) areas.  Indian attacks on American settlements, stagecoach lines, etc. were met with US Army force, especially after the Civil War.  The Indian Wars are fought on and off from 1860 to 1890 in the Western States…

 Red River War in Texas, (Comanche defeated)  In 1875, Gold is found in the Black Hills of Montana and South Dakota, and there is a gold rush for Sioux hunting territory, leading to the Battle of Little Big Horn…  June, General George Custer led his 250 troops vs. 2,000 Sioux, led by Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Custer is killed, bringing an onslaught of US forces against the Souix to avenge Custer. (Sioux defeated)

 In 1877, US federal government (Bureau of Indian Affairs) decides to move the Nez Perces people of Idaho to a smaller reservation to make room for white settlers.  Chief Joseph decides, instead, to lead his people on a trek to Canada over 1300 miles, but is stopped short at the border, and his people are moved to a barren reservation in Oklahoma.

 A religious movement that appealed to Native American desperation in late 1880s.  Indians thought it would bring them protection.  Worried White Government officials, who thought it would lead to further rebellion...

 1890 – the Government order the arrest of Sitting Bull, who had escaped during Little Big Horn. He is killed, and his people fled…  US troops caught up with them at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.  More than 100 men women and children are massacred by the US Cavalry, ending the Ghost Dance War and the Indian Wars in General.

 The reservation policy was an obvious failure (and expensive to maintain).  The new plan was to force Indians to become farmers and assimilate to white culture. The Dawes Act of 1887, split up the reservation lands and gave it to individual Indians in parcels of 160 acres, dealing with Native Americans as individuals rather than as Nations.

 Boarding schools in which Indian children were taught to be white.

 Some people worked on behalf of the Native American cause, including people like Helen Hunt Jackson.  Her book criticized the government’s numerous broken treaties and dishonorable dealings with Indian tribes.

 ENTRY # 18  What factors were responsible for the Post-Civil War westward migration?  Why do you think that myth of the Cowboy and the American West has remained so important to American culture?