W ESTWARD E XPANSION AND THE A MERICAN I NDIANS 15.2

O BJECTIVES Compare the ways Native Americans and white settlers viewed and used the land. Describe the conflicts between white settlers and Indians Evaluate the impact of the Indian Wars

K EY P ARTS Cultures Under Pressure New Settlers and Native Americans Clash The End of the Indian Wars The Government Promotes Assimilation

I NTRODUCTION Read section 15.2 Answer Questions 4&6

C ULTURES U NDER P RESSURE By the end of the Civil War about 250,000 Indians lived in the region west of the Mississippi. This are was called the Great American Desert. Native Americans had very diverse cultures, often influenced by their geographic location. White settlers often viewed them all as the same, despite their different ways of life and belief structures.

C ONT. The main commonality between the Indians was that they all viewed nature as being sacred. In contrast the white settlers viewed nature as a resource to gaining wealth. These contrasting themes will lead to major conflict.

C ONT.. In the early 1800s the government carried out a policy of moving Native Americans to the great plains. This worked well until the discovery of gold and silver on the Indian land and also further west of it. The government wanted to create a railroad that would run across the whole continent.

C ONT … In the 1850s railroad owners, newspapers, and some scientists were promoting the idea of “rain followed the plow” which means where ever you farm rain will follow. In 1851 the government began to restrict Indians to smaller areas. Finally in the late 1860s Indians were forced onto separate reservations.

N EW S ETTLERS AND N ATIVE A MERICANS C LASH In 1862 the federal government wage a full scale war against the rebelling Sioux Indians. The Sioux had been attacking settlements in Minnesota and stagecoach lines. The Indians were subdued and pushed into the Dakotas. Later the government sent troops to maintain the peace.

C ONT. The peace plans begin to fail when the federal government decided to put a road through the Sioux hunting grounds to connect gold-mining towns in Montana. In 1866 the legendary warrior Red Cloud and his men lured Captain William Fetterman and his troops into an ambush and killed them all.

C ONT.. In an effort to pacify the Sioux and gain more land the government signed the Fort Laramie Treaty of The government agreed not to build the road through the hunting grounds and abandoned three forts, but the Sioux had to live on a reservation established by the federal government.

T HE E ND OF THE I NDIAN W ARS The conditions that the Indians were living in led to poverty and disease and the warrior gave up the treaties and attained weapons. The Red River War was a series of major and minor battles that led to the final defeat of the powerful southern Plains Indians. (Kiowas and Comanches) It also marked the end of the southern buffalo herds and the opening of the western panhandle of Texas to white settlement.

C ONT. By June 1875 the Red River war ended, a year from when it started. During the same time the Black Hills Gold Rush of 1875 drew prospectors onto the Sioux hunting grounds in the Dakotas. This is when Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull assembled their warriors to drive them out.

C ONT.. The U.S. Army sent its own troops In June 1876 led by Colonel George Custer. He took a small force of 250 men ahead of the main body of troops and arrived at the Little Big Horn River a day ahead of the rest of his men. He unexpectedly came upon a group of at least 2,000 Indians. Crazy Horse led the charge killing Custer and all of his men. Thus the Battle of Little Big Horn. (Roughly 300 Indians were killed)

C ONT … In 1890 the government ordered the arrest of Sitting Bull, in the exchange there was confrontation and Sitting Bull and several others were killed. This led to the “Ghost Dance War” at Wounded Knee. (A Ghost Dance was a revival dance to try and bring back the buffalo and stave off the white man) Sitting Bull’s men were out gunned and over one hundred laid dead, this sealed the Indians demise.

T HE G OVERNMENT P ROMOTES A SSIMILATION The reservation policy was a failure, policy makers hoped that as the buffalo became extinct Indians would become farmers and be assimilated into national life by adopting the culture of the whites. Helen Hunt Jackson during this time publicized her book “A Century of Dishonor” speaking about the broken promises that the government made with the Indians.

C ONT. In 1871 Congress passed a law stating that “no Indian nation or tribe would be recognized as an independent nation” This was called the Dawes General Allotment Act. This act replaced the reservation system with an allotment system. Each Indian family was granted a 160-acre farmstead. This land could not be sold or transferred for 25 years. By the end of the assimilation process only a small number of Indians were left to carry on their legacy.