1. Native American History
From European Contact to Wounded Knee

2. Native American Culture Areas
Who Were the Indians?

3. Cultural patterns and societies were largely shaped by a specific natural environment
Important factors:
Climate and the availability/variability of animal and plant species – Deer/Polar Bear/Buffalo
The density and distribution of population and its impact on the forms of cooperation between individuals and groups within society – Cahokia/Plains/Woodlands
The political and religious features of community life – Kinship/Clan/Tribe/Nation/Shamanism/Priest Cult
Every Native American community had its medicine men and women, shamans, or priests. These were persons who had especially close contact with the supernatural and who interceded on behalf of others thought to have less ability to communicate with the spirits. These religious leaders in particular, and to a lesser extent other mature members of each society, were acquainted with a significant oral literature, expressed in the form of prose narratives, songs, chants, magic formulas, speeches, and prayers by all Indian groups, and by a few groups as puns, proverbs, and riddles. These aspects of folklore constituted each community's most treasured knowledge of the natural, human, and spiritual realms and expressed the supernaturally approved ethos of each tribe.
Such universal beliefs, behaviors, and verbalizations are very old and were probably brought into the Americas by the first peoples to negotiate the land bridge from Siberia to Alaska. As local cultures arose from adaptations to different environments, religions changed to accommodate to the new ways of life, and rites originally conducted by families grew into clan, tribal, and even national ceremonies. At the same time, contacts among the many Indian peoples diffused these religious traits within culture areas, creating likenesses in geographical zones; some traits spread across large parts of North America, establishing pan-Indian commonalities.

4. Native Americans in North America:
A More Than 12,000 Year Legacy
Anthropologists have identified three major variations of the foraging subsistence pattern:
1.  pedestrian (diversified hunting and gathering on foot)
2. equestrian (concentrating on hunting large mammals from horseback)
3. aquatic (concentrating on fish and/or marine mammal hunting)

5. CAHOKIA
PLAINS INDIANS

6. Egalitarian societies are comprised of people who are considered to be equal amongst one another and choose the amount of power given to individual members of a certain group.
Inuit Hunting Seal
Laws were not written, but rather communal understandings. Punishment for breaching laws were mild, usually aimed at injuring a man's position in society (through gossip, ridicule or ostracism). Inuit punishments were not created to reprimand the criminal, but to reestablish the desired peace.

7. Native American Resource Management Techniques
"This vast territory was composed of some of the finest and best land for the home and use of the Indian ever found in this country. The woods and prairies teemed with buffalo, moose, elk, bear and deer; with other game suitable to our enjoyment, white its lakes, rivers, creeks and ponds were alive with the very best kinds of fish, for our food."
Black Hawk, Sauk (Sac)
Sowing
Broadcasting seeds onto an area that has often been burned.
Weeding
Enhance growth of favored species.
Transplanting
Irrigating
Water diversion and artificial channels.
Forest and Game Resource Management

8. Management Techniques
Burning
Considered most important tool. Applying fire to particular vegetation under specified environmental conditions such as seasonality and fire return interval.
Pruning
Removing dead and living parts of plants to enhance growth, form and fruit/seed production.
Selective harvesting
Harvesting in a discriminate repetitive way that leads to trait selection, like enlargement of favored plant part, reduction of seed reproduction.
Tilling
Removing soil during the harvest of underground perennial plant organs (roots, rhizomes, bulbs), often followed by dividing these plants and leaving in the soil.

9. One thing the Indians had in common was the use of stone tools
One thing the Indians had in common was the use of stone tools. All made a variety of hammers, scrapers, knives, arrowheads, and spear points from stone. They had no access to sharp metal tools until the arrival of the Europeans.
Most Europeans viewed the Indians as “primitive and savage.”
Different aspects of Indian culture changed at different rates. In general, articles of trade, such as knives and guns, were eagerly accepted, while changes in social organization came much more slowly. Acceptance of Christianity was slow, but new native religions were rapidly developed to bolster Indian hopes.
Culture Changes. The principal change in food consumption was a lowering of protein in the diet as game animals became depleted.

10. Much of the credit for European military success in the New World can be handed to the superiority of their weapons.
Humans’ ability to transform mineral ores into useful materials has shaped the course of human history. Those civilizations that have been armed with a greater range of metal technologies have always defeated their rivals.

11. THE EURASIAN ADVANTAGE
By geographic chance, America inherited different native grass and animal species. On such coincidences the destinies of millions of people throughout history have turned.
Cereal Grasses of
Eurasia A. Oats;
B. Barley; C. Bread Wheat; D. Rye
Domesticated Animals of Eurasia
The goat, the sheep, the pig, the horse, and – our champion – the cow. Their ability to provide meat, dairy and draft while reproducing themselves and eating nothing but grass, has made cows a source of wonder throughout human history – objects of worship, even – to which European civilization may owe its very existence.

12. The Spread of Ideas
Writing — and printing — acted as an additional agent of conquest for the Europeans. Printing gave Europeans access to a wealth of historical, cultural and military knowledge from previous eras, which the Indians — a non-literate society — could never have had.
Plants and animals which thrive at a given latitude, will tend to thrive at the same latitude anywhere else on the planet – either north or south of the Equator. So, if there is an easy east/west overland migration route for those crops or animals, they will tend to successfully export themselves beyond their point of origin. However, it is very unusual for plants and animals which thrive at one latitude, to be able to survive at dramatically different latitudes. Successful migration north or south is extremely rare, because moving through different latitude zones means moving through dramatically different climates, day lengths, and environmental conditions. In this context, latitude has had massive implications for the grandest patterns of history, seen most clearly in the differing fortunes of Eurasia, Africa and the Americas.

13. Spain – Netherlands – England - France
EUROPEAN CONTACT
Spain – Netherlands – England - France

14. Spain in the New World The Encomienda System
The encomienda itself was a grant of Indians within a geographic region, which were given to an encomendero, the Spaniard who received the grant of Indians.
Spain in the New World The Encomienda System
Origins of the Slave Trade
As large numbers Indians died under cruel working conditions. Landowners in New Spain began to look for alternative sources of labor.

15. Henry Hudson and the Half Moon 1609,
Manhattan Island was to maintain New Netherlands's provincial integrity by defending river access to the company's fur trade operations in the North River, later named Hudson River.
The original Half Moon (Halve Maen) was commissioned on March 25, 1609, for the Dutch East India Company. She was a ship of exploration and the spaceship of her age, designed to take a crew of twenty into unknown and uncharted waters.

16. The story of France's colonial empire began on July 27, 1605, with the foundation of Port Royal in the colony of Acadia in North America, in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada. A few years later, in 1608, Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec, which was to become the capital of the enormous, but sparsely settled, fur-trading colony of New France

17. The British Empire
A number of English colonies were established under a system of Proprietary Governors, who were appointed under mercantile charters to English joint stock companies to found and run settlements.

18. East Coast: The period of decline set in before 1700
The period after European contact and before complete Euro-American domination may be considered a “middle ground,” a time when neither Native Americans nor Europeans were the supreme rulers of a given territory and when the ties between Indians and whites were stronger than their differences. The 1600s and 1700s.
Decline Timeline
East Coast: The period of decline set in before 1700
Great Plains: Stealing of the first horses from the Spanish ranches in New Mexico about The decline did not come until the buffalo were almost exterminated in the 1870s and 1880s.
West Coast: The impact of the gold rush of 1849 was so sudden that the period of prosperity failed to materialize at all and that of decline began at once.
In 1778 the Continental Congress ratified the first treaty with an Indian tribe, the Delaware. Between 1778 and 1871, when Congress put an end to treaty making with individual tribes, a total of 389 treaties had been made and remade with Indians. Treaties were remade again and again with the same tribe as conditions changed, the record number being 42 separate treaties each for the Potawatomi and Chippewa. Most treaties dealt with subsistence rations or money payments in exchange for lands, and some offered U. S. citizenship to all members of the tribe. That many of these treaties were unjust is apparent from the court decisions reached in the many land claims cases after 1946, described below.
In 1787 the Confederation Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance, which promised that land and other property would not be taken from Indians without their consent, except in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress. This was reaffirmed in 1789 in the Constitution of the United States. Because Congress never declared war on an Indian tribe, the settlement of most armed conflicts in favor of whites violated this ordinance.
In 1824 the Bureau of Indian Affairs was established in the War Department. It was moved in 1848 to the Department of the Interior, where it remains to this day, in an effort to allocate all Indian problems to one agency.
Removal to Reservations. With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 the United States came into possession of a vast territory west of the Mississippi that President Jefferson and others thought provided plenty of room for all Indians east of the Mississippi. Soon after this time the Southern states, led by Georgia, began to threaten secession from the Union if they could not get more land from Indians for their expanding plantations. As a result of this pressure, Congress passed in 1830 the Indian Removal Act calling for the transfer of all Indians east of the Mississippi to lands west of that river. Congress appropriated only $500,000 to compensate Indians for loss of lands and the expenses of moving.
Hurried on by soldiers of the U. S. Army, thousands of Indians died on the way, but about 100,000 survived the move. Most of these settled in Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. Those removed included the Five Civilized Tribes: Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Cherokee. Part of the Seminole, who evaded pursuit in the Everglades of Florida, and the Cherokee, who hid in the southern Appalachians, were finally allowed by the federal government to remain behind. Those who reached Oklahoma had to fight the tribes already there for survival in the new land.
In 1848, at the end of the Mexican War, the United States acquired by treaty territory inhabited by about 150,000 Indians, including what is now California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and part of Colorado. The acquisition of these lands was followed by a series of Indian wars. United States forces gradually gained control. The last major battle was the massacre by U. S. Army troops of about 300 men, women, and children of the Sioux tribe at Wounded Knee, S. Dak., in A total of 49 whites and Indian police employed by whites were killed in this disturbance, which lasted less than a month.
In 1878, Congress appropriated the first funds for police forces of Indians, and by 1884 such native forces had been established on 48 of the 60 agencies (reservations) then existing. The almost unlimited power of these Indian police, who sometimes acted as judges and executioners as well, was curtailed in 1885 by the Major Crimes Act of Congress. This act, with later amendments, removed 10 offenses, including murder, from Indian police and courts and made them federal crimes to be tried in federal courts.
The Dawes Severalty Act (General Allotment Act), passed by Congress in 1887 and amended in 1891, 1906, and 1910, challenged the whole reservation system. It authorized the president of the United States to parcel tribal land to individual members in tracts of 40, 80, or 160 acres, called allotments. It was argued by proponents of this act that it would provide a greater incentive for an Indian to succeed as a farmer or rancher if he could keep his profits to himself and his immediate family. Opponents of the act portrayed it as a deliberate mechanism to make it possible for whites to take over more Indian land, by purchasing it from the allottees. Whatever the intentions of Congress, the outcome predicted by opponents of the act was the one actually realized. From the 138 million acres in tribal landholdings in 1887, the amount was gradually reduced to 48 million acres in 1934, when the allotment system was stopped by law. Most Indians given individual allotments had first rented them to whites, then sold them outright. They soon spent the money and were left impoverished.

19. Where do the Indians Go?
During the 17th and 18th Centuries the most common result was forced migration into unfriendly territory.

20. The Treaty of Easton, signed between the Lenape and the English in 1766, removed them westward, out of present-day New York and New Jersey and into Pennsylvania, then Ohio and beyond.
One rationale for these treaties was that Indians were migratory hunters who only followed the game and had no attachment to any particular lands.

21. The general pattern of Indian response to white settlement:
Initial period of increased prosperity brought on by trade with whites
Followed by a period of decline after the spread of disease, and the game, furs, and land for Indians became scarce.
Native American prehistoric population of about 2,500,000 in what is now the United States (excluding Alaska),
1890 numbers fell to a low of about 250,000

22. Smallpox
Disease was one of the leading causes of population decline, for the Indians had no immunity to many diseases brought in by settlers from Europe and slaves from Africa. Some estimates are as high as 95% of the population.
Malnutrition due to depletion of game and other food sources was also a critical factor in the decline of population.
In addition, armed conflicts with whites and enemy Indians.
These various disturbances led also to generally inadequate child care.

23. Indian Religious Beliefs
Life after death.
Ghosts, gods, and anthropomorphic spiritual personalities with intelligence, emotions, and freedom of will to intervene in human affairs.
All Indians further believed in a supernatural power, shared by spiritual personalities, human beings, and the entities of the natural world.
Their religiousness was an attempt to understand, enter into relations with, appease, revere, and, if possible, manipulate these sources of existence in order to promote their own lives and the lives of their relatives.
All North American native peoples possessed religious beliefs and practices through which they expressed both their immediate and their ultimate concerns as individuals and as societies. All tribes believed in the life of the spirit after the death of the body and in a multitude of ghosts, gods, and other anthropomorphic spiritual personalities with intelligence, emotions, and freedom of will to intervene in human affairs. All Indians further believed in an impersonal supernatural power, shared by spiritual personalities, human beings, and the entities of the natural world. Native peoples turned to the spiritual, the supernatural, as the source of their existence. Their religiousness was an attempt to understand, enter into relations with, appease, revere, and, if possible, manipulate these sources of existence in order to promote their own lives and the lives of their relatives.
Every Native American community had its medicine men and women, shamans, or priests. These were persons who had especially close contact with the supernatural and who interceded on behalf of others thought to have less ability to communicate with the spirits. These religious leaders in particular, and to a lesser extent other mature members of each society, were acquainted with a significant oral literature, expressed in the form of prose narratives, songs, chants, magic formulas, speeches, and prayers by all Indian groups, and by a few groups as puns, proverbs, and riddles. These aspects of folklore constituted each community's most treasured knowledge of the natural, human, and spiritual realms and expressed the supernaturally approved ethos of each tribe.

24. Shamanism
Shamanistic traditions have existed throughout the world since prehistoric times.
Every Native American community had its medicine men and women, shamans, or priests. These were persons who had especially close contact with the supernatural and who interceded on behalf of others thought to have less ability to communicate with the spirits.

25. Native American Prophet Movements
Contact with Christians proved traumatic for Native American religions, as both civil and religious authorities attempted to repress native spirituality and force conversion. Over the past three centuries, this attempt has provoked the rise of various native religious movements.
The Longhouse Religion, also known as the Handsome Lake cult, or Gai'wiio (Good Message in Seneca) is a religious movement started by the Seneca Chief Handsome Lake (Ganioda'yo). Founded in 1799, it is the oldest active prophet movement in North America.

26. The ceremony originated with the Lakota Sioux.
O Kee Pa
The Mandan Sun Dance
Ordinarily held by each tribe once a year in early summer, it was an occasion for purification and strengthening and an opportunity to reaffirm basic beliefs about the universe and the supernatural through rituals.
Ordinarily held by each tribe once a year in early summer, it was an occasion for purification and strengthening and an opportunity to reaffirm basic beliefs about the universe and the supernatural through rituals. The ceremony, which originated with the Lakota, was most highly developed among the Arapaho, the Cheyenne, and the Oglala division of the Lakota Sioux. The central rite involved male dancers who, to fulfill a vow or seek “power” (spiritual energy and insight), danced for several days without stopping for food, drink, or sleep, their ordeal ending in frenzy and exhaustion. Among some tribes, piercing and sun gazing were practiced.
The ceremony originated with the Lakota Sioux.

27. The
Sioux
Sundance
The Sun Dance lasts from four to eight days starting at sunset. It showed a continuity between life and death - a regeneration. The ritual, involving sacrifice and supplication to insure harmony between all living beings, continues to be practiced by many contemporary native Americans.
The Arapaho, Arikara, Asbinboine, Cheyenne, Crow, Gros, Ventre, Hidutsa, Sioux, Plains Cree, Plains Ojibway, Sarasi, Omaha, Ponca, Ute, Shoshone, Kiowa, and Blackfoot..

28. Treaties Between the U. S. and Native Americans
THE TREATIES
1778 Treaty between United States and Delaware Indians, the first United States and Indian treaty, is negotiated in which Delaware tribe is offered the prospect of statehood.
THE PIPE, JOHN KILL BUCK
“ ARTICLE 1. That all offences or acts of hostilities by one, or either of the contracting parties against the other, be mutually forgiven, and buried in the depth of oblivion, never more to be had in remembrance.” “ Article 6...” the United States do engage to guarantee to the aforesaid nation of Delawares, and their heirs, all their territorial rights in the fullest and most ample manner, as it hath been bounded by former treaties, as long as they the said Delaware nation shall abide by, and hold fast the chain of friendship now entered into.”
Treaties Between the U. S. and Native Americans

29. 1778
Iroquois Indians under Joseph Brant and British regulars attack American settlers on the western New York and Pennsylvania frontiers. In 1779, the Americans launch a counteroffensive that lays waste to Indian towns and crops, and breaks the power of the Iroquois League.
The Wyoming Valley "massacre" was a military battle in the American Revolutionary War that took place in Pennsylvania's Wyoming Valley on July 3, 1778, in which more than three hundred Americans died at the hands of Loyalist and Iroquois raiders.

30. “Under the Protection of the United States”
Smallpox and measles among Indians in Texas and New Mexico. In , a smallpox epidemic among Sanpoils of Washington.
Under the Articles of Confederation defining federal and state relationships, it is accepted in principle that the central government should regulate Indian affairs and trade.
“Under the Protection of the United States”
In 1818, a House committee report noted, “in the present state of our country, one of two things seems to be necessary. either those sons of the great forest should be moralized or exterminated: humanity would rejoice at the former, but shrink with horror at the latter.”

31. Congress orders the War Office to provide militia troops to assist commissioners in their negotiations with Indians.
In The secretary of War is made responsible for Indian affairs.
In Congress establishes a Department of War and formally grants the secretary of War authority over Indian affairs.
First Secretary of War
Knox, Henry, 1750–1806

32. Late 17th Century Commentary
1787 Northwest Ordinance calls for Indian rights, the establishment of reservations, and sanctity of tribal lands, echoing the British Proclamation of 1763, but it also sets guidelines for the development of the Old Northwest, leading to increased white settlement.
Late 17th Century Commentary
“Oaks, walnuts, hickories, maples, and elms were present in abundance, as were tulip trees, Kentucky coffee trees, honey locusts, persimmons, and sumacs. Many of the larger trees were a spectacular size.
Rivers held schools of carp, catfish, perch, and sturgeon. Flocks of tens of thousands of passenger pigeons darkened the sky overhead. Bison roamed in great herds, and bears, wolves, and wildcats flourished in the woods and ravines.”

33. Supreme Court: Cherokee Nation v. Georgia – 1789
The federal government alone is given the power to regulate commerce with foreign nations, among the states, and with Indian tribes.
“No person shall be permitted to trade with the Indians without a license; traders shall sell their goods at reasonable prices, allow them to the Indians for their skins, and take no advantage of their distress and intemperance; . . the trade to be only at posts designated by the commissioners.”
US Constitution, Congress, Section 8, Clause 3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes...

34. Four Trade and Intercourse Acts regulate Indian commerce and create the "factory system" of government trading houses. Lasted until 1822.
The federal government wanted to control the Indian fur trade as a means of "civilizing” the Indians in order to acquire their hunting grounds.
The government believed if trade goods were provided at a fair price it would keep the Indian villages close to the factory posts, and eventually lead to the Indians assimilation into the white man culture.
Alcohol was used by fur traders to acquire beaver pelts and other hides from the Indians. Despite opposing the sale of liquor to Indians, the federal government wanted to control the Indian fur trade as a means of "civilizing” the Indians in order to acquire their hunting grounds. Congress passed four Trade and Intercourse Acts pertaining to Indian affairs and commerce between 1790 and Under this act, the “Factory System” was established in The government believed if trade goods were provided at a fair price it would keep the Indian villages close to the factory posts, and eventually lead to the Indians assimilation into the white man culture.
President Jefferson ( ) attempted to regulate the Indian trade within the Factory System. He believed the Indian culture and the American culture were incompatible, but that Indians had the oratory skills and family values to climb the ladder of cultural evolution. Indians could be incorporated into the young republic, but not in the hunter-gather state. As long as Indians had hunting grounds, they could not be civilized. His belief was that the tribes not accepting the white man’s civilization should be moved west of the Mississippi. He regarded this as a temporary solution, and that eventually, the Indians must adapt to the American way or be eradicated. President Jefferson’s new republic with liberty and equality for all did not apply to the Plains Indians. The creation of the new republic sealed the fate of the Indians as roving hunters (Wallace). As skilled hunters and suppliers of pelts, the Indians were sought after as trading partners and were exposed to white culture.
In exchange for their goods, the Indians received European products, such as iron tools and utensils such as bright-colored cloth and beads.
They also received firearms and liquor, both of which had an enormous impact on Indian lifeways.
The outbreak of European diseases among the Indian population. (See "The Spread of European Diseases." )
A long-term ecological disruption of the food chain by the depletion of fur-bearing mammals.
Brought whites onto their lands.
After the white traders, trappers, and hunters came the trading and military posts, and after the posts came the settlers.
"Osage Warrior"

35. Pigeon's Egg Head Going to and Returning from Washington
“Hang around the Forts”
Many Indians were infatuated with European culture.
Technology – Steel, Guns, Trinkets/Beads
Animals – Horses, Pigs, Cows
Religion – Christianity and its Story Of an Executed God
Alcohol – Vision/Dream Quest
“My son cannot pull back the bow of his father.”
Pigeon's Egg Head Going to and Returning from Washington

36. 1802 - Federal law prohibits the sale of liquor to Indians.
Roots of the epidemic of alcohol-related problems among many Native North Americans are related to:
European arrival.
The role of alcohol in frontier society, and colonial and postcolonial policies.
Heavily influenced by the example of White frontiersmen, who drank immoderately and engaged in otherwise unacceptable behavior while drunk.
Whites also deliberately pressed alcohol upon the natives because it was an immensely profitable trade good.
Alcohol was used as a tool of "diplomacy" in official dealings between authorities and natives.

37. Captains William Clark & Meriwether Lewis
Louisiana Purchase adds a large Indian population to the United States. In 1804, the Louisiana Territory Act shows the intent of the United States to move eastern Indians west of the Mississippi.
Mandan Rain Dance
Mandan Buffalo Dance
Captains William Clark & Meriwether Lewis
The Corps of Discovery reached the Mandan villages in the fall of 1804 and stayed the winter in Fort Mandan

38. The Louisiana Territory was neither an “unoccupied frontier” nor a “wilderness" when Lewis and Clark arrived. Indian societies possessed philosophy, laws, order, and religion, none of which were ever mentioned in Clark's paternalistic journals.
Impact of the Expedition on the Indians:
In addition to the impact of disease there was an erosion of both the economic and political structure of the tribes.

39. 1808 - American Fur Company is chartered by John Astor
American Fur Company is chartered by John Astor. In , an Astorian overland western expedition established trade relations with Indians.
The first of the Astor family dynasty and the first millionaire in the United States, making his fortune in the fur trade and real estate industries.

40. Treaty of Fort Wayne. General William Henry Harrison obtains 2 1/2 million acres from Indians in Ohio and Indiana.
In the treaty the United States acquired three million acres of land with a single document.
In another deal he paid the Indians one penny for each 200 acres and transferred 51 million acres to the United States. When the Shawnee chief Tecumseh tried to organize resistance Harrison led a force of 950 men against his Indian Confederacy, defeating 650 warriors at Tippecanoe Creek on November 7, 1811.
General William Henry Harrison

41. Fought with the British in the War of 1812
Tecumseh - Famous Shawnee leader. He spent much of his life attempting to rally disparate Native American tribes in a mutual defense of their lands, which eventually culminated in his death in the War of 1812.
Fought with the British in the War of 1812
Brigadier general for the British
Killed in the Battle of Fallen Timbers in an attack by Harrison

42. Andrew Jackson was a forceful proponent of Indian removal.
In 1814 he commanded the U.S. military forces that defeated a faction of the Creek nation. They lost 22 million acres of land in southern Georgia and central Alabama.
Jackson's troops invaded Spanish Florida. to punish the Seminoles for their practice of harboring fugitive slaves and gained more land.
Andrew Jackson, from Tennessee, was a forceful proponent of Indian removal. In 1814 he commanded the U.S. military forces that defeated a faction of the Creek nation. In their defeat, the Creeks lost 22 million acres of land in southern Georgia and central Alabama. The U.S. acquired more land in 1818 when, spurred in part by the motivation to punish the Seminoles for their practice of harboring fugitive slaves, Jackson's troops invaded Spanish Florida. From 1814 to 1824, Jackson was instrumental in negotiating nine out of eleven treaties which divested the southern tribes of their eastern lands in exchange for lands in the west. The tribes agreed to the treaties for strategic reasons. They wanted to appease the government in the hopes of retaining some of their land, and they wanted to protect themselves from white harassment. As a result of the treaties, the United States gained control over three-quarters of Alabama and Florida, as well as parts of Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky and North Carolina. This was a period of voluntary Indian migration, however, and only a small number of Creeks, Cherokee and Choctaws actually moved to the new lands. In 1823 the Supreme Court handed down a decision which stated that Indians could occupy lands within the United States, but could not hold title to those lands. This was because their "right of occupancy" was subordinate to the United States' "right of discovery." In response to the great threat this posed, the Creeks, Cherokee, and Chicasaw instituted policies of restricting land sales to the government. They wanted to protect what remained of their land before it was too late. Although the five Indian nations had made earlier attempts at resistance, many of their strategies were non-violent. One method was to adopt Anglo-American practices such as large-scale farming, Western education, and slave-holding. This earned the nations the designation of the "Five Civilized Tribes." They adopted this policy of assimilation in an attempt to coexist with settlers and ward off hostility. But it only made whites jealous and resentful.
From 1814 to 1824, Jackson was instrumental in negotiating nine out of eleven treaties which divested the southern tribes of their eastern lands.

43. Office of Indian Trade and Indian trading houses (the "factory system") are abolished by Congress, at which time provisions were made for the licensing of independent traders, who were better able to meet the booming demand for furs.  
In the early 1800s, trade in furs flourished in the American west, based mostly on beaver pelts, used to make the tall, shiny hats of well-to-do eastern gentlemen. At first, the trappers themselves transported these furs from the Rocky Mountains all the way back to St. Louis, Missouri, where the furs were sold or traded for supplies and equipment needed for the coming year. In 1825, the traders figured out there was a lot of money to be made by transporting trade goods to the mountains and trading there for the furs. The trappers, whom we call Mountaineers or Mountain Men, were quite agreeable to this, since many of them preferred life in the wilderness and didn’t much care for the long trip back east. These annual summer gatherings were called rendezvous, and were held at a designated spot known to both trappers and traders. While these rendezvous were intended as a business arrangement, they soon became the trapper’s Christmas, New Years Eve and birthday party; a general-purpose annual blowout and trade fair. These rendezvous came to an end about 1840, due in large part to the depleted beaver population in the Rocky Mountains and the changing fashion in hats.
The Rocky Mountain National Rendezvous (RMNR) is an annual celebration of life on the pre-1840 American Western frontier. It is part re-enactment and part living history, based on the fur-trade rendezvous held in the Rocky Mountains. The RMNR does not require membership in anything, our only requirement is that participants abide by our simple rules, and join in the spirit of rendezvous.
The Rendezvous
Land Speculation and the Fur Trade – Two Major Forces in the Conflict Between Indians and the United States

44. Attempts to Assimilate into American Culture
From Sequoyah single-handedly creates a Cherokee syllabic alphabet so that his people's language can be written.
Alphabet, Newspapers, Towns
Planters and Farmers
Some Owned Slaves
Ross, one of the richest men in North Georgia before 1838 had a number of
ventures including a 200 acre farm and owned a number of slaves. He was forced to move in the Trail of Tears. He lost everything.
John Ross

45. MANIFEST DESTINY
1823 U.S. Supreme Court decision Johnson v. McIntosh "tribal rights to complete sovereignty were necessarily diminished by the principle that discovery gave exclusive title to those who made it."
“It is to be presumed that in this matter the United States would be governed by such considerations of justice as would control a Christian people in their treatment of an ignorant and dependent race.”
The measure of property acquired by occupancy is determined, according to the law of nature, by the extent of men's wants, and their capacity of using it to supply them.
Close It is a violation of the rights of others to exclude them from the use of what we do not want, and they have an occasion for. Upon this principle the North American Indians could have acquired no proprietary interest in the vast tracts *570 of territory which they wandered over; and their right to the lands on which they hunted, could not be considered as superior to that which is acquired to the sea by fishing in it. The use in the one case, as well as the other, is not exclusive.
Close According to every theory of property, the Indians had no individual rights to land; nor had they any collectively, or in their national capacity; for the lands occupied by each tribe were not used by them in such a manner as to prevent their being appropriated by a people of cultivators. All the proprietary rights of civilized nations on this continent are founded on this principle. The right derived from discovery and conquest, can rest on no other basis; and all existing titles depend on the fundamental title of the crown by discovery. The title of the crown (as representing the nation) passed to the colonists by charters, which were absolute grants of the soil; and it was a first principle in colonial law, that all titles must be derived from the crown. It is true that, in some cases, purchases were made by the colonies from the Indians; but this was merely a measure of policy to prevent hostilities; and William Penn's purchase, which was the most remarkable transaction of this kind, was not deemed to add to the strength of his title.
Close In most of the colonies, the *571 doctrine was received, that all titles ot land must be derived exclusively from the crown, upon the principle that the settlers carried with them, not only all the rights, but all the duties of Englishmen; and particularly the laws of property, so far as they are suitable to their new condition.
Close In New-England alone, some lands have been held under Indian deeds. But this was an anomaly arising from peculiar local and political causes

46. Indian Removal Act
In 1838 and 1839, as part of Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy, the Cherokee nation was forced to give up its lands east of the Mississippi River
and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears," because of its devastating effects. The migrants faced hunger, disease, and exhaustion on the forced march. Over 4,000 out of 15,000 of the Cherokees died.

47. 1835 - The Texas Rangers are organized to campaign against the Comanche.
Second Seminole War. Osceola dies in prison in 1838.
Smallpox epidemic among Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara tribes of the upper Missouri. From , at least four different smallpox epidemics ravage western tribes.
Osceola was the defiant young leader of the Seminole in their resistance to Indian emigration. In 1835 he plunged his knife into the treaty he was asked to sign that would move his people from their swamplands in the Southeast to the unoccupied territory west of the Mississippi.

48. 1834 - Congress reorganizes the Indian offices, creating the U. S
Congress reorganizes the Indian offices, creating the U.S. Department of Indian Affairs (War Department). The Trade and Intercourse Act redefines the Indian Territory and Permanent Indian Frontier, and gives the army the right to quarantine Indians.
“From the Red River along the north border of Texas to the lower Missouri River along the northern border of Nebraska.”

50. In the United States, an Indian reservation is land which is managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs. The land is federal territory and Native Americans have limited national sovereignty.

51. Westward Expansion The pattern is set: Treaty Treaty is Broken
Move the Indians to Reservations
The Peace Commission at the Fort Laramie Treaty 1868
United States acquires 174 million acres of Indian lands through 52 treaties, all of which are subsequently broken by whites.

52. War between the United States and Mexico over the American annexation of Texas. Many Indian tribes become part of the United States.
Oregon Country becomes part of the United States as a result of a settlement with England.
Bureau of Indian Affairs transferred from the War Department to the Department of the Interior.
Cholera epidemic among the Indians of the Great Basin and southern plains.
Yuma and Mojave Uprising in California and Arizona.

53. War between the United States and Mexico the Spanish Southwest and its many Indian tribes become part of the United States.
GERONIMO
Mexican soldiers massacred his first wife and three children during a supposedly peaceful trading session in 1858, and as a result he hated all Mexicans for the rest of his life.
Geronimo (June 16, 1829–February 17, 1909) was a prominent Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache who long warred against the encroachment of the white man on tribal lands. Geronimo died on Feb. 17, 1909, a prisoner of war, unable to return to his homeland.
Famous Chiefs

54. 1851 - Treaty of Fort Laramie
Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Shoshone, Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara nations.
Safe passage for settlers on the Oregon Trail
Annuity in the amount of fifty K annually for fifty years
Roads and forts to be built in Indian territories
Congress later unilaterally cut appropriations for the treaty to ten years' annuities, and several tribes never received the commodities promised as payments.
Treaty of Fort Laramie Guaranteed the ownership of the Black Hills, and further land and hunting rights in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. The Powder River Country was to be henceforth closed to all whites.
In the 1870s Gold was discovered! The area was opened to white settlement and about one half of this reservation was confiscated by the United States government.

55. The Dawes Act and Assimilation
Indian children, seen as the key to assimilation, were forcibly taken from their homes and sent to school.
In 1887, the government instituted the Dawes Act to accelerate assimilation by dissolving the reservations and allotting land to individual Indians. Most tribes resisted, refusing to give up their culture and unique ways of life.

56. "...the real aim of [the Dawes Act] is to get at the Indians land and open it up for resettlement." - Senator Henry M. Teller, 1881
Congressman Henry Dawes once expressed his faith in the civilizing power of private property with the claim that to be civilized was to "wear civilized clothes...
cultivate the ground, live in houses, ride in Studebaker wagons, send children to school, drink whiskey [and] own property."
Studebaker Wagon

57. Tom Torlino, a Navajo who was "civilized" at an Indian Training School
To get on the Dawes Rolls, Native Americans had to "anglicize" their names. This bit of "melting pot" chicanery allowed agents of the government, to slip the names of their relatives and friends onto the Dawes Rolls and thus reap millions of acres of land for their friends and cronies.
Tom Torlino, a Navajo who was "civilized" at an Indian Training School
Land held by Native American tribes before the Dawes Act and 100 years later.
After extermination through disease and "pacification" by the Army, and relocation to reservations, the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 was seen as a humanitarian reform intended to help Native Americans.  It authorized the president to divide tribal lands into 160-acre land grants for each head of family and lesser amounts to others.  Unfortunately, it created new opportunities for land spoliation and disrupted traditional cultural bonds.  Land not distributed to Native American families was sold, and "land sharks" swindled many families out of their land.  In an effort to "Americanize" them, Indians were not only taught English but also discouraged from speaking native languages and forced to cut their hair.  Often they were encouraged to replace traditional religious customs with Christianity.  Some became successful farmers but many others remained frustrated and impoverished wards of the federal government.

58. Native children at the Carlisle Indian school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. This school forced native children removed from their home to be acculturated to white culture. Many of the children died because of bad food and conditions.

59. We Must Civilize and Educate the Indians
A conversation between Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe and one of the government commissioners who was trying to convince Chief Joseph of the advantages of having a government funded school located on the agency.
The following conversation was recorded between Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe and one of the government commissioners who was trying to convince Chief Joseph of the advantages of having a government funded school located on the agency. "Why do you not want schools?" the commissioner asked. "They will teach us to have churches," Joseph answered. "Do you not want churches?" "No, we do not want churches." "Why do you not want churches?" "They will teach us to quarrel about God [translated Great Spirit in other places]," Joseph said. "We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about God. We do not want to learn about that."
Why do you not want schools?" the commissioner asked. "They will teach us to have churches," Joseph answered. "Do you not want churches?" "No, we do not want churches." "Why do you not want churches?" "They will teach us to quarrel about God, Joseph said. "We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about God. We do not want to learn about that."
The following conversation was recorded between Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe and one of the government commissioners who was trying to convince Chief Joseph of the advantages of having a government funded school located on the agency. "Why do you not want schools?" the commissioner asked. "They will teach us to have churches," Joseph answered. "Do you not want churches?" "No, we do not want churches." "Why do you not want churches?" "They will teach us to quarrel about God [translated Great Spirit in other places]," Joseph said. "We do not want to learn that. We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on this earth, but we never quarrel about God. We do not want to learn about that." (2). What the Native Americans wanted was the ability to teach their own children their own ways without government interference. Not only was the government wanting to control their lands, their food and their belongings, but they wanted to change the lifestyles of the "savages" so they would be "civilized" like the white man. In other words, the Native American had to think like the white man. Chief Joseph saw the encroachment of a value system that he saw as corrupt being forced upon his people. The issue at hand here is individual conscience about right and wrong, religious beliefs and ethnic values, being replaced by an overriding dominance of another. Had the roles been reversed, would the commissioner have been as accepting of Native American schools and Nez Perce religious values taught in the white man's cities? The white man could not complacently accept the Native American's answer of "no, we do not want your religion o

60. His Motto, "Kill the Indian, save the man"
Captain Richard Henry Pratt, 10th Cavalry, founder of the Carlisle School for Indian Students
His Motto, "Kill the Indian, save the man"
Contrary to his argument for assimilation, federal policy served to continue the segregation of Indians on the increasingly squalid reservations.
The terms of the Treaty of Fort Laramie concluded in 1868 granted the Lakota a single large reservation that covered parts of North Dakota, South Dakota, and four other states. However, about one half of this reservation was confiscated by the United States government.
Today, the reservation does not have water and sewer systems, making it difficult to live in sanitary conditions. With few jobs available many tribal members have no job and two-thirds of the population survives on much less than one-third the American average income.

61. Custer’s Black Hills Camp
The Black Hills of Dakota are sacred to the Sioux Indians. Disputes continue to this day.
Custer’s Black Hills Camp
The Black Hills of Dakota are sacred to the Sioux Indians. In the 1868 treaty, signed at Fort Laramie and other military posts in Sioux country, the United States recognized the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation, set aside for exclusive use by the Sioux people. However, after the discovery of gold there in 1874, the United States confiscated the land in To this day, ownership of the Black Hills remains the subject of a legal dispute between the U.S. government and the Sioux.

62. Black Kettle John Chivington
At Sand Creek on November 29, 1864, John Chivington led the Colorado Volunteers in a dawn attack on Black Kettle and his band, who had been told they would be safe on this desolate reservation. Two hundred Cheyenne men, women and children were slaughtered, and their corpses often grotesquely mutilated, in a massacre that shocked the nation.
Black Kettle’s repeated efforts to secure a peace with honor for his people, despite broken promises and attacks on his own life, speak of
Black Kettle
John Chivington
him as a great leader with an almost unique vision of the possibility for coexistence between white society and the culture of the plains.
The butcher of Sand Creek, stands out as one of the most controversial figures in the history of the American West.

63. Sitting Bull ( ) - He had distinguished himself from an early age as a leader, killing his first buffalo at ten and "counting coup" (touching the enemy without their knowing) at fourteen. Because of his leadership during these times he was named principle chief of the Teton Sioux Nation in 1867.
“Now that we are poor, we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die, we die defending our rights.”
“What white man can say I never stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say that I am a thief.”
“What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and left me unfed? Who has seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken?”

64. In 1876, the Battle of Little Bighorn.
General Sheridan issues orders forbidding western Indians to leave reservations without permission of civilian agents.
White hunters begin wholesale killing of buffalo.
Indian burial grounds invaded by whites seeking bones for manufacture of buttons.
Sioux War for the Black Hills, involving the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapahos, under Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.
In 1876, the Battle of Little Bighorn.

65. The Battle of the Little Bighorn, 1876
In late 1875, Sioux and Cheyenne Indians defiantly left their reservations, outraged over the continued intrusions of whites into their sacred lands in the Black Hills.
The Army dispatched three columns to attack in coordinated fashion. In less than an hour, Custer and his men were killed in one of the worst American military disasters ever.
Sitting Bull was given major credit for the defeat.
Within a year, the Sioux nation was defeated and broken. "Custer's Last Stand" was their last stand as well.

66. He died in 1904, still in exile from his homeland
Flight of the Nez Perce
General Oliver Otis Howard threatened a cavalry attack to force Joseph's band and other hold-outs onto the reservation. Believing military resistance futile, Joseph reluctantly led his people toward Idaho.
What followed was one of the most brilliant military retreats in American history. General Sherman could not help but be impressed with the 1,400 mile march, stating that "the Indians throughout displayed a courage and skill that elicited universal praise... [they] fought with almost scientific skill, using advance and rear guards, skirmish lines, and field fortifications." In over three months, the band of about 700, fewer than 200 of whom were warriors, fought 2,000 U.S. soldiers and Indian auxiliaries in four major battles and numerous skirmishes.
"Chief Joseph" ( )
He died in 1904, still in exile from his homeland

67. “It is cold, and we have no blankets
“It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are -- perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”
Although he had surrendered with the understanding that he would be allowed to return home, Joseph and his people were instead taken first to eastern Kansas and then to a reservation in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) where many of them died of epidemic diseases.

68. By the 1880's the U.S. government had managed to confine almost all of the Indians on reservations, usually on land so poor that the white man could conceive of no use for it themselves. The rations and supplies that had been guaranteed them by the treaties were of poor quality, if they arrived at all. Graft and corruption were rampant in the Indian Bureau.
For several years following their subjugation in 1877, 1878, and 1879 the most dangerous element of the Cheyenne and the Sioux were under military control. Many of them were disarmed and dismounted; their war ponies were sold and the proceeds returned to them in domestic stock, farming utensils, wagons, etc.
The Ghost Dance

69. Wovoka, the Paiute medicine man and mystic whose visions of a world without white men, renewed by the spirits of the dead, inspired the late 1880's Ghost Dance movement among western tribes.
Representatives from tribes all over the nation came to Nevada to meet with Wovoka and learn to dance the Ghost Dance and to sing Ghost Dance songs.
“When you get home you must make a dance to continue five days. Dance four successive nights, and the last night keep up the dance until the morning of the fifth day, when all must bathe in the river and then disperse to their homes.”

70. According to the prophecy, the recent times of suffering for Indians had been brought about by their sins, but now they had withstood enough under the whites.
Arapaho Ghost Dance
Indians had to live harmoniously and honestly, cleanse themselves often, and shun the ways of the whites, especially alcohol, the destroyer.
The Ghost Dance religion promised an apocalypse in the coming years. The earth would be destroyed, only to be recreated with the Indians as the inheritors of the new earth.

71. An Army Officer Looking at the Dead
White officials became alarmed at the religious fervor and activism and in December 1890 banned the Ghost Dance on Lakota reservations.
Wounded Knee Officers
The Indians were rounded up and ordered to set up camp at Wounded Knee.
The soldiers now numbered around 500; the Indians 350, all but 120 of these women and children.
An Army Officer Looking at the Dead

72. "Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy
"Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy....We need protection and we need it now. The leaders should be arrested and confined at some military post until the matter is quieted, and this should be done now."
Colonel James Forsyth arrived to take command and ordered his guards to place four Hotchkiss cannons in position around the camp. He was ordered to arrest Bigfoot and Sitting Bull.
Miniconjou Chief Big Foot lies dead in the snow. He was among the first to die on December 29, 1890

73. The soldiers tried to disarm the Indians
The soldiers tried to disarm the Indians. A scuffle ensued and the shooting began.
When the Indians ran to take cover, the Hotchkiss artillery opened up on them, cutting down men, women, children alike, the sick Big Foot among them.
"The terrible effect may be judged from the fact that one woman survivor, Blue Whirlwind...received fourteen wounds, while each of her two little boys was also wounded by her side..." (James Mooney, 1896, The Ghost Dance Religion)

74. Nelson A. Miles who was the ranking officer had this to say:
"Wholesale massacre occurred and I have never heard of a more brutal, cold-blooded massacre than that at Wounded Knee. About two hundred women and children were killed and wounded; women with little children on their backs, and small children powder burned by the men who killed them being so near as to burn the flesh and clothing with the powder of their guns, and nursing babes with five bullet holes through them....
Col. Forsyth is responsible… allowing his troops to be in such a position that the line of fire of every troop was in direct line of their own comrades or their camp"

75. By the end of this brutal, unnecessary violence, which lasted less than an hour, at least 150 Indians had been killed and 50 wounded. Forsyth was later charged with killing the innocents, but exonerated.
It has been called both a battle and a massacre, but what Wounded Knee has come to symbolize is a clash of cultures and a failed government Indian policy. It was the last Indian resistance until the siege of 1973.