1. Native Americans in the West
By Danielle Fox and Sam DePue

2. The First Sparks
Immigrants were pouring into western land after the civil war, regardless of the fact that it was already inhabited by thousands of Native Americans
The first federal action concerning Native Americans is federal agents took delegation of multiple Indian tribes and took their chiefs eastward in order to impress them in 1863

3. Before Gov’t invasion
In 1865, nearly a quarter million Native Americans lived in the west
2/3 of them lived on the Great Plains
At this time, submission tactics by the government started to come into place

4. Chivington Massacre
1864- Chief Black Kettle camped his tribe on Sand Creek in Colorado
A Colorado militia led by Colonel John Chivington led a brutal attack killed nearly 200 Indian men, women, and children
As a result, Congress appointed an investigating committee that concluded a treaty with Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians
Were still forced to surrender their Sand Creek reservation

5. Great Sioux War
Started by the invasion of Indian lands by gold miners and intensified by the announcing of plans to connect the mining towns by the construction of the Bozeman Trail through Sioux hunting grounds
Chief Red Cloud lured Captain William Fetterman into the wilderness where he then ambused and wiped out all of his soldiers

6. Great Sioux War cont. 2 This was known as the Fetterman Massacre
Halted work on the trail
Congress created a Peace Commission of 4 civilians and 3 generals in order to end the war and eliminate permanently the causes Indian warfare
Their solution: small reservations, teaching Indians modern farming, and gradually civilizing

7. Great Sioux War cont. 3
54,000 Native Americans residing on the Northern Plains would be moved to reservations North of the Black Hills in Dakota Territory
86,000 Native Americans residing on the Southern Plains would be moved into present day Oklahoma
Both areas were to be supervised by government agents

8. Great Sioux War cont. 4
The Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, and Arapaho agreed to the plan in 1867
The Sioux in 1868
The Ute, Shoshone, Bannock, Navajo, and Apache tribes also accepted small reservations
Young warriors and minor chiefs soon denounced treaties and drifted back to old land

9. Black Hills Gold Rush of 1875
Rain-in-the-Face, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull led the Sioux army after gold miners were entreating on their land
US Army sent several columns of troops but Lt. Colonel George Armstrong pushed recklessly ahead
On June 25, 1876, Cluster divided his column and took forward 265 men under the impression he had the small Indian band surronded

10. Black Hills cont. 2
Instead found a 2500 warrior camp instead of small band
US was hungry for revenge, beat Sioux into submission
3000 surrendered in October 1876
Sitting Bull and his followers fled to Canada after the war

11. Start of Wounded Knee
1890- Teton Sioux of South Dakota began performing Ghost Dances which grew from a vision of a Paiute Messiah, Wovaka
Dances were supposed to reunite the tribes and banish the whites from the Earth
Army tried to stop the dances which caused violence that led to the killing of Chief Sitting Bull
Frightened forces fled southwest to join Chief Big Foot

12. Wounded Knee
Troops of the 7th Cavalry caught them and took them to an army camp on Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota
A Native American first opened fire which was returned by the US’s new machine guns
Wounded Knee Massacre killed 200 Native Americans

13. An Attempt to Civilize
The next hassle of Indian life came by way of Assimilationists
Assimilationst- uses education, land policy, and federal law to eradicate tribal society
Native American youth were gathered from multiple tribes and brought to Indian schools were they were taught modern, Christian ways

14. Dawes Severalty Act
Congress thought that owning land will make Native Americans more responsible so they passed the Dawes Severalty Act
This act divided tribal lands into small plot to give to tribal members
A Family received 160 acres, Single Adult 80 acres, and a child 40 acres
Surplus sold to white with the profits going to Native American Schools

15. Dawes Severalty Act cont. 2
It is to be noted that the Surplus land was the most fertile, the Indians being given the worst, barren, undesirable land
American Citizenship was granted to Indians who accepted their land and “adopted the habits of a civilized life”
47 million acres of Indian land was distributed this way
1934- Gov’t returned to the idea of tribal land ownership but by then, the 138 million acres of Tribal Land had shrunken to 48 acres
Half of which was barren, useless land