The Conquest of the Far West

1. The Conquest of the Far West Chapter 26

2. In the late 19th century ‘the west’ would have been land west of the Mississippi River • Anglo-migration would encounter • Eastern Indian tribes (moved during Jacksonian Period) forcibly resettled in ‘Oklahoma Territory’ such as Cherokee & Creek • Midwestern Plains Indians; diverse group of tribes including the Sioux Nation & the Cheyenne • Primarily nomadic buffalo hunting peoples • Far Western tribes like the Pueblos had lived amongst Spanish settlers since the 1600s • US government’s treatment of the Indian was criticized by Helen Hunt Jackson in A Century of Dishonor (1881) Societies of the Far West

3. Understanding of the 19th century west is often mythical due to” • Late 19th Century ‘Rocky Mountain School’ of artists inspired by the untouched west • Albert Bierstadt • Mark Twain’s early literary efforts were about his youth on the Mississippi River or young adulthood in Nevada • Cowboy Myth • Cowboys were often poor young men (sometimes former slaves) who worked on western ranches & cattle drives • Popular in western novels like ‘The Virginian’ • Wild West Shows –’Buffalo Bill’ & Annie Oakley; gunslingers The Romance of the West

4. Albert Bierstadt ‘Mt. Rainier’

5. Whites saw the west as ‘virgin land’ waiting for them to tame • Presence of the Indians did not fit this ideal • Us gov’t Indian Peace Commission in 1867 decided to move all of the Plains Indians into two reservations, one in the Oklahoma Territory and another in the ‘Dakotas’ • No more individual tribal treaties; Indians expected to form permanent settlements • Railroad building, fad for hides & settlers were decimating the buffalo –main Indian food source • Nearly all of the 15 million killed b/w 1865 - 1885 The Dispersal of the Tribes

6. Starting in the 1850s, Indians in small parties of 30 – 40 began attacking wagon trains & ranches; eventually soldiers • Sand Creek Massacre (1864) –US army retaliated in CO against Cheyenne & Arapaho attacks more than 130 ‘friendly’ Indians ‘Indian Hunting’

7. Battle of the Little Big Horn, MT (1876) -Sioux left their Dakota reservation in 1875 under the leadership of Sitting Bull & Crazy Horse • Gen. George A. Custer & the 264 men of the 7th Cavalry attacked –no US soldiers survived • Within two years the Sioux were forced back to their reservations • Wounded Knee, SD (1890) –Last major fight b/w US army & the Sioux. More than 300 Indians killed

8. Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 • Provided for the gradual elimination of tribal ownership • 160 acres to a family or 80 acres to an individual • Could not gain full title to the land for 25yrs • Applied to all tribes but the Pueblo • Assimilation with Anglo ways was a major goal • Prevented Indian rituals like the Ghost Dance; and mandated Christian Church attendance • Children often removed and sent to boarding schools The Dawes Act