Challenges Faced by Homesteaders in Western Migration

1. ENTRY #7, PART A: (start film at 11:51 mark) As you watch today’s film The Story of Us – “Heartland”, make a list of the challenges faced by Homesteaders during Western Migration/Settlement. And, how did the Homesteaders face these challenges? ENTRY #7, PART B: 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? ENTRY #7

2. Native Americans in the West

3. Native Americans in the “Great American Desert” • 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. Go to map assignment packet

4. More Threats to the Indians Way of Life • Disease: killed tribesmen and weakened the native peoples. • Killing the Buffalo: The Buffalo herds supported the Plains Indian’s way of life. They were wiped out by over-hunting by white hunters and by the spread of the railroads.

5. Many Native Americans, especially Plains Indians (ex. Sioux & Comanche), rebelled as their way of life was threatened; as treaties (such as the 1867 Treaty of Medicine Lodge & 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie) were broken; and as they were forced into smaller and smaller , & increasingly impoverished areas (Reservations). Indian attacks on American settlements, stagecoach lines, etc. were met with strong US Army force, especially after the Civil War. The Indian Wars were fought on and off from 1860 to 1890 in the Western States… Rebellion and War

6. The Indian Wars • Red River War in Texas, 1874-75 (Comanche and Kiowa defeated) • In 1875, Gold was struck in the Black Hills of Montana and South Dakota, and there was a gold rush for Sioux/Lakota hunting territory, leading to the Battle of Little Big Horn… • June, 1876 - General George Custer led his 250 troops against 2,000 Sioux/Lakota, led by Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. Custer was killed, bringing an onslaught of US forces against the Souix to avenge Custer. (Sioux defeated) Sitting Bull Crazy Horse

7. Crazy Horse Monument – South Dakota

9. In 1877, US federal government (Bureau of Indian Affairs) decided to move the Nez Perce people of Idaho to a smaller reservation to make room for white settlers. Chief Joseph (his Nez Perce Name translates to “Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain”) decided, instead, to lead his people on a trek to Canada over 1300 miles, but was stopped short at the border, and his people were moved to a barren reservation in Oklahoma (Later to be relocated, after 1889 Land Rush There Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce

11. Ghost Dance War • A religious movement that appealed to Native American desperation in late 1880s. • Indians thought it would bring them protection. • The Movement worried White Government officials, who thought it would lead to further rebellion... Lakota version of the Ghost Dance believed that it would bring "renewed Earth" in which "all evil is washed away" Wovoka—Paiute spiritual leader and creator of the Ghost Dance

12. Wounded Knee • 1890 – the Government order the arrest of Sitting Bull, who had escaped during Little Big Horn and who continued to have a large following of Native American resistors. He was killed, and his people fled… • US troops caught up with them at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. • More than 100 men women and children were massacred by the US Cavalry, ending the Ghost Dance War and the Indian Wars in General. http://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/wounded-kneehttp://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/wounded-knee

13. The New Plan: Assimilation • The reservation policy was an obvious failure (and expensive to maintain). • The new plan was to force Indians to become farmers and assimilateto 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.

14. Boarding schools in which Indian children were taught to how be white. Indian Schools https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1jLVZXjG7U; (20 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1waOvZ9qvE (50 min)

15. Century of Dishonor • Some people worked on behalf of the Native American cause, including people like Helen Hunt Jackson. • Her book, Century of Dishonor criticized the government’s numerous broken treaties and dishonorable dealings with Indian tribes. • Addressing these issues will be another civil rights movement of the later 20th Century