Reservations

1. Reservations

2. What are reservations? • An area of land managed by a Native American Tribe under the United States Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs

3. Purpose and Beginnings • By the mid-1800s, it became clear that U.S. expansion was heading west of the Mississippi River • Americans believed in “Manifest Destiny”- that it was their destiny, ordained by God, to acquire all lands to the Pacific Ocean • Unspecified tracts of land in Indian Territory had to be more sharply defined and measured into reservations, to make room for white settlement • In 1851, the United States Congress passed the Native American Appropriations Act which authorized the creation of Native American reservations in modern day Oklahoma.

4. Effects of Reservations • Indian people were infuriated by the policy of reservations and resisted giving up their homelands • Leaders and chiefs emerged to resist the reservation policy • A series of battles, the Indian Wars, began which lasted during the last half of the 19th century

5. The Fort Laramie Treaty • In 1851, the Treaty of Fort Laramie was signed between various tribes of the Great Plains and the U.S. government • The treaty was intended to insure peace on the Great Plains, as white settlement increased in the region • Tribes had been attacking whites and warring with each other over territory