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Unit 5 End of the Indians in the Great Plains 1868-1900. History of the West. Force vs. Peace. Background Jeffersonian Indians should be removed to distance them from worst of American fur traders Cheated them or traded them whiskey Jacksonian
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Unit 5 End of the Indians in the Great Plains 1868-1900 History of the West
Force vs. Peace • Background • Jeffersonian • Indians should be removed to distance them from worst of American fur traders • Cheated them or traded them whiskey • Jacksonian • Indians were inferior and should be removed to make way for American expansion • Condescending perspective, much like that of slave owners toward their slaves
Indian Sovereignty • Early Years Europeans had to recognize Indian sovereignty because they could overwhelm colonials • Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia • Domestic, dependent nations • By 1871 congressional legislation sought to eliminate all Indian sovereignty • Transfer issues • political battle over whether Indian policy should be held by the Department of War or Department of Interior
Peace Policy • Some Easterners who saw what was happening on the plains as genocide • Wanted Indian policy in the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) • Senator James Doolittle • Wisconsin Senator Chair of the Indians Affairs Committee • Pushed a bill through Congress to setup an ad hoc committee of 3 senators and 4 house members • Convinced President Johnson to give committee a commission to negotiate treaties • A few Indian nations signed, but most were too angry and not yet pacified
Wars of peace policy • For over a decade policy vacillated between peace and force • Peace advocates tried to implement Concentration • Negotiated by Doolittle’s committee • Whenever Indians left reservations force policy kicked into action
Red Cloud’s War • June 1866 a peace commission under Doolittle met with Dakota and allied leaders • The Bozeman road had been laid out to connect the mine fields of Montana with the Oregon Trail • Cut through some of the best remaining hunting grounds for Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho • While negotiating, Indians see Colonel Henry Carrington come through with construction equipment and men setup three forts to protect travelers
Red Cloud’s War(Con’t) • Indians stormed out and lay siege to the forts • Brought construction to a near halt • Fetterman’s Massacre (Battle of a hundred Slain) • Indians win • In late 1868, Army vacated the forts, and the Indians burned them to the ground • The military blamed it on the BIA’s failure to stop the arms trade • BIA blamed it on military blunders • Indians then come back to negotiate
Taylor Peace Commission • Doolittle lost his Senate seat in the 1866 term elections • Replaced by Senator John Henderson of Missouri as Chair of the Indian Affairs Committee • Tried to appease all by selecting equal number of “force” and “peace advocates • “Peace” • Henderson, Nathaniel Taylor, Samuel Tappan • “Force” • General William S. Harney, Alfred Terry, William T. Sherman
New Reservation treaties • Peace Commission renegotiates treaties • Treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek (1867) • Second Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) • Similarities in treaties • Reservations with outlets • No unwelcome whites on reservations • Thirty years of annuities • Some in the South on “Reconstruction Treaties” lands • Promises of “assimilation” tools
Division of Great Plains • September 1867, the plains were divided into a northern division and southern division • General Philip Sheridan appointed to lead the Northern • Known as the division of the Missouri • His aggressive, Civil War, tactics played a big role in turning the tide
Battle of the Washita • Black Kettle and his band were one of the few that moved to the place mandated • He couldn’t control the Dog Soldiers that moved into and out of his encampment • General Sherman called it all out war • November 27, 1868 George Armstrong Custer and his 7th U.S. Calvary attacked Black Kettle’s Southern Cheyenne camp on the Washita’s River
Battle of the Washita (Con’t) • Hazen tried to contact Sherman at nearby Fort Cobb to tell him that Black Kettle’s band had surrenered • But it was too late • Custer led one column in another “zeroing operation” • He attacked first, killing 875 horses, and then 102 men • A few women and children
Battle of Beecher’s Island • Angry over Sand Creek Massacre and opposed to Treaty of Medicine Lodge • Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho hit farms and travel routes killing 79 • September 16, 1868 Major George A. Forsyth led 50 frontiersmen out of Fort Hays • Camped on Arikaree Fork in Colorado Territory • Dog Soldiers under Roman Nose pinned them down on an island in the middle of the river • Armed with Spencer repeating rifles, frontiersmen withstood many assaults • Not conclusive who won
Satanta • Kiowa (Mother was Southern Arapaho) • Only reluctantly agreed to the treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek • Moved onto a reservation and ventured into the west to hunt buffalo • Their numbers were dwindling • When reservation agents punished withholding annuity food • They started raiding Wichita and Caddo villages
Satanta (Con’t) • Satanta and his friend and fellow headman, Big Tree, led their men in raids into Texas • Especially supply wagon trains, seeing it as not part of the U.S. and thus outside the Treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek • He and his men also considered their raiding as pay-back for annuities not delivered • Taken prisoner in 1871, with promises of his release only when his people obeyed the government’s mandate • To return to their reservation • The Indians complied
Big Tree Big Tree
Red River War • Isa-Tai, a Comanche shaman, united Indians the souther plains • Called for the first Comanche Sun Dance • Took little persuasion by Isa-Tai to convince Indian leaders they had to strike back • Southern Cheyenne, Southern Arapahos, Kiowas, Kiowa-Apache, and Comanche attacked the new settlement of buffalo hunters at Adobe Walls • An old Spanish mission
Red River War (Con’t) • In the early-morning hours of June 27, 1874, 300 Indians moved in hoping to surprise the buffalo hunters and overpower them • led by Isa-Tai and famed Comanche headman Quanah Parker • Although the 28 hunters were vastly outnumbered, they were well armed with long range “buffalo rifles” and held off the Indians • 70 Indians killed without 3 buffalo hunter casualties
Uprising of 1876 • Most Lakota and their allies, Northern Cheyenne, and Northern Arapaho moved onto the reserve after the Second Treaty of Fort Laramie • Gold discovered in the Black Hills in 1873 • The government first tried to keep whites out of the Black Hills but gave up and tried to keep Indians out • Then the usual thirty days warning for all Indians to come into the agencies
Battle of Little Bighorn • Sioux and Cheyenne defiantly left their reservations and gathered with Sitting Bull • Army sent three columns against them including Lt. Colonel George Custer • Those under Sioux leader Crazy Horse enveloped Custer’s men and killed them • Indians mutilated the bodies in order to force them to suffer in the afterlife • Battle was the pinnacle of Indians power • Created resentment toward Indians with American officials leading to the push to get retribution
Reservation Building • Conditions • Reservations reduced in size • Most located in land not suitable for agriculture • Goal of BIA was to turn Indians into self-sustaining farmers • Few jobs or ways of making a living • Poverty and starvation rampant • Bad housing/many live in tipis with no buffalo skins to cover them • High death rate • Had to live under the dictates of a reservation’s Indian agent • Enforced White man’s laws
Indian Police • Selected from ranks of Indian men, usually soldier sodalities • Enforced White law among Indians • No practice of traditional religion • No plural marriages • No practice of traditional political structure/agents chose leadership
Crow Policeman Ute Policeman
Carlisle • Lt. Richard Pratt • Worked with imprisoned Indian Soldiers in the 1870’s • Convinced the army to let him use old army barracks in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to setup a school • Sought to assimilate and teach young Indians • Major goal of the peace policy advocates • So successful initially that the government took over the school in 1882 and established many more off-reservation boarding schools thereafter
Carlisle (Con’t) • Controversies • students were forced to attend and many of their parents tried to hide them • Students had to work half a day to support the school • In the “outing system” students were placed in the homes of nearby white residents • Virtually slaves • Many returned to their reservations • Former students didn’t fit in and had a hard time adjusting
Carlisle Arapaho Before Carlisle Arapaho After
Dawes Severalty Act • Pushed through Congress by Henry Dawes in 1887 • Goal was to turn Indians away from communal land tenure to private land ownership • Divided reservations into individual plots • usually 160 acres for men and 80 acres for women and children • Promised farm equipment and training • No taxation on Indian lands
Dawes Severalty Act (Con’t) • After allotting reservation and assigning plots the remaining lands (Surplus lands) were opened to Whites to claim under homesteading laws • Bill was supported by Whites because they could buy “surplus lands” • Reformers thought assimilation was best for Indians and by the military • Money made through land sales was earmarked for the army
Dawes Severalty Act (Con’t) • Problems • Promoters soon realized that without knowledge of individual land ownership Indians would get cheated by Whites in land sales • So included in the bill a 25 year trust restriction on the land • Could not sell the land until the trust ended • Little farming equipment or training in farming • No help in private land ownership was forthcoming
Loss of Allotted Land • Most allotment accomplished by 1900 • Indians lost over 87 million acres of “surplus lands” • 1894 bill authorized the Secretary of Interior to grant easements across allotted lands for telephone and telegraphy lines • By 1902 the “Dead Indian Act” allowed adult heirs to sell their deceased relatives land
Ghost Dance • Started with Piute Indian Tavibo • In 1870 he had a vision telling him that deliverance was near • Whites would be destroyed in an earthquake • Indians would be spared and the world would be restored to the old order • Few initially believed so he had a second revelation • Same as first however Indians would be resurrected on the third day • Still few follow so he had a third vision • Only the Indians that believed in the Ghost Dance would be resurrected
Wovoka (Jack Wilson) • Took over his father’s work on the Ghost Dance • Saw himself as the next Christ after the first one had been killed • His version included frequent bathing, rejecting alcohol and no violence • Dancing for five consecutive days demonstrated ones’ worthiness • Gave Indians vision of a restored world once Whites were eliminated in cataclysm
Massacre at Wounded Knee Creek • Lakota had become divided • Some had assimilated • Role of Shaman had faded • Political leadership was changing • Continuing loss of land • Allotment Act - 2nd Treaty of Fort Laramie required 3/4 vote for the government to take anymore land • Government won the vote using scare tactics and bribery
Massacre at Wounded Knee Creek (Con’t) • Lakota believed that the “Ghost Shirts” would protect them from bluecoats’ bullets • During the fall of 1890 the Ghost Dance spread through the Sioux villages of the Dakota Reservations • Revitalized the Indians and brought fear to the Whites • A desperate Indian Agent at Pine Ridge wired a message to Washington • “Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy... We need protection and we need it now.” • Order went out to arrest Sitting Bull at the Standing Rock Reservation • Sitting Bull was killed in the attempt on December 15 by Indian Police
Massacre at Wounded Knee Creek (Con’t) • On December 15 Sitting Bull had been killed • The reason given for the shooting claimed that he had resisted arrest • Many fled to Spotted Elk’s band due to his reputation as a peaceful leader • Yet, after slaying of Sitting Bull Spotted Elk was put on the list of “fomenters of disturbances” and arrested • Lakota had sent representatives to learn Wovoka’s new religion • 7th Calvary commanded by Major Samuel Whiteside intercepted Spotted Elk’s band of Lakota and took them westward to Wounded Knee Creek to camp
Massacre at Wounded Knee Creek (Con’t) • The rest of 7th Cavalry arrived and surrounded Spotted Elk’s encampment with four Hotchkiss guns • Morning of December 29 the troops went into the camp to disarm the Sioux • During the process a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote would not give up his gun • A scuffle ensued where a shot was fired • Led to the Cavalry opening fire with the their guns and killing all in their path • Women, children and fellow troopers • All in all, at least 150 men, women and children of Lakota had been killed • Only 25 American troops died, most to friendly fire • End of Indian dominance in the Great Plains