History of the West

1. Unit 5 End of the Indians in the Great Plains 1868-1900 History of the West

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. Senator James Doolittle

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. The Bozeman Road

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. Dog Soldiers

14. 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

15. 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

16. Battle Plan

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. Big Tree Big Tree

21. Buffalo Hunting

22. 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

23. 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

24. Red River War

25. 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

26. 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

27. The Second Treaty of Fort Laramie

28. Battle of Little Bighorn

29. Battle of Little Bighorn

30. 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

31. Starving Indians

32. 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

33. Crow Policeman Ute Policeman

34. 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

35. 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

36. Carlisle Arapaho Before Carlisle Arapaho After

37. Off-reservation boarding school students and graduates

38. 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

39. 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

40. 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

41. Surplus lands promoted

42. 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

43. 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

44. 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

45. Wovoka (Jack Wilson)

46. 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

47. 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

48. Ghost Shirt

49. 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

50. 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