Name______Date______8th grade SS

THE WAY OF LIFE ENDS FOR THE PLAINS INDIANS

Historical Context: Conflict began between settlers and the Plains Indians as early as the 1840s. When railroads were built, and homesteaders and miners began moving west, they crossed Indian hunting grounds and upset the Indians. The U.S. government tried to protect the Americans with the U.S. military. However, conflict with the Native Americans began.

The Chivington (Sand Creek) Massacre (1864)

In 1864, Colonel John Chivington led his militia against a Cheyenne village at Sand Creek, Colorado. The Cheyenne leaders had come to a U.S. fort asking for protection, but Chivington believed that the only way to deal with Native Americans was – as he put it – “exterminating the Red Devils.” When Chivington attacked, the Indians raised both a white flag of surrender and the flag of the United States. Chivington ignored the flags. He ordered his men to destroy the village and take no prisoners. In the Chivington Massacre, the militia slaughtered more than 200 men, women and children. Chivington was first honored as a hero, but as details about the massacre became public, people across the United States became outraged at the brutality and the bloodshed. No formal charges were brought against Chivington, but he was forced to resign from the military.

Fort Laramie Treaties (mid-1800s)

As white settlers moved west in the mid-1800s, they came into conflict with the Plains Native Americans. The federal government officials met with Indian leaders near Fort Laramie in Wyoming. The officials asked each nation to keep to a limited area and stop following the buffalo. In return, the officials promised the natives money, domestic animals, agricultural tools, and other goods. Officials told the Native Americans that the lands reserved for them would be theirs forever. Unfortunately, when gold was discovered in the region, the whites violated the treaty and moved onto reservations (lands set aside for the natives.)

The Battle of Little Bighorn (1876)

In 1874, prospectors found gold in the Black Hills region of the Sioux (SOO) reservation in present day South Dakota. Thousands of miners rushed to the area. Led by Sioux chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, the Indians fought back in what became known as the Sioux War of 1876.

In June 1876, Colonel George A. Custer led soldiers into the Little Bighorn Valley. Indian scouts warned Custer that there were many Sioux and Cheyennes camped ahead. Custer did not wait for more soldiers. Instead, he attacked the village with only 225 men. Custer did not know the amount of Indians fighting under Sitting Bull. Custer’s forces were outnumbered and as a result all of his men died in the Battle of Little Bighorn.

The Indian victory as the Little Bighorn was short-lived. The army soon defeated the Sioux and the Cheyennes. Then, Congress ordered that no food rations (supplies) be distributed to the Indians until they agreed to the government’s demands. To avoid starvation, the Sioux gave up all their lands in the Black Hills and other territory. In this way, they surrendered about one third of the lands that the United States government had guaranteed them by the Fort Laramie Treaty.

The Ghost Dance

Many Indians longed for their lost way of life. As the railroads moved west, buffalo hunting became a fashionable sport. Trainloads of easterners shot the animals from the comfort of railroad cars. Then, in the 1870s, buffalo hide blankets became popular in the East. Commercial hunters began shooting 2 to 3 million buffalo every year. The number of buffalo fell from 13 million in 1860 to a few hundred in 1900.

In 1889, word spread that the Great Spirit would make a new world for his people, free from whites and filled with plenty. To bring about this new world, all the Indians had to do was dance the Ghost Dance, which celebrated the time when Native Americans lived freely on the Plains. Ghost Dancers painted their faces red, put on the sacred Ghost Dance shirt, and joined hands in a large spinning circle. Some believed that the shirt protected them from harm, even from the bullets of soldiers’ guns.

Many white settlers grew alarmed. The Ghost Dancers, they said, were preparing for war. The settlers persuaded the U.S. government to outlaw the Ghost Dance. In December 1890, police officers entered a Sioux reservation to arrest Sitting Bull. They claimed that he was spreading the Ghost Dance among the Sioux. In the struggle that followed, Sitting Bull was accidentally shot and killed.

Battle of Wounded Knee (1890) Upset by Sitting Bull’s death, groups of Sioux fled the reservations. Army troops pursued them to Wounded Knee Creek, in present-day South Dakota. On December 29, the Indians were preparing to surrender. As nervous troops watched, the Indians began to give up their guns. Suddenly, a shot rang out. The army opened fire with rifles and artillery. By the time the shooting stopped, nearly 300 Native American men, women and children lay dead. About 25 soldiers also died. The fighting at Wounded Knee marked the end of the Ghost Dance religion.

The Dawes Act (1887)

Calls for reform led Congress to pass the Dawes Act in 1887. The act encouraged Native Americans to become farmers. Some tribal lands were divided up and given to individual Native American families. Native American males each received 160 acres to farm. The act set up schools to make Native American children more like other Americans. “Kill the Indian to save the man” was the U.S. policy of assimilation used to pressure Indians to be like mainstream society - whites.

The Dawes Act worked poorly. To Native Americans, land was an open place for riding and hunting—not something to divide into small plots. As a result, Indians often sold their plots to whites for low prices. In the end, Native Americans lost more than one half of the land that they had owned before the passage of the Dawes Act. Federal agents replaced native leaders, and Native Americans had to give up traditional ways like the buffalo hunt. As a result, they remained poor. Many grew dependent on the government for food and supplies. Native American “Tom” Torino