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Great Plain Reservation
The federal government had passed an act that designated the entire Great Plains as one enormous reservation, or land set aside for Native American tribes. -
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Government's policy toward Native American land
The government changed its policy and created treaties taht defined specific boundaries for each tribe. Most Native Americans spurned the government traties and continued to hunt on their traditional land, clashing with settlers and miners. -
Massacre at sand creek
Most of the Cheyenne, assuming they were under the protection of U.S. government, had peacefully returned to Colorado's Sand Creek Reserve for the winter. Yet General S. R. Curtis, U.S. Army commander in the West, sent a telegram to milita colonel John Chivington. In respose, Chivington and his troops descended on the Cheyenne and Arapaho camped at Sand Creek. The attat at dawn on November, and killed over 150 inhabitants -
Death on the Bozeman Trail
The Bozeman Trail ran directly through Sioux hunting grounds in the Bighorn Mountains. The Sioux chef, Red Cloud, had unsuccessfully appealed to the government to end white settlement on the trail.
In December, the warrior Crazy Horse ambushed Captain William J. Fetterman and his company at Lodge Trail Ridge. Over 80 soldiers were killed. -
Treaty of Fort Laramie
Skirmishes continued until the government agreed to close the Bozeman Trail. In return, the Treaty of Fort Laramie, in which the Siux agreed to live on a reservation along the Missouri River, was forced on the leaders of the Siux in 1868. Sitting Bull had never signed it. Although the Ogala and Brule Sioux did sign the treaty, they expected to continue isung their traditional hunting grounds. -
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Red River War
In late 1868, war broke out yet again as the Kiowa and Comanche engaged in six years of raiding that finally led to the Red River War. -
Custer's Last Stand
The Siux and Cheyenne held a sun, during which Sitting Bull had a visiom of soldiers and some Native Americans falling from their horses. When Colonel Custer and his trops reached the Little Bighorn River, the Native Americans were ready for them.
Led by Crazy Horse, Gall, and Sitting Bull, the warriors outflanked and crushed Custer's troops. Within an hour, Custer and all of the men of the Seventh Cavalry were dead. -
The Dawnes Act
In 1887, Congress passe the Dawes Act aiming to Americanzie the Native Americans. The Act broke up the reservations and gave some of the reservation land to individual Native Americans - 160 acres to each head of household and 80 acres to each unmarried adult. The government would sell the remainder of the reservations to settlers, and the resulting income would be used by Native Americans to buy farm implements. -
Wounded Knee
The Seventh Cacvalry rounded up about 350 starving and freezing Siux and took them to a camp at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. The next day, the soldiers demanded that the Native Americans give up all their weapons. Ashot was fired; from which side, it was not clear. The soldiers opened fire with deadly cannon. Within minutes, the Seveth Cavalry slaughtered as many as 300 mostly unarmed Native Americans, including several children. This event, the Battle of Wounded Knee, borught the Indian
