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Discovery of Gold in Colorado
The Gold Rush led to tens of thousands of people trying to make it to California.This highlighted, among other things, the need for a better way to get to California.That need helped lead to the construction of the transcontinental railroad. The railroads would become the greatest drivers of westward expansion because they brought people west and allowed the things they produced to be shipped east. -
Sand Creek Massacre
The Sand Creek massacre was an incident in the Indian Wars of the United States that occurred on November 29, 1864, when Colorado Territory militia attacked and destroyed a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho encamped on the eastern plains -
Treaty of Fort Laramie
Term
The US government guaranteed ownership of the Black Hills to the Lakota Sioux,along with other land and hunting rights guaranteed in parts of Wyoming, Montana,and the western half of South Dakota.
Failures
The treaty failed because the US government ignored it.Almost immediately after the treaty,gold was discovered in the Black Hills,and white prospectors flooded into the area.When this caused conflict with the Sioux,the government backd the whites and seized the area using military force. -
Custer’s Last Stand
Custer was defeated at the Battle of the Little Bighorn because he made a lot of fundamental errors.instead of going round the Wolf mountains, Custer force-marched his men through the mountains. His troops and horses arrived tired after the long march.He weakened his forces by dividing them into three.He expected the Sioux warriors to scatter and run. Instead they out maneuvered and surrounded him.He was hugely outnumbered.He was arrogant and over-confident. -
The Dawes Act
Authorized the President of the United States to survey American Indian land and divide it into shares for individual Indians. The law was suppose to turn Native Americans into farmers and civilize them so they could better take in the white man's world. Americanizing the Native Americans meant changing or transforming their culture into the European culture. Americanization policies were based on the idea that when indigenous people learned American customs and values. -
The Ghost Dance Movement and the Battle of Wounded Knee
The Ghost Dance was a new religious movement incorporated into numerous American Indian belief systems.In these belief systems, Indians thought the dance would reunite the living with spirits of the dead, bring the spirits of the dead to fight on their behalf, make the white colonists leave, and bring peace, prosperity, and unity to Indian peoples throughout the region.In the Wounded Knee Massacre the US Army forces killed at least 153 Miniconjou and Hunkpapa from the Lakota people. -
Invasion, by gold miners, of the Sioux’s Sacred Black Hills
The Black Hills are located in South Dakota. Sitting Bull was a Native American chief who led the Sioux tribes in the Black Hills.