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Great Plains Reservation
The federal government ha 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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Goverment Treaties
The government changed its policy and created treaties that defined specific boundaries for each tribe. Most Native Americans spurned the government treaties and continued to hunt on their traditional lands, clashing with settlers ad miners. -
Massacre at Sand Creek
Most of the Cheyenne, assuming they were under the protection of the 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 militia colonel John Chivington that read, "I want no peace till the Indians suffer more." In response, Chivington and his troops descended on the Cheyenne and Arapaho. The attack at dawn killed over 150 inhabitants, mostly women and children -
Battle of the Hundred Slain
The warrior crazy Crazy Horse ambushed Captain William J. Fetterman and his company at Lodge Trail Ridge. Over 80 soldiers killed. Whites called it the Fetterman Massacre. -
Treaty of Fort Laramie
Government agreed t close the Bozeman Trail. In return, the treaty of Fort Laramie, in which the Sioux agreed to live on a reservation along the Missouri River, was forced on the leaders of the Sioux in 1868. Stting Bull, leader of the Hunkpapa Sioux, had never signed it. -
Gold Rush
Colonel George A. Custer reported that the Black Hills had gold from the grass roots down. A gold rush had started. Red Cloud and Spotted Trail, another Sioux Chief, vainly appealed again to the government officials in Washington. -
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Red River War
The US Army respondedby herding the people of friendly tribes onto reservations while opening fire on all others. General Philip Sheridan, a Union Army veteran, gave orders "to destroy their villages and ponies, to kill and hang all warriors, and to bring back all women and children." With such tactics the army crushed resistance on the southern plains. -
Custers Last Stand
The Sioux and Cheyenne waited as Custer and his troops reached the Bighorn River. Crazy Horse, Gall, and Sitting Bull attacked from all sides crushing Custer's troops. Within an hour, Custer and all ofhis men of the Seventh Cavalry were dead. -
The Dawes Act
Congress passed the Dawes Act aiming to "Americanize" the Native Americans. The act broke up the reservations and gave some of the land to individual Native Americans--160 acres to each head of household and80 acres to each unmarried adult. The rest would be sold to settlers -
The Battle of Wounded Knee
The Seventh Cavalry rounded up about 350 starving and freezing Sioux and took them to a camp at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. The next day an unknown shot was fired and the soldiers opened fire on the Native Americans and killed around 300 of them. This marked the end of the Indian wars and brought the entire era to an end.
