-
The position of Commissioner of Indian Affairs was established by an act of Congress in 1832, and in 1869, Ely Samuel Parker became the first Native American to be appointed to the position. The Office of Indian Affairs was renamed the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1947. Officially founded March 11, 1824. -
The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, authorizing the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. -
The U.S. Congress passes the Indian Appropriations Act, creating the reservation system. The government forces Native peoples to move to and live on reservations, where it can better subdue them. Native peoples find themselves severely restricted in their ability to hunt, fish, and gather their traditional foods. -
On November 29, 1864, a former Methodist minister, John Chivington, led a surprise attack on peaceful Cheyennes and Arapahos on their reservation at Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado. As many as 160 were massacred, mostly women and children. -
In 1868, President Ulysses S. Grant adopted a policy aimed at assimilating Native Americans into mainstream US society. Government officials who oversaw Native American affairs were replaced with Christian clergy to convert indigenous people to Christianity. This policy led to violent resistance on the part of many Native Americans and was ultimately abandoned under President Rutherford B. Hayes.
-
This battle marked the most decisive Native American victory and the worst U.S. Army defeat in the long Plains Indian War. Occurred June 25- 26th, 1876. -
This was an act that allowed the government to break up tribes into smaller, individual plots. The only way that these Native Americans could become citizens is if they accepted this. -
Was a massacre that started while attempting to disarm the Sioux where a shot was fired and chaos broke out. The US army soldiers massacred hundreds of men, women, and children. The few survivors left fled. -
Specified that men with long hair couldn't receive rations, Native American boarding schools were a method of forced assimilation. They had no other choice at this point so Native Americans were forced to obey.
-
This instituted a “New Deal” for Native Americans, authorizing them to reorganize and form their own tribal governments. The act ended the land allotments created by Dawes Act and thereby resurrected the reservation system, which remains in place today.