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Camp Grant, AZ Apache massacre
The Camp Grant massacre, on April 30, 1871, was an attack on Pinal and Aravaipa Apaches who surrendered to the United States Army at Camp Grant, Arizona, along the San Pedro River. The massacre led to a series of battles and campaigns fought between the Americans, the Apache, and their Yavapai allies, which continued into 1875, the most notable being General George Crook's Tonto Basin Campaign of 1872 and 1873 -
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Bureau of Indian Affairs was created to assit Native Americans with functioning business and life. -
Indian Removal Act
The Indian Removal Act was passed by Congress on May 28, 1830, during the presidency of Andrew Jackson. The law authorized the president to negotiate with Indian tribes in the Southern United States for their removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for their anc -
The Comstock Lode
The Comstock Lode is a lode of silver ore located under the eastern slope of Mount Davidson, a peak in the Virginia Range in Nevada (then western Utah Territory). -
Homestead Act
Anyone who had never taken up arms against the U.S. government (including freed slaves and women), was 21 years or older, or the head of a family, could file an application to claim a federal land grant. -
Little Crow’s War
The Dakota War of 1862, also known as the Sioux Uprising, (and the Dakota Uprising, the Sioux Outbreak of 1862, the Dakota Conflict, the U.S.–Dakota War of 1862 or Little Crow's War) was an armed conflict between the United States and several bands of the eastern Sioux (also known as eastern Dakota). It began on August 17, 1862, along the Minnesota River in southwest Minnesota. It ended with a mass execution of 38 Dakota men on December 26, 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota. -
Sand Creek Massacre
On this day in 1864, peaceful Southern Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians are massacred by a band of Colonel John Chivington's Colorado volunteers at Sand Creek, Colorado. -
Red Cloud’s War
Red Cloud's War (also referred to as the Bozeman War or the Powder River War) was an armed conflict between the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Northern Arapaho on one side and the United States in Wyoming and Montana territories from 1866 to 1868. -
Fetterman Massacre
The Fetterman Fight, also known as the Fetterman Massacre or Battle of the Hundred Slain, was a battle during Red Cloud's War on December 21, 1866, between the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians and soldiers of the United States army. All 81 men under the command of Captain William J. Fetterman were killed by the Indians. It was, at the time, the worst military disaster ever suffered by the U.S. on the Great Plains. The battle led to an Indian victory and the withdrawal of the United States f -
Fort Laramie Treaty
In the spring of 1868 a conference was held at Fort Laramie, in present day Wyoming, which resulted in a treaty with the Sioux. This treaty was to bring peace between the whites and the Sioux who agreed to settle within the Black Hills reservation in the Dakota Territory. -
First Transcontinental Railroad
The First Transcontinental Railroad (known originally as the "Pacific Railroad" and later as the "Overland Route") was a 1,907-mile (3,069 km) contiguous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 across the western United States to connect the Pacific coast at San Francisco Bay with the existing Eastern U.S. rail network -
The battle of Little Bighorn
In late 1875, Sioux and Cheyenne Indians defiantly left their reservations, outraged over the continued intrusions of whites into their sacred lands in the Black Hills. They gathered in Montana with the great warrior Sitting Bull to fight for their lands. The following spring, two victories over the US Cavalry emboldened them to fight on in the summer of 1876. -
" Dead man's hand"
The makeup of poker's dead man's hand has varied through the years. Currently, the dead man's hand is described as a two-pair poker hand consisting of the black aces and black eights. Along with an unknown "hole" card, these were the cards reportedly held by "Old West" folk hero, lawman and gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok when he was murdered. -
The Lakota War
The Great Sioux War of 1876, also known as the Black Hills War, was a series of battles and negotiations which occurred between 1876 and 1877 involving the Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne against the United States -
End of Buffalo population
The slaughter, precipitated by Nineteenth Century world views and conditions, is seen as a closed chapter in the history of the West. It is viewed from the standpoint of the Twentieth Century as a necessary but somewhat regrettable evil. Most of all, it is considered a completed event, something that had to be done once and for all. The Indians were put on reservations, the bison on ranches; end of story. Or is it? This struggle, between white and Indian, between cattle and bison, between two s -
Dawes act
Approved on February 8, 1887, "An Act to Provide for the Allotment of Lands in Severalty to Indians on the Various Reservations," known as the Dawes Act, emphasized severalty, the treatment of Native Americans as individuals rather than as members of tribes. -
Desert land act
The Desert Land Act was passed by the United States Congress on March 3, 1877, to encourage and promote the economic development of the arid and semiarid public lands of the Western states. Through the Act, individuals may apply for a desert-land entry to reclaim, irrigate, and cultivate arid and semiarid public lands. -
capture of nez perce
On October 5, 1877, Nez Perce leader Chief Joseph formally surrendered his forces to General Nelson A. Miles and General Oliver Otis Howard at Bear Paw Mountain, Montana Territory. This effectively ended the Nez Perce War of 1877. Previous to the 1877 war, the Army had experienced a history of nonviolent contact with the Nez Perce. In 1804 the Nez Perce resupplied and aided the Army expedition of Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. This aid probably saved the expedition from certain f -
pratt boarding school
The story of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School begins with a brief introduction to its founder. Richard Henry Pratt spent eight years (1867-1875) in Indian Territory as an officer of the 10th Cavalry, commanding a unit of African-American "Buffalo Soldiers" and Indian Scouts. During this time, he was stationed at Ft. Sill, OK, 60 miles east of the site of the Battle of the Washita where Black Kettle (Cheyenne) was killed in 1867. Pratt came into contact with Kiowa, Cheyenne and Arapaho who -
A Century of Dishonor by Helen Hunt Jackson
Jackson wrote A Century of Dishonor in an attempt to change government ideas/policy toward Native Americans at a time when effects of the 1871 Indian Appropriations Act (making the entire Native American population wards of the nation) had begun to draw the attention of the public. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882. It was one of the most significant restrictions on free immigration in US history, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. -
Bill Cody’s “Wild West Show”
Wild West Shows were traveling vaudeville performances in the United States and Europe. The first and prototypical wild west show was Buffalo Bill's, formed in 1883 and lasting until 1913. The shows introduced many western performers and personalities, and a romanticized version of the American Old West, to a wide audience with many different members. Will Rogers also toured a wild west show. -
wounded knee massacre
Wounded Knee, located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwestern South Dakota,was the site of two conflicts between North American Indians and representatives of the U.S. government.An 1890 massacre left some 150Native Americansdead, in what was the final clash between federal troops and the Sioux. In 1973,members of the American Indian Movementoccupied Wounded Knee for 71 days to protest conditions on the reservation. -
Forest Reserve Act
The Forest Reserve Act of 1891 is a law that allowed the President of the United States to set aside forest reserves from the land in the public domain. This act passed by the United States Congress under Theodore Roosevelt's's administration. Harrison issued proclamations establishing 13 million acres (53,000 km2) of land as Forest Reserves; Grover Cleveland proclaimed 25 million acres (100,000 km2) and William McKinley proclaimed 7 million acres (28,000 km2). In 1907 a law was passed limiting -
Carey Act
The Carey Act of 1894 (also known as the Federal Desert Land Act)[1] allowed private companies in the U.S. to erect irrigation systems in the western semi-arid states, and profit from the sales of water. -
Turner Thesis
The Frontier Thesis or Turner Thesis, is the argument advanced by historian Frederick Jackson Turner in 1893 that American democracy was formed by the American frontier. He stressed the process—the moving frontier line—and the impact it had on pioneers going through the process. -
Capture of Geronimo
Following his surrender in 1883, Geronimo and his band had agreed to live on the San Carlos Reservation. General George Crook, scouts and his trusty mule, Apache, LOC photoIn May 1885, however, a band of Apaches, led by Geronimo, Nana and Nachez, left the San Carlos reservation and fled to the Sierra Madre Mountains of Old Mexico where they resumed their former life of raiding Mexican towns and ranches. From Fort Bowie and Fort Huachuca, General George Crook pursued the Indians for ten months. -
Fort Laramie Treaty
In the spring of 1868 a conference was held at Fort Laramie, in present day Wyoming, which resulted in a treaty with the Sioux. This treaty was to bring peace between the whites and the Sioux who agreed to settle within the Black Hills reservation in the Dakota Territory.
