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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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the government changed its policy and created treaties that defined specific boundaries for each tribe.
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Chivingtonn and his troops descended on the Cheyenne and Arapaho- about 200 warriors and 500 women and children- camped at sand creek. The attack at dawn on Novemeber 29, 1864 killed over 150 inhabitants, mostly women and children.
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Warrior Crazy Horse ambushed Captain William J. Fetterman and his company at Lodge Trail Ridge. over 80 soldiers were killed. Native americans called this fight the Battle of the Hundred Slain. Whites called it the Fetterman Massacre.
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The Treaty of Fort Laramie, in which the Souix agreed to live on a reservation along the Missouri River, was forced on the leaders of the Souix.
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In 1874, when Colonel George A. Custer reported that the Black Hills had gold "from the grass roots down", a gold rush was on. Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, another Souix chief, vainly approached again to government officials in Washington.
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The US Army responded by herding the people of friendly tribes onto reservations while opening fire on all others.
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Led by Crazy Horse, Gall, and Sitting Bull, the warriors- with raised spears and rifles- outflanked and crushed Custer's troops. Within an hour, Custer and all of the men of the seventh cavalry were dead.
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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 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.
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the Seventh Calvary- Custer's old regiment- rounded up about 350 satrving and freezing Souix and took them to a camp at Wounded Knee in South Dakota. The Next day, the soldiers demanded that the Native aMericans give up all their weapons. A shot was fired; from which side, it was not clear. The soldiers opened fire with deadlt cannon. Seventh Calvary slaughtered nearly 300 unarmed Native Americans, including several children. This brought the Indian Wars to a bitter end.