-
Reservation
The federal government passed an act that designated the entire Great Plains as one enormous reservation, or land set aside for Native American tribes. -
Period: to
War on the Plains
-
Restriction of Native Tribes
In the 1850s, 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 and miners. -
Massacre at Sand Creek
Most of the Cheyanne, assuming they were un the protection of the U.S. government, had returned to Colorado's Sand Creek Reserve for winter. General S. R. Curtis, U.S. Army commander of the West, sent a telegram to militia colonel John Chivington. It said, "I want no peace tilll the Indians suffer more." Chivington and his troops then descended on the Cheyanne and Arapaho. There were about 200 warriors and 500 women and children (camped at Sand Creek). They killed over 150 inhabitants. -
"Battle of the Hundred Slain" or "Fetterman Massacre"
The Bozeman Trail ran directly though Sioux hunting grounds in the Bighorn Mountains. The Sioux Chief, Red Cloud, had unsuccessfully appealed to the government to end white settlement on the trail. In December, the warrior Crazy Horse ambushed Captain William J. Fetterman and his company at Lodge Trail Ridge. Over 80 soldiers were killed. -
Treaty of Fort Laramie
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. The Treaty of Fort Laramie provided only a temporary halt to warfare. The conflict between the two cultures continued as settlers moved Westward and Native American nations resisted the restrictions imposed upon them. -
Gold Rush
Within four years of the Treaty of Fort Laramie, miners began searching the Black Hills for gold. The Sioux, Cheyanne, and Arapaho protested to no avail. When Colonel George A. Custer reported that the Black Hills had gold "from the grass roots down," a gold rush was on. -
Custer's Stand
When Colonel Custer and his troops reached Little Bighorn River, the Native Americans were ready for them. Led by Crazy Horse, Gall, and Sitting Bull, the warrios outflanked and crushed the Custer's troops. Within an hour, Custer and all of his men of the Seventh Calvary were dead. By late 1876, however, the Sioux had been beaten. -
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 reservation 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. By 1932, whites had taken about two-thirds of the Native American territory. -
The Battle of Wounded Knee
On December 28, 1890, the Seventh Calvary rounded up about 350 starving and freezing Sioux and took them to a camp at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. The next day, the soldiers demanded that the Native Americans give up all of their weapons. A shot was fired; from which side, was not clear. Within minutes the Seventh Calvary slaughtered as many as 300 Native Americans.