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Great Plains Reservation
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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Government changes policy.
The government changed its policy and created treaties that defend 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 with tragic results. -
Massacre At Sand Creek
Chivington 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 killed over 150 inhabitants, mostly women and children. -
Death on the Bozeman Trail
The Sioux chief, Red Cloud, had unsuccessfully appealed to the government to end white settlement on the Bozeman Trail. Native American 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 claimed the Sioux agreed to live on a reservation along the Missouri River, was forced on the leaders of the Sioux in 1868. Sitting Bull, leader of the Hunkpapa Sioux, had never signed it. Although the Ogala and Brule Sioux did sign the treaty, they expected to continue using their traditional hunting grounds. -
Gold Rush
Within four years of the Treaty of Fort Laramie, miners began searching the Black Hills for gold. Native American tribes protested to no avail. When Colonel George A. Custer reported that the Black Hills had gold, the rush was on. Red Cloud and Spotted Tail vainly appealed again to government officials in Washington. -
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Red River War
General Philip Sheridan, a Union Army veteran, gave orders "to destroy the Native Americans 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
Led by Crazy Horse, Gall, and Sitting Bull, the Native American warriors outflanked and crushed Custer's troops. Within an hour Custer and all of the 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 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 reservation to settlers, and the resulting income would be used by Native Americans to buy farm implements. -
Wounded Knee
The Seventh Cavalry---Custer's old regiment--- 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 their weapons. A shot was fired; from which side, it was not clear. The soldiers opened fire with deadly cannon.
