IV. Subjugating the Indians subjugate: to bring under complete control; conquer

Some Statistics:

• Estimate of Indian population at time of Columbus: 8-16 million spread over 2 continents. • ÷ into hundreds of tribal societies• most advanced were Mayans, Aztecs, Incas (Spanish America)• 90% of Native population lost

A. Characteristics of the Plains Indians1. Nomadic

2. organized in small bands of appx 500

3. very diff.culture than whites (called “wild Indians” white frontiersmen)

4. life revolved around the buffalo

The Galloping Grocery Store

- 1865: appx 15m buffalo roamed GP. By 1885, only about 1000 remained. In 1937, only 37 remained. What happened?

a. Transcontinental RR - 1863-1869: RR crews paid to kill buffalo for

food & robes which were fashionable in E

- became nuisance (herds so numerous that in 1868, a Kansas & Pacific train waited 8 hrs

for herd to cross the track)

Rath & Wright’s Buffalo Yard 1878 – 40,000 hides Dodge City, KS

c. Participation in the Buffalo Kill- William F. Cody killed 4,280 buffalo in 18

mos. while working for Kansas-Pacific RR –”Buffalo Bill”

- RR ads for buffalo safaris – drew men from all over world (even royalty!) – lean out of train

windows or take a few steps out of train cars and shoot them

Slaughtered buffalo lying dead in the snow in 1872, courtesy National Archives

Their plight did not go unnoticed..

• Thirty years ago millions of the great unwieldy animals existed on this continent. Innumerable droves roamed, comparatively undisturbed and unmolested, . . . Many thousands have been ruthlessly and shamefully slain every season for past twenty years or more by white hunters and tourists merely for their robes, and in sheer wanton sport, and their huge carcasses left to fester and rot, and their bleached skeletons to strew the deserts and lonely plains.

"In the Prime of the Buffalo," J. F. BaltimoreThe Overland Monthly and Out West MagazineNovember 1889

Good News?The buffalo population has

been rescued from extinction by preservationists. By the early 21st century, the number of buffalo had increased to about 300,000

Adopt a Bison

Hear a Bison

• America’s largest herd is owned by Media Mogul, Ted Turner (50,000 bison +)

• “sometimes you have to eat an animal to save it”

• http://www.perc.org/articles/article900.php

“Bisonomics”

B. United States Indian Policies- reflected & aided white settlers’ desire for Indian

lands

1. Removal (Early 1800s) a. 1830: Indian Removal Act - forced removal

of SE tribes to Indian territory –present day OK

b. Gave Indians “unwanted” land (remember – the Great American Desert?) GP = “one big

reservation”

c. Temporary fix – until gold, oil or other valuable resource found on their territory

Indian Removal Act of 1830

Trail of Tears

2. Containment a. As Americans crossed Miss. R to

reach Pacific , new policies needed

- 1851: Treaty of Ft. Laramie - assigned boundaries to the various tribes of the

Plains. Major tribes agreed to hunting ground boundaries from which federal authorities would exclude whites.

- gifts and promises of annuities persuaded Indians to go along

- Sioux to stay north of Platte River

- Cheyenne & Arapahoe were to stay in Colorado foothills

b. Failure of Containment

- In Theory: The US maintained that each tribe was a sovereign nation, to be treated as an = in all

treaties

- In Reality: containment fails b/c

- Plains Indians overreliance on buffalo – often wandered outside their assigned boundaries in pursuit of game (+ we killed them all)

- desire for minerals (g & s) – prospectors had little respect for Indian territorial rights

- broken promises (not a single treaty honored!)

- Transcontinental RR across Indian territory

- by 1860, Plains Indians had lost all but 1.5 m of 19m acres of hunting grounds given them in

treaties

c. Dakota Sioux Uprising summer 1862

- DS confined to small reservation in MN

- promised annuities, but often cheated by American traders

- Annuities late. Dakota Sioux starving (Previous payments had been irregular and had

been mostly usurped by unscrupulous white traders. Crops had failed in 1861. Game was scarce. Pleas for release of foodstuffs from white- controlled granaries were ignored.

- asked for food on credit. Response? “If they are hungry, let them eat grass or their own dung”

- Dakota Sioux attack Am. Traders and other settlers

- US troops arrive to put down uprising

- 38 Dakota Sioux executed in response (largest mass execution in US History)

Chief Little Crow

film

d. Sand Creek Massacre ( Nov1864)- Rev. Chivington leads troop of volunteers/soldiers to Black Kettle’s camp at Sand Creek

- purpose to kill peaceful Indians

- accounts vary, but they kill at least 105 women & children + 28 men

- took “trophies” back to Denver –set up saloon

- investigation, but no punishment

Black Kettle (seated center) and other Cheyenne chiefs conclude successful peace talks with Major Edward W. Wynkoop (kneeling with hat) at Fort Weld, Colorado, in September 1864. Based on the promises made at this meeting, Black Kettle led his band back to the Sand Creek reservation, where they were massacred in late November.

Sand Creek MassacreNews Release: Washington, December 20, 1864

"The affair at Fort Lyon, Colorado, in which Colonel Chivington destroyed a large Indian village, and all its inhabitants, is to be made the subject of congressional investigation. Letters received from high officals in Colorado say that the Indians were killed after surrendering, and that a large proportion of them were women and children."

e. Sioux Wars 1866-67 - Sioux protested construction of Bozeman Trail being built by US through their hunting grounds in MT (trail being built for gold)

- Led to Fetterman’s Massacre Dec. 1866

- fought near Ft. Phil Kearny Wy territory

- Sioux and Cheyenne warriors led by Chief Red Cloud were able to decoy Capt. William J. Fetterman and 80 men out of the fort

- the carefully planned ambush worked to perfection. Fetterman and every man (80)

in his detachment died

- authority over Indians passed to War Dept. – tougher policies

3. Reservations a. 1867 = Congressional Peace

Commission appointed to end Sioux War & begin restrictive Reservation Policy

- Plains Indians settled on 2 reservations: Dakota Territory and Indian Territory (OK)

b. Told to “abandon old habits & become farmers” and “learn to walk the white

man’s road”

c. Most tribes agreed, but some refused. With their whole way of life at stake,

fierce warfare raged across Plains

d. Battle of Little Bighorn June 25, 1876- Last major battle of Indian War

- all started with gold

- 1874 – gold discovered on Sioux reservation in Black Hills of SD (US gave this land to Sioux as

permanent home in 1968 Treaty of Ft. Laramie)

- Fed. Troops tried to prevent miners from area – was Sioux ancestral burial ground

- tried to buy back land from Indians – no go

- Sioux on warpath to stop gold rush – concentrated forces near Little Big Horn River in MT territory

- On 6/25/1876, Lt. Col Custer (had political ambitions) disobeyed orders to wait for help – ordered an attack

- Sioux and Cheyenne under Sitting Bull & Crazy Horse surround Custer – kill him & all 264 soldiers

Custer’s Last Stand

- Battle of Little Big Horn a turning pt – last great Indian victory on the Plains

- fed. Troops set out on a vengeance to capture Sitting Bull & Crazy Horse and force the Plains Indians to live on reservations.

- Crazy Horse surrendered in 1877, Sitting Bull in 1881 – and in opening up the Plains for

unimpeded white settlementfilm

Sitting Bull Crazy Horse

4. The Final Roundup a. Indians no match for US Troops. Troop

advantages:

- telegraph = speedy communication

- RR allowed army to outrun even fastest horses

- army had firepower advantage: colt revolver +

- professionalism of soldiers including famous troop of black-Americans

known by the Indians as “Buffalo Soldiers”

Buffalo Soldiers

b. Nez Perce and Chief Joseph 1877- Oregon & Idaho

- (Nez Perce had helped Lewis & Clark 1803)

- Nez Perce kicked out of Oregon after having been relocated several times

- Chief Joseph led his tribe on 3 mo. 1300 mi + journey to escape to Canada, caught 30 mi from border, shipped to Kansas

  “It is cold and we have no blankets.  The little children are freezing to death.  My people, some of them, have run away to the hills and have no blankets, no food.  No one knows where they are--perhaps freezing to death.  I want to have time to look for my children and see how many I can find.  Maybe I shall find them among the dead.      Hear me, my chiefs.  I am tired.  My heart is sick and sad.  From where the sun now stands,

I will fight no more forever.”

c. Apaches of the SW- the last to resist capture

- led by Geronimo until his capture in 1886

- Geronimo taken to OK reservation

- 1904 Geronimo sold pictures of himself at St. Louis World’s Fair

- 1905 rode in Pres. Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural parade

- died at age 80 in 1909

Geronimo

d. Battle of Wounded Knee 1890- last Indian battle

- 1884 US Dept of Interior issued a criminal code forbidding Indian religious practices

- Indians disregarded code, Plains Indians turned an emotional religion as they faced an end to their

way of life

* The Ghost Dance: emphasized coming of a Messiah, return to a life before white man’s arrival, if performed, could be immune from white man’s bullets

- US agents on the Sioux reservation feared an insurrection and summoned troops

- troops fired on and killed 200+ Indian men, women and children at a creek called Wounded Knee in present-day SD – buried in common grave

The Ghost Dance

Wounded Knee: Aftermath

Wounded Knee Common Grave

C. A Way of Life Destroyed

1. Movement in 1880s to “save” the Indians

a. Led by Helen Hunt Jackson, whose “A Century of Dishonor” (1881) chronicled gov’t’s mistreatment

b. Won sympathy from many

2. The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 a. Many Americans believed the situation for Indians would only improve if they

assimilated into white culture

- abandon collective, tribal society and become individual property owners – like

white people!

b. Broke up reservations

- Head of household = 160 acres

- Single Men = 80 acres; kids = 40 acres

- Began to education Indiansread/write

farming techniques

- road to citizenship if accepted the deal

c. Failure of Dawes Act

- many Indians had no training or desire to farm or ranch

- land allotments too small to be profitable

- some Indians attached to reservation and didn’t want them to be broken up

- goal not achieved: by 1934, 86m acres out of 138m acres given to them were

in the hands of whites

d. Disaster of the Dawes Act

* Destroyed the culture of the Plains Indians by breaking up tribal ties

Dawes Act

Indians of the West

Indian Land Cessions

Land ceded by the Indiansquickly filled with a steadystream ofminers,cowboys, andfarmers—all moving westwardto advance their fortune

Expansion came at a high cost toAmerican Indians, for they were dispossessed of their lands through purchase, treaties, and force. The mapshows the areas of land ceded by the Indians through 1890.

3. The Plight of the American Indian a. Failure of Reservations

- usually on poor land where Indians were unable to hunt enough food or raise

sufficient crops

- often lacked the tools and training to succeed as farmers

- Depended upon gov’t agencies, which were often corrupt

- poor conditions led to illness, alcoholism, unemployment and despair

b. Life for Native Americans after 1890

- total Indian population fell to less than 250,000 btwn 1890-1910

- 1924 Indian Citizenship Act: granted citizenship to ALL Native

Americans born in the US (finally!)

President Calvin Coolidge with four Osage Indians after Coolidge signed the bill granting Indians full citizenship. Source — LOC, LC-USZ62-111409 DLC.

- 4.1 million The number of U.S. residents who reported as American Indian and Alaska Native alone or in combination with one or more races in Census 2000

- Unfortunately, Native Americans remain among the poorest and most

unemployed AmericansThe Pine Ridge Reservation, located in rural SD is plagued with deteriorating infrastructure, poverty, lack of local employment, and high utility bills. Many of the residents—the Oglala Lakota Nation—live in mobile homes or substandard housing and spend nearly 25% of their income on utilities. Few people on the reservation have the resources or construction knowledge necessary to improve their current residences or build energy-efficient, culturally appropriate houses.”

Indian Reservations Today

The West’s Legacy?

That’s all, Pilgrim, Study for that Test!