The Growing West and the Impact on Native Americans

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1860 – 360,000 Indians in the West In the path of migrating settlers Impacted by diseases (ex. Cholera, typhoid,

smallpox) Reduction of buffalo population

Expansion impacts Indians

Treaties created the reservation system in the

West Whites could not understand that most Indians

had no real leader and did not recognize an authority outside their immediate family

Indians surrender their lands after promises to be left alone and provided with food, clothing and other supplies

Indian agents corrupt

Treaties of Fort Laramie (1851) and Fort Atkinson

(1853)

White troops and Native Americans had a series of violent clashes beginning in the 1860s These clashes intensified after gold was

discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota which was part of the Sioux reservation

Culminated in the Battle of Little Bighorn (1876) General George Custer and his 264 men were

killed in the battle

Violence erupts

George Custer

Violent confrontations continued as one by

one Indian groups were defeated Why were the Indians ultimately defeated?

Indian spirit shattered Indians cheaper to feed than fight Railroad made transportation easier Disease Virtual extermination of buffalo

“Taming” the Indians

Attempt at Indian assimilation

Focus on educating Indian children Dissolved tribes Wiped out tribal ownership of land Head of each Indian family got 160 acres Would get the title to their land and citizenship

in 25 years Reservation land not allotted to Indians was

sold to railroads and white settlers

Dawes Act (1887)

Sen. Henry Dawes who

introduced the Dawes Act

Arrest of Sitting Bull

In December 1890, the US Army ordered the arrest of the Sioux’s chief, Sitting Bull, because of a rapidly growing Ghost Dance movement, a ritual that promised to restore their land and way of life

During the arrest, Sitting Bull was killed and the remaining 350 starving and freezing Sioux

were arrested and taken to Wounded Knee Creek

in South Dakota

The Ghost Dance Ritual

Battle of Wounded Knee

The next day, the soldiers demanded that the Sioux give up their weapons – a shot was fired, no one knows from which side, and when it was over, 300 Native Americans, including several children, were dead

This brought the Indian Wars to a bitter end – Native Americans in the

United States were fully confined to reservations

Spotted Elk lies dead after the Battle of Wounded Knee

By 1900, Indians had lost 50% of the 156

million acres they held 2 decades earlier By 1887, only about 243,000 Native

Americans remained

Impact on Indians

Gave settlers as much as 160 acres of land by

living on it for 5 years and paying a fee of $30 2 out of 3 were forced to give up their land as

result of drought Led to fraud

Homestead Act of 1862