Chapter 18Section 3

Starting in the mid-1850’s, miners, railroads, cattle drives, and farmers came to the Plains.

As each new group arrived, the Native Americans were dealt another blow

Most of the Plains Indians (Sioux, Comanche, Blackfeet) lived a nomadic life following herds of buffalo.

Plains Indian people who numbered the thousands, were divided into bands consisting of up to 500 people.

A governing council headed each band.

Women reared the children, cooked, and prepared hides.

Men hunted, traded, and supervised the military life of the band.

Most Plains Indians practiced a religion based on the belief of the spiritual power of the natural world.

The Plains Indians had millions of buffalo to supply their need.

After the Civil War, American hunters hired by the railroads began slaughtering the animals to feed the crews building the railroads.

The railroad companies also wanted to prevent herds from blocking the trains.

William Cody, hired by Kansas Pacific Railroad, once claimed that he had killed more than 4,000 buffalo in less than 18 months. He became known as Buffalo Bill.

Beginning in 1872, hunters targeted buffalo to sell hides to the East.

Reservation Policy In 1867, the federal government appointed the

Indian Peace Commission to develop policy toward Native Americans.

The recommendation was to move Native Americans to a few large reservations – tracts of land set aside specifically for them.

One large reservation was in Oklahoma and another in the Dakota Territory. Managing the reservations was the job of the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Some moved to reservations and other refused. The land that was set aside for reservations was often of poor quality. Some tried the reservation life and abandoned it.

Conflict on the Plains During the 1860’s many armed conflicts

between Native Americans and whites took place.

Minnesota was the site of one especially bloody confrontation.

Sioux warriors, led by Little Crow, burned and looted white settlers’ homes in the summer of 1862.

Hundreds died before troops arrived and put down the uprising. The army continued to send patrols far out to the Northern Plains.

A branch of the Sioux, the nomadic Lakota, fought troops hard to keep their hunting grounds.

In November 1864, Chief Black Kettle, brought several hundred Cheyenne to negotiate a peace deal. Colonel John Chivington led an attack on the unsuspecting Cheyenne. Hundreds of Cheyenne died.

Chief Black Kettle was enraged and provoked widespread uprisings.

The Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors, staged a series of attacks from 1865 to 1867.

The bloodiest incident occurred on December 21, 1866. A Sioux leader, Crazy Horse, acted as a decoy and lured troops into a deadly trap. Crazy Horse acted as a decoy and an detachment of about 80 men followed him into an ambush.

The entire detachment was wiped out. This incident was known as Fetterman Massacre.

Little Bighorn The government promised that “No white person or

persons shall be permitted to settle upon or occupy” or even “to pass through” the Black Hills of the Dakotas; however, the hills were rumored to contain gold.

In 1874, Custer led an army expedition to check on the rumors and confirmed there was gold. Prospectors swarmed the area.

The government then tried to buy the hills. Sitting Bull, an important leader of the Lakota

Sioux refused. Sitting Bull gathered Sioux and Cheyenne warriors

along the Little Bighorn River (present day Montana). They were joined by Crazy Horse, another Sioux chief, and his warriors.

The army was ordered to round up the warriors and move them to reservations.

On June 25, 1876, Colonel George Custer, divided his regiment and attacked the Native Americans.

Custer, with about 250 soldiers, faced forces of thousands of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. Custer and his entire command lost their lives.

The triumph at Little Bighorn did not last long. The army soon defeated the uprising. By 1881, exhausted and starving, the Lakota

and Cheyenne agreed to live on a reservation.

The Apache WarsMost of the Apache had been moved to the

San Carlos reservation in Arizona.The Apache leader, Geronimo, escaped and

fled to Mexico. He later, in the 1880’s, led raids against settlers and the army in Arizona.

In 1886, Geronimo was the last Native American to formally surrender to the United States.

A Changing CultureMany things contributed to changing the

traditional way of life of the Native Americans: movement of whites to their land, the slaughter of the buffalo, the US army attacks, and the reservation policy

Other changes occurred when some reformers tried to abolish reservations and absorb Native Americans into white American culture.

The Dawes Act in1887 proposed to break up the reservations and to end identification with a tribal group. The goal was to encourage native peoples to become farmers and eventually, American citizens.

Wounded Knee In 1890, the Sioux, distraught as their way of life was

being robbed from them, looked to a prophet, Wovoka, for advice.

Wovoka claimed that the Sioux could regain their former greatness if they performed a ritual known as the Ghost Dance.

Eventually, as the ritual spread, the reservation officials decided to ban the dance.

Believing that Sitting Bull was the leader of the movement, police went to arrest him. During a scuffle Sitting Bull was shot.

Several hundred Lakota Sioux fled and gathered at a creek called Wounded Knee. On December 29, 1890, the army went to collect the Sioux’s weapons. Fighting started and more than 300 Sioux and 25 soldiers were killed.