Timeline of the Native Americans in the USA

Suffered severe loss of:
-population
-territory
-political self-determination
-cultural self-determination

deaths from
battle
famine
disease
poverty

Other empires withdrew from competing with USA around this time
-> USA didnt have to worry about imperial rivals, just Natives

More westward expansion
reduced price and eased terms of sale for public lands

religious magazine

he wrote 24 essays on the rights of the native Americans under the pen name "William Penn"
=> one of the leading opponents of the Indian removal act
"political opponents depicted it as another act of executive "despotism" by the "military chieftan""

All democratic-republican like Jefferson

remnants of once-great nations like Iroquois or Mohicans are confined to reservations by now

But in the SOUTHEAST numbers far larger, close to 100,000
"they were sitting on prime real estate"-Reynolds

as well as the removal of the Choctaws, describes the removal of:
-the Chickasaw
-Choctaw
-Muskogee
-Creek
-Seminole
-Cherokee
from 1830-50

Was first used to describe the remobal of the Choctaw Nation in this year

also describes the removal of:
-the Chickasaw
-Choctaw
-Muskogee
-Creek
-Seminole
-Cherokee
from 1830-50

Results in the removal fo the CHEROKEE in the Trail of Tears

Fed agents persuaded MINOR Cherokee chiefs to sign
for $5.6 million + free passage West
=> most Cherokee denounce it

US army focibly removed them when deadline passed under General Winfield Scott
made quicker than intended bc of the discovery of Appalachian Gold
hundreds died in stockades from malnutrition, dysentry and disease

~2,000-6,000 of the 16,543 relocated died
1/4 died on the trek

Democrat

Most wagons for gold in California, some for New Mexico or Oregon Country

"to justify these breaches of the 'permanent Indian frontier', the policy makers in Washington INVENTED Manifest destiny"-Dee Brown

"although none of the Modocs, Mohaves, Paiutes, Shastas, Yumas, or a hundered other lesser-known trives along the Pacific Coast were consulted on the matter"-Dee Brown

"its boundries extended a hundred miles beyond the 95th meridian, the 'permanent Indian frontier'"-Dee Brown

"only a quarter of a century after enactment of Sharp Knife Andrew Jackson's Indian Trade and Intercourse Act, white settlers had driven in both the north and south flanks of the 95th meridian line, and advance elements of white miners and traders had penetrated the centre"

Sioux
Cheyenne
Comachees, Pawnees, Kiowas and Arapahos
-> all have similar culture

live by hunting bison
provides food, clothing, shelter

but feuds prevented them from having a united front against USA

brutal fighters -> scalping

Dee Brown says there were ~30,000 in the territories alltogether

he mainly left Native American policy to Congress and the corrupt Bureau of Indian Affairs
=> most Western congressment favoured military measures
=> aimed at DESTROYING the Plains Indians

Created the first organised territory of the USA

Usa planned to eventually expand into there

=> Nortwest Indian Wars result

North of Ohio River:
-Shawnee
-Delaware
-Miami
Confederacy

South of Ohio River:
-Cherokee
-Creek
-Choctaw
-Chicksaw
-Seminole
nearly 60,000 people

"the Miamis fougth battle after battle, and signed treaty after treaty, ceding their rich Ohio Valley lands until there was none left to cede" -Dee Brown

Defeated tribes forced to cede lots of land
Includes much of present day Ohio

This treaty marked the end of an undeclared and multi-tribal war begun in the late 1770s and led by the Shawnee who fought to resist American expansion into Ohio.
Over a thousand Indian delegates ceded two-thirds of present-day Ohio, part of Indiana, and the sites where the modern cities of Detroit, Toledo, and Chicago are currently situated.
The Indians, in return, were promised a PERMANENT boundary between their lands and American territory.

State gov responding to southern demands for land

said the Cherokee land now fell under their jurisdiction
=> summons them to court accusing them of horse stealing (fake)
=> Cherokee refuse biased courts

From France
=> would expand into these Indian lands
=> would affect a vast no. of Nat Ams long term

-> Lewis and Clark expedition begins the exploration into the West

Charted the Western territory

The Osage cede their lands to USA
modern day Missouri + Kansas

the Delaware, Eel River, Miami tribe, and Potawatomi in the initial negotiations; later Kickapoo and the Wea all agree to cede land in Illinois and Indiana

=> led to Tecumseh's war
=> not acc credible negotiatiors had been at this (payed off)

goes into Nat Am land
-> fed gov making Westward Expansion easier

Southern legislature expropriated lands from natives
extend state jurisdiction
=> Nat Ams couldn't vote/ be on jury
=> couldnt pursue debts owed by Americans

Goes into Nat Am land
=> Westward expansion easier again

Brings on Georgia Gold Rush
-> causes the reolcation of the Cherokee

Capital punishment for selling lands to whites without consent of tribal authorities

passed House of Representatives 101 to 97
leader of opposition to it had been Senator Theodore Ferlinghursen (New Jersey) president of the: American Bible Society, the American Sunday School Union and the new American Temparance Union

"humanitarian gloss" -David Reynolds
removal of 5 CIVILISED trives:
-Choctaw
-Chickasaw
-Creeks
-Cherokees
-Seminoles
=> these were the Southeast tribes who "had made a big effort to assimilate" => "they had accepted protestant missionaries and developed agriculture and craft industries"
also affected Wyandot, Kickapoo, Potowatomi, Shawnee and Lenape
=> in exchange for lands in the West

New lands were guaranteed in the same ways that the old ones had been (ie would probs be taken eventually)

Choctaws in Mississippi cede their land

appoints a comissioner of Indian affairs in the War department to sneure that the Removal Act happens

Under Chief Justice John Marshall

Cherokees had appealed

=> JAckson just did anyway
"he has had his justice, now let him enforce it"-JAckson

put up in the state lottery without his consent

he had been a leading advocate of integration(!)

All land West of the Mississippi "and not within the States of Missouri and Louisiana or the territory of Arkansas" would be Indian country
=> no white persons could trade without a licence
=> no traders allowed to go therre
=> no white people could settle there
army would arrest if anyone disobeyed

"Before these laws could be put into effect, a new wave of white settlers swept westward and formed the territories of Wisconsin and Iowa"
=> the "permanent Indian frontier" moved now to 95th Meridian
To prevent people crossing 95th meridian, soldiers garissoned in military outposts

(mid 1840s not 1845)
mostly in remote reservations around the Great Lakes

in 1820 there had been 125,000

All west of the "permanent Indian frontier"

Nat Ams now moved BEYOND the Mississippi
=> people settling in the great plains
the plains Indians are more warlike

most important group are the Sioux Nation

lots of intertribal conflict bc they are all close together

Sioux + Pawney go to war
-> treaty tried to divide up the land to stop the conflict (will never work, nomadic tribes go where they please)

-natives would be compensated for damage to their grass, tinder, buffalo
- annual payments and gifts promised by fed gov
- allows fed gov to NEGOTIATE SEPARATELY with each tribe

Omaha and Pawnee pressured to make further land concessions
-> not honouring promise of Fort Lamarie treatie

=> by 1860 mainly cleared of Indians

Said there were lots of white men in their country and he would like to ensure they could be separated
=> Tuekakas, chief, refused to sell. said land cannot be sold
"take away your paper, i will not touch it with my hand" he said

Until then the Nez Perces had a great relationship with the white men since the Lewis and Clark expedition
70 years the tribe boasted they had never killed a white man
"but white man's greed for land and gold finally broke the friendship"-Brown

So Aleiya + several other Nez Perces signed it instead
Only a few years later "government men were swarming around the NEz Perces again" => more land want
Tuekakas said take not even a blanket as a gift from the men "after a while they will claim that you have accepted pay for your land" he said

into land guaranteed to Cheynne and Arapaho
=> Fed Gov does nothing to stop this

Tuekakas called it that
Signed by Aleiya + some other chiefs
=> who had never lived in the Wallowa Valley signed off
rather than Tuekakas bc he refused
3/4 of the remainder of their land gone

Tuekakas still claimed the Wallowa valley

4 major Native American groups:
- Plains Indians
- Five Civilised Tribe survivors
-> Force to live in "indian territory" modern day Oklahoma
-Small tribes e.g. Nez Pierce and Apache
-peaceful farmers in southwest e.g. Navajo

to tour the plans and try to end the fighting (so this is war too)

to tour the plains and try to end the fighting
"report on the Condition of the Indian Tribes" mainly BLAMED WHITE PEOPLE

=> Congress now endorsed measures to concentrate all the Plains Indians on TWO LARGE RESERVATIONS

Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho and Cheyenne would accept lands in Western Oklahoma

With Spotted Tail (eventually assassinated) of the Iroquois too

says "when you send goods to me, they are stolen all along the road, so when they reached me they were only a handful"-Red Cloud
Says he doesn't want the Missouri reservation => wants to go back to his lands
Ely Parker was trying to be their "little father" (eventually resigned bc of corruption)

9th June they meet President Grant
"Grant avided a direct reply, but he promised to see that jsutice was done the Sioux"

When Red Cloud had the treaty of Fort LAramie 1868 read to him, he said he had never heard it before and would not follow it

But Little Father convinced Grant to have a reinterpretation of the treaty
-> could live on the Poweder River Country if they wanted bc it was their hunting grounds instead of inside the reservation
"and so for the second time in two years, Red Cloud won a victory over the United States government" (but not really that great)

=> goes to Heinmot Tooyalaket (young Joseph)

YJ refuses to leave the Wallow Valley when soldiers come telling them to leave
"Neither Lawyer nor any other chief had authority to sell this land, it has always belonged to my people."

Telling White men to withdraw from the Wallowa Valley
After petitioning from YJ

But after that goldseekers tole the Indians' horses and stockmen stole their cattle, branding them so they couldn't get them back

Finds gold
-> thousands of miners pour into the Sioux lands

"white men journeyed to Washington, telling lies about the Nez Perces"-Dee Brown

Grant reopens the Wallowa Valley to white settlement
=> told to move to the Lawai reservation

River Country and the Black Hills
=> claimed they had violated the traty of 1868 by going to war with the USA
in response to Little Big Horn

"this was difficult for the reservation Indians to understand, because they had not attacked United States soldiers, nor had Sitting Bull's followers attacked them until Custer sent Reno charging through the Sioux villages"-Brown

=> president sent comissioners in september "to cajole and threaten the chiefs" into signing away "the immeasurable wealth of the Black Hills to white ownership"
several of these comissioners were "old hands at stealing Indian lands":
-Newton Edmunds
-Bishop Henry Whipple
-Reverand Samuel D. Hinman

Presented with the usual humanitarian gloss like with the Indian Removal Act
"To Bishop Whipple's listeners, this seemed a strange way indeed to save the Indian nations, taking away their Black Hills and hunting grounds, and moving them far away to the Missouri River"

"It is only SIX YEARS since we came to live on this stream... and nothing that has been promised us has been done" -Red Cloud
Another remembered they had alread been promised they would never be moved FIVE TIMES

They eventually signed bc they were threatened with:
-no more rations
-being moved to reservations in the South
-having all their guns and horses taken away by the army

"thus did Paha Sapa, its spirits and its mysteries, its vast pine forests and its BILLION DOLLARS IN GOLD pass forever from the hands of the Indians into the domain of the United States

=> three weeks later they took their guns and horses anyway

from the Wallowa area

Howard v much intended to be swift and not brutal

Invited the Nez Perces to a council
=> argument
=> Howard arrests the Prophet and tells YJ he has 30 days to leave
YJ says "My people have always ben the friends of white men, why are you in such a hurry?"
But told still had to
couldn't defend the valley with only 100 warriors

On the way to the reservation, tribe members who wanted to fight slipped away and killed 11 white men in revenge for theft of their livestock

=> YJ then chose to fight Howard + his men along with those who wanted to fight
fled from Howard by outmanoevering him

=> thought the only option was to go to Canada, where sitting Bull was with th Sioux
Nez PErces attacked along the way => Colonel Gibbon saying no women or children prisoners
=> 30 soldiers killed
=> 80 Nez PErces killed, 2/3 of the women + children killed
Escaped to go north to Canada
YJ eventually captured by General Miles (bear coat) bc he believed he would get peace if he surrendered
=> but Miles resumed the attack on the Nez PErces => YJ refused to surrender while captured
YJ eventually surrendered, gave a v famous surrender speech
in the night, White Bird and some other snuck away
=> running on foot for Canada
met Sitting Bull and the Sioux

But YJ and his people were not taken to the reservation had been promised, to a "swampy bottomland" in Kansas instead
"as had happened to the Modocs, the Nez PErces sickened and died- of malaria and heartbreak"-Dee Brown

YJ visited Washington and said"General Miles promised that we might return to our own country. I believed General Miles, or I NEVER WOULD HAVE SURRENDERED" => asked to be free
ignored

The welcome feast is the first sign of problems
"the feast consisted of little more than a pot of watery soup"
"there was not enough to eat in this empty land-no wild game, no clear water to drink, and the agent did not have enough matters to feed them all... the summer heat was unbearabel, and the air was filled with mosquitoes and flying dust" -Dee Brown
=> wanted to go back north, as three stars Crook had told them they could => told only the Great Father could authorise that
=> Many die of sickness and starvation in the late summer
"they are not getting supplies enough to prevent starvation"-Lieutenant Lawton
The post surgeon had nothing for malaria and acc went away bc he didd not want to have nothing for them when called upon

Great Sioux reservation included 100,000km square
but most was unsuitable for agriculture

only 287 captve NEz PErces left alive at this time
"most of them too young to remember their previous life of freedom"-Dee Brown

~2million acres of Indian land of Oklahoma

The area had been set aside as reservations for Indian tribes evicted east of the Mississippi
"but the inexorable march of America's empire of liberty could not be stopped" -Reynolds

=> fed gov evicted them AGAIN
freed up the land for the land rush of 1889

Comissioners had v nearly convinced enough people to sign but whenever Sitting Bull was around, people would be a "stone wall"
White Hair McLaughlin tricked Sitting Bull by ensuring that John Grass delivered his speech on his new position to break up the reservation before Sitting Bull was aware of the council meeting
McLaughlin then lied to General Crook that Sitting Bull had been aware fo the meeting when he protested

nat ams and Westerners

and children

in eastern Ohio
Even though they were converts to Christianity + had already surrendered

ends the American revolutionary war

Because SOME Native Americans had joined with the British they are treated as conquered peoples in the same way that the British had pretended that the Indians had surrendered along with the French before

fed gov policy tries to negotiate

treaties rebuffed
confederacy strengthened by USA allowing murders of Indians to go unpunished and failing to keep squatters from trespassing across the Ohio

During this decade, US population topped 4 million
=> had doubled every 25 years since the eighteenth century

Resounding US defeat in the Nortwest Indian War

Resounding US defeat in Nortwest Indian war

Decisive US victory in the Northwest Indain War under General "Mad" Anthony Wayne

BUT "what turned Fallen Timbers into a catastrophic defeat for confederated Indians were changes in the international scene" -Stephen Aron
=> Spanish opened the Mississippi to Americans and British didnt support Indians (closed their forts to them) Wayne systematically burned cornfieelds

confederation

Under General Anthony Wayne

Goal to keep Ohio River as the permanent boundary between USA and indian lands

Shawnee chief, in partnership with The Prophet

forged a coalition in his native Ohio and further south with the Creeks

if the treaty of Fort Wayne was not nullified there would be war

at Tippecanoe

With white settlers flooding into Illinois country after the War of 1812

=> Black Hawk refused to retreat
=> made an alliance wit the Winnebagos, Pottawotamies and Kickapoos
declared war aginst the new settlements

against British

Nat Ams such as Sauk leader Black Hawk sided with British

Dee Brown says that with this the dream of the Confederacy to create "a great confederacy of midwestern and southern tribes to dportect their lands from invasion" was over

(less Indian support from foreign powers)

Betrayed by a band of Winnebagos for a bribe of 20 horses + $100

Resulted in the fed gov allowing the Nat Ams to remain in South Florida swamplands
~3,000 killed in the war
v few Seminoles left

Ended Apache resistance

-> Plains Indians see as a good opportunity to drive out white intruders

=> Western Malitia units replace regular troops there

=> they get mad
Militia units soon defeat them
=> >300 tribesmen sentenced to death
Lincoln pardoned most

-> Dakota exiled to poorer quality lands further West

Carson a Union Commander

Natives led by Cohise

the free Kwahadis did not want their v useful animals being exterminated
it was "a war to save the buffalo"-Dee Brown
=> attack Adobe Walls, a trading post near the Canadian river => to kill the buffalo hunters

The Cheyennes and Arapahos joined the Kwahadis
"to their minds , the urgency to save the buffalo from extermination was a much more important matter than obeying petty reservation rules"
=> the hunters wer intruding upon buffalo reserves for Nat Ams anyways

were driven back by the buffalo hunters' superior guns with 15 nat ams dead

Cheyenne and Arapaho chiefs in Colorado accept a treaty banishing them Westward
=> some tribesmen dissent

territorial governor persuades most of the Cheyenne and Arapaho traitors to gather at Fort Lyon on Sand Creek
=> promised protection

Militia forces under attack the camp regardless
"kill and scalp all, big and little" Colonel John Chivington
450 Natives killed
2/3 of the Natives in the Creek women and children
most of the warriors were several miles to the east hunting for buffalo => shot despite no threat

According to George Bent (sleeping in the same area) Black Kettle stood in front of his lodge with a large American flag => said to his people not to be afraid bc the soldiers wouldn't hurt them => nats huddle around Black Kettle -> "then the troops opened fire from two sides of the camp"-Bent

Left Hand refused to fight the white men bc they were his friends -> shot down

"there seemed to be indiscriminate slaughter of men, women and children"-Robert Bent, unwilling acccomplice to Colonol Chivington
"everyone i saw dead was scalped. I saw one squaw cut open iwth an unborn child"-Bent
=> many others such as Chief White Antelope privates cut off

"in a few hours of madness at Sand Creek, Chivington and his soldiers destroyed the lives or the power of every Cheyenne and Arapaho chief who had held out for peace with the white men"-Dee Brown
=> leading chief of the Cheyennes now Lef-in-the-water (not Black Kettle) who advocated war

Public speech made in Denver not long before the massacre, Colonel Chivington advocated the klling and scalping of all Indians, even infants
"Nits make lice"-Chivington

Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War investigation of the massacre:
- they condemned Chivington's and his soldiers' conduct in the strongest possible terms
- but no criminal charges were brought against him or them.

when the shooting over:
-105 Indian women and children dead
-28 Indian men dead
Chivington's original report claimed 500 dead warriors
=> sounds a lot like My Lai massacre

To fight plains indians

Give up their Sand Creek lands

Bc the white soldiers kept intruding on the lands promised in the Fort Laramie treaty
=> Sioux had joined up with the North and South Cheyenne
Lakota Sioux chief led attempt to resist the army building the Powder River Road
=> road could not be built
=> most of the soldiers holed up in their forts

-> costed >$2 million/year to maintain a single regiment on the plains

Brought civilian travel to an end through the Powder River Country

(ends with second fort laramie treaty)

After the Sand Creek massacre -> determined to fight

Medicine Calf Becwourth tried to find peace, telling leg-in-the-water (new chief, Black Kettle rejceted) that they mustn't fight bc there weren't enough of them
leg-in-the-water said "we know it. But what do we want to live for? The white man has taken our country, killed all of our game; was not satisfied with that, but killed our wives and children. Now no peace....We loved the whites until we found out they had lied to us, and robbed us of what we had. We have raised the battle ax until death"

along the South Platte
attacked:
-wagon trains
-state stations
-small military outposts

burned the towns of Julesburg => scalped white defenders => revenge for the scalping of Indians at Sand Creek
destroy communications systems

They then went northwards, beating attacks from soldiers at Fort LAramie
At Powder River country the Southern Cheyennes were welcomed by the Northern Cheyennes
Denver, panic and food shortages grow

Black Kettle a big dude in encouragin that they accept

"Thus did the Cheyennes and Arapahos abandon all claims to the Territory of Colorado. AND THAT OF COURSE WAS THE REAL MEANING OF THE MASSACRE AT SAND CREEK"-Dee Brown

82 soldiers under Captain Fetterman died
Arapahos, Sioux and Cheyenne
Crazy Horse big in the fighting
NAts fighting with bows and arrows

Colonel Carrington was horrified by the mutiliations from the events (disemboweling, hacked limbs, the "private parts severed and indecently placed upon the person")
wrote an essay philosophising that the Indians were "compelled by some paganistic belief to commit the terrivle deeds that remained forever in his mind
But Brown says "Had Colonel Carrington visited the scene of the Sand Creek Massacre, which occured ONLY TWO YEARS BEFORE the Fetterman MAssacre, he would have seen the same mutilations- committed upon Indians by Colonel Chivington's soldiers"
"The Indians who ambushed Fetterman were only imitating their enemies, a practice which in warfare, as in civilian life, is said to be the sincerest form of flattery"

"it was the worst defeat the Army had yet suffered in Indian warfare, and the second in American history from which came no surviviors"
=> new peace comission dispatched from Washngton to FORT LARAMIE

troops under General Philip Sheridan "the more Indians are killed this year, the less will have to be killed next year"
=> most tribesmen resisted their chiefs' treaties

Sioux tribes given a reservation in the Black Hills of Dakota
=> most chiefs now saw it as the only alternative to extinction

"After two years of resistance, Red Cloud had won his war"

Peace agreed upon
But, Brown says, "For the next twenty years, however, the contents of the other sixteen articles of the treaty of 1868 would remain a matter of dispute between the Indians and the government of the United States"
"What many of the chiefs understood was in the treaty and what was actually written therein after Congress ratified it were like two horses whose colorations did not match"
Spotted Tail complained nine years later that they were lied to by Generals Sherman, Sanborn and Harney

The Cheyennes that had gone with Black Kettle were attacked after camping in snow
-> soldiers attacked
Black Kettle decided to flee "there most not be another Sand Creek" -Dee Brown

Custer's soliders attacked
Black KEttle realised negotiations useless => fled
Black Kettle shot while trying to signify peace =>killed

Custer's orders from Sheridan had been:
"to proceed south in the direction of the Antelope Hills, thence toward the Washita River, the supposed winter seat of the hostile tribes; to destroy their villages and ponies, to kill or hang all warriors, and bring back all women and children"

"to kill or hang all the warriors meant separating them from the old men, woman and children. This work was too slow and dangerous for the cavalrymen, they found it much more efficient and safe to kill indiscriminately"-Dee Brown
103 Cheyennes killed, only 11 of them warriors
53 women + children captured

This battle was after Black Kettle had come to General William B. Hazen at Fort Cobb, asking for protection
=> sent away saying they would be safe as long as they returned to their villages and kept their young men there
"He was fully aware of Sheridan's war plans"-Dee Brown

rejoicing at the death (And scalping) of Black Kettle, Sheridan commended Custer
Sheridan lied that he had offerred Black Kettle sanctuary if he would come back into a fort before military operations began "He refused and was killed in a fight"

After this Sherman told Sheridan and Custer to tell tribes to make peace in the fort and come in or be killed (Custer brought with him an attractive "interpreter" who knew no English)
Yellow Bear of the Arapahos + Tosawi of the Comanches come in to surrender
Tosawi says "Tosawi, good Indian"
Sheridan says "the only good Indians I ever saw were dead"

By General Tecumseh William Sherman

=> US army actively promoted killing of bison

"General Sherman remarked, in conversation the other day, that the quickest way to compel the Indians to settle down to civilized life was to send ten regiments of soldiers to the plains, with orders to shoot buffaloes until they became too scarce to support the redskins."

never took up arms again
=> big victory for peace policy

140 well armed men attack an Arapaho camp

27 child captives taken => sold into slavery in Mexico
144 killed, only two of them not women/children

Tucson raiders were brought to trial
jury, after 19 MINUTES, said they were innocent

General Whitman, who brought the case to trial's military career was destroyed
"survived three court martials on ridiculous charges, and after several more years of service without promotion he resigned"-Brown

But President Grant described it as "purely murder" + ordered the Army + the Indian Bureau to do something quickly for peace
Commissioner Colyer talked peace with Apaches

had been fighting in Apache Wars

attack freight wagons and trading posts

US soldiers destroy Indian supplies in the "Red River War"

Under Sitting Bull

annoyed by:
-poor supplies recieved from USA
-advancement of North Pacific Railroad
-Colonel Custer's expedition

Custer attacks
ambush on Nat Ams

divides his cavalry into Major Reno and him

2,500 Native Americans, led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, surrounded and killed Custer's force and his entire command
=> no prisoners despite soldiers surrendering to the Sioux (said Pte-San-Waste-Win, Sitting Bull's cousin)

"when the the white men in the East heard of the Long Hair's defeat, they caled it a massacre and went crazy with anger. They wanted to punish all the Indians in the West. Because they could not punish Sitting Bull and the war chiefs, the Great Council in Washington decided to punish the Indians they could find-those who remained on the reservations and had taken NO PART IN THE FIGHTING"-Dee Brown

Crazy Horse, his tribe, the Cheyennes fight
=> the bluecoats retreat (General Crook)

precedes the battle of little bighorn

and treat the Indians there as POWs

in response to Little Bighorn => despite the fact that they had tkaen no part in the fighting and Custer had been the first to attack

"meanwhile the United States army, thirsting for revenge, was prowling the Black Hills, killing Indians wherever they could be found"
=> Captain Mills destroyed American Horse's village of Ogalas and Mincceonjous, who were going to their reservation for the winter

led by Chief Joseph

Surrender 50km short of Canadian border

After the death of Crazy Horse the reservation Sioux were told them must leave NEvraska + go to a new reservation on the Missouri River

On the way, some of them left to join Sitting Bull

After parleying with Colonel Nelson Miles when found hunting buffalo, and being fired upon when he called of the conference
=> then running up and down the country

tries to find crazy horse to convince him to go with him
=> couldn't find him

Crazy Horse had previously tried to surrender to Bear Coat (a General) bc his women needed food but was attacked regardless

"now that Bear Coat knew there were Sioux nearby, he would come searching through the snow for them"
Battle of Butte, finds them
Soldiers charge through the snow
Crazy Horse had v little ammunition left to defend his people

Escaped with women + children by getting some of his men to distract the soliders

Told he was promised a reservation in the Powder River country if he surrendered
-> everyon starving, no ammunition

"The last of the Sioux war chiefs now became a reservation Indian, disarmed, dismounted, with no authority over his people, a prisoner of the Army, which had NEVER DEFEATED HIM IN BATTLE"-Dee Brown

See land section

Had been captured after spies were informed that he wanted to take his village north after he was so digusted at some of his people allying with the white men to scout against other Nat Ams
escoted by Little Big Man, who now cooperated with the whites, a former friend.
When Crazy Horse reaised that he was going to be put in jail, he tried to lunge away.
In the scuffle, Private William Gentles thrust a bayonet into his abdomen
He died that night

Had been fighting in Apache Wars

Ghost Dance from prophet Wovoka movement had been rallied to by the Sioux in South Dakota

Sitting Bull had just been killed
Big Foot was taking his people to Red Cloud for protection when he heard of Sitting Bull's death => Major Whitside found him, moved the camp to Wounded Knee
Stopped at the Creek, 120 men and 230 women and children
Whitside decided to wait until morning until disarming his prisoners (had been ordered to)
In the darkness, Colonel Forsyth of CUSTER'S former regiment took over
In the morning a bugle call => told all men to come tot eh centre for a talk
All of the men stripped of their weapons => not satisfied, got all the axes, knives, tent stakes searched => still not satsified, ordered to remove their blankets for weapon searches
Only Yellow Bird protested
only 2 rifles found
Deaf Black Coyote didn't want to give up his gun bc he had payed a lot for it
There was a rucuss
=> Coyote's gun went off and then survivor Turning Hawk said "immediately the soldiers returned fire and indiscriminate killing followed"
=> barely any of the nats were even armed

do a ceremonial dance => whites would leave

"the final flames of Indian resistance were snuffed out at Wounded Knee"-Reynolds

Seventh Cavalry fired into a group of Sioux
25 soldiers died
one estimate v nearly 350 dead men, women + children
NEITHER wanted to fight, mutual distrust

v shortly after Sitting Bull's assassination

Indian Commerce Clause of the Constitution is added stating "The Congress shall have Power...to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes."
=>generally seen as the principal basis for the federal government's broad power over Indians.

Regulated contact with Indians + Whites

Mostly unenforced until 1800

Renewed periodically until 1834

trading posts
-> Nat Ams should be able to come to trade with fair treatment
FAILED => never supplanted private traders

Not at all perfect still now tho

Trading beomes and important part of life for Ogala life

V profitable fur trade

Often worked to Nat Am's disadvantage
-diseases e.g. measles, small pox, chicken pox (from contact to Nat Ams)
-frequently overtrapped
=> inter-tribal conflict begins to develop bc of it
-became dependant on weapons + rum
=> fed gov tried to regulate fur trade (failed)

(e.g. of less Indian support from foreign powers)

After supporting CONFEDERACY in civil war

Pacific Pueblos (unrelated) also maintained their land and autonomy

broke up reservation land into small units held by individuals or tribes
-divide them up, no longer united

granted CITIZENSHIP after 25 years

but within a short amount of time nat ams had sold their lands to whites + fallen into poverty
this land also sucked

ammendment to the Dawes Act
=> now also applied to Five Civilised Tribes

Ended the independance fo these tribes too

5 civilised tribes wanted separate state of Sequoyah

=> fed gov says no

formed

to promote literacy and agriculture in the Native Americans
missions of:
Quakers
Morovians
Baptists
(most did not convert/attend the mission schools says Reynolds)

When ill and alcoholic he had visions
Preached against alcoholism
Wanted to revive confidence among the Seneca

Also embraced CIVILISATION (unlike many Native Prophets)
=> introduced by Quaker missionaries sent by fed gov

wanted a shift in gender roles (Native Americans were a v maternal society, even today the executive board of the National Congress of American Indians is all women
-men do farming
-men heads of family
=> most traditional Senecas and women resisted

John Ross (mixed blood) for accommodation vs the full blooded council leaders want resistance
-> accommodationists won

the most that those from the North East knew about the Nat Ams

whereas in the South West Indian warfare had been a way of life since 1750

(trying to appease)

the whites living on Indian territory without permission of the state

-> trying to prevent the missionaries from helping them

-> assimilation policy

supplemented by money from religious + charitable organisations
"kill the Indian and save the man"

Boarding schools established => away from parental influence
Native American religious practices OUTLAWED

Wanted assimilation

Mainly influentical as late as the 1930s

he says "it was an incredible era of violence, greed, audacity, sentimentality, undirected exuberance, and an almost reverential attitude toward the ideal of personal freedom for THOSE WHO ALREADY HAD IT"

"during that time the culture and civilization of the American Indian was destroyed"

"only occasionally was the voice of an Indian heard, and then more often than not it was recorded by the pen of a white man"

on the Sioux reservation (Sitting Bull's tribe)
-no pupils appeared in the schoolhouses
-trading stores empty
-no work done on the little farms

Indians' treatment by the authorities

ALSO authroised treaty to commission to approach the Sioux tribes of upper Missouri

start of "conquest by kindness" policy

NO WARFARE
no reservations
no civilisation program
=> learnt lesson?
actually LIBERATED from incredibly oppressive Russian-American Company
=> they had rose up against them 1784 (would kidnap children)

70,000 natives- Eskimo, Aelut and Native American

civilian

tried to stamp out corruption, replaced president Indians with:
Quakers
then nominees
Colonoel Ely Parker, full blooded Seneca Indian appointed head of Bureau of Indian affairs

follows a peace policy

didnt work, actually 8 years of fierce fighting
=> by the end Native American independence on Southern plains ended

promised to “favour any course… which tends to… civilising and ultimate citizenship” of the “original occupants of this land”

favoured:
-reservation policy
-them eventually becoming citizens

Had created lots of enemies by helping the NAts

Summer 1870 a small band of his enemies delay funds for purchase of supplies for reservation Indians
telegrams daily from federal agents saying Indians starving => predicting violence
He bought supply on credit => then hasty transportation at slightly higher prices than the transport rates
"only in this way could the reservation indnians have received theri rations in time to prevent starvation" -> Brown thinks he did the right thing
but he had broken minor regulations in doing this

William Welsh the first to attack him
Parker was exonerated after an investigation by the House of Representatives bc he had done the right thing to make getting the supplies to the Nats a priority

But late in the summer of 1871 he resigned
Press attacked him claiming that he must have been a memer of the "Indian Ring"
"himself, a Judas to his own people" (not what Brown acc thinks, explaining the view of the press)

Forced to resign

during this time, only 150,000 were killed by Indians
points out Dee Brown

General Sheridan said about the buffalo:
"let them kill, skin and sell until the buffalo is exterminated, as it is the only way to bring lasting peace and allow civilisation to advance"

“Many if not most, of our Indian wars have had their origin in broken promises and acts of injustice on our part”

=> renewed efforts to reform Indian Bureau
but even sympathetic whites had little inclination to respect/preserve Indian way of life
=> wanted assimilation e.g. Indian rights association

In response to US Supreme court ruling Ex Parta Crow Dog where Crow Dog was allowed to be free despit murderering Crow Dog bc it was not the states' jurisdisction to punish him

This act meant all major crimes dealt with by fed jurisdiction even if both involved were nat ams

Rreligion

Basically, they believed if they did the ghost dance then all the white people would go away and the land would be theirs again
acc preached non-violence, fraternity and was totally christian
"But because the Indians were dancing, the agents became alarmed and notified the soldiers, and the soldiers began to march" -Dee Brown

bc of his supposed involvement in the ghost dance movement, and he refused to leave with them (fighting the Sioux v. the Indian police)
Sitting Bull had acc tried to leave peacefully

Had previously shown his power in front of Henry Dawes when he decided to leave negotiations and took all the other nats therre with him
"Nothing could have dismayed the commissioners more tha the thought of the Sioux rallyig around a strong leader like Sitting Bull"
they "aimed to eradicated everything Indian among the tribes ad make them over into white men. In less than two minutes... they had let Sitting Bull demonstrate his power to block that policy"

At the next meeting Senator John Logan's scathing attack on Sitting Bull was v telling "The government feeds and clothes and educates your children now, and desires to teach you to become farmers, and to civilise you, and make you as white men"

He then gave a speech where he said "I hate all I hate all White people, you are thieves and liars. You have taken away our land and made us outcasts.”
but only his interpreter knew the real meaning => standing ovation
Then 1885 went with Buffalo Bill on the Wild West tour => v popular
didn't go to Europe with him 1887 bc "I am needed here, there is more talk of taking our lands"
Came the next year, tried to purchase at 50cent/acre but Sitting Bull would have none of it and so they only got 22 Sioux signatures (not the required 3/4)
=> comission returned home and recommended that they just take the land, violating the treaty of 1868

1888 US gov "What the politicians preferred was to force the Indians into selling a large portion of their reservation out of fear that it would be taken away from them if they refused to sell"
=> knowing the Nats trusted General Crook, he was the chairman of a new comission, trying to offer $1.50/acre (and had been convinced they would lose everything if didin't agree)
Eventually a majority of the Brules followed (First signature was Crow Dog, assassin of Spotted Tail)

of a broken heart