Exploring American History Unit VI A Growing America

1
Exploring American HistoryUnit VI A Growing
America

• Chapter 18Section 2 War for the West

2
Wars for the West

• The Big Idea
• Native Americans and the U.S. government came
  into conflict over land in the West.
• Main Ideas
• As settlers moved to the Great Plains, they
  encountered the Plains Indians.
• The U.S. Army and Native Americans fought in the
  northern plains, the Southwest, and the Far West.
• Despite efforts to reform U.S. policy toward
  Native Americans, conflict continued.

3
Main Idea 1 As settlers moved to the Great
Plains, they encountered the Plains Indians.

• The U.S. government negotiated treaties with
  Plains Indians in the mid-1800s to gain more
  western lands for settlers.
• Plains Indians, including the Sioux, Pawnee, and
  Cheyenne, lived by hunting buffalo.
• Buffalo were used for food, shelter, clothing,
  and utensils.
• Conflict grew with the Plains Indians as miners
  and settlers increased in number.

4
(No Transcript)
5
Struggle to Keep Land
The Treaty of Fort Laramie recognized Native
American claims to the Great Plains. It allowed
the United States to build forts and travel
across Native American lands.
The U.S. government negotiated new treaties after
gold was discovered in Colorado, sending Native
Americans to live on reservations, areas of
federal land set aside for them.
The movement of pioneers and miners across the
Great Plains and through Native American hunting
grounds led to conflict with the Sioux, led by
Crazy Horse.
Most southern Plains Indians agreed to go to
reservations under the 1867 Treaty of Medicine
Lodge, but the Comanche continued to fight until
1875.
6
(No Transcript)
7
Main Idea 2The U.S. Army and Native Americans
fought in the northern plains, the Southwest,
and the Far West.

• When Native Americans resisted confinement on
  reservations U.S. troops forced them to go.
• Included African American cavalry called buffalo
  soldiers
• Most Native Americans had stopped fighting by the
  1880s, except the Apache, led by Geronimo, who
  fought until 1886.

8
Fighting on the Plains

• Northern Plains
• Battles with the Sioux throughout the 1800s.
• In 1876 George Armstrong Custers troops were
  defeated by Sioux forces led by Crazy Horse and
  Sitting Bull at the Battle of Little Bighorn, the
  Siouxs last major victory.
• U.S. troops killed about 150 Sioux in the
  Massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890.

• Southwest
• Navajo refused to settle on reservations.
• U.S. troops raided Navajo fields, homes, and
  livestock.
• Out of food and shelter, the Navajo surrendered.
• Navajo were forced on a 300-mile march, known as
  the Long Walk, to a reservation and countless
  died.

• Far West
• Initially, the United States promised to let the
  Nez Percé keep their Oregon land.
• Later, the government demanded land.
• Fighting broke out.
• U.S. troops forced the Nez Percé to a reservation
  in what is now Oklahoma where many died.

9
Main Idea 3Despite efforts to reform U.S.
policy toward Native Americans, conflict
continued.

• Ghost Dance movement
• Predicted the arrival of paradise for Native
  Americans
• Misunderstood by U.S. officials, who feared it
  would lead to rebellion
• Gradually died out after the Wounded Knee
  Massacre in 1890
• Sarah Winnemucca, a Paiute, lectured on problems
  of the reservation system and called for reform
  in the 1870s.
• Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887
• Made land ownership among Native Americans
  private
• Tried to lessen traditional influences of Native
  American society so as to encourage them to adopt
  the ways of white people
• Ended up taking about two-thirds of Native
  American land

10
(No Transcript)
11
(No Transcript)
12
Treatment of Native Americans- Early Conflicts-
Disease

• What gave the Spaniards a decisive advantage this
  time was smallpox. The resulting epidemic
  proceeded to kill nearly half the Aztecs.
• Populous Indian societies in the Mississippi
  Valle, these societies too would disappear. The
  conquistadores' germs, spreading in advance, did
  everything.
• Archeologists feel the initial number of Natives
  at around 20 million when Columbus came. In the
  century or two following Columbus's arrival in
  the New World, the Indian population is estimated
  to have declined by about 95 percent.
• The main killers were European germs, to which
  the Indians had never been exposed and against
  which they therefore had neither immunologic nor
  genetic resistance. Smallpox, measles, influenza,
  and typhus competed for top rank among the
  killers. As if those were not enough, pertussis,
  plague, tuberculosis, diphtheria, mumps, malaria,
  and yellow fever came close behind.

13
(No Transcript)
14
(No Transcript)
15
Treatment of Native Americans- Early Policies

• Indian Removal Act- 1830
• On May 26, 1830, the Indian Removal Act of 1830
  was passed by the Twenty-First Congress of the
  United states of America. After four months of
  strong debate, Andrew Jackson signed the bill
  into law. Land greed was a big reason for the
  federal government's position on Indian removal.
  This desire for Indian lands was also abetted by
  the Indian hating mentallity that was peculiar to
  some American frontiersman.
• To ensure peace the government forced these five
  tribes called the Five Civilized Tribes to move
  out of their lands that they had lived on for
  generations and to move to land given to them in
  parts of Oklahoma. Andrew Jackson was quoted as
  saying that this was a way of protecting them and
  allowing them time to adjust to the white
  culture. This land in Oklahoma was thinly settled
  and was thought to have little value. Within 10
  years of the Indian Removal Act, more than 70,000
  Indians had moved across the Mississippi. Many
  Indians died on this journey.

16
Treatment of Native Americans- Early Policies

• Trail Tears- "Nunna daul Tsuny." That translates
  into English as "trail where they cried."
• The term "Trails of Tears" was given to the
  period of ten years in which over 70,000 Indians
  had to give up their homes and move to certain
  areas assigned to tribes in Oklahoma. The tribes
  were given a right to all of Oklahoma except the
  Panhandle. The government promised this land to
  them "as long as grass shall grow and rivers
  run." Unfortunately, the land that they were
  given only lasted till about 1906 and then they
  were forced to move to other reservations.
  Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole
• The Trails of Tears were several trails that the
  Five civilized Tribes traveled on their way to
  their new lands. Many Indians died because of
  famine or disease. Sometimes a person would die
  because of the harsh living conditions. The
  tribes had to walk all day long and get very
  little rest. All this was in order to free more
  land for white settlers. The period of forcible
  removal started when Andrew Jackson became
  Presidentin 1829. At that time there was reported
  to be sightings of gold in the Cherokee territory
  in Georgia which caused prospectors to rush in,
  tearing down fences and destroying crops.
• All of the treaties signed by the Indians as the
  agreed to the terms of the removal contained
  guarantees that the Indians, territory should be
  perpetual and that no government other than their
  own should be erected over them without their
  consent.

17
Trail of Tears 228
18
Treatment of Native Americans- Early Policies

• Seminole Wars
• The Seminole Indians are a tribe the used to
  reside in Florida in the early 1800's. The
  Seminole originally belonged to the Creek tribe.
  They became known as Seminoles because the name
  means runaways.
• The United acquired Florida in 1819, and began
  urging them to sell their land to the government
  and to move to the Indian Territory along with
  the other southeasten tribes.
• In 1832, some of the Seminole leaders signed a
  treaty and promised to relocate. The Seminole
  tribe split at this time and fought to keep their
  lands. They fled into the Florida swamps.
• They started the Second Seminole war (1835). This
  was fought over the remaining land that the
  Seminole had fled to. It lasted for seven years.
  1,500 American men died and the cost to the
  United States was 20 million. The Seminole were
  led by Osceola until he was tricked by General
  Thomas Jessup. Osceola was seized and imprisoned
  by Jessup during peace talks under a flag of
  truce. Osceola died in 1838 when he still in
  prison. After the war, many Seminoles moved west
  but still a small group stayed hidden in the
  Florida swamps.

19
Treatment of Native Americans- 1820-1850

• Early policy- Treaties were being made with
  Indians- just like dealing with a foreign nation.
• 1820-1850 - Push the Eastern Indians west
  across the Mississippi River. Let Indians live on
  the Great American Desert. One Big
  Reservation. Land not good enough for whites
  would be left to the Indian.

20
(No Transcript)
21
Treatment of Native Americans- 1867-1886

• 1867-1886 - 20 years of war and containment
• Indians would be gathered in large reservations
  that would belong to them. Peacefully?
• Govt reservation agents- some good, some inept,
  some corrupt.
• Government promised to supply nations with food,
  but supplies were slow coming and caused
  starvation and rebellion.
• Santee went on warpath-1862-no payments or even
  credit to buy food.
• 1865-25,000 soldiers armed against Indians.
• 1867-1868 Peace commission - two large meeting
  treaties. 100s of treaties were made and
  broken by the government.
• 1871- Government stops dealing with the Indians
  and Independent nations. No more treaties to be
  made, Indians are wards of the state, to be dealt
  with by acts of Congress. Gen. Sherman went
  about the task of either killing Indians or
  making them beg for mercy.

22
Treatment of Native Americans- 1867-1886

• Twenty years of new civil war- Indians vs.
  Whites.
• 1864- Colonel Chivington slaughters 450 Cheyenne
• Cap. Fetterman and 92 troopers are ambushed and
  killed by Crazy Horse and Red Cloud Sioux.
• 1874- Black Hills, gold fever.
• 1876- Sioux, Crazy horse, Sitting Bull- Custers
  Last Stand.
• Chief Joseph tries to flee to Canada.
• Buffalo soldiers (blacks) were used on the
  plains against the Indians.

23
Chief Joseph and Nez Pierce 433
24
Buffalo- Indians v. White man

• Trappers and traders, people who made their
  living selling meat and hides. By the 1870s,
  they were shipping hundreds of thousands of
  buffalo hides eastward each year more than 1.5
  million were packed aboard trains and wagons in
  the winter of 1872-73 alone.
• Train companies offered tourists the chance to
  shoot buffalo from the windows of their coaches,
  pausing only when they ran out of ammunition or
  the gun's barrel became too hot.
• There were even buffalo killing contests. In one,
  a Kansan set a record by killing 120 bison in
  just 40 minutes. "Buffalo" Bill Cody, hired to
  slaughter the animals, killed more than 4,000
  buffalo in just two years
• military commanders were ordering their troops to
  kill buffalo -- not for food, but to deny Native
  Americans their source of food

• 1 Indian Village hunt-deaths of dozens or
  hundreds of animals (30, 60, 100, and even 600,
  800, and 1000 were reported killed) produced
  fantastic quantities of meat
• 24 to 28 Plains tribes had figured out how to use
  the buffalo in 52 different ways for food,
  supplies, war and hunting implements, things like
  that.

25
Slaughter of the Buffalo and the End of the Indian

• Male Buffalo- 700-800 pounds and yielded 225-400
  pounds of meat
• Estimates once between 30 to 75 million buffalo
  in North America, but the great herds were
  reduced to less than 300 buffalo by 1900

• By 1880, the slaughter was almost over.
• In 1800, the best estimates show between 30
  million and 40 million bison in the Great Plains.
  By 1902, there were approximately 750 in the
  entire U.S.

26
Buffalo
27
The Ghost Dance- Hope to the People

• The prophet who began the movement of the Ghost
  Dance was Wovoka, a member of the Paiute Tribe.
  He was descended of a family of prophets and
  Shamans. Known as a medicine man, it was said
  that during an eclipse of the sun and while
  suffering from a high fever, he had a vision
  which inspired the development of the movement
  known as the Ghost Dance. The vision embodied the
  beliefs that inspired the followers of the
  movement including that the white man would
  disappear from the Earth after a natural
  catastrophe and that the Indian dead would return
  bringing with them the old way of life that would
  then last forever.
• To bring these and the other beliefs into effect,
  the Indians had to practice the customs of the
  Ghost Dance movement and to renounce alcohol and
  farming and end mourning, since the resurrection
  would be coming soon. The most important practice
  to ensure the effectiveness of the movement was
  the dance itself.
• The dance was unlike other Indian dances with
  fast steps and loud drumming. The Ghost Dance
  consisted of slow shuffling movements following
  the course of the sun. It would be performed for
  four or five days and was accompanied by singing
  and chanting, but no drumming or other musical
  instruments. In addition, both men and women
  participated in the dance, unlike others in which
  men were the main dancers, singers and musicians.

28
Treatment of Native Americans- 1887-1934
1889- 1,000 out of the millions of Buffalo were
left. With food, clothing, fuel, and shelter
gone the Indians gave up. Ghost Dance created
to give the people hope. Wounded Knee, South
Dakota- Dec. 29, 1890 (200 Indian dead). Helen
Hunt Jacksons books awakened the whites to the
plight of the Indian. Dawes Act
1887-Americanize the Indian. Divide up
reservation land into 160 acre farms. 25 years
later Indians get title. Break up the tribes,
destroy Indian culture. 1887-1934 Indians lost
1/2 of their lands. Indian Citizenship Act June
2, 1924 granted citizenship to all Native
Americans born in the United States. 1934-
Indian New Deal- rebuild tribes and culture and
population grew.
29
Wounded Knee
30
Wounded Knee

• Chief Big Foot and the Minniconjou Sioux
• The Hotchkiss gun usually refers to the 1.65 inch
  light mountain gun there was also a 3-inch
  Hotchkiss gun. They were intended to be mounted
  on a light carriage or packed on mules to
  accompany a troop of cavalry or an army traveling
  in rough country. Breech loading and handled by
  two men.
• Hotchkiss was employed against the Nez Percés in
  1877. Over the next twenty years the U.S would
  purchase fifty more. They were used in Cuba for
  the attack on San Juan Hill and in the
  Philippine-American War. It was also used at the
  Wounded Knee Massacre.
• It fired two types of shells- one would explode
  on impact and send out shrapnel. The other was a
  canister which would rip open at the muzzle
  spraying the enemy with a fan shaped pattern of
  hardened lead ½ inch balls. This projectile was
  used at close range.

31
Black Elk- on Wounded Knee

• I do not know then how much was ended. When I
  look back now from this high hill of my old age,
  I can still see the butchered women and children
  lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked
  gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still
  young. And I can see that something else died
  there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the
  blizzard. A peoples dream died there. It was a
  beautiful dream the nations hoop is broken and
  scattered. There is no center any longer, and
  the sacred tree is dead.
• Read a section of the book- Bury My Heart at
  Wounded Knee

32
Code Talkers