The story of the Native American is a tragic one. As more and more settlers moved West in search of cheap land, the Native Americans paid the price. They were not only forced to leave their ancestral homelands, but they were beset by massacres, wars, disease, swindlers, and hunger. The Plains Indians subsisted on their primary source of food—the buffalo—until white frontiersman nearly hunted the animals into extinction.
Some tribes tried to resist the takeover of the lands they had lived on for centuries, but they were no match for the technology and weapons of the settlers and the federal government. Many Native Americans were eventually forced to live on reservations, plots of land set aside by the U.S. government. These reservations were not well-suited for agriculture. Two of the largest reservations were in Oklahoma and the Dakota Territory. Reservations were managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which often did not deliver food and supplies that they had promised to the Native Americans.
Watch the following video and take notes on the Native American struggle.
In the mid-to-late 1800s the eastern and western U.S. were very different from each other. The East was rapidly industrialized, and the West had no cities, but homestead farmers, miners, and cattle ranchers. The Native Americans were still trying to hold their ancestral lands and maintain tribal traditions from being taken by more and more moving West. When the transcontinental railroad was complete, new conflict with the Native Americans emerged. Now thousands were moving West. The white Easterners were increasing in population over the natives. The buffalo, once so plentiful, were disappearing. The Easterners also brought disease. Thousands of natives were dying from disease and warfare.
The natives were increasingly being driven off their land and forced to live in less desirable areas. Local militias were forming to keep the settlers safe from the intolerant natives. Vicious battles took place that would continue until the 1890’s. This began with the Battle of Sand Creek. Sand Creek was an area in Colorado which was home to nearly 800 Cheyenne Indians. Chief Black Kettle had gone to the U.S. Army to seek protection for his people. In November 1864, the army assured him his people at Sand Creek would not be bothered. This would prove a lie. The next day, a group called the Colorado Volunteers surrounded the area. Black Kettle raised the American flag in friendship. The Volunteers ended up killing around 400 people, mostly women and children.
When word of the Sand Creek massacre spread to other Indian tribes, they agreed on a coalition to retaliate. The most active were the Sioux tribe under leadership of Chief Red Cloud. They ambushed troops in Montana. They killed and mutilated 81 soldiers. With no compromise in site, Red Cloud and the United States agreed to the Treaty of Fort Laramie, which temporarily ended the fighting. Large plots of land were given to the Sioux and Cheyenne by the U.S. government but the peace did not last long.
With the discovery of gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota in 1874, more people were moving to the land which held the Sioux tribes. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, two Indian leaders, urged the people to prepare for more fighting. Led by Custer, a brash officer in the U.S. Army, the American troops were on the move. They were confident in their technology. The army was using new weapons, such as the Gatling gun, a rapidly firing weapon. Against his orders, Custer engaged with the Sioux and did not wait for reinforcements. The Sioux and Cheyanne wiped out Custer and his army at Little Big Horn. The U.S. Army moved in after, however, and dissolved the rest of native resistance.
With the decimation of the buffalo and the Homestead Act of 1862, the native tribes had lost their land and their means of food and clothing. Life for the Native Americans was becoming very difficult. Federal policy had dictated that if tribes wanted to continue their way of life, they needed to live off certain plots of land, called a reservation. Many of these reservations had land unsuitable for agriculture, and hostile tribes were forced onto the same areas. The tribes were facing disease, alcoholism, and despair. The Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 established that each native family was offered 160 acres of land to own and farm. Even though the government was hoping to make the natives more independent, and after 25 years, they would become American citizens, the act was resisted. The tribal leaders saw this as the end of their ancient ways and loss of their ancestral lands they had held for many centuries. Many lacked the knowledge to farm these areas.
The government set up schools to teach the natives to read and write English. Native American children had to attend the schools on the reservations or they would be visited by the police to search for the student. The schools required the children to dress like Americans. They were not allowed to learn their tribal languages and religions. This was a way to "Americanize" the natives. The Dawes Act ended up being a disaster for the Native Americans. The Native American land holdings continued to disappear even into the 20th century. This left native tribes with nothing, and they had to deal with alcoholism, poverty, illiteracy, and suicide as a result. The Native American story was one of treachery and hopelessness.
