Plains Indians Summary

In the beginning the transcontinental railroad caused many problems especially with the american indians. The picture on document H shows American indians riding by the unfinished railroad while americans attack with their weapons. The American Indians didn’t

The Plains Indians religious beliefs were quite similar and interesting. The Plains Indians believed in Animism. Animism is the belief that everything possesses a spirit. Besides Animism, the Plains Indians only worshiped one other “god.” That was the Great Spirit. The Great Spirit was the mother of all things. They would perform ceremonies for her. Sacred items were also important to the people of the Plains. They would have items that they believed had spiritual or talismanic powers. The items would be located in a pouch at the person’s side. The Medicine Man would also carry around multiple pouches with different talisman. This could come in the form of a peace pipe or a calumet or something that they

One extreme change for the Indians was the arrival of Anglo-Europeans. Native peoples’ lives were changed at the blink of an eye while new ideas, practices and beliefs were shown to them. The arrival of the Europeans changed the way the Indians viewed their world and manipulated their resources. This new change could be viewed as positive as well as negative, for while some tribes entered into trade relations with the Anglos, others were used as slave labor and all were subject to disease brought on by the European newcomers. However, despite all the advantages and disadvantages, no other introduction changed the lives of the Indians more than firearms and horses. West outlines one of the most important evolutions for Native life and how it represented a new way to harness resources and gain power. In just a few chapters, we are able to see the great advancements the Indians made in hunting and trade due to these new technologies and how they allowed the Cheyennes to rise to a new purpose as the Called Out People.

America kept moving westward, into Native American territory, which is what started the problems. The US government did not want the Native Americans attacking the settlers so they created reservations. The settlers agreed to this idea, but the Native Americans were not so sure because before they were able to roam freely and now they were confined to hunting in one open space. The main source of all life was the buffalo because it provided food and clothing (Doc. A). When trains were put in it disrupted the hunting pattern of the buffalo meaning that they lost a huge source of their life. To get revenge on the the settlers for putting the trains through their hunting land, the Natives would clip the telegraph lines. Famous Buffalo Bill Cody was a American icon during the twentieth century because he symbolized what the wild west was like.

Trains had changed America a lot. It had turned transportation faster and easier. There not that famous as they used to be when it was first made but people still use them to go longer distance or to transport things. But they really changed it because if it wasn’t for trains buses probably wouldn’t have existed. But another reason is because there wasn’t any transportation back in the days except horses and trains had changed everything it was faster it went farther distances and it was easy to ride one to a far location. They had made transportation easier than it was already because trains would go farther than the transportation already was. The railroad also helped a lot they gave people more opportunities for better jobs sense more people

The American territory was sprawling across the Mississippi River and into new Native American territory. The Great Plains and far West were occupied by both Indians and Hispanics whose custom and way of live were distinct in language religion and kinship and governance. The white settlers and hunters were a threat to the resources in which they used for survival.

The Plains Cree Tribe lived in Canada, north and west of Lake Superior in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories. Women wore dresses made out of deerskins, Men wore animal skin leggings,a loincloth which is a small piece of cloth or skin worn between the legs and a belt to hold the loin cloth. They did not speak english, their language is called Montagnais. They lived in teepees.

One thing that it looks at is land allotments that the Indians would receive for moving west. Many of the Indians would receive “320 acres if it was a single family selling or 640 acres to ninety chiefs in the Creek nation” . Many Native Americans took the agreement for these lands that were west of the Mississippi. But soon trouble started. Some of the land companies forced Indians to sell their land even if the Indians didn’t want to move west. Other companies would pay Indians to pretend they were someone else so the companies could claim the land of an Indian who didn’t want to move. Sometimes white settlers would come onto the land they had bought before the actually time they were allotted. During this process many people were cheated out of their land and received very little compensation for their moving west

The Transcontinental railroad purpose of being built was to cause positive things to happen in the US and positive things did result from the railroad. For example, westward expansion increased because of the railroad. One reason why western expansion increased because of the railroad was that travelers finally found a use for the Great Plains like how they found “millions of acres of fertile soil, land for cattle, and a land of opportunity even larger than the Lone Star State”(Doc 1). Because people found these uses of The Great Plains, people started to move rapidly west to take ahold of these opportunities. This was a positive for the US because now more people are moving west increasing westward expansion, starting businesses, and are farming in the Great Plains which helped boost the US economy. Another reason why westward expansion increased because of the railroad is there was land in the west and after the railroad was built it was for sale for very cheap prices (Doc 5). This was a positive because with more land for cheap price people started moving west but it also is creating more space for people to live and during this time many immigrants from many countries are coming to the United States looking for opportunities and the more people that came to the United States the more space they needed because they needed somewhere to live. So now that they have more land more people are able to settle in the United States in the west for cheap low prices.

The transcontinental railroad was starting to be built in 1863 by two main companies, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific. In the 1800’s the railroad was seen as one of the best things and also one of the worst things that took place in the US. The railroad brought many negative effects westward for the Native Americans and Chinese, but had many positive effects for Americans in the US. Some of these positive and negatives came from events like The Great Plains, Buffalo, Manifest Destiny, and Railroad Surveyors. This essay will focus on how railroad expanding westward created more positive opportunities for the Americans to start up new lives for themselves. But it will also focus on how the Americans and the railroad expanding westward took over the Natives Americans lives and left them with little to no land to survive with. Many other obstacles and situation also came along with the Americans as they tried to build up the railroad for the people of the US.

In 1874 the US Army sent a force under Colonel Custer into South Dakota. When gold was discovered in the area, the federal government declared that all Sioux Indians not in reservations would have to be subjugated by Custer’s troops. Many Sioux refused to cooperate, and Custer began to attack. At the battle of Little Bighorn, in June 1876, Custer split his troops, and a larger force of Indians wiped out all of his men. After this defeat, the army took a different course by harassing the Sioux in attrition. Indians eventually lost the will to resist as these strategies were commonly successful against the Sioux. In the December of 1890, approximately 300 Indians were killed by US troops at Wounded Knee. This massacre was the indication to the end of Indian opposition. The Plains Indians were eventually conquered and forced into reservations.

First of all, the Plains Indian were great travelers that roam free throughout the lands and were great fighters who used guerilla tactics. With time, came the genocide of the of the buffalo, this was because the Americans would just kill them for sport and leave the meat to rot. Another issue that came was the creation of reservation. As you know the plain Indians were always free to roam the land and all of the sudden the Americans tried to restrict them to one place, which could not have happened since the Indians hatted farming. In addition, you cannot forget the creations of boarding school which were founded by Francis Pratt. At the schools they tried to persuade the American way of life such as religion, clothing, and language. If a Indian spoke their native language they beaten for not

In her book American Indian Stories, Zitkala-Sa's central role as both an activist and writer surfaces, which uniquely combines autobiography and fiction and represents an attempt to merge cultural critique with aesthetic form, especially surrounding such fundamental matters as religion. In the tradition of sentimental, autobiographical fiction, this work addresses keen issues for American Indians' dilemmas with assimilation. In Parts IV and V of "School Days," for example, she vividly describes a little girl's nightmares of paleface devils and delineates her bitterness when her classmate died with an open Bible on her bed. In this groundbreaking scene, she inverts the allegation of Indian religion as superstition by labeling

After President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, everyone was eager for the construction to begin. The railroad was needed to connect California to the eastern and midwestern large cities in order to ship valuables and natural resources. The problem for the Indians was that the tracks would be set right through their ancestral land. Unfortunately, The United States could care less about the native’s wants because the construction of the railroad was seen beneficial to them. One of the many reasons was because it provided Americans and immigrants with jobs. The decline in buffalo began when they would stampede across the tracks. White workers decided that they were getting “in the way” and would kill massive herds at a time. This leads in to the most important reason for the decline of the Plains culture and their ultimate defeat, the Buffalo.

In American Indian Stories, University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London edition, the author, Zitkala-Sa, tries to tell stories that depicted life growing up on a reservation. Her stories showed how Native Americans reacted to the white man’s ways of running the land and changing the life of Indians. “Zitkala-Sa was one of the early Indian writers to record tribal legends and tales from oral tradition” (back cover) is a great way to show that the author’s stories were based upon actual events in her life as a Dakota Sioux Indian. This essay will describe and analyze Native American life as described by Zitkala-Sa’s American Indian Stories, it will relate to Native Americans and their interactions with American societies, it will