Charles R Jones
Derek Stanik
History 225
July 9, 2015
Count Down to the Sand Creek Massacre
On November 29, 1864 approximately 700 U.S. troops attacked a village of 500 Arapaho and Cheyenne Indians. The village consisted of men, women, and children, who thought they were at peace with the U.S. government. The attack at Sand Creek was part of a chain of bad events and battles the Plains Indian tribes were experiencing with migrating settlers arriving from the east and U.S. soldiers. An 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie condensed Cheyenne and Arapaho land but promised them yearly payments in exchange for safe passage of settlers through their tribal lands. The discovery of gold in Colorado in 1858 brought a greater inflow of settlers coming in a hunt
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Signed by all 10 chiefs of the Cheyenne and Arapaho people, it significantly reduced the hunting grounds formerly agreed upon in the Treaty and created, once again less land for the reservation around the Sand Creek and Arkansas River. The treaty included an agreement to change these Native Americans from hunters to farmers. Many problems came out of this agreement. Although the Native people understood it as an agreement to each tribe, local settlers believed it to include all of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Natives, expecting them to give up buffalo hunting and to move within the reservation and farm. That did not happen, frustrating the plans of Colorado Territory Gov. John Evans and increasing resistances between the two nations. The Sand Creek Massacre would occur inside this reservation …show more content…
Approximately 200 people would die there, many disfigured by the soldiers. According to the Lone Wolf, a novel by Kevin Cahill, “When the smoke cleared, Colonel John M. Chivington’s troops returned to Denver, waving Indian scalps and body parts to an adoring crowd that hailed the conquering heroes as saviors of the territory”. The chiefs that were killed were, Standing-in-the-Water, Ochinee and War Bonnet, White Antelope, Tall Bear, Bear Robe, Little Robe, Spotted Crow, Big Man, Bear Man and Old Yellow Wolf. After this, the entire camp was burned. Many of the natives were left behind to be identified by their family members. Several men tried to stop the massacre, mainly a CPT. Silas, who on Apr 23, 1865 was found shot to death in Denver. According to the National Park Service, “The citizens of nearby Denver welcomed the troops when they returned as having helped to rid the Plains of hostile Indians, but Chivington’s actions were controversial almost
On the day of September 11, 1857, an emigrant party camped at Mountain Meadows was brutally killed by the Mormon militia aided by Indians. This essay examines two viewpoints regarding the massacre found in Sally Denton’s “American Massacre” and in “Massacre at Mountain Meadows” by Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley, and Glen M. Turley.
The Battle of the Little Bighorn by the EyeWitnesstoHistory.com thoroughly explained groups of different kinds of Indians had to leave their homeland and moved to a reservation land. Reservation land are lands that were given to Indians by the Whites. However in Sioux village, the Indians refused to leave their property and the only way to make them move was to start a battle or a war between them. George Custer ignores the order to wait and not attacked but, he
The Sand Creek Massacre involved many native tribes, including the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Sioux, Kiowa, and Comanche. Among many of these tribes were the targeted, Black Kettle and White Antelope leaders of the Cheyenne. Left Hand and Little Raven were the Arapaho chiefs. “The Cheyenne and the Arapaho were the tribes that were mainly affected in this massacre.” (Hoig 15)
In the south of central Montana during 1876 on June 25th and 26th, a battle happened known as the Battle of Little Bighorn or also known as “Custer’s Last Stand”. The Native American Tribes that were involved was the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes. They were battling against the 7th regiment of the US Cavalry which was led by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer. In the year of 1868 Lakota leaders agreed to a treaty known as Fort Laramie Treaty which was suppose to give the Lakota leaders a large reservation for their tribes. But in accepting the treaty they also accepted giving up their nomadic lifestyles and agreed to a more stationary livelihood in the reservation. Some leaders like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse did not agree
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.
Meeker undiplomatically tried to force the Ute to farm, raise stock, discontinue their pony racing and hunting forays, and send their children to school. Meeker was determined to change them from primitive savages to hard working, god fearing farmers, even when he was warned he was making the Utes furios. Meeker ignored the warnings and had a horse racing track be plowed under for it to turn into a farmland, he also suggested that there were to many horses, and that they would have to kill some of them. The Ute whose land Meeker was was plowing under resisted and a fist fight occurred. As a result, Meeker called for military assistance, saying that he had been assaulted by the Ute, driven from his home, and severely injured. The government responded sending 200 troops led by Major T.T. Thornburgh. However, after they heard about this the Utes revolted. In 1879, before the troops arrived, the Indians attacked, burned the buildings, and killed Meeker and nine of his employees. The incident is known as the Meeker Massacre. Meeker's wife, daughter, and another girl were held as captives for 23 days. After the massacre, relief columns from Forts Fred Steele and D. A. Russell, Wyoming, defeated the Utes in the Battle of Milk Creek, Colorado, and ended the
On March 5, 1770, British soldiers shot and killed five people on King Street in Boston Massachusetts. This incident is now known as the “Boston Massacre.” The soldiers were under attack of a heckling, snowballing mob of American colonists. The colonists- “Patriots”- were protesting the British troops presence in their city. The troops were sent to Boston in 1768 to enforce unpopular taxation measures passed by British Parliament that lacked American representation.
A school shooting is a form of mass shooting involving a gun attack on suck as a school or university. Then a group or one person goes to a school then shoot someone. These incidents has cause many political arguments and created many laws.
When whites first came to America, they tried to control the Indians. Whites soon realized that they could not control the Natives. This led to the Whites giving the Indians rights, but the Army ignored the rights the Natives had been given. As part of the Treaty of Fort Laramie or The Horse Creek treaty, 1851, the Native tribes were to be paid an annual annuity for granting the traveling immigrants a safe passage and staying within their tribal territories (Barrett 1). With an increase in foot travel along the trails leading to California for the gold rush, tensions were running high in the Native tribes (Cubbison 1). While the Natives were peaceful with the immigrants, their trust in The Army was failing. The soliders at Fort Laramie were
The significance of the Fort Laramie Treaty had an enormous impact on the Plains Indians. While, the significance is undoubtedly historical to their everyday lives now and what would be affected in the future. It is key for the claims of White Plume and any others. However, what would make this treaty stand out to the Plains Indians? The U.S. has negotiated a myriad of treaties to the Plains Indians in times past.
Custer’s death and defeat at Little Bighorn, led the Army to change its tactics. The troops surrounded villages of Red Cloud and Red Leaf. There, they arrested and confined the leaders, holding them responsible for failing to turn in those from hostile bands. After, the tribal leaders finally signed a new treaty giving the Black Hills to the United States (Keenan 213).
Historian Heather Cox Richardson, provides a comprehensive analysis of an attempt by the government to annihilate the native Indians. In her book Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre, she discusses the well-calculated assault by the Whites on the Plain Indians. Behind this move was not the manifestation of destiny but rather politics; politics almost wiped out the natives. To illustrate the role of politics, this paper discusses the specific role of tariff reforms, farmers’ alliances, republicans and democrats, the silverites, the statehood process, and the spoils system.
The 1870’s and 1880’s in America was marked with growing nativism towards the Chinese, accumulating to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (Yung 54). Competing immigrant laborers effected the entire country, including the Midwest, where people sought employment in coal mines. Animosity towards the Chinese was also largely uncontroversial in the territories, with the Wyoming Republican party declaring that the Chinese were an undesired group (Storti 98). There is no definitive date that hints at the beginning of the Rock Springs Massacre in 1885, where many Chinese miners were killed by white miners. However, origins of this conflict can be traced back to when the Chinese were first brought in as strikebreakers in 1875 unde the Union Pacific Coal
It is impossible to write about hardship in the Wild West without talking about the hardship that Native Americans faced. The war on Indians by the United States government focused on relocating all Native Americans to reservations so that Americans could settle in more lands. For this reason, many Native Americans undoubtedly fought back against the United States government. This led to violence and the slaughtering of Indians for which the Wild West is known. One famous event concerning the Indian Wars was the Wounded Knee Massacre. Dee Brown described this event in her novel, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, saying that the United States 7th Cavalry Regiment “opened up on them, firing almost a shell a second, raking the Indian camp, shredding the teepees with flying shrapnel, killing men, women, and children.” According to Brown, “[o]ne estimate placed the final total of dead at very nearly three hundred of the original 350 men, women, and children.”
The National Museum of the American Indian showcases eight different contracts the Native People and the USA had. However, there were approximately 374 treaties that were ratified between the United States and the Native Nations. One of the treaties that stood out to me the most was The Horse Creek Treaty. In a nutshell, the United States was asking for the right to build roads and forts as it expanded westward. Two negotiators from the US Office of Indian Affairs argued that they didn’t want any of their land, their horses, or anything they had. The meeting took place at the mouth of Horse Creek, near Fort Laramie. It was the largest gathering of Plains Nations in American history; around ten thousand people attended. The States negotiators argued that this