The Red Cloud Wars

The US Government treated the Dakota unfairly and poorly. The indian agents tricked the Dakota into signing the treaties, that stated that they will get money and goods. The Dakota were threatened to sign the treaties. The money from the Dakota were given to the US Government, thinking that they’ll get money back. The US Government never did, leaving the Indians poor and upset. After being tricked, the Dakota were put into reservations. Dakota people were living in prison like “homes” where they were shortened on their needs. Living in reservations, the Dakota were starving to death, although the Indian agents didn’t care. The Dakota were forced to leave their culture behind and become like white settlers.

The two main actions that the United States government issued towards the Plains Indians were the Homestead Act and the Dawes Act. The Homestead Act correlated with the trend of Manifest Destiny and encouraged settlers to migrate west. The Homestead Act encouraged western migration by providing 160 acres of public land. In exchange, homesteaders paid a small filing fee and were required to complete five years of continuous residence before receiving ownership of the land. After six months of residency, homesteaders also had the option of purchasing the land from the government for roughly $1.25 per acre. (Primary Documents in American History) The land that the government was distributing belonged to various tribes of the Plains Indians. By having the Homestead Act in effect and encouraging settlers to migrate west, Plains Indians were forced into reservations. The real impact of Manifest Destiny was that it sent many settlers west, without realizing that the settlers were taking land from the Indians. The Indians that lived in the reservations had just enough food to keep their population alive, as well as living in unsanitary conditions with bacteria and diseases everywhere. The two options that the Indians had was to either live in the reservations with little to no food or to face genocide. Some Indian tribes tried to make amends with American troops who ushered the natives to reservations, but some American troops turned on the Indians. One incident of the American troops killing Indians was the Nez Perce war. This war was over a conflict of land and how some US troops did not agree on the settlement of the land. The war resulted in over 100 casualties towards the Indians and was stated as a genocide of and Indian tribe. The second act that was passed by the United States government was the Dawes Act. The Dawes Act authorized the President to survey American

The conflict that occurred between the U.S. Government and the Native American Indian tribes, known as the Great Sioux War. It was a lengthy, disjointed struggle between the U.S. Army and the allied tribes of the Teton Sioux and Northern Cheyenne Indians that occurred in the span of fifteen months between, March 1876 and May 18771. Hostilities between the U.S. Government and the Native American Indian tribes grew due to the movement of settlers on the land promised to them. The Northern Plains, which consist of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana, is where the majority of the war took place. The most prominent battle of this war was the Battle of Little Big Horn, due to the amount of casualties taken by the U.S. 7TH Cavalry led

Another cause for poor relations between Native Americans and European Settlers was the constant push for acquiring new land by the Colonists. The Native Americans did not just want to give up their land and this resulted in war between the Indians and the Colonists. During this time Native Americans were sold into slavery belittled and removed from their land, due to the fact that the Colonists had more advanced technology and weapons. One of the major wars was the French and Indian War which resulted in the removal of Native Americans from their land and many casualties on both sides. Over time many battles were fought over land, even after America was an established country with presidents, laws, and court systems. Native Americans were continually pushed out of their land for hundreds of years while they were forced to move west. The constant push of Native Americans out of their land would cause an event known as the Trail of Tears where thousands of Indians were removed from their land by the Indian Removal Act. “In 1830 the Congress of the United States passed the "Indian Removal Act." Although many Americans were against the act, most notably Tennessee Congressman Davy Crockett, it passed anyway. President Jackson quickly signed the bill into law. The Cherokees attempted to fight removal legally by challenging the removal laws in the Supreme Court and by establishing an

When Europeans first arrived to America, Indians were living in eight present states: Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, the Virginias, Alabama, and the Carolinas (Museum). Slowly, the Cherokee were forced to sign treaties giving away land to the new nation. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson finally worked to pass a treaty that would force all Indians west of the Mississippi River. It wasn’t until Andrew Jackson

On June 25, 1876, a battle was fought on the territory of Montana. This battle became known as the battle of Little Bighorn. The battle took place because Natives refused to move off territories that they were told to move from into native reserves. When they refused the U.S Army was dispatched to confront them. Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong led the troops into battle. Native warriors from Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne outnumbered the Army. June 25,

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.

In 1874, Custer led an army expedition to the Black Hills of present-day South Dakota, a sacred property of the Lakota-Sioux Nation, which was recognized under the Sioux Treaty of 1868. There, Custer and his men found a great amount of gold, and when President Grant and the US administration offered to buy the area, the Lakota-Sioux nation refused to sell due to its holiness in their culture. Two years later, the

As time went on war broke loose the first war was the King Philips War from 1675-76. In 1830 Andrew Jackson signed the Indian removal act. This act called Indians “destined to extinction” and “not worth preserving”. Accordingly the act forcibly removed 17,000 Cherokee from the east to Oklahoma.

There is a lot of history behind the Blackfoot tribe that I am sure a lot of people are unaware of. The Blackfoot tribe first learned about and got their first horses and riles in 1700, also during that time they traveled along the Rocky Mountains. In 1851 there was a treaty that was called the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. The Blackfoot tribe was not one of the tribes that attended the negotiation of this treaty, but it still greatly affected their tribe. Article 5 of the Treaty defined the territory of this tribe and used the Musselshell, Missouri, Yellowstone Rivers, and the Rocky Mountain Range as markers of this territory. In 1873 and 1874, President Grant made Executive Orders shrinking reservation lands. The 1873 Order diminished the 1851 and 1855 treaty lands and created an entire reservation for the Blackfoot, Gros Ventre, Assiniboine, and Sioux. This territory went from north of the Missouri and Sun River east to the Dakota border. The 1874 Executive Order moved the southern boundary north from the Sun

The people of the northern portion of the “Indian Reserve” were given federal legal protections under the Northwest Ordinance Act of 1787 which established a commission to oversee the reserve, outlawed slavery, and provided a means for representative government. Native Americans in the southern portion of the “Indian Reserve” were

Everything was going very well for the settlers in the west, except for disputes and battles with the native Indian tribes. The tribes had signed many treaties with the Americans regarding their land and their safety; however, the treaties were loosely followed and ignored for the most part. In 1868, the Lakota were having conflicts with the US Army. The Lakota were angry that the army kept coming into their territory. This led to Red Cloud's War. Congress passed the Fort

Arable lands and rumors of gold in the Dakotas continued to attract white migration the government opened a major new war in 1876. Major battlefield encounters like George Armstrong crushers triumph at the battle of the washita in 1868 had been rare or more telling was the Army's destruction of Indian lodges , horses , and food supplies , exemplified by Ronald Mackenzies slaughter of over a thousand Indian ponies following a skirmish at palo duro canyon Texas in

The Wounded Knee, the confliction of North Americans Indians and the U.S government representatives, was located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota, U.S. This massacre that began on December 29, 1890, was the cause of