-
1834
The federal government passed an act that designated the entire Great Plains as one enormous reservation, or land set aside for Native American tribes. -
1850
The government changed its policy and created treaties that created specific boundaries for each tribe. Although they spurned the government treaties and continued to hunt on their traditional lands which ends up clashing with settlers and miners which has a tragic result -
Massacre at Sand Creek
The Cheyenne had peacefully returned to Colorado's Sand Creek under the protection of the U.S. government until the Telegram sent to Colonel John Chivington saying that they want no peace until the Natives suffer more sent by General S. R. Curtis. Then, Chivington and his troops descended on the Cheyenne and Arapaho- about 200 warriors and 500 women and children camped at Sand Creek. The Attack started at dawn on November 29, 1864 killing over 150 inhabitants, mostly women and children. -
Death On The Bozeman Trail
Warrior Crazy Horse ambushed Captiain William J. Fetterman and his company at Lodge Trail Ridge. Over 80 soldiers were killed. Native Americans called this fight the Battle of the Hundred Slain. Whites called it the Fetterman Massacre. Skirmishes continued until the government agreed to close the Bozeman Trail. In return, the Treaty of Fort Laramie, in which the Sioux agreed to live on a reservation along the Missouri River, was forced on the leaders of the Sioux in 1868. -
Pre-Red River War
War broke out yet again as the Kiowa and Comanche engaged in six years that led to the Red River War -
Black Hills Gold Rush
Within four years of the Treaty of Fort Laramie, miners began searching the Black Hills for gold. The Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho protested the encroachment on their lands to no avail. In 1874, when Colonel George A. Custer reported that the Black Hills had gold "from the grass roots down," a gold rush was on. Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, another Sioux chief, vainly appealed again to government officials. -
Red River War
The U.S. Army was herding the people of friendly tribes onto reservations while opening fire on all others. General Philip Sheridan, a Union Army veteran, gave orders "to destroy their villages and ponies, to kill and hang all warriors, and to bring back all women and children." With such tactics, the army crushed resistance on the southern plains. -
Custer's Last Stand
Sioux and Cheyenne held a sun dance, during which Sitting Bull had a vision of soldiers and some Native Americans falling from their horsed. When Colonel Custer and his troops reached the Little Bighorn River, the Native Americans were ready. Led by Crazy Horse, Gall, and Sitting Bull, the warriors with raised spears and rifles outflanked Custer's men. Then, Custer and his men were killed. -
The Dawes Act
Congress passed this act to "Americanize" the Native Americans. That act broke up the reservation and gave some of that land to individual Native Americans. 160 acres to each head of household and 80 acres to each unmarried adult. The government would sell the remainder of the reservations to settlers, and the result income would be used by Native Americans to buy farm implements. By 1932, whites had taken about two-thirds of the Native American Territory. -
Wounded Knee
The Seventh Calvary, Custer's old regiment, rounded up about 350 starving and freezing Sioux to a camp at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. The next day, the soldiers demanded that the Native Americans give up all their weapons. A shot was fired from a side that was not known. Then, soldiers opened fired with deadly cannon and slaughtered 300 mostly unarmed Natives, including children. The soldiers left the corpse to freeze on the ground and it brought the Indian wars to a bitter close.
