AP Studies: Chapter 16
Joseph Glidden
Invented barbed wire
Helen Hunt Jackson
United States writer of romantic novels about the unjust treatment of Native Americans (1830-1885)
Century of Dishonor 1881
book published in 1881 by Helen Hunt Jackson detailing the government's mistreatment of Native Americans
Assimilation
interpreting our new experiences in terms of our existing schemas
Pacific Railway Act
1862 legislation to encourage the construction of a transcontinental railroad, connecting the West to industries in the Northeast (Union Pacific and Central Pacific RR). The Pacific Railroad Act passed easily in 1862. The California based Central Pacific started building east from San Francisco and Sacramento while the Union Pacific started building west across the Great Plains from various terminals in Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri, all of which were already connected to the east coast by existing rail lines. The federal government provided a 400-foot right of way, federal loans, and major land grants to the two railroads. Construction moved very slowly during the war, but the coming of peace in 1865 brought a rush to complete the work.
Bosque Redondo
A reservation in New Mexico where the Navajos and Mescalero Apaches were confined to during the Civil War. Failured because of mutaul hatred between tribes and arid land given to cultivate Bosque Redondo A reservation in central New Mexico where the majority of the Navajos and Mescalero Apaches were confined during the Civil War. The Bosque Redondo reservation was a complete failure. The Mescalero Apaches considered the Navajos to be their "inveterate enemies," and the two tribes had no interest in cooperating. The arid land of mid New Mexico could not support thousands of families, even if they did turn to farming as the government asked them to do. In addition, the Comanches saw the conf ned reservation as an opportunity to attack old enemies. After the Civil War, a congressional peace commission visited Bosque Redondo and realized that the government had created a disaster.
Exodusters
African Americans who moved from post reconstruction South to Kansas. Thomas Johnson, a former slave from Kentucky, joined over 300 former slaves, known as Exodusters, in settling Nicodemus, Kansas, a town that was attracting people across the post-Reconstruction South with advertisements that said, "All Colored People that want to GO TO KANSAS, on September 5, 1877, Can do so for $5.00." Initially, there was not much to this town. The wife of the first pastor said that she "began to cry" when she first saw it, but people stayed on, eventually building it up.
Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier thesis
American historian who said that humanity would continue to progress as long as there was new land to move into. The frontier provided a place for homeless and solved social problems.
Buffalo Soldiers
Blacks who served in the U.S segregated unit in the West At the same time, U.S. Army units that had been fighting the Civil War were now available for service in the West. Among these units were segregated African-American units that were sent to the West and came to be known as Buffalo Soldiers because their white command-ers thought their hair was like that of the buffalo. Even though most military units were demobilized after the war, there were more than sufficient numbers of soldiers white and black remaining in the army to provide a formidable fighting force in the West.
Richard Henry Pratt
Carlisle Indian School A boarding school for Native American children opened in Carlisle, Pennsylvania to teach white ways and separate Indian children from tribal culture. Pratt and Mather's experiment drew widespread praise. They were authorized to expand their ef orts and open the Carlisle Indian School in old army barracks in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Twenty-five Indian boarding schools, eventually both Catholic and Protestant, were built on the Carlisle model between 1879 and 1902. Using federal tax dollars, these schools taught religion, western customs, and values to their Indian students.
Quanah Parker
Comanche leader who became the fiercest opposition to white compromises. Son of commander chief and a captured white Texan. During the fighting from 1871 to 1873 a new Comanche leader emerged. Quanah Parker was the son of a Comanche chief and Ann Cynthia Parker, a white Texan who had been captured by the Comanches. He became the fiercest opponent of compromise with whites. Then in 1874, Isa-tai, a young Comanche spiritual leader or shaman, became prominent, sharing a message heard many times among different Indian tribes that if they would get rid of white ways and end their dealings with white In a great camp meeting in June 1874, several hundred Comanche warriors led by Isa-tai and Parker joined with Kiowas, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes to eliminate the white presence from the Great Plains. The Comanche attacked the buffalo hunters. Quannah Parker was only 27 when he surrendered to federal authorities. Over the next 4 decades, he became principal chief of the Comanches and led them from warfare to farming and ranching. Parker was a tough negotiator with the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs for expanded land allotments. He had eight wives, built a fine 10-room house, and before he died he had his own telephone, owned a car, traveled by train, and went hunting with President Theodore Roosevelt. The life Parker and his people lived as he grew older was radically different from the life he had lived as a youth, but he helped create the foundation for tribal survival in a new era.
Chisolm Trail
Famous cattle trail that crossed rivers at the best places and passed by water holes. It began in San Antonio and ended in Kansas. In 1867, Joseph G. McCoy founded Abilene, Kansas, one of the nation's first cattle towns, to facilitate the loading of cattle onto transcontinental trains that would speed the beef to consumers. Jesse Chisholm began herding cattle along what came to be known as the Chisholm Trail from Texas, across Indian Territory, to Abilene to connect with those railroad lines. In 1867, some 30,000 cattle made their way along the Chisholm Trail, and over the next 20 years, 2 million more followed. Note
Sitting Bull
Fraction of the Sioux Although the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty could be seen as a victory for the Sioux, one faction, led by Sitting Bull, derided the treaty, reservation life, and the government annuities that were promised, saying to those who signed, "You are fools to make yourselves slaves to a piece of fat bacon, some hard-tack, and a little sugar and coffee." Indeed, the treaty that Sitting Bull criticized did not protect the Lakota or the other tribes involved. Sitting Bull was arrested in 1881 after returning from exile in Canada. He toured brief y with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show in the 1880s and then retired to the Standing Rock reservation where, as the Ghost Dance movement grew, he was killed in a standoff with other Sioux sent by the army to arrest him
Grant's Peace Policy
Grant's Peace Policy A new effort by President Grant to end the Plains Indian wars by creating a series of reservations on which tribes could maintain their traditional ways. When Ulysses S. Grant became president in 1869, he initiated a new Indian Peace Policy that became known as Grant's Peace Policy. Grant's thinking was shaped by the terrible bloodshed he had seen in the Civil War and by his identify cation with the emancipation of slaves. He wanted to end the corruption that he saw in the Indian Bureau, and he wanted to treat the Indians with dignity. His goal was peace. At the same time, Grant wanted room for white settlement and was certainly not planning to keep whites out of the vast tracts of western land that the Indians used for hunting. In his first annual message to Congress in December 1869, Grant said there was no turning back the clock, that the past "cannot be undone, and the question must be met as we now find it." Meeting the question, he believed, meant assimilating Indians Effort made by President Grant to reserve Indian traditions and gain land for white settlement. Indians were forced into reservations where the government kept out of and were independently ran. Although the Indian Peace Policy remained in force, the army simply ignored it When he proposed his Indian Peace Policy in December 1869, Grant said that it was needed because "[t]he building of rail-roads...is rapidly bringing civilized settlements into contact with all the tribes of Indians."
Navajos/Apaches
Indian tribes in the wild frontier of the Great Plains put down by the U.S Army and forced into Bosque Redondo, an Indian reservation. h e Navajos, or Diné as they prefer to be called, were as warlike as the Comanches and dominated large swaths of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas. The Union army ended their rule and that of the Mescalero Apaches, too. In early 1863, the army invaded Apache lands and soon confined some 400 Apaches at a new reservation at Bosque Redondo in central New Mexico. Carleton then appointed Kit Carson to lead the attack on the much larger Navajo tribe of some 10,000 people. Carson told the Navajos, "Go to Bosque Redondo, or we will pursue and destroy you. We will not make peace with you on any other terms." Carson kept his word, marching into Canyon de Chelly, the sacred Navajo heartland, attacking Navajo encampments as well as destroying orchards, crops, and livestock. By the spring of 1864, some 6,000 Navajos had surrendered rather than die of starvation. U.S. troops pursued other resisters, and eventually, 8,000 Navajos were forced on the "Long Walk," 300 miles south to a strange way of life at Bosque Redondo. The Bosque Redondo reservation was a complete failure. The Mescalero Apaches considered the Navajos to be their "inveterate enemies," and the two tribes had no interest in cooperating. The arid land of mid New Mexico could not support thousands of families, even if they did turn to farming as the government asked them to do. In addition, the Comanches saw the conf ned reservation as an opportunity to attack old enemies. After the Civil War, a congressional peace commission visited Bosque Redondo and realized that the government had created a disaster. The Sioux faced a bleak future after 1890, and it was decades before they made some of the same adjustments as the Navajos and Comanches. A few tribes, the Navajos and the Senecas, were able to avoid implementation of the Dawes Act and retain communal ownership of their reservations.
Modocs
Indian tribes in the wild west which were forced to give up their land, even after major resistance, to live on reservations. In the fall of 1872, Kintpuash, a leader of the Modoc tribe in southern Oregon and northern California, led his people out of a reservation the Modocs had shared with the Klamaths and Snakes since signing a treaty in 1864. Kintpuash did not like reservation life, and the Modocs returned to their homelands on Lost River in California. The U.S. Army followed and attacked them, but the Modocs knew the territory, especially the great black lava fields that provided hiding to those who had grown up among them. The Modocs resisted, killing soldiers, settlers, and government negotiators. Orders came from Washington "that the name of Modoc should cease," because they had violated their treaty and killed federal negotiators. Eventually, the army won. Surviving Modocs were relocated in Indian Territory far from their homeland.
The Nez Perce
Indian tribes in the wild west which were forced to give up their land, even after major resistance, to live on reservations. The Nez Perce, the tribe without whom Lewis and Clark would have perished, had long lived in Oregon and Idaho, but they were a deeply divided tribe. One group, known as the "progressives," signed a treaty in 1855 agreeing to live on a large reservation in Idaho. Another group, the so-called "nonprogressives," refused. They lived independently in an area encompassing the Salmon River in Idaho and the Snake River in Oregon. For some time, the nonprogressive Nez Perce were allowed to live in peace, but as white settlement grew in the Snake River's fertile Wallowa Valley, pressure came to force them and their leader Chief Joseph, or Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, onto the Idaho Reservation. They resisted, but by 1877, the Nez Perce knew they could no longer live unmolested in the Wallowa Valley. They began a long retreat to preserve their independence, a retreat that turned into a well-chronicled but tragic journey. Initially, the Nez Perce moved east across the Bitterroot Mountains into Montana hoping to f nd sanctuary with the Crow or Sioux. Then they turned north, hoping to cross into Canada. All along the way, the U.S. Army pursued them. Finally, when they were less than 40 miles from Canada, the army caught up. A few escaped across the border, but the majority, led by Chief Joseph, surrendered. The chief said, "I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed.... It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death... My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." Most of those who had made the long journey with Chief Joseph ended up on a reservation in Indian Territory, although some, eventually including Chief Joseph, were allowed to return to the Pacific Northwest but never to their ancestral lands
Homestead Act of 1862
Issued by the U.S Congress which allowed a free 160 acres for land for anyone who was willing to live and farm that region for 5 years. Did not specify where the land would come from In 1862, a Republican Congress had passed, and President Lincoln had signed, the Homestead Act, fulfilling a major Republican campaign promise to make more federal land available for white settlement. The act provided 160 acres of federal land to a family that would settle and maintain the land for 5 years. The act, however, did not specify where the land would come from. Homestead Act Law passed by Congress in 1862 providing 160 acres of land free to anyone who would live on the plot and farm it for 5 years. The Homestead Act of 1862 made 160-acre tracts available to those who settled, and Congress later allowed larger homesteads in the more barren lands.
Wovoka
Lakota Sioux spiritual leader who initiates the religious awakening A little more than a decade later, in 1890, the religious phenomenon that had been seen among other tribes appeared among the Sioux. A spiritual leader, Wovoka, initiated the Ghost Dance movement, promising a return of the buffalo and the disappearance of white people if only the Sioux would take up the dance and return to their ancient ways, freeing themselves of dependence on white culture. The rise of the Ghost Dance frightened the white community, and the army was sent to Pine Ridge to investigate.
Chief Joseph
Leader of the Nez Perce who said he was tired of fighting when the U.S Army caught on to them when they were 40 miles away from Canada. The Nez Perce, the tribe without whom Lewis and Clark would have perished, had long lived in Oregon and Idaho, but they were a deeply divided tribe. One group, known as the "progressives," signed a treaty in 1855 agreeing to live on a large reservation in Idaho. Another group, the so-called "nonprogressives," refused. They lived independently in an area encompassing the Salmon River in Idaho and the Snake River in Oregon. For some time, the nonprogressive Nez Perce were allowed to live in peace, but as white settlement grew in the Snake River's fertile Wallowa Valley, pressure came to force them and their leader Chief Joseph, or Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, onto the Idaho Reservation. They resisted, but by 1877, the Nez Perce knew they could no longer live unmolested in the Wallowa Valley. They began a long retreat to preserve their independence, a retreat that turned into a well-chronicled but tragic journey. Initially, the Nez Perce moved east across the Bitterroot Mountains into Montana hoping to f nd sanctuary with the Crow or Sioux. Then they turned north, hoping to cross into Canada. All along the way, the U.S. Army pursued them. Finally, when they were less than 40 miles from Canada, the army caught up. A few escaped across the border, but the majority, led by Chief Joseph, surrendered. The chief said, "I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed.... It is cold and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death... My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." Most of those who had made the long journey with Chief Joseph ended up on a reservation in Indian Territory, although some, eventually including Chief Joseph, were allowed to return to the Pacific Northwest but never to their ancestral lands
Major Crimes Act 1885
Legislation that helped clarify jurisdiction concerns on tribal lands and resulted in most serious crimes falling under the jurisdiction of the federal authorities, while tribal authorities have jurisdiction over less serious crimes.
Pacific Coast Tribes
Lived on fish, deer, native berries and roots. Rectangular homes housed large famlies. They used totem poles. Consist of: Tlingit, Chinook and Salish
Comancheros
Mexican traders in the Great Plains region Comanches, arguably the most powerful tribe on the western frontier in 1860, the Civil War was a great gift. While U.S. Army troops were stationed in Houston, San Antonio, and along the border with Mexico, west Texas, with several million cattle wandering on huge range lands, was only lightly protected. The Comanche saw their opportunity. They developed a rich trade with prosperous New Mexicans who came to be known as the Comancheros because of the trade. In a great camp meeting in June 1874, several hundred Comanche warriors led by Isa-tai and Parker joined with Kiowas, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes to eliminate the white presence from the Great Plains. The Comanche attacked the buffalo hunters. The Sioux faced a bleak future after 1890, and it was decades before they made some of the same adjustments as the Navajos and Comanches.
The Lakota Sioux
Most powerful group in the Sioux and the Northern Great Plains territory The Sioux, by far the largest group of tribes in the northern Great Plains, also fought fierce battles with the U.S. Army. Teton and Santee Sioux had been embroiled with U.S. settlers and army troops through the 1860s, but the largest battles of the 1870s were with the powerful Lakota Sioux. In December 1866, the Lakota attacked and killed U.S. troops. Rather than risk further fighting, the government sought peace with the Lakota as well as their allies. less than a decade after the treaty was signed, when gold was discovered in the Black Hills and miners and settlers descended on the region, the government ordered the Lakota to leave winter camps and settle near the agency headquarters. the Lakota resisted. The Great Sioux War of 1876-77 had begun. The defeats of 1876-77, along with the destruction of the great buffalo herds, led to an era of depression, disease, and poverty for the Sioux. In the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, the Lakota Sioux, led by Red Cloud, promised to avoid war, and the army agreed to abandon three provocatively placed forts. (An earlier Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 was negotiated simply to keep the peace between the tribes and give the U.S. Army and settlers rights-of-way across the plains to California and Oregon. Although the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty could be seen as a victory for the Sioux, one faction, led by Sitting Bull, derided the treaty, reservation life, and the government annuities that were promised, saying to those who signed, "You are fools to make yourselves slaves to a piece of fat bacon, some hard-tack, and a little sugar and coffee." Indeed, the treaty that Sitting Bull criticized did not protect the Lakota or the other tribes involved. A little more than a decade later, in 1890, the religious phenomenon that had been seen among other tribes appeared among the Sioux. A spiritual leader, Wovoka, initiated the Ghost Dance movement, promising a return of the buffalo and the disappearance of white people if only the Sioux would take up the dance and return to their ancient ways, freeing themselves of dependence on white culture. The rise of the Ghost Dance frightened the white community, and the army was sent to Pine Ridge to investigate. The Sioux faced a bleak future after 1890, and it was decades before they made some of the same adjustments as the Navajos and Comanches.
The Comanche Tribe
Most powerful tribe in the Western frontier in 1890. Ruled an empire as great as the Republic of Mexico without having any borders or bureaucracy The U.S. Army, the Texas Rangers, and other whites who had been harassing them for decades were called to fight against each other on distant battlefields. The Comanches welcomed their absence. In 1700, the Comanches were a small tribe who had recently moved into what is now the Southwest of the United States. They developed expertise using two European imports, rifles and horses, becoming the much-feared "Lords of the South Plains." The Comanches built a way of life based on hunting the buffalo, and like the buffalo, they traveled widely over the Great Plains. They also made alliances (especially with the Utes), traded (with everyone), and fought bloody battles (especially with the Apaches and the Europeans) while they stole horses and supplies as well as kidnapped settlers and people from other tribes. By the early 1800s, although they were without a permanent capital, borders, or bureaucracy, the Comanches ruled an empire that was equal in size and power to the United States or the Republic of Mexico. Nevertheless, by the late 1850s, the Comanches seemed to be in decline. Working with Texas Rangers and with smaller tribes who had been Comanche victims, the U.S. Army began to gain the upper hand in Texas. The Comanches needed ample space for hunting, trading, and fighting; they had no interest in being settled in any permanent locations. In battles during 1858, over 100 Comanche warriors, including chiefs, were killed and a large number of women and children taken prisoner. Some Comanches were ready to seek peace. The Penateka Comanches, who had split from the larger tribe, gave up warfare and settled on a Texas reservation just before the Civil War. The Civil War and, later, Reconstruction, opened up new opportunities for the Comanches. The war diverted troops from Texas to distant battlefields, and as early as 1863, Comanche raiding parties began to move back into parts of Texas they had left in the 1850s, stealing horses and cattle. When Texas joined the Confederacy, Comanches developed a brisk trade selling stolen Texas cattle to Union Army agents in New Mexico. While U.S. Army troops were stationed in Houston, San Antonio, and along the border with Mexico, west Texas, with several million cattle wandering on huge range lands, was only lightly protected. The Comanche saw their opportunity. They developed a rich trade with prosperous New Mexicans who came to be known as the Comancheros because of the trade. Faced with starvation, the Comanches began to surrender in small groups, coming to the army post at Fort Sill in Indian Territory over the course of the winter where they gave up their horses and rifles and moved to the reservations assigned to them. Isa-tai was discredited among the Comanches from then on. The winter of 1874-75 was the low point of Comanche life, but it was not the end. A newspaper reporter also at the meeting wrote that the Comanches arrived "with all their war paraphernalia, their horses striped with war paint, the riders bedecked with war bonnets and their faces painted red." They also knew a thing or two about a show of strength
Jim Thorpe
Native American who, in 1950, was voted the greatest athlete of the 20th century
Ghost Dance
Part of a religious awakening among the Lakota Sioux where they believed that if they returned to their traditional way of life, the whites would go away Ghost Dance Part of a religious awakening among the Lakota Sioux in 1890 in which they believed that if they returned to their traditional ways and ceremonies, the whites would be driven from their land. A little more than a decade later, in 1890, the religious phenomenon that had been seen among other tribes appeared among the Sioux. A spiritual leader, Wovoka, initiated the Ghost Dance movement, promising a return of the buffalo and the disappearance of white people if only the Sioux would take up the dance and return to their ancient ways, freeing themselves of dependence on white culture. The rise of the Ghost Dance frightened the white community, and the army was sent to Pine Ridge to investigate. Ghost Dance leaders convinced them to make a stand. It was a fatal move. Gunfire erupted on the reservation and between 100 and 200 (some estimate as high as 300) Indians were killed.
Carlisle Indian School
Pennsylvania school for Indians funded by the government; children were separated from their tribe and were taught Engilsh and white values/customs. Motto of founder: "Kill the Indian and save the man." Pratt and Mather's experiment drew widespread praise. They were authorized to expand their ef orts and open the Carlisle Indian School in old army barracks in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Twenty-five Indian boarding schools, eventually both Catholic and Protestant, were built on the Carlisle model between 1879 and 1902. Using federal tax dollars, these schools taught religion, western customs, and values to their Indian students.
railroads routes
Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, or San Diego, each of which was considered. Even more serious debate focused on where the routes should begin. Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas wanted them to start in Chicago, while Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis wanted them to begin in Memphis or New Orleans. It had been Douglas's dream of a route starting in Chicago that originally led him to propose the Kansas-Nebraska Act. But before the issue of the best transcontinental rail route could be settled, the Civil War had intervened. Once the war began in 1861, the departure of Southerners from Congress meant that a more northerly route became the obvious choice of the remaining members.
Transcontinental Railroad
Railroad connecting the west and east coasts of the continental US Transcontinental railroad The Union Pacific rail line from California and the Central Pacific line connected with Chicago and other eastern cities, it was the first rail line to allow train travel all across the United States. Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, or San Diego, each of which was considered. Even more serious debate focused on where the routes should begin. Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas wanted them to start in Chicago, while Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis wanted them to begin in Memphis or New Orleans. It had been Douglas's dream of a route starting in Chicago that originally led him to propose the Kansas-Nebraska Act. But before the issue of the best transcontinental rail route could be settled, the Civil War had intervened. Once the war began in 1861, the departure of Southerners from Congress meant that a more northerly route became the obvious choice of the remaining members.
The Long Drive
Refers to the overland transport of cattle by the cowboy over the three month period. Cattle were sold to settlers and Native Americans.
Dawes Act 1887
Sought to "Americanize" Native Americans. Dawes Act An 1887 law terminating tribal ownership of most reservation land and allocating some parcels to individual Indians while the remainder was opened for white settlement. In response to these arguments, Congress passed the General Allotment Act, known as the Dawes Act for its prime sponsor Massachusetts Senator Henry L. Dawes, in 1887. The Dawes Act divided the reservations into 160-acre tracts to be assigned to each family. After a 25-year waiting period, Indian families could sell the land like their white neighbors. Indians who took possession of a homestead also became U.S. citizens. At first glance, the Dawes Act might seem like an enlightened piece of legislation and at least some of its sponsors certainly believed that it was. The Dawes Act had other provisions, however, that led to negative results. Indian culture was tribal and communal, and hunting was a major activity; however, the Dawes Act pushed Indians to be farmers and to join an individualistic culture that many found to be quite alien. Beyond that, the most immediate impact of the act was that, after each family on a reservation was allotted its 160 acres, all "surplus" land could then be sold by the government to white families. But for many, the act was an economic and cultural disaster. As a result of the Dawes Act, Indians controlled only 78 million acres by 1900. While the Dawes Act broke up tribal lands, other federal perspectives undercut Indian culture.
Gold and Silver rushes
The Gold Rush to California was the first rush of people to seek wealth in the minerals of the West, but it was far from the only mineral rush. As early as 1859, Henry Comstock found silver along the Carson River in Nevada, and thousands of California miners rushed east into Nevada to seek new opportunities for wealth. Comstock himself sold his claim, but corporate interests made fortunes in Nevada. In 1874, thousands of miners, many fresh from the now played-out California goldfields and the Nevada silver mines, made their way to the Black Hills of South Dakota. h e land was part of the Sioux reservation, but neither the U.S. Army nor the Sioux were able to stop many of the more than 15,000 prospectors who had come for gold. Some of them got rich, many of them died in the effort, and all of them helped launch some of the most intense of the Plains Indian Wars. Mining and the quest for mineral wealth continued to lead to fortunes and to death in the West. In 1882, a poor Irish immigrant, Marcus Daly, persuaded California investors to back his claim to a silver mine near Butte, Montana. Very little silver was ever found at the Anaconda mine, but it turned out to be one of the richest deposits of copper in the world, making millions for Daley, his backers, and the Anaconda Copper Company. Others found mining wealth in gold, silver, copper, and lead mines in Idaho, Montana, Colorado, and as far away as Arizona and Alaska. The mineral wealth of the West seemed endless, and many from around the world sought to find it, though only a very few gained any real wealth. Seemingly overnight, new towns emerged wherever there was mining for copper, silver, and gold, including Carson City, Nevada; Deadwood, South Dakota; and Anaconda, Montana.
Sand Creek Massacre 1864
The U.S. Army convinced a group of Cheyenne to stop raiding farms and return to their Colorado reservation peacefully, where the army attacked and killed about 150 people while burning the camp.
Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty
Treaty between the comanches and the U.S Government where the comanches would agree to live on a reservation and be part of the United States Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty An 1867 treaty between the Comanches and the U.S. Army in which the Comanches agreed to settle on a reservation. the U.S. representatives made it clear they had come to Medicine Lodge Creek to end the Comanche status as a sovereign people. The government would help them become farmers on a reservation, but would not tolerate a continuation of the old hunting, trading, and stealing ways. Sherman concluded, "You can no more stop this [change] than you can stop the sun or the moon. You must submit and do the best you can." The Comanche chiefs were outraged by the government's demands. Several, including Paruasemena, the leader of the Penateka Comanches, expressed their anger in eloquent responses, but in the end, the chiefs signed a treaty, although it was one that left much open to interpretation. The Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty provided for a Comanche reservation but also gave them the right to hunt on open plains below the Arkansas River in Indian Territory (Oklahoma). The government representatives assumed that the Comanches would become farmers on the reservation while venturing out on occasional hunting trips to track the buffalo. The radically different interpretations of the Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty between the Comanches and the U.S. government became clear the next spring when several thousand Comanches, having spent the winter on the reservation, collected their government payments and began raiding cattle and horses in Texas, New Mexico, and Indian Territory.
Battle of Little Big Horn
U.S soldiers come under the orders of General George Custer to remove Indians from the reservation because gold has been found there. The Indians resisted and surrounded these soldiers with Indian alliances with the Cheyenne and Sioux. The most popular Indian victory as only no soldier was left standing. At the Little Bighorn River on June 25, 1876, Custer and his troops were surrounded by a much larger force of Sioux and Cheyennes. None of the army troops survived. It was perhaps the most famous Indian victory, but that success was soon followed by defeat. Less than a month after the Little Bighorn battle, General Philip Sheridan led a huge force that attacked and defeated the Sioux. The government then broke up the Great Sioux Reserve in the Black Hills of Dakota Territory, creating six much smaller reservations: Standing Rock, Cheyenne River, Lower Brule, Crow Creek, Pine Ridge, and Rosebud, while giving some of the best land, now declared "surplus," to white settlers and miners.
Battle of Wounded Knee 1890
US soldiers massacred 300 unarmed Native American in 1890. This ended the Indian Wars. The Sioux faced a bleak future after 1890, and it was decades before they made some of the same adjustments as the Navajos and Comanches.
cattle
We called it cow-hunts and every man on this cow-hunt was a cattle owner just home from the war and went out to see what they had left and to brand up." Most of those trying to reassemble herds in 1865 could not be called ranchers. They did not own or maintain ranches, as such. Rather they allowed their cattle to graze freely on the open Texas, land officially owned by the federal government, though con-tested by various Indian tribes. They identified their cattle by branding them when they were young. Unbranded cattle known as mavericks—were free for the taking. The King Ranch was one of several huge ranches in Texas and New Mexico, but much of the cattle raising in the 1860s and 1870s was a much more informal affair that depended on respect for cattle brands rather than fenced private lands. White families seeking to make their fortune, or at least a living, raising cattle moved into southwest Texas in the 1850s, expanding throughout the West by the 1860s and 1870s. Allowing the cattle to graze the vast open areas enabled herders to manage larger numbers than if thy had to confine them to pens with feed. Texas Longhorn cattle, the result of inter-breeding cattle of Spanish origin and Anglo American stock, seemed especially perfect for the region. They could survive on easy-to-find grass on the wide plains, did not need additional feed, and were resistant to Texas fever, the tick-born disease that killed other cattle. Further north in Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, other cattle ranchers also discovered that cattle thrived on the bunchgrasses of the northern prairies, which dried out by mid-summer but retained its protein and fed cattle well, even when they had to find it through the snow.
Crazy Horse
a chief of the Sioux who resisted the invasion of the Black Hills and joined Sitting Bull in the defeat of General Custer at Little Bighorn (1849-1877) Crazy Horse, one of the Sioux who was at the Little Big Horn the day Custer died, became an army scout and was killed at an army post in September 1877.
Joseph McCoy
a livestock owner who realized railroads could send meat to populated eastern cities by transporting longhorns and other bovines north through the railroad. He also built large cattle pens called stockyards. In 1867, Joseph G. McCoy founded Abilene, Kansas, one of the nation's first cattle towns, to facilitate the loading of cattle onto transcontinental trains that would speed the beef to consumers. Jesse Chisholm began herding cattle along what came to be known as the Chisholm Trail from Texas, across Indian Territory, to Abilene to connect with those railroad lines. In 1867, some 30,000 cattle made their way along the Chisholm Trail, and over the next 20 years, 2 million more followed. Note
Dakota War of 1862
also known as the Sioux Uprising, was an armed conflict between the United States and several bands of the eastern Sioux.
Morrill Land Grant Act
passed by Congress in 1862, this law distributed millions of acres of western lands to state governments in order to fund state agricultural colleges.
Vaqueros
skilled riders who herded cattle on ranches in Mexico, California, and the Southwest
Longhorn Cattle
tough, strong animals; brought by Spanish settlers; could live far from water and ate only grass
