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War For the Plains
During most of its early history, Fort Laramie was a social and economic
center for several tribes of Plains Indians. The Native Americans came
to trade, to visit, and later to sign treaties and receive annuities.
Early relations between the traders at the Fort and the Indians were
amicable, but as the tide of emigrants swelled along the Oregon Trial,
resentments and friction began to emerge. In an effort to end
hostilities, a council attended by representatives of the United States
and more than 10,000 Indians was called near Fort Laramie in 1851. The
council give birth to the Treaty of 1851 that was signed by the United
States and tribal representatives. In return for $50,000 per year of
annuities, the Indians agreed to stop harassing the wagon trains.
The Treaty was not effective, however, and subsequent incidents
resulted in deaths of Native Americans, emigrants, and soldiers alike.
The Bozeman Trail, which headed North to the gold fields of Montana, was
soon swarming with emigrants who passed through the prime bison hunting
lands of the Sioux and the Cheyenne tribes. The Army constructed three
Forts along the Trail to provide for the safety of the travelers. The
Native Americans resented the intrusions, and the high plains were soon
aflame with conflict. A new treaty, the Treaty of 1868 was signed in
which the Army agreed to withdraw from the Bozeman Trail and evacuate
the forts along it. It addition, the treaty provided a reservation for
the Indians along with rights to their traditional hunting grounds.
Custer's Last Stand - Battle of the Little Big Horn -
In
late 1875, Sioux
and Cheyenne Indians defiantly left their reservations, outraged
over the continued intrusions of whites into their sacred lands in the
Black Hills. They gathered in Montana with the great warrior Sitting
Bull to fight for their lands. The following spring, two victories over
the US Cavalry emboldened them to fight on in the summer of 1876.
Geronimo
- Born: 1829 or 1834 in the region of Janos
River in Mexico -
Died: February 17, 1909 at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Geronimo was a
Apache Indian warrior who followed Mangas Colorado and
Cochise with raiding parties. During the Apache Indian wars,
Geronimo became a leader of the Chiricahua Apache Indians.
Sitting Bull - A Hunkpapa Lakota chief and holy man under
whom the Lakota tribes united in their struggle for survival on the
northern plains,
Sitting Bull remained defiant toward American military power and
contemptuous of American promises to the end.
"If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would
have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes
and plans, and in my heart he put other and different desires. It is not
necessary for eagles to be crows."
"I am here by the will of the Great Spirit, and by his will I am
chief. I know Great Spirit is looking down upon me from above, and will
hear what I say..."
The Wounded Knee Massacre - December 29, 1890 -
The Dakotas - On
the morning of December 29, 1890, the
Sioux chief Big
Foot and some 350 of his followers camped on the banks of Wounded
Knee creek. Surrounding their camp was a force of U.S. troops charged
with the responsibility of arresting Big Foot and disarming his
warriors. The scene was tense. Trouble had been brewing for months.
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RESERVATIONS
Throughout its relatively short history, the
United States has been known as the "melting pot" because its citizens come
from so many different cultures. In fact, many believe that one of the
greatest attributes of America is the fact that people from so many diverse
cultures have come together to live in a constitutional republic.
The basis of that republic is the principle
that all persons are created equal. Each person has the inalienable right to
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The government of the United
States was created by men to secure these rights.
For hundreds of thousands of American citizens
though, the government has failed to meet its responsibilities. While all
Americans are impacted directly or indirectly by this failure, there are two
groups of citizens who are severely affected: those of Indian descent, and
the non-Indians who live within the boundaries of Indian reservations.
Makhpiya-Luta
(1822-1909)
As a warrior and a statesman, Red Cloud's success in
confrontations with the United States government marked him as one
of the most important Lakota leaders of the nineteenth century.
Red Cloud's War |
Chief
Joseph - Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt
(1840-1904) - The man who became a
national
celebrity with the name "Chief Joseph" was born in the
Wallowa Valley in what is now northeastern Oregon in 1840. He was given
the name Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, or Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain, but
was widely known as Joseph, or Joseph the Younger, because his father had
taken the Christian name Joseph when he was baptized at the
Lapwai mission by Henry Spalding in 1838.
Ghost Dance
- By the 1880's the U.S. government had managed to confine almost all
of the Indians on reservations, usually on land so poor that the white man
could conceive of no use for it themselves.
The rations and supplies that had been guaranteed them by the treaties
were of poor quality, if they arrived at all. Graft and corruption were
rampant in the Indian Bureau. In an attempt to stem this problem, a move was
made to recruit Quakers to take the positions as Indian agents, however not
nearly enough Quakers responded to the call for volunteers. This call,
however, opened the door to other denominations setting up shop on the
reservations. An attempt was made to convert the Indians to Christianity
with mixed results.
However, by 1890 conditions were so bad on the reservations, nationwide,
with starvation conditions existing in many places, that the situation was
ripe for a major movement to rise among the Indians. This movement found
its origin in
a Paiute
Indian named Wovoka, who announced that he was the messiah come to earth
to prepare the Indians for their salvation. Representatives from tribes all
over the nation came to Nevada to meet with
Wovoka and learn to
dance the
Ghost Dance and to sing Ghost Dance songs.
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