Native Americans

Beginnings to Civil War

Early Indian Wars

Powhatan Confederacy nearly wipe out struggling Jamestown colony in1622.1636-1637 Pequot War in New EnglandKing Phillip’s (Metacom) War1676 Bacon’s Rebellion in VA1675-1676 New England Confederation basically eliminates native tribes

1680 Pueblo revolt against the Spanish in New Mexico1689-1763 Native Americans involved on both the side of the French and the English in various wars that were fought in part in North America – ending with French and Indian War 1754-17631763 Pontiac’s Rebellion leads to Proclamation of 1763

1776-1781 Many Native Americans see colonists as greater threat than British so fight with British in American Revolution.

1787 - The Northwest Ordinance - The ordinance stated that Indians were to be treated with the "utmost good faith" and specified that "their lands and property shall never be taken away from them without their consent."

As settlers pushed forward into occupied Indian territory, however, they received military protection. As governor of Indiana William Henry Harrison threatened, bribed and purposely intoxicated Indians. He was opposed by Tecumseh who began to organize an Indian Confederation.

In 1811 and 1812 Harrison fought and defeated Tecumseh at the battle of Tippecanoe.

1819 - The purchase of Florida - For years Indians had fled south to Florida to escape American authorities. There the Spanish were powerless to control the Indians where a new tribe was formed called the Seminoles.

The Seminoles, comprised of both native Americans and escaped slaves began to raid American settlements and then escape back into Spanish territory.

In 1818 Andrew Jackson led a raid on Florida, captured two Spanish forts and crushed the Seminoles.

Fearing the loss of their territory without compensation the Spanish sold Florida to the United States whereupon the Seminoles were swiftly moved to a reservation in central Florida.

1828 - Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia - In 1828 the Cherokee, a "civilized" tribe who had lived in peace working as farmers, building houses and roads found gold on their land.

As a result white settlers moved in and the State of Georgia claimed jurisdiction over the Cherokee. The Cherokee sued claiming they were independent from Georgia.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Cherokee.

The victory was short lived, however, as President Andrew Jackson in response to the Courts decision is reputed to have said, "John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it." Instead the federal government removed the Indians to Oklahoma.

1830 - Indian Removal Act - This act authorized the President to negotiate treaties and remove the remaining Eastern Indians to lands west of the Mississippi.

Under Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, federal agents again used threats, bribes and liquor to secure Indian consent to one sided treaties.

The federal government removed thousands of Indians, some in chains, on a trip marked by hunger, disease and death. This became known as the "trail of tears."

By the late 1840's almost all native Americans had been moved to lands west of the Mississippi.

1877 - President Rutherford B. Hayes in a message to Congress said, "Many, if not most of our Indian wars have had their origin in broken promises and acts of injustice on our part." In 1881 Helen Hunt Jackson further helped awaken white Americans to their shameful treatment of the Indians through her book A Century of Dishonor.

“Settlers” & Native Americans in the West, 1865 - 1900

U.S. History II

Buffalo Hide Painting

The Plains Indians

Approx. 250,000 Indians in Great Plains in 1865– smallpox, tuberculosis & malaria killed many & reduced fertility

among survivors– women outnumbered men 2:1 in some tribes– destroyed cultures as well when elders killed before they could

pass on oral traditions2 main groups:– semi-sedentary farmers living in earthen lodges along

Missouri R. (Arikaras, Hidatsas, Mandans, Pawnees & Omahas)

– horse-mounted, nomadic buffalo hunters on “high plains” (Arapahoes, Blackfeet, Cheyennes, Comanche, Crow, Kiowas & Sioux)

The Indian WarsFt. Laramie Treaty (1851) set boundaries for Northern tribes, but soon violated– Cheyenne & Arapaho annihilated at Sand

Creek (1864)– Oglala Sioux Chief Red Cloud fought U.S.

to stalemate in 1866-67 war & received guaranteed boundaries in 1868 treaty

– when George Custer’s expedition verified gold in Black Hills, U.S. tried to back out of treaty, so war broke out with Sitting Bull

– Custer’s 7th Cav. wiped out at Little Bighorn in 1876

Sitting Bull

Sand Creek Massacre

Indian Wars. With more and more whites moving west, Indians had little hope of stopping the invasion of their lands. Despite great odds, however, many tribes fought back.

During the 1860s and 1870s, Indian wars were almost constant, and they continued intermittently in the 1880s. The deaths of Gen. George A. Custer and more than two hundred of his men in a battle with Sioux and Cheyenne warriors at Little Bighorn in 1876, the resistance and flight of the Nez Percé in 1877, and the long fight with Chiricahua Apaches led by Geronimo, whose capture in 1886 brought the Indian wars to a virtual end, vividly demonstrated to white Americans that the subjugation of Native Americans would not be easy.

The Southern Plains Indians

Treaty of Medicine Lodge (1867) set boundaries for southern plains tribes, but gov’t failed to supply them as promised, so Indians resumed hunting & war broke out– Sheriden & Custer destroyed villages & pony

herds– Resistance broken by 1875– 72 leaders imprisoned in Florida & subject to

experimental “civilization by immersion” program run by Capt. Richard Pratt

– Wovoka’s Ghost Dance movement crushed by massacre of 200+ Sioux at Wounded Knee in Dec. 1890

Gen. Phil Sheridan

Wovoka & the Ghost Dance

Big Foot Killed at Wounded Knee

The Indian Appropriation Act of 1871 made all Native Americans wards of the federal government and nullified all treaties with them. By declaring that the government would no longer sign treaties with Indian tribes, Congress effectively erased the remaining traces of the Native Americans’ national sovereignty

Beginning in the 1850s and intensifying efforts in the West after the Civil War, the government created reservations, tracts of land on which tribes agreed to settle in return for a restricted amount of cultural and legal freedom. Yet even the reservation system started to crumble as white settlers eagerly pressed against the borders of reservations in Oklahoma, Arizona, South Dakota, and Idaho.

The ReservationsReservations seen as temporary - designed to civilize & Christianize IndiansRun by Bureau of Indian Affairs (est. 1824)– controls schools & legal system, grants recognition– agents white, but lesser officials Indian, which deflected

hostility onto traitorsTraditional practices & communal work replaced by individualism, because whites believed indiv. land ownership was bedrock of democracyChildren often sent to boarding schools & punished for speaking native tongue

The Dawes Act. The Dawes Act of 1887 decreed that reservation lands, previously held in common by a tribe, should be divided into 160-acre plots for families, 80-acre parcels for single men, and 40-acre pieces for orphans.

Any land left over was defined as “surplus,” and tribes were required to sell all surplus land to the government for resale to non-Indians.

Sen. Henry M. Dawes of Massachusetts, who sponsored the bill, intended the legislation as a “reform” measure to introduce Native Americans to the concepts of individual ownership and agricultural life—white beliefs about the “proper” way for Indians to live.

The new policy proved devastating to the Native Americans, many of whom did not live in traditional family units or fully understand the concept of private property.

General Allotment

Dawes Severalty Act (1887) broke up reservations to encourage individualism– each head of household given 160 acres (320 if suitable only

for grazing)– could pick own land, but held in trust by gov’t for 25 years– would become citizens after 25 years if gave up tribal ways– reduced Indian-owned acreage from 138 to 48 million - rest

opened up to white settlement

Curtis Act (1898) terminated tribal gov’ts that rejected allotment

Repercussions. For every three acres owned by Native Americans in the 1880s, two were no longer under their control by the 1920s as a result of the Dawes Act.

Socially, the act encouraged individualism over traditional ideas of communalism. It upheld the sanctity of the family rather than emphasizing the importance of community.

The land allotments were rarely large enough to sustain a family, and divisions of the parcels among heirs created smaller and smaller sections.

Such situations encouraged Native Americans to lease or sell their land to whites and increased their displacement.

Shrinking Reservations

Indian Schools. Another component of the Indian policy during this period was the establishment of Indian boarding schools, which brought children from many nations together and discouraged them from speaking anything but English. “The language of the white man and the black man ought to be good enough for the red man,” a commissioner of Indian affairs announced in 1887.

Schools established in Kansas, Oklahoma, Oregon, and California emphasized vocational and technical training and taught their pupils that future success lay in blending into white society.

In such settings Indian youths suffered. Many caught diseases for which they had no immunity, and all were deprived of education in their nations’ traditions and ceremonies. The schools encouraged youths to embrace Christianity and to leave behind the old religion of their people.

Many resisted enrollment or ran away.

Denying Tribal SovereigntyLegal status as nations with treaty rights stripped by Congress, with Supreme Court’s approval1871: Congress declared tribes no longer sovereign nations, but wards of gov’tLone Wolf v. Hitchcock (1903): Court ruled Congress had plenary power over tribes - could act unilaterally to violate treaties & dispose of Indian lands as it saw fitIndian Citizenship Act (1924) granted citizenship to all Native Americans

Indian Reorganization Act, also called Wheeler–Howard Act, (June 18, 1934), measure enacted by the U.S. Congress, aimed at decreasing federal control of American Indian affairs and increasing Indian self-government and responsibility. In gratitude for the Indians’ services to the country in World War I, Congress in 1924 authorized the Meriam Survey of the state of life on the reservations. The shocking conditions under the regimen established by the Dawes General Allotment Act (1887), as detailed in the Meriam report of 1928, spurred demands for reform.The act curtailed the future allotment of tribal communal lands to individuals and provided for the return of surplus lands to the tribes rather than to homesteaders. It also encouraged written constitutions and charters giving Indians the power to manage their internal affairs. Finally, funds were authorized for the establishment of a revolving credit program for tribal land purchases, for educational assistance, and for aiding tribal organization.

1953 - Termination Policy - This was a new sharply different policy that ended the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and all of the programs that went with it.

It divided tribal property among the tribes members thus subjecting them to taxation.

It also curtailed tribal self government and relocated many Indians to the cities where jobs were available.

The Termination policy also ended federal responsibility and social services - education, health and welfare, to the Indians.

1970 - President Richard Milhouse Nixon recommends self determination for Indians. Indian tribes were once again brought under federal funding with the promise that federal control would be lessened.

1974 - Iroquois Nation vs. The State of New York - Claiming they have been using certain lands since 1805 Indians sue and win in federal court. The federal government is forced to be responsive to their treaty claims.

1980's - Several Indian nations, most notably in Connecticut and New York, sue to gain autonomy (independence) on tribal reservation land. Indians win these cases paving the way for the creation of gambling operations on reservation land. Today there are casinos on several reservations providing millions of dollars of income for those tribes.