Unit 2 Essay

Great Plains Indians' lives were plentiful and enjoyable in the

1850s; with good hunting grounds, good agriculture, and neighbor
tirbes to trade with, always abiding tribal laws. As increasement of
pioneers traveling westward, the Plains Indians were affected greatly;
both good and bad. New technologies and livestock, such as, horses,
guns, and the discovery of hunting buffalos helped Native Americans
thrive through their new environment. As widespread rumors of gold in
the Plains, white Americans moved west and brought the government
with them. Setting laws for the Plains Indians to move into a
reservation, allowed mining camps, railroads, and tiny frontier towns
for the white Americans. Over time, the Treaty of Fort Laramie made
the Sioux and other tribes live on Indian reservations, the Dawes Act
permitted white Americans to comepletely change the Native American
culture into modern American culture. Transforming their way of life
caused many Indian wars, endangerment of animals, and even the
cause of a very large decline of Native Americans.

Farming was a very important impact on Plains Indians,

especially when the introduction of horses came. Horses helped Native
Americans with a lot of transportation, accuracy of hunting and the
vast land discovery of buffaloes. Most of the traveling also lead to
tribal wars for trespassing on different Native American land. Leaving
their farms to roam the plains, Native Americans hunted buffalo. Using
every part of the beasts' body they crated tools, shelter, clothing, and
food. As the discovery was made, white Americans thought of the
same thing; hunting. Not in the same understanding of Native
American's religion of respecting offerings and animal spirits, white
Americans killed buffaloes as a sport. With both the Indians and white
Americans hunting the beasts, in the 1890s the amount of buffaloes
decreased from 65 million to one thousand. The government set up
these laws and it was upsetting both the Plains Indians' and white
Americans.

As the lure of silver, gold and many other valuable minerals,

white American settlers started to head west. Just as Native Americans
had gotten settled with their new territory, the settlers had begun
setting up mining camps and frontier towns to search for gold and
silver. With more and more settlers coming, the arrival of railroads
changed the government's policies for Native Americans. Thus, giving
specific details for each tribe in the reservation a certain boundary
area. Most Native Americans denied the government's new laws and
continued their hunting on their traditional grounds, clashing with
miners and settlers. In conclusion, tragedy strikes in large amounts. In
1864, U.S. army had tricked the Cheyenne tribe to think they were
under protection of the United States government, unfortunately their
tribe was attacked by the U.S. army at Sand Creek Reserve. Most of
the women and children of the tribe were killed, and Native Americans
grew sick of these wars.

As frustrating as wars between Native Americans and white

Americans got, after the Hundred Slain, or Fetterman, massacre in
1866 the government agreed to close the Bozeman Trail. As an
agreement in 1868 was forced on the leaders of the Sioux tribe, the
Fort Laramie Treaty was created to make the tribe live on reservation
along the Missouri River. Leader of the Hunkpapa Sioux, Sitting Bull,
never signed the treaty because he knew that the settlers would still
somehow get onto their territory. This treaty was only a temporary
cease of conflict and war between the white Americans and Native
Americans, ubt started again in late 1868. The Red River War, from
1874 to 1875, was a conflict between friendly indian tribes and General
Philip Sheridan to obtain control of the land on the reservation.
Obtaining land was imporant for white settlers, especially when gold is
mentioned. Colonel Geroge A. Custer had told people that the Black
Hills, which was in the indian reservation, had contained loads of gold.
Angered by such rumors and faulty of the law, Red Cloud and Spotted
Tail of the Sioux tribe appealed to the government officials in
Washington. In 1876, the Sioux and Cheyenne tribe had fought Colonel
Custer his troops and won. Unfortunately, late 1876 the Sioux were
beaten and chased out of the country taking refuge in Canada. This
was to get Sitting Bull to sign the Treaty of Fort Laramie even though
the tribe had moved. Later on Sitting Bull did sign it for his tribe and
moved back.
 As things got different, many white Americans felt they had
broken promises with Native Americans. To support the Native
Americans, the settlers used assimilation, which was to encourage
Native Americans into enjoying the American culture. In this plan the
Americans would try to tmake the Indians forget their way of culture
and bring them to a new modern way of life as they'd call it. During
1877, Congress had passed the Dawes Act. The Dawes Act was made
to "help" tranform or "Americanize" Native Americans. Little did they
know, that it was also to break up the reservations into 160 acres of
land for each Native American and sell the rest to white settlers. This
was theway that the government would change the Indians' beliefs of
owning land, teaching them to farm and obtain property. Matters only
got worse for many Native Americans who try to follow the
government.

With things getteing worse, Indians did rituals, like the Ghost
Dance, to hope events would get better for them. As it the ritual was
going on, Sitting Bull had gotten shot by a police. This action struck a
chord between the Native Americans and the white Americans. In
December of 1890, the Seventh Calvary, Custer's regiment, took the
Sioux tribe to Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. The troops made
them give up their weapons, later they had shot the Native Americans.
The seventh Calavary had slaughtered 300 Native Americans, ending
the Indian Wars.