THE UNITED STATES AND THE INDIANS, 1865-1970 

 

The Situation in 1860

About 250,000 Indians live on the Great Plains. Eastern Indians, including the Eastern (Santee) Sioux, have been given small reservations along the Eastern Plains and in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma.) For the Plains Indians, the U.S. Government has instituted a policy of "concentration," by which Indian tribes are allocated general areas of land away from the major transportation routes, and required to stay in those areas.

 

1862: The Minnesota War

Santee Sioux Indians on reservation in Minnesota face starvation:

a. Reservation life has necessitated their being fed by the government

1) Sometimes direct distribution of nations

2) Sometimes monetary annuities, from which they purchase necessities at the local privately-run trading post.

b. Reservation agents refuse to distribute food on schedule when annuity payments are held up. Indians thus receive neither food nor money.

c. Trader Andrew Myrick, told of the near-starvation of the Santee, replies, "Let them eat grass."

Young Indians, on a hunt off the reservation, dare each other to do something to the whites, whom they blame for their tribe's problems. A group of Minnesota settlers is slain.

Little Crow and other Santee chiefs, knowing from past experience that the government will probably punish the entire tribe for the crimes of any Indian, lead a full scale war in the region of the Minnesota River Valley.

a. Trading posts and warehouses hit first

b. Villages and forts attacked

c. 500-700 whites die, 30,00 flee, and 10,000 square miles of land are depopulated of whites.

Army intervention puts down the rebellion

b. Non-hostile Santees, most of whom did not join the rebellion, bear the brunt of white vengeance.

 

1861-1865: The Cheyenne-Arapaho War

By 1861, white settlers are invading land in Colorado which under the concentration policy had been promised to the Cheyenne and Arapaho.

Raids and reprisals on both sides lead to full-scale war by 1864.

Denver is isolated by Indian activity.

Colorado Governor John Evans and Colonel John Chivington, commander of the Colorado militia, embark on an openly-avowed campaign to kill Indians

b. A delegation of Cheyenne chiefs comes to Denver to talk peace with Evans, who refuses to treat with them.

c. A later peace delegation of chiefs is fired upon as it approaches a fort.

d. Colorado settlers protest that concentration of troops on hunting Indians will leave too few to protect settlers. Chivington, an ordained Methodist minister, replies he is not interested in protecting anyone, but in killing Indians.

28 NOV 64: Sand Creek (The Chivington Massacre)

1865: Cheyenne and Arapaho submit.

 

1865-1868: The First Sioux War

Soldiers and settlers, seeking to provide a path of communication between the major transcontinental trails and the new mining communities in Montana, cut the Bozeman Trail across land previously granted to the Sioux.

1866: U.S. Army begins constructing forts along the Bozeman Trail to protect travelers.

Sioux rise in rebellion against this treaty violation, under the leadership of Red Cloud.

Indians raid travellers and work details sent out from forts.

21 DEC 66: THE FETTERMAN MASSACRE

a. CPT William J. Fetterman, pursuing a raiding party near Ft. Philip Kearney, Wyoming, is drawn into a trap and ambushed.

b. The entire detachment of eighty soldiers and scouts is killed.

01 AUG 67: THE HAYFIELD FIGHT

a. 500 Cheyennes attack a haymaking party near Ft. C.F. Smith, Montana.

b. Indians are repulsed by a small work party armed with new breechloading rifles.

02 AUG 67: THE WAGON BOX FIGHT

a. Red Cloud and 1500 Sioux attack a logging party near Ft. Philip Kearney.

b. The 32-man logging party takes refuge inside a circle of dismounted wagon boxes.

c. The attacked party, armed with new breech-loading rifles, repulses the attack.

d. The Sioux, expecting to draw fire from the rifles, then attack while the whites are reloading, suffer heavy losses. Red Cloud later says that he lost the flower of his warriors in this attack.

1867: Peace Commissioners from Washington come to investigate the war

a. Some Sioux chiefs testify before the commission, giving grievances

b. Red Cloud and the principal hostile chiefs refuse to talk, insisting that soldiers and forts be removed from their land first.

1868: Government attempts to negotiate Treaty of Fort Laramie to end the war.

a. Some Sioux and Cheyenne sign, agreeing to go onto a reservation and cease fighting.

b. Red Cloud and the principal hostiles refuse to discuss the treaty, much less to sign it, until all forts and soldiers are removed.

Summer, 1868, Government abandons the Bozeman Trail and begins to dismantle forts and withdraw soldiers.

6 NOV 68: RED CLOUD AND OTHER MILITANT CHIEFS SIGN TREATY OF FORT LARAMIE

a. Sioux given reservation consisting of South Dakota West of the Missouri River.

b. Land between South Dakota and the Bighorn Mountains (Powder River Country) remains Indian land (unceded territory) and Indians may leave reservation to hunt there.

c. Whites forbidden to trespass in Powder River Country.

 

1866: Five Civilized Tribes are accused of having aided the Confederates during the Civil War, and are sentenced to give up half of the Indian Territory previously guaranteed them "forever."

 

1867: Peace Commission Report recommends that Plains Indian be taken under the reservation system

a. Western South Dakota set aside for Sioux (See Treaty of Ft. Laramie.)

b. Eastern prairie tribes uprooted and moved to newly-seized land in Indian Territory.

c. Five other smaller reservations established for other Indians.

 

1867: HANCOCK'S KANSAS CAMPAIGN

General Winfield S. Hancock begins a campaign in Kansas "to awe the Indian, and to impress him with the might of the white man."

Military expeditions range over Kansas. Indians flee before their advance.

On Pawnee River, General (Now Lt. Col) George A. Custer and the 7th U.S. Cavalry surround an Indian camp at night, only to discover in the morning that the Indians had fled before his arrival, leaving their worldly possessions to him. Custer destroys the camp. Hancock, taking the refusal of the Indians to stand still and be "awed" as evidence of their ill intent and bad faith, orders Custer to pursue them.

Indians in Kansas area take destruction of the Pawnee River camp and Custer's pursuit as evidence that the white man is waging war upon them, and begin warfare of their own, all small-scale raids. Warfare spreads and rages sporadically among S. Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa and Comanche.

General Philip Sheridan replaces Hancock, and wages an energetic campaign, eventually bringing most Indians to reservations. Sheridan is the man who then gave to history the famous slogan, "The only good Indians I ever knew were dead."

 

1867: Beginning of systematic killing of the buffalo. By 1887, about 13 million have been killed.

 

Sherman's Offensive

AUGUST, 1868: Commanding General of the United States Army William T. Sherman orders the army to hunt all Indians in the West and bring them to assigned reservations, adding support to Sheridan's actions.

17 SEP 68: BATTLE OF BEECHER'S ISLAND

a. MAJ George Forsyth and 50 soldiers, chasing a large body of Indians who refuse to go to their reservations, is attacked near Arikaree River in S.E. Colorado

b. Forsyth takes refuge on a low-lying island in the dry bed of a stream.

c. Forsyth is beseiged for five days, until relieved by the arrival of the 10th Cavalry.

1868-1869: Sheridan tries his Shenandoah tactics on Indians.

a. Sends out expeditions in winter, when Indians are mostly in camp.

b. Wages war on environment in an effort to cripple the Indians.

c. Standing orders to all soldiers:

1) Hang all warriors not killed in battle

2) Take all women and children prisoner

3) Destroy all villages

4) Kill all Indian horses.

29 NOV 68: BATTLE OF THE WASHITA RIVER

1) Custer and the 7th Cavalry surround and attack a Cheyenne camp on the Washita River, on the Cheyenne-Arapaho Reservation in Indian Territory.

2) Black Kettle, Cheyenne chief here and at Sand Creek, is killed.

3) Custer's report claims 103 warriors are killed. About 200 women and children are also killed.

4) Camp is destroyed, and every horse is killed.

5) NOTE: This was a non-hostile camp on a reservation.

 

1869: Board of Indian Affairs is created in the Interior Department. From now until 1900, the Department of War and the Department of the Interior will feud over who has jurisdiction over Indian matters.

 

1869: GRANT'S PEACE POLICY

a. An attempt to reform the corruption-riddled Indian Service

b. Religious denominations are permitted to nominate candidates for government agent on each reservation.

c. Quakers play an especially prominent part in this.

d. Policy is soon reversed by Grant's Secretary of War, William Belknap, whose corruption later forces his resignation.

 

1871: INDIAN APPROPRIATION ACT

a. Government declares that no Indian tribe or nation can be recognized as an independent power.

1) This means that the government can no longer make treaties with Indians.

2) Future agreements between the government and Indians are called "agreements."

b. Established that all Indian affairs could be managed by the U.S. Government without the consent of any Indian.

 

1871-1886: Apache War

b. War rages off and on for sever years, mostly in guerilla fashion.

c. Major actions are those of the 9th and 10th Cavalry (Buffalo Soldiers)

d. 1885: Geronimo, last hostile chief, gives up and moves onto reservation

e. 1885: Geronimo and small band of Chiricahua Apaches leave the reservation

f. 1886: After nearly a year of guerilla warfare, the Chiricahuas are induced to cease fighting and return to the reservation. As a condition of the surrender, they are promised that they may remain on the Arizona reservation.

g. 1886: ALL Chiricahuas, including those members of the Apache Scouts who had helped the U.S. Army find and defeat Geronimo, and exiled to Florida.

 

1872-1873: Modac War

Captain Jack and about 165 Modocs, 50 of them warriors, hold out against the United States Army in the Lava Beds of Northern California.

General E.R.S. Canby is killed.

Captain Jack and other leaders are hanged.

 

1874-1875: The Red River War

Raids and sporadic warfare accompany the expansion of white settlement into the high plains of the Texas Panhandle.

27 JUN 74: THE BATTLE OF ADOBE WALLS

a. Comanche, Cheyenne, and Kiowa attack the isolated settlement of Adobe Walls in North Texas.

b. After initial panic and Indian success, 27 white survivors hold off 500-700 Indians until help arrives.

21 JUN 74: Sheridan orders active military operations to punish Indians, even to the point of pursuing them onto reservations.

AUG 74: A Comanche band, surrendering at the agency of Anadarko, Indian Territory, is fired on while in the act of relinquishing its weapons. The Anadarko area erupts in fighting, and many hitherto peaceful reservation Indians leave for the panhandle to join the hostiles.

24 SEP 74: THE BATTLE OF PALO DURO CANYON

a. 4th U.S. Cavalry surprises and attacks a winter village of Cheyenne, Comanche, and Kiowa in Palo Duro Canyon, Texas.

b. Indians flee, the camp is destroyed, along with all horses and all food supplies found.

During the war, the army conducts 14 separate attacks on ndian camps, all with the objective of destroying food and shelter.

Winter, 74-75: Indian forces, starving and freezing, trickle in and surrender. The War fades away.

Thirty-three Cheyenne are selected, some completely at random, and sentenced to exile in Florida. The intention was to strip the Cheyenne of leadership, thus making further uprisings less likely. Kiowa and Arapaho are treated similarly.

06 APR 1875: As the 33 Cheyenne prisoners are having balls and chains attached to their legs, one of them attempts to escape. Soldiers fire into the crowd, eliciting a bow-and-arrow retaliation from the Indians. Indians flee from the reservation. Most are recaptured, but about 100 escape. A detachment of the 6th Cavalry catches up with them at Sappa River in Kansas and annihilates them, disregarding Indian attempts to surrender and making no distinction as to age, sex, or condition.

2 JUN 75: Quanah Parker, leader of the hostile Comanche, surrenders at Fort Sill.

 

1873: Northern Pacific Railroad begins surveying to build a route across the Powder River country, forbidden to whites by the Treaty of Ft. Laramie. The surveyors have military escorts.

 

1874: The War Department, in violation of the Treaty of Ft. Laramie, sends Custer and the 7th Cavalry into the Sioux reservation in South Dakota to locate a site for the building of a new fort. Custer reports the existence of large gold deposits in the Black Hills region of the reservation, sparking a rush of miners into Indian land.

 

1875: Black Hills area of the Sioux Reservation is declared open to U.S. miners. Government attempts to get a new land cession, but the Sioux do not consent. Nonetheless, over 15,000 prospectors flood the reservation.

 

 

1875-1876: The Second Sioux War

Through 1875, the presence of prospectors and their boom towns in the Black Hills (considered sacred by the Sioux) sparks raids and attacks by the Indians.

NOV 1875: To minimize friction between Indians and prospectors, the Government orders all Northern Indians to report to agency headquarters on each reservation, and leave the bulk of the reservation to the whites. Most bands do not get the word, since they are isolated by winter conditions. Those who do hear are unwilling to make a major move in winter.

31 JAN 76: Only one Sioux band has reported to its agency. The government declares all other northern Indians to be in a state of war against the United States, and turns matters over to the army. Active warfare commences.

17 MAR 76: COL J.J. Reynolds with three companies of cavalry attacks and destroys the camp of Two Moon, a Cheyenne chief who is, at the time, friendly and non-hostile. Two Moon is able to organize his forces and counterattack, defeating Reynolds. Following the battle, Two Moon becomes actively hostile.

17 JUN 76: BATTLE OF THE ROSEBUD

a. BG George Crook and 1300 soldiers are attacked by Crazy Horse with about 1500 Sioux.

b. The battle is inconclusive and the Indians withdraw. Crook, to the end of his life, considers this his worst defeat.

c. Crook's remaining forces are harassed and raided by Indians, becoming isolated and unable to move from a stronghold for more than a month.

25 JUN 76: BATTLE OF LITTLE BIGHORN

a. Custer, leading the 7th Cavalry, violates his orders and attacks what he believes to be a small and defenseless Indian camp.

b. Dividing his forces, Custer is trapped by 5000 Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho.

c. The 7th Cavalry is thoroughly defeated. Custer and his battalion of over 250 men are wiped out to the last man.

d. Indians participating: Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Red Horse, Gall, Two Moon, Crow, Crow King, Spotted Eagle, Low Dog, Big Road, Hump.

AUG 76: The US Government declares that all the Powder River country and 1/3 of the South Dakota Reservation are now government property. Included in the reservation area taken are the Black Hills.

1876-1877: The Powder River Expedition

a. 25 NOV 76: Crook attacks and destroys Dull Knife's Cheyenne camp, killing many Indians.

b. OCT-DEC 76: COL Nelson Miles convinces several major Sioux chiefs to surrender and return to the reservation.

c. JAN 7: Miles locates and destroys Crazy Horse's camp, but successful Indian rear guard actions allow most Indians to escape. Miles pursues.

d. 6 MAY 77: Crazy Horse's band, starved, frozen, and exhausted, surrenders under full military honors, upon promise of receiving a reservation in the Powder River country. The Northern Cheyenne are later sent to a reservation in Oklahoma, while the Sioux are confined to the South Dakota reservation.

e. 5 SEP 77: Crazy Horse is killed by a soldier's bayonet while in government custody.

f. FEB 77: Sitting Bull and Gall lead their bands into Canada

 

 

THE NEZ PERCE' WAR

1855: Nez Perce' Indians given guaranteed lands in Oregon, Washington and Idaho.

1863: Government forces a new treaty, the Treaty of Lapwai, on the Nez Perce'.

a. 3/4 of the land guaranteed in 1855 is taken by the Federal government.

b. Nez Perce' to be confined to reservation on the remaining 1/4 of the land at Lapwai, Idaho.

c. 3/4 of the Nez Perce' chiefs refuse to sign the treaty, including a Christian chief named Joseph.

d. Joseph renounces Christianity after the government enforces the new treaty, swearing he will have nothing more to do with white people. He leads his band into a wild and remote section of Oregon.

1871: Joseph dies, leaving control of his band to his son, also called Joseph.

1873: Settlers press in on the once-remote land held by Joseph's band. In defiance of settler pressure, President Grant signs an order setting aside about one million acres for the exclusive use of Joseph's "roaming Nez Perce".

1875: Grant withdraws the order of 1873, throwing the entire region open to homesteaders.

1877: Government commissioners negotiate with Joseph, trying to induce him to go to the Lapwai reservation, where his people will receive sixty plots of land of about twenty acres each. Joseph resists, claiming that the land he holds is his already, since his father did not sign the Treaty of Lapwai.

MAY-JUN 77: MG Oliver O. Howard's troops force Joseph's band onto the Lapwai reservation. The haste of the operation necessitates that most of the Nez Perce' live- stock be left behind.

JUN 77: A group of Nez Perce', none from Joseph's band, go on a rampage, killing 19 whites, plundering homes, and assaulting women. Until this event, it had been a proud boast that no Nez Perce' had ever killed a white man. Joseph, fearing the white's indiscriminate retaliation, leads his band into the mountains, where others of similar feeling join him.

15 JUN 77: CPT David Perry and 110 soldiers attack Joseph's camp at White Bird Canyon, and are repulsed by the Nez Perce' Rear guard

JUN 77: Reinforcements flow to both Gen. Howard and Joseph.

JUN 77: Two companies of cavalry under General Howard's orders attack the village of Chief Looking Glass.

1) Looking Glass and his band are at peace, and have not joined or given support to the refugees in the mountains.

2) Looking Glass's village is on the reservation.

3) The camp is destroyed in the attack. Four Indians are killed.

4) Looking Glass's band leaves to join Joseph. Looking Glass takes command of the entire group, which now numbers some 200 warriors and 450 women and children.

JUN 77: The Nez-Perce' conduct a well-organized retreat, always seeking to stay out out of reach of the pursuing soldiers. Howard chases them all over Idaho.

JUN 77: Howard's army attacks a Nez-Perce' camp at Clearwater River. Although outnumbering the Indians 6-1, the soldiers are surrounded by the Nez Perce' force and held in place until the camp has packed and escaped.

JUL-AUG 77: Howard pursues Nez Perce' into Montana.

09 AUG 77: COL John Gibbon, with fresh forces from Montana and North Dakota, attacks the Nez Perce' camp at Big Hole Valley.

a. Gibbon's force numbers 200 soldiers.

b. Surprise is complete.

c. 12 Indian warriors and 77 women and children are killed indiscriminately by the soldiers.

d. Fleeing survivors reorganize and counter-attack, bottling up the attackers, who are saved only by the arrival of Howard and his pursuing force. 33 soldiers killed, 38 wounded.

e. Looking Glass is blamed for allowing the camp to be surprised, and is replaced as leader by Lean Elk.

AUG-SEP 77: Howard pursues Nez Perce' through Montana, NW Wyoming, and back into Montana.

SEP 77: COL Samuel Sturgis and elements of the 7th Cavalry attack the Nez Perce' camp at Canyon Creek, Montana.

30 SEP 77: COL Nelson Miles and 600 soldiers surprise the Nez Perce' at Bear Paw Mountains, 30 miles from the Canadian border toward which the Indians are fleeing.

a. Nez Perce' kill 24 soldiers and wound 42, suffering few casualties of their own.

b. Miles's line of battle is so long that is able to overlap the Nez Perce' and get behind them, scattering their horses.

c. The now-immobile Indians are forced into a siege.

30 SEP - 4 OCT 77: The seige continues, with heavy firing on all sides. Both sides suffer heavy casualties. The army's artillery inflicts especially heavy casualties on the Nez Perce'. Looking Glass and Lean Elk are killed, leaving Joseph in command.

4 OCT 77: Howard's pursuing force arrives to reinforce Miles. Joseph surrenders, upon promise to be sent with his band to live on the Lapwai reservation.

1878: The Nez Perce' spend the winter at Fort Abraham Lincoln, N.D., where they are well-received and treated as visiting royalty by the townspeople, who have been following the news of their exploits in the popular press.

1878: The Nez Perce' are sent to live in Oklahoma, where about 1/4 die within a few months.

1885: Surviving Nez Perce' are permitted to return North

b. Half, including Joseph, go to separate reservations in Washington, where Joseph dies in 1900, never again seeing his homeland.

Over a period of 4 months, the Nez Perce', never numbering over 200 warriors, lead at least 2,000 soldiers on a chase 1,300 miles long, only to be captured 30 miles short of freedom.

 

1878: The Bannock War

Bannock Indians of S.E. Idaho are reservation-bound, but by treaty are permitted to hunt and gather food in a nearby prairie area.

Failure of government rations to be delivered on time leads most Bannocks to leave the reservation and attempt to forage on their prairie, where they discover that white settlers have moved in and taken over.

Bannocks evict whites from the land, killing two in the process.

The army declares the Bannocks in revolt and easily devastates those who have survived the starvation.

 

1878-1879: The Great Trek of the Homesick Cheyenne

Northern Cheyennes, having been sent to a reservation in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) after the Second Sioux War, find living there very difficult.

SEP 1878: 300 Cheyenne, 70 of them warriors, under Dull Knife and Little Wolf, leave the reservation and head for their old homes in the North.

b. Soldiers pursue. Frequent battles, none conclusive. Cheyenne continue moving. In Nebraska, the band splits in two. Dull Knife continues North, where his band is captured and imprisoned at Camp Robinson, Nebraska.a. Relatively easy captivity, at first.

c. Dull Knife, told that his people will be sent back to Oklahoma, announces that they will die rather than return. He asks for a small reservation in the North, where, he says, the Cheyenne will live peacefully.

d. 3 JAN 79: Cheyenne are again told that they will be sent back to Oklahoma, by force if necessary. Again, they state their preference for death. The army obligingly locks them in barracks buildings at Camp Robinson and deprives them of food, fuel, and water.

e. 09 JAN 79: The Cheyenne escape from Camp Robinson. 30 are killed and 35 wounded in the attempt.

f. 9 JAN 79: Soldiers catch up with the escapees and kill most of them, men, women and children.

1) 7 women and children, 5 of them wounded, are brought back to Camp Robinson.

2) Dull Knife and his son, who had become separated from the party before the attack, escape and are taken in and hidden by friends on the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation.

Little Wolf and his band go into hidden winter camp in Nebraska. Head North in early Spring.

MAR 79: Captured, and taken to Ft. Keogh in Powder River country. There, these survivors are permitted to remain.

 

1878: Last of the great southern buffalo herd is killed. Now only scattered individuals and small groups remain from the herd once numbering in the millions.

 

1878: Congress authorizes the establishment of the Indian Police. On each reservation, a force of policemen is recruited from the local Indians. It is these forces which enforce Federal law on the reservations.

 

1879: One band of Utes in Colorado rises in rebellion when soldiers arrive unexpectedly on their reservation. They are easily put down, then ALL Utes are removed from the state and their reservations are opened for white settlement.

 

1881: Helen Hunt Jackson writes A Century of Dishonor, a best-selling book which details the white treatment of the Indians. Pro-Indian sentiment grows, especially in the Eastern United States.

 

1881: By agreement with the Federal government, Sitting Bull returns from Canada and takes up residence on the Sioux South Dakota Reservation.

 

1884: For the first year in a long time, no buffalo hides are recorded as having been sold. There are no buffalo left to hunt.

 

1887: DAWES ACT (General Allotment Act) (Severalty Act)

Provides for the complete dissolution of the Indian tribes as legal entities Tribal lands divided among individual members of the tribe

Reservation land remaining after this distribution is declared open to white settlement, since it is surplus land, and more than the Indians need.

Full U.S. Citizenship is to be given to the individual Indians when they receive full title to their 160- or 80-acre farms.

 

1889: The Oklahoma Land Rush

Whites have been illegally settling in Central Indian Territory since 1884.

In response to sooner pressure, the government declares Central Indian Territory open to white settlement.

At noon, 22 APR 89: thousands of would-be settlers, called "boomers", line up on the edge of the newly-opened territory, and on signal charge into the interior to stake out land.

a. By the end of the day, 1,920,000 acres have been claimed.

b. By the end of the day, Oklahoma City has been founded on what was earlier in the day empty territory. There are 10,000 citizens in the town by the nightfall.

02 MAY 1890: Newly-settled lands are organized as the Oklahoma Territory.

1891: 900, acres in Oklahoma, belonging to the Sauk, Fox, and Pottawatomie are opened to white settlement.

1892: The Cheyenne-Araphaho Reservation in Oklahoma, some 3 million acres, is opened to white settlement.

16 SEP 1893: The "Cherokee Strip," six million acres of Indian land in Oklahoma, is opened to white settlement by land rush.

1889: The Government diminishes Sioux holdings in South Dakota. Center of Sioux land is opened to provide a corridor for white settlement and transportation across South Dakota. Sioux left with 1/2 of what they had previously. Remaining land is divided into five reservations:

Immediately after taking the land, Congress cuts the Sioux annual food allotment approximately in half.

 

THE GHOST DANCE CRISIS, 1888-1893

1888: WOVOKA, a Paiute, begins preaching the Ghost Dance religion

1888-1890: Ghost Dance religion spreads to most plains tribes.

MAR 1890: Ghost Dance sweeps the Sioux reservations.

30 OCT 90: Agent at Pine Ridge claims that the Ghost Dance is leading the Sioux to overt hostility, that it must be stopped, and that Sioux "troublemakers" must be arrested if war is to be averted. The Agent, D.F. Royer, requests federal troops.

NOV 1890: Soldiers enter the Pine Ridge Reservation. Most Sioux there and in neighboring reservations flee to the Badlands, on the edge of the Pine Ridge Reservation but far away from the Pine Ridge Agency. They are led by Kicking Bear, a strong advocate of the Ghost Dance. The Army declares that the fleeing Indians are hostile and on the warpath.

15 DEC 90: Sioux Indian Police are sent to arrest Sitting Bull, whom Royer had named chief trouble-maker among the Sioux. In the arrest, Sitting Bull is killed.

15-20 DEC 90: Hearing that soldiers have been sent to arrest him, and hearing also of what happened to Sitting Bull, another major "trouble maker," Big Foot, leaves the Standing Rock reservation with a band of 340, about 100 of them warriors, and heads for the badlands to join Kicking Bear.

27 DEC 90: Kicking Bear, confronted with 3,000 soldiers, surrenders and returns to the Pine Ride agency with his refugees.

28 DEC 90: Big Foot's band is apprehended near the badlands by 200 soldiers from the 7th cavalry. The Indians are taken to a temporary "holding area" on Wounded Knee Creek, where they make camp. During the night, 270 more members of the 7th cavalry, with a battery of four Hotchkiss guns, arrive, and all surround the camp.

29 DEC 90: THE BATTLE OF WOUNDED KNEE (THE WOUNDED KNEE MASSACRE.)

01 JAN 91: Kicking Bear and Two Strike lead Indians at Pine Ridge in brief war against the soldiers. The agency is burned, troop detachments and wagon trains are raided, one white is killed.

16 JAN 91: Surrender of the hostile Sioux.

1891-1893: Ghost Dance religion dies out.

 

 

The Twentieth Century

 

1906: BURKE ACT. The Dawes Act is modified to permit the Secretary of the Interior to waive the 25-year trust period so that Indians might receive full ownership of their lands sooner. The usual result is that whites buy up Indian land which they otherwise would have been unable to have.

 

1917: The Commissioner of Indian Affairs further liberalize the restriction on Indian sale of their land, resulting in further dispossession of the Indians.

 

02 JUN 1924: SYNDER ACT: All Indians born in the United States are admitted to full citizenship.

 

1924: An act to transfer ownership of Pueblo Indian lands to white hands is defeated in Congress. Instead, a Pueblo Land Board is set up to determine what compensation, if any, is owed to the Pueblo for past land seizures.

 

1928: A Brookings Institution Report, entitled The Problem of Indian Administration, reveals severe deficiencies in Indian administration. Its release sets off a new call for reform.

 

1933: Pueblo Land Board rules that the Pueblo Indians are entitled to compensation from government for past seizures.

 

18 JUN 34: THE WHEELER-HOWARD ACT (Indian Reorganization Act)

a. Ends the practice, established under the Dawes Act, of requiring Indians to hold land as individuals.

b. Permits what Indian "surplus" land which remains unsold to be transferred to the ownership of tribes as a whole.

c. Encourages tribal self-government.

d. Attempts to improve Indian economic conditions.

 

13 AUG 1946: The Indian Claims Commission is established, to settle all outstanding claims by Indians against the United States from the beginning of the nation until 13 AUG 46.

 

1 AUG 1953: By concurrent resolution, Congress adopts the policy of TERMINATION

a. Federal controls over reservation life are discontinued.

b. Federal restrictions on Indian life are ended.

c. Benefits for Indians under federal jurisdiction are withdrawn.

d. Federal programs encourage and finance Indian migration away from reservations and traditional homes and into cities.

 

1960s: Newly-organized Indian movements cause deceleration of termination. Federal aid to Indians expands greatly. Reservation governments are made eligible as sponsoring agencies for many federal economic opportunity grants under programs started by the Great Society.

 

NEW INDIAN ACTIVISM

20 NOV 1969: 78 Indians occupy Alcatraz Island, signalling the rise of Indian activism. They remain there until the summer of 1971.

1970: The American Indian Movement is founded.

02-08 NOV 72: American Indian Movement occupies the Washington DC offices of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, protesting treatment of Indians, and demanding that all past treaties be fulfilled.

27 FEB - 08 MAY 73: American Indian Movement members occupy the village of Wounded Knee, S.D., seizing 11 hostages and a trading post.

 

1970s: Restoration of some Indian land begins.

1970: 48,000 acres are returned to the Pueblo.

1972: 21,000 acres are returned to the Yakima of

Washington state.

1980: U.S. Supreme Court orders the U.S. government to pay $117 million plus interest to the Sioux Indian Nation as compensation for the seizure of the Black Hills in 1876.

 

1970: Richard Nixon repudiates the policy of termination, rejects assimilation of Indians into white American life as a goal of federal policy and endorses Indian self-determination.

 

1974: Indian Self-Determination Act grants tribes the right to manage federal-aid programs on the reservations and to oversee their own schools.