114B: The Impact on Native Americans

Question 1

Where did most Native Americans occupy?

Answer 1

The Great Plains

Question 2

What were the tribes?

Answer 2

Nomadic, they roamed the plains freely

Question 3

What did the buffalo provide them?

Answer 3

Everything they needed to survive. It determined their lifestyle, living conditions, laws, government and religious beliefs

Question 4

What were the US government initially happy to do?

Answer 4

Leave the Native Americans to live freely in the areas which the White Americans didn’t want to occupy, the Great Plains

Question 5

How did the government change their policy on leaving the Native Americans to live freely?

Answer 5

They began to promote settlement of the vast spaces in the West, and as the White Americans began to push westwards beyond the natural frontier, gradually removing the Native Americans from their traditional lands

Question 6

What did many tribes become to the White Settlers and the presence of the army?

Answer 6

Many tribes such as the Sioux and Cheyenne became hostile

Question 7

What broke out in 1876?

Answer 7

The Great Sioux War

Question 8

What was the initial cause of the Great Sioux War?

Answer 8

After the discovery of gold in the Black Hills of Dakota, gold prospectors and settlers poured into the Native American’s territory

Question 9

How did the Government first react to the settlers encroaching on Native American land?

Answer 9

They tried to keep the prospectors out but here were too many of them

Question 10

What did the Government attempt to do as a result of the encroachment of Native American land?

Answer 10

They tried to make a deal with the Native Americans, offering them $6 million but they turned it down

Question 11

What did the Government believe the Native Americans were being after they turned down their deal?

Answer 11

They believed they were being unreasonable and hardened their attitude towards Native Americans, demanding they should go to reservations

Question 12

What would happen to those who did not respond the the reservation policy?

Answer 12

Those who did not respond by 31 January 1876 would be treated as hostile

Question 13

Due to political pressure from the white American majority what decision was made?

Answer 13

To remove the Native Americans from the Black Hills

Question 14

What did the Government face after the decision to remove the Native Americans from the plains?

Answer 14

Setbacks including the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Question 15

Why did the Native Americans present such a large problem to the US government?

Answer 15

Their independent existence gave them a degree of self-determination which was deemed unacceptable. Additionally many were thought of as hostile and dangerous

Question 16

What did the Reservation Policy entail?

Answer 16

Locating Native Americans to government-controlled reservations, enabling the government to Americanise the Native Americans, as they were considered savages

Question 17

What did the Reservations separate the Native Americans from?

Answer 17

Their dependance on hunting buffalo and their tribal way of life

Question 18

How did the reservations destroy their way of life?

Answer 18

The process of education, conversion to Christianity, and training the Native Americans to become farmers

Question 19

Why was reservation life so harsh?

Answer 19

The land allocated to reservations proved impossible to cultivate, many starved

Question 20

What were the Native American’s dependent on on the reservations?

Answer 20

Food supplied by the Government, however this was not always provided so many starved

Question 21

Why did this dependance prove humiliating for Native Americans?

Answer 21

They depended on white Americans for food, clothing and shelter