Chapter 25 Flashcards
Reservation System
created to keep Native Americans off of lands that European Americans wished to settle. The reservation system allowed indigenous people to govern themselves and to maintain some of their cultural and social traditions.
Sand Creek Massacre
What was the Sand Creek Massacre and why was it important?
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On November 29, 1864, roughly 700 federal troops attacked a village of 500 Cheyenne and Arapaho on Sand Creek in Colorado. An unprovoked attack on men, women, and children, the massacre at Sand Creek marked a turning point in the relationship between American Indian tribes and the Federal Government.
Battle of the Little Bighorn
also called Custer’s Last Stand, marked the most decisive Native American victory and the worst U.S. Army defeat in the long Plains Indian War. The demise of Custer and his men outraged many white Americans and confirmed their image of the Indians as wild and bloodthirsty.
Peace Policy
President Ulysses S. Grant advances a “Peace Policy” to remove corrupt Indian agents, who supervise reservations, and replace them with Christian missionaries, whom he deems morally superior.
Dawes Severalty Act
Signed into law in 1887 by President Grover Cleveland, the Dawes Act contained several provisions: A head of family would receive a grant of 160 acres, a single person or orphan over 18 years of age would receive a grant of 80 acres, and persons under the age of 18 would receive 40 acres each.
Battle of Wounded Knee
On a cold day in December 1890, U.S. soldiers surrounded and slaughtered about 300 Lakota men, women, and children at Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota. Although the soldiers were celebrated at the time, Wounded Knee is now remembered as a terrible atrocity.
Mining Industry
The California Gold Rush of 1848 was the first significant mining boom in the West, and it led to a large influx of people to California in search of gold. This was followed by other gold and silver rushes in other western states, such as Colorado and Nevada.
100th Meridian
Line north to south from the Dakotas through west Texas. Lands west of this line were generally poor and marginal.
Fort Laramie
In the spring of 1868 a conference was held at Fort Laramie, in present day Wyoming, that resulted in a treaty with the Sioux. This treaty was to bring peace between the whites and the Sioux who agreed to settle within the Black Hills reservation in the Dakota Territory.
Fort Atkinson
Passed in 1862, it gave 160 acres of public land to any settler who would farm the land for five years. The settler would only have to pay a registration fee of $25.
Battle of the Little Bighorn
On June 25, 1876, Native American forces led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull defeat the U.S. Army troops of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer in the Battle of the Little Bighorn near southern Montana’s Little Bighorn River.
Colonel J.M. Chivington
leading the 700-man force of Colorado Territory volunteers responsible for one of the most heinous atrocities in American military history: the November 1864 Sand Creek massacre.
Captain William J. Fetterman
was an officer in the United States Army during the American Civil War and the subsequent Red Cloud’s War on the Great Plains. Fetterman and his command of 80 men were killed in the Fetterman Fight.
Colonel George Armstrong Custer
Custer played a key role at the Battle of Gettysburg, preventing General J.E.B. Stuart from attacking Union troops, and later capturing Confederates fleeing south after the Union victory.
Nez Perce Indians
is a federally recognized tribe in north-central Idaho with more than 3,500 enrolled citizens. Headquartered in Lapwai, ID, the Nez Perce Reservation spans about 770,000 acres. The current governmental structure is based on a constitution adopted by the tribe in 1948.
