Indian wars 1862-68 Flashcards
When was the little crow’s war
1862
What was Little crow the chief of?
a band of the Dakota Sioux
When did Dakota Sioux bands, including Little crow’s, sign a treaty and agree to move into a reservation?
What did this treaty include?
1851
- Dakota Sioux bands, gave up 24 million acres of their land in return for a payment of $1.4 million with an annuity of $80,000
- some was in cash, some were in provisions
Why did Little crow agree to move into a reservation?
In Minnesota, the numbers of white settlers were rapidly increasing, and the numbers of animals to hunt was rapidly declining
What were the immediate problems with the treaty that moved the Dakota Sioux to a reservation?
- before the treaty, the Dakota Sioux had built up debts with traders and the treaty stated that before the Sioux got any of their money they would have to pay back $200,000 to the traders. Sioux refused to do this, giving the government an excuse not to pay the money agreed in the treaty
- reservations could not produce enough food for the Dakota Sioux to survive over the winter. when bands left the reservations to hunt, the reservations refused to let them have any supplies from their annuity as punishment
-The agency and local traders cheated the Dakota Sioux.
the Agency held onto annuity payments for several weeks until the starving Dakota Sioux agreed to very high prices of food. In this way, almost all of the tribes’ annuity would be taken as soon as it arrived from the government.
What caused the little crow war
crops failed on the reservation and food promised by the government didn’t arrive so the Indians faced starvation
What happed in August 1862 (little crows war)
The civil war meant the US Army was fighting the confederates, so little Crow and other chiefs believed the time was right to take back what was rightfully theirs
little crow and others attacked the agency that ran reservation.
they stole food to share, then burned the agency buildings
then attacked the settlers’ town and army forts
What went wrong with the little crow war?
many young warriors had little respect for the chiefs who had signed away their lands
little crow did not think it was right to kill those who were not a threat
these young warriors killed 600 settlers, including women and children, and several US soldiers were killed
What happened by October 1862 (little crow war)
most Santee had surrendered or been captured and 38 were executed
what was the aftermath of the little crow’s war?
The rest of the Dakota Sioux were then moved to a smaller reservation, Crow creek which had a barren landscape and caused many deaths that winter as people starved to death
Write a narrative of The Sand Creek Massacre
The Fort Laramie treaty guarnanteed the Cheyenne and Arapaho large amounts of land. However, during the 1858 Colorado Gold Rush, many miners and settlers crossed and settled on Arapaho and Cheyenne homelands, which led to fighting between them.
- In 1861, chief Black Kettle agreed to the Treaty of Fort Wise to move all Cheynne and Arapaho onto a reservation in East Colorado. However, many soldiers known as ‘Dog Soldiers’ refused to leave and remained on their old lands perpetuating conflicts between Dog Soldiers and prospectors crossing Colorado territory.
- On the 29th November 1864, US army Colonel Chivington led a dawn raid on Black Kettle’s camp at Sand Creek.
- Over 130 men, women and children were brutally massacred. As a result, this proved to many tribes that the white Americans cannot be trusted and must be fought and the tribes attacked many forts and killed many white settlers across Colorado territory.
- US Senate Committee of Enquiry condemned Chivington. Both white men and Indians were horrified
- the government was under great pressure in the civil war and could not afford to send thousands of troops to colorado to fight Plains Indians so a new treaty was agreed in 1865. The Cheyenne and Arapaho would move to a better reservation with the survivors receiving compensation.
- However, once the civil war was won, the US government backed out of its deal. Instead, in a treaty made in 1867, the tribes ended up being moved to a reservation half the size of what they had been promised and no compensation was paid to the survivors
Write a narrative of Red Cloud’s War (1868)
-When gold was discovered in Montana in 1862, prospectors from the East began to use a shortcut of the Oregon trail, known as the Bozeman trail which cut through important Lakota Sioux hunting grounds.
This broke the Fort Laramie Treaty.
- By 1865, 2000 people had travelled the Bozeman trail despite attacks by an infuriated Lakota Sioux.
- In 1866, the government started discussions with the Indians but Red Cloud, stormed out of discussions when he realised that two American forts were being planned on Indian land. As a result, the Lakota Sioux knew they were being exploited by the US government and any treaty would result in unfair terms, so they embarked on a two-year fight to prevent the Bozeman Trail from being used. They attacked soldiers and other workers from using the fort.
- Red Cloud was joined by two other Lakota Sioux leaders, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse and was able to bring Cheyenne and Arapaho bands to join this war. In total, Red Cloud’s War may have had 3000 Plains Indians and a mere 700 US soldiers.
- In December 1866, there was an attack on men sent out to cut wood at one of the new forts. Captain William Fetterman led a group of 80 cavalrymen to protect them. The Lakota Sioux had developed a tactic of sending out a couple of scouts who deliberately got spotted by US cavalry and then galloped off leading pursuing cavalry into an ambush. Captain Fetterman fell for what is known as Fetterman’s Trap and all his men were killed by a much larger force.
- the Lakota Sioux surrounded Fort Phil Kearny, one of the forts on the Bozeman Trail and troops could not leave the fort and no traveller could move along the trail.
- Significantly, Red Cloud’s victory proved that old government approaches were ineffective. Furthermore, Red Cloud’s victory led to the signing of the Second Fort Laramie Treaty (1868)…
What were the terms for the Fort Laramie treaty, 1868?
- Us government agrees to abandon three forts and the Bozeman trail
- Red cloud agree to move his tribe to a reservation stretching from the Black Hills of Dakota to the Missouri River
- both parties are in favour of the treaty. However, the Indians, now split into reservation on separate sites, find it hard to act together.
