Native Americans Flashcards
When were the Plains Wars?
1862-67
What types of tribes live on the Great Plains?
Nomadic Tribes
What did Native Americans believe about land?
Land is a common resource which can’t be owned but does belong to them
When was the Gold Rush?
1848
Where did the Gold Rush happen?
Sacramento Valley
How much had the non-native population increased by in 1849?
1000 to 100,000
How did the Gold Rush affect the NA population?
20 years after 80% of the NA population was wiped out
What were four threats to the Native Americans?
Manifest Destiny
Gold Rush
Homesteader
Railways
What was Manifest Destiny?
Belief that it was American’s God-given right to settle rest of continent
What was the Gold Rush?
Discovery of gold in California 1847 that led to influx of migrant workers
What were Homesteaders?
Gave farmers 160-acre plot free on Great Plains if farmed for 5 years
What were the Railways?
Building of railroads across America from coast-to-coast
What did Manifest Destiny lead to?
Expansion and dismantlement of NA communities
What did Gold Rush lead to?
New settlers disrupted native way of life and brought epidemics, violence and loss
What did Homesteaders lead to?
Disruption of nomadic life
What did Railways lead to?
Brought more European settlers to the plains and disrupted buffalo herds
When was the Sand Creek Massacre?
1864
What happened in the Sand Creek Massacre?
750 Cheyenne forced to abandon their winter campsite and moved to Sand Creek but were attacked and slaughtered by volunteer soldiers
How many Native Americans were killed in Sand Creek Massacre?
148
When was Red Cloud’s War?
1866
What was Red Cloud’s War?
Armed conflict between the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Northern Arapaho on one side and the United States, 80 US soldiers killed
What did Red Cloud’s War result in?
Signing of Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868
Who led westward expansion to Kansas in 1867?
General Hancock
What did Hancock provoke?
Torched an abandoned NA village and provoked a full scale war
Which treaty did NA sign following the 1867 Kansas expansion?
Medicine Lodge Treaty in October 1867
When was the Great Sioux War?
1877
What was the Great Sioux War?
Opposition of NA against sale of Black Hills of Dakota and treaties proposed by US government - Sitting Bull refused to sign and army led by General Custer
When was the Battle of Little Bighorn?
1876
What was the Battle of Little Bighorn?
Custer and 300 of his men slaughtered by Native Americans (short-term success)
What did the Battle of Little Bighorn lead to?
The death of Custer led to backlash from the US government and the removal of the Black Hills of Dakota from NA reservations
What was the reservation policy?
Policy from 1802 when the federal government began negotiations with ‘Civilised Tribes’ to allocate land to NA
Who were the five ‘civilised tribes’?
Checkasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee-Creek, Seminole, Cherokee Nations
When was the Indian Removal Act?
1830
When was the Navajo Treaty signed?
1868
What was the Navajo Treaty Act?
Agreement of reservation for Navajo tribe in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah
When did Native Americans lose right to determine what happened to their land?
1871
How long did reservation policy last?
1871-87
How was assimilation attempted?
Through education, conversion to Christianity, turning NAs to farmers and establishment of government reservations
How did the US government destroy NA way of life?
Forbade polygamy, herbal remedies and communal living
How did education destroy NA way of life?
Children were forbidden from speaking in their language and had to renounce traditional tribal beliefs
Negatives of reservations
Land impossible to cultivate
Thousands of NAs starved
Segregated them from rest of US society
Bad example of reservations
1890 200 starving and unarmed Sioux Indians left their reservation and were gunned down by army in South Dakota
Good example of reservations
Navajo tribe had 4 million acres and adapted to farming, from 15,000 sheep and goats to 1.7 million from 1868-1892
How many NA were there in reservations by 1890?
135,000
When was the allotment policy?
1887-1934
When was the Dawes Severalty Act?
1887
What did the Dawes Act do?
Divided reservation up into individual allotments that were owned by Native Americans (had to pay taxes and therefore gained full rights of citizenship)
How much land would a head of family receive under the Dawes Act?
160 acres
How long would it take for NA to gain ownership over land?
25 years
Negatives of Dawes Act
Ignored NA culture
Resulted in deduction of land owned by NA as white settlers bought a lot of it up
Unable to manage money, slipped into debt
What ended the exemption of Five Civilised Tribes from Dawes Act?
Curtis Act 1898
What was the name of the state the Five Civilised Tribes wanted to make to stop the Curtis Act?
Sequah
When were off-reservation boarding schools established?
1870s
Where were the two off-reservation boarding schools established?
Virginia (Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute) and Pennsylvania (Carlisle Indian Industrial School)
What was the name of a philanthropic organisation for NA?
Indian Rights Association
When was the Indian Rights Association founded?
1882
What was the Indian Rights Association?
Group of white (Christians) who opposed the government’s mistreatment of Native Americans but still viewed their culture as primitive
When was the Massacre at Wounded Knee?
1890
Which court case gave government right to revoke all treaties made?
Lone Wolf v Hitchcock in 1903
When was the Muskogee Convention?
1905
What was the Muskogee Convention?
Conference called by 5 leaders of civilised tribes to try and create Sequoyah, there was a majority vote at the convention but it was rejected by Congress
When was the Society of American Indians Established?
1911
What was the Society of American Indians?
A group of 50 educated NAs, first attempt at establishing inter-tribal pressure group (collapsed 1920s due to lack of funds and luck of unity inside and outside group)
What did WW1 achieve for NAs?
10,000 NA men fought and gained recognition by the government, were integrated with White Americans, beginnings of urbanisation
When did the Pueblo Indians lose their land and why?
1921 due to a 1913 Supreme Court Ruling
When was the ‘Dance Order’?
1921 and 1923
What was the ‘Dance Order’?
Prohibited NAs from some of their traditional, ritual dances
When was the Indian Citizenship Act?
1924
What did the Indian Citizenship Act do?
Gave NA men right to vote (2/3 already had this right due to Dawes Act)
When was the Meriam Report?
1928
When was the Indian Reorganisation Act?
1934
What did the Indian Reorganisation Act do?
Gave NAs the right to practise their religion, undertake ceremonial dances and extended political rights to women, ended the allotment policy
Who created the Indian Reorganisation Act?
Wheeler-Howard
When was the National Congress of American Indians formed?
1944
When was the period of Termination Policy?
1953-69
When was the Policy of Termination introduced?
1953
What impact did the Policy of Termination have?
Worsened conditions for NAs, ended the recognition of NA tribes and any remaining treaty rights and led to urbanisation
How many Native Americans had left their reservations by 1960?
60,000
When was the National Indian Youth Council formed?
1961
When was the American Indian Movement (AIM) established?
1968
When was the Siege of Alcatraz?
1969
Who led the Siege of Alcatraz?
Richard Oakes
How much did the occupiers offer the government for the island of Alcatraz?
$24 in glass and beads (same as what they got for island of Manhattan)
When was NARF founded?
1970
What was NARF?
A group set up with trained legal specialists to defend the rights of NAs
When was the Occupation of Mount Rushmore?
1971
When did AIM take over the Bureau of Indian Affairs?
1972
When was the Occupation of Wounded Knee?
1973
When was the Pine Ridge Reservation?
1975
When was Oneida v Oneida and Madison Counties?
1974
What was the outcome of Oneida v Oneida and Madison Counties?
Supreme Court ruled in favour of the Oneida tribe suing for the return of their lands.
When was Fisher v Montana?
1976
What was the outcome of Fisher v Montana?
Supreme Court ruled that tribal courts would decide on adoption in the future.
When was United States v the Sioux Nation?
1980
What was the outcome of United States v Sioux Nation?
Gave significant compensation to tribe ($17.5 million + $106 million in interest since 1877)
When was Seminole Tribe v Butterworth?
1982
What was the outcome of Seminole Tribe v Butterworth?
Supreme Court gave Seminole right to establish gambling enterprises on tribal land (went against state law)
When was Charrier v Bell?
1986
What was the outcome of Charrier v Bell?
Supreme Court ruled that remains dug from burial grounds belonged to NAs
When was the Indian Education Act?
1972
What did the Indian Education Act do?
Increased funding for NA schools
When was the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act?
1975
What did the Indian Self-Determination Act do?
Set out the process for tribes to take responsibility for their own education, health and social service provision with federal funding
When was the Native American Religious Freedom Act?
1978
What did the Native American Religious Freedom Act do?
It gave Native Americans the right to follow their traditional religion
