Indian wars

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the trail of tears, 1825-40

during the time period of 1825-40 the first indian tribes were moved from their eastern homes to the Great Plains. the tribers were as listed: Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, Cherokee and the Chickasaw.

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one big reservation, 1840-51

white man believed that the Great Plains were ideal for the indians as they were impossible to farm, this is why the indians recieved this 'chunk' of land. By 1850 gold prospectors crossed these lands disturbign the buffalo, therefore the indians attacked them.

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the fort Laramie treaty, 1851

in the autumn of 1851, an indian agent-Thomas Fitzpatrick called the cheyenne and arapho indians along with wite men for a meeting at fort laramie. In this they conducted a major descision where the indians would not roam freely but they would be confined to a specific hunting ground, one for each tribe. the indians also agreed that they would no longer ambush travellers along the Oregon Trail.

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Little Crows War, 1862

Lack of growing crops and starvation led Little Crow to escort the Santee Sioux on a Warpath against the reservation runners. They almost managed to kill 1/2 of a detachment of the governments fighters, however by 1862, 2000 Santee were inevitably captured or they surrendered.this led to them being moved onto smaller government reservations where hundreds died in their first winter. this was caused by barren land and water that wasn't fit to drink. Their lack of survivability in these reservations probably ties in to the destruction of the buffalo as well as the other causes listed above.

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The Sand Creek Massacre, 1864

Colorados army-mainly made up of volunteers-took advantage of the regular armys dedication in the Civil war , 1861-65, so they released their malevolance on the peaceful Cheyenne, led by black kettle. In this conflict over 450 Indians were slaughtered,these numbers included women and children, even though they were holding up a white flag of surrender. The Indians reprocated by attacking wagon trails, this led to a full scale war.

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the fort Wise treaty, 1861

On august 6th 1861 te fort laramie treaty was ratified this meant that the two tribes on warpath, the cheyenne and arapaho, were assigned a small reservation between the arkansas river and sand creek in Colorado. however the cheifs of these two tribes could not persuade the bands to stop raiding mining towns.

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Small Reservations, 1867-75

With there no longer being any land that the white men wanted the Plains Indians to be pushed upon, the government and army tried, by using a series of treaties, to confine the Indians onto smaller reservations. This could be done as the Indians had no written language so relied on verbal ‘promises’ the government made, so the verbal treaties were completely different to what was on the written treaties, to the white men written treaties were important as what they said on the treaties were considered as legal documents to them.

Some treaties that were made were:

The 1867 Medicine Lodge Treaty with the Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa and Arapaho nations involved and the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty made with the Sioux nation.

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Red Clouds War, 1865-68

With the discovery of gold in Montana,1862, new mining towns were found. An example of this is Virginia City, this brought new miners who wanted to cross the new trail. This trail followed the Oregon trail until Fort Laramie where it cut off to cross Sioux lands. This angered the Sioux therefore making them attack wagons crossing this land.

These attacks stopped in 1866 because the government attempted to fix this, this didn’t work as by the winter of 1866 U.S soldiers were being attacked in their own forts by the Sioux, who were led by Red Cloud. The Sioux couldn’t take over these forts however as they were equipped with artillery. On the other hand the Sioux did manage to wipe out an 80 strong detachment. All this led to Red Clouds War.

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The Battle of Little Bighorn, 1876

On 25th June 1876 General George Armstrong Custer led an assault on the peaceful Sioux tribe, causing his inevitable death. This is because Custer disobeyed orders from his ruling general of waiting for reinforcements by just charging in on the Sioux with limited men and resources.

This well known Battle took place next to the Bighorn river and lasted for only a day due to Custers limitations of troops and resources so it made it a slaughter for his troops. Another poor part of Custers plan was splitting up his group into 3 to attack from different directions, if he kept his ‘legion’ of troops together he might of had a chance of winning this battle therefore gaining the territory and expanding on their belief of manifest destiny.

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President Grants Peace Policy, 1868

Issues on the reservations made it so desperate Indian troops fought against the us soldiers, leading to direct conflict between the two forces listed above. In 1868 President Ulysses S. Grant wished to stop or at least change the conflicts by issuing a peace policy aiming to also calm tension due to better management on the reservations.

The biggest change this policy made was to replace the depraved agents from managing the reservations with religious men, particularly Quaker’s who had a strong image of fairness between the two forces in these conflicts. He then also assigned an American indian (Ely Parker) as Comissioner of Indian Affairs. The government also put forwards a budget of $2000000 to ensure that the plains Indians who lived on the reservations were well taken care of.

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Wounded Knee, 1890

On December 29, the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers under Big Foot, a Lakota Sioux chief, near Wounded Knee Creek and demanded they surrender their weapons. As that was happening, a fight broke out between an Indian and a U.S. soldier and a shot was fired, although it’s unclear from which side. A brutal massacre followed, in which it’s estimated 150 Indians were killed (some historians put this number at twice as high), nearly half of them women and children. The cavalry lost 25 men

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