The U.S. government gave land subsidies [something given to assist a business] as an incentive to complete railroad lines.  In 1869, the transcontinental railroad was completed. After this, even more land was given to railroad companies, who in turn often sold it to settlers.  Settlers moved west and into Indian Territory.

Why did the government give land subsidies?

By the 1870s, fur trappers and traders were sending millions of buffalo hides and meat back to the east each year. Train companies offered tourists the chance to shoot buffalo from the windows of train cars. There were even buffalo killing contests.  “Buffalo Bill” Cody killed more than 4,000 buffalo in two years. Some U.S. government officials believed that the killing of buffalo would help defeat Native Americans on the Great Plains. James Throckmorton of Texas stated, “It would be a great step forward in the civilization of Indians and the preservation of peace…if there was not a buffalo in existence.”  Military commanders ordered the killing of buffalo, not for food, but to deny Native Americans their own source of food, clothing, and tools.  Where millions of buffalo once roamed, by 1880, they were almost extinct.

Why was the buffalo considered almost extinct by 1880?

In the early years of the nation, the U.S. government wanted to create a permanent boundary between American settlers and Indians.  Everything west of the Missouri River was to belong to the Indians.  Later, the government decided it was easier to control Native American tribes by requiring them to live on government run reservations.  This new reservation policy was in full effect by the 1860s.  Oklahoma and the Dakotas were two reservations.  The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), a government agency, was in charge of giving land and supplies to the various tribes.

Where did the Indians live once the government took control?

The telegraph, railroad, and rifles helped defeat Native Americans on the Plains.  The telegraph meant that communications concerning Indian uprisings could be sent to forts and settlements in an instant. The railroads could transport soldiers and supplies quickly. The repeating rifle allowed soldiers to fire rapidly. Other technology such as barbed wire, windmills, the mechanical reaper, and the steel plow meant that more prairie could be turned into farmland. African American soldiers, “buffalo soldiers” played a major role in protecting settlers, building roads, creating maps, and exploring the west. They helped make the west safe for westward expansion. 

Which of the following was NOT of new technology of the west?

Who were the men made the west safe for westward expansion?

Over 500 treaties made between the U.S. Government and Indians tribes were broken. One of the most famous being the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 which gave the Lakota Sioux tribe ownership of the Black Hills in what is now South Dakota. Once gold was discovered, however, American settlers moved into the hills.

Why did the U.S. Government break the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868?

The Dawes Act of 1887:

Divided reservation land into 160-acre plots. Indian heads of family could receive these plots and could receive ownership of the land as well as citizenship in 25 years.

Much of the land was never distributed to individual Indian owners, however, and Native Americans eventually lost approximately 2/3 of their land to non-Indians.

The law also dissolved many tribes as legal entities meaning the government would only deal with Indians as individuals and thus wiped out tribal ownership of land

Land not given or “allotted” to Indians was to be sold to railroads and white settlers with the money to be used to educate and “civilize” the Native Americans.

Forced assimilation was the official policy for another 50 years

Were indian tribes consisdered land owners?

Native Americans should speak English only, and so many young Indian children were sent to boarding schools.

Native Americans should “look” like the dominant American culture, so boys were forced to cut their long hair and all were to wear western style clothing.

Native Americans should adopt Christianity as their religion and so many Native American religious ceremonies were outlawed.

Traditional ways of making a living should be replaced with farming.

What is a word to describe the process Tom Torlino and other Native Americans are enduring?

“We are vanishing from the earth,…. When God created the Apache, He also created their homes in the West. He gave them such grain, fruits, and game as they needed to eat. He gave them a pleasant climate and all they needed. Thus it was in the beginning; the Apaches and their homes. When they are taken from these homes they sicken and die. How long will it be until it is said there are no Apaches?” Geronimo

Would Geronimo be in favor or against assimilation?

“Kill the Indian and Save the Man.” -Captain Richard H. Pratt

Is Captain Pratt in favor or against assimilation?

“It has become the settled policy of the government to break up reservations, destroy tribal relations, settle Indians upon their own homesteads, incorporate them into the national life, and deal with them not as nations or tribes or bands, but as individual citizens.” Thomas J. Morgan, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1890.

Is he in favor or against assimilation?

“I was asked to act as interpreter to the Shoshones by a reservation official….He was going to issue clothing to them….It took three days for the people to come up. Oh, such an issue! It was enough to make a doll laugh. A family numbering 8 persons got two blankets, three shirts, no dress-goods. Some got a fishhook and line….the largest issue was to families that camped together, numbering twenty-three persons; four blankets, three pieces of red flannel…three shirts, three hooks and lines, two kettles. It was the saddest affair I ever saw.”-Sarah Winnemucca

Is Sarah in favor or against assimilation?

Would Captain Pratt and Thomas Morgan be considered reformers or oppressors by the Native Americans?