Death

667 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Political causes of westward expansion

In 1848, discoveries of gold and silver sparked interest in white settlers. In order to make room for more land, the federal government seized the land of the Sioux tribes. Unfortunately, the Sioux tribes were forced to move to these “reservations.” With so many pioneers moving to the gold sites, the Native Americans’ lands were yet taken again. In turn, the government implemented more restrictions on the tribes. Their boundaries just kept shrinking. All of this tension instigated a battle between the American Indians and the whites known as the Wounded Knee Massacre. However, the major causes of the Wounded Knee Massacre were western expansion, the Ghost Dance, and Sitting Bull’s arrest.
A few years after the Civil War, the federal government opened the West for settlement. There was much at stake. For whites, there were acres of open land suitable for farming, trading, or transportation. For Native Americans, the plains was their home. Travelling from place to place, these tribes followed the herds of buffalo that provided food and clothing. Indian oppositions were met with many conflicts between the tribes and U.S. troops (“Wounded Knee Massacre”). Occasionally, some of the Native Americans’ attempts were successful in ceasing settlers from trespassing their land. With news of gold discoveries, many whites brought complications into the American Indians’ lives. Often, the settlers would take advantage of them. Signed by American agents and representatives of Indian tribes, early treaties primarily assured them of peace and integrity of their land (Martin). As more and more settlers arrived, these treaties were broken. The whites often sought protection from the government, and the government would obviously favor the whites. C...

... middle of paper ...

...ilitary History. June 2007: 62+. War and Terrorism Collection. Web. 12 Mar. 2014
Martin, Stacie.”Native Americans.” Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Ed. Dinah Shelton. Vol. 2. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 740-746. Global Issues In Context. Web. 19 Mar. 2014.
“Massacre At Wounded Knee, 1890,” EyeWitness to History, www.eyewithnesstohistory.com (1998).
“Native American.” Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 19 Mar. 2014. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1357826/Native-American.
Ostler, Jeffrey. “Wounded Knee.” Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Ed. Dinah L. Shelton. Vol. 3. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 1166-1168. World History in Context. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.
“Wounded Knee Massacre.” American History. ABC-CLIO, 2014. Web. 12 Mar. 2014.

Show More
Related

  • Westward Expansion DBQ Essay

    1879 Words  | 4 Pages

    One can list the boons of western expansion — more opportunities for innovation; trains; more land for the colonists; increased trade opportunities, in both products and transportation, but none of these benefitted natives. In fact, they harmed Amerinds, pushing them to the brink of total extinction, and seemed to soil everything in nature that they had nurtured. "My heart feels like bursting; I feel sorry," Santana, the Chief of the Kiowa, said of the changes wrought by the foreigners (document G). They had every right and more to feel hurt, as Westward Expansion and the outstandingly poor treatment of natives contributed the largest, but most under-discussed, genocides in the Common Era, if not history. At least 100 million North or South American natives were killed by white or European settlers, according to the Smithsonian, whether from battle, pestilence, dislodging, or some other tribulation. There was really no way for the natives to win. This persecution lasted several decades. "In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed into effect the Homestead Act, which gave 160 acres west of the Mississippi, to any man who was willing to farm it," Northern Arizona University reported. Even the beloved sixteenth president contributed to the auctioning off of land that was not the US's to give away. Through increments of 160 acres, the natives' possession of land was chipped away,

    Read More

  • Shawnee Chief Tecumseh Thesis

    701 Words  | 2 Pages

    The land of the Native Indians had been encroached upon by American settlers. By the

    Read More

  • Eastern Woodland Indians and the Seven Years' War

    871 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Europeans invaded America with every intention of occupying the land, the bountiful natural resources as well as the complete domination of the native people. The Europeans desire for the land created an explosive situation for the native peoples as they witnessed their land and right to freedom being stripped from them. They often found themselves having to choose sides of which to pledge their allegiance to. The Europeans depended upon Indian allies to secure the land and their dominance as well as trade relations with the Indians. The Indians were in competition with one another for European trade causing conflict among the different tribes altering the relationships where friends became enemies and vice versa (Calloway, 2012, p. 163). These relationships often became embittered and broke into bloody brawls where it involved, "Indian warriors fighting on both sides, alongside the European forces as well as against European forces invad...

    Read More

  • The Growth of Government from 1877 Through 1920

    693 Words  | 2 Pages

    On the east coast people were also being taken advantage of by the government. As a result of the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, the government began giving out land grants ‒through the Homestead Act of 1862‒ for Americans to live on and farm; the only problem was that another culture was already living on the land: the Sioux Nation. After the S...

    Read More

  • Deciphering Wounded Knee: Hollywood Vs Historical Fact

    1418 Words  | 3 Pages

    "On September 25, 1990, hearings were conducted in the United States Senate by the Select Committee on Indian Affairs regarding the historical circumstances surrounding the Wounded Knee Massacre" (United States). As a result, Senate Congressional Resolution 153 (1989-1990) was passed. The following are excerpts from that resolution: "Whereas the Sioux people who are descendants of the victims and survivors of the Wounded Knee Massacre have been striving to reconcile and, in a culturally appropriate manner, to bring to an end their 100 years of grieving for the tragedy of December 29, 1890 ... which brought to a close an era in the history of this country ... characterized by an official government policy of forcibly removing the Indian tribes and bands from the path of westward expansion and settlement through placement on reservations.... Now therefore be it resolved by the Senate, that, 1) the Congress, on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre of December 29, 1890, hereby acknowledges the historical significance of this event as the last armed conflict of the Indian wars period resulting in the tragic death and injury of approximately 350-375 Indian men, women, and children of Chief Big Foot 's band of Minneconjou Sioux and hereby expresses its deep regret on behalf of the United States to the descendants of the victims

    Read More

  • Influence of Settlers on the Indians

    905 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the 1830's the Plains Indians were sent to the Great American Deserts in the west because the white men did not think they deserved the land. Afterwards, they were able to live peacefully, and to follow their traditions and customs, but when the white men found out the land they were on was still good for agricultural, or even for railroad land they took it back. Thus, the white man movement westward quickly began. This prospect to expand westward caused the government to become thoroughly involved in the lives of the Plains Indians. These intrusions by the white men had caused spoilage of the Plains Indians buffalo hunting styles, damaged their social and cultural lives, and hurt their overall lives.

    Read More

  • Ghost Dance Movement Essay

    960 Words  | 2 Pages

    Native Americans were not afforded full citizenship in the United States until 1924, therefore they were not afforded the rights of American citizens i.e. religious freedom until then. It wasn’t until 1945, that the Supreme Court held that “Freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country” (Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135, 148). In 1890 the Ghost Dance movement gain momentum within the Lakota. This created concern and fear among many whites in the area. A massacre at Wounded Knee on the Lakota Reservation in South Dakota was a direct result of the Euro- American fears of non-Christian people. Tisa Wegner tells us, “in 1906, Congress supported a view, amending the Dawes Act to postpone citizenship for newly allotted Indians for twenty-five-year period or until they had “adopted the habits of civilized life” (Hoxie 1995:211-238). The Native people then developed secular dance ceremonies which allowed them to continue the practice of dancing and not be perceived as a threat, they did this by having these ceremonies coincide with Euro-American

    Read More

  • Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee

    388 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Indians were being confined to crowed reservations that were poorly run, had scarce game, alcohol was plentiful, the soil was poor, and the ancient religious practices were prohibited. The Indians were not happy that they had been kicked off there land and were now forced to live on a reservation. The Indians then began to Ghost Dance a form of religion it is said that if the Indians were to do this trance like dance the country would be cleansed of white intruders. Also dead ancestors and slaughtered buffalo would return and the old ways would be reborn in a fruitful land. Once the Bureau of Indian affairs noticed what was going on they began to fear this new religion would lead to warfare. The white peoplewere scared that this new dance was a war dance. They called for army protection. Army was called in to try to curbed this new religion before it could start a war.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Not Like Us

    989 Words  | 2 Pages

    With hope that they could even out an agreement with the Government during the progressive era Indian continued to practice their religious beliefs and peacefully protest while waiting for their propositions to be respected. During Roosevelt’s presidency, a tribe leader who went by as No Shirt traveled to the capital to confront them about the mistreatment government had been doing to his people. Roosevelt refused to see him but instead wrote a letter implying his philosophical theory on the approach the natives should take “if the red people would prosper, they must follow the mode of life which has made the white people so strong, and that is only right that the white people should show the red people what to do and how to live right”.1 Roosevelt continued to dismiss his policies with the Indians and encouraged them to just conform into the white’s life style. The destruction of their acres of land kept being taken over by the whites, which also meant the destruction of their cultural backgrounds. Natives attempted to strain from the white’s ideology of living, they continued to attempt with the idea of making acts with the government to protect their land however they never seemed successfully. As their land later became white’s new territory, Indians were “forced to accept an ‘agreement’” by complying to change their approach on life style.2 Oklahoma was one of last places Natives had still identity of their own, it wasn’t shortly after that they were taken over and “broken by whites”, the union at the time didn’t see the destruction of Indian tribes as a “product of broken promises but as a triumph for American civilization”.3 The anger and disrespect that Native tribes felt has yet been forgotten, white supremacy was growing during the time of their invasion and the governments corruption only aid their ego doing absolutely nothing for the Indians.

    Read More

  • Andrew Jackson

    713 Words  | 2 Pages

    To take these lands, American settlers physically invaded the lands to claim as their own, however, they also petitioned the Federal Government to remove the Indians from their native lands. By doing this, they gained the support of the government’s resources and influence, especially President Jackson’s. Using both political and military attacks, the settlers quickly gained the upper hand over the Indians.

    Read More

  • Spirit Of Crazy Horse Analysis

    577 Words  | 2 Pages

    Whilst there has been countless attacks on the Native American people the Battle of Wounded Knee, if you can in fact call it a battle, is the event that can be held as the most accountable for the destruction of the native American culture; the obliteration of their hope and dreams. The Battle of Wounded Knee resulted in the death of three hundred Native Americans, half of which were women and children. White Plume, in the article In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, explains that “the whole Sioux Nation was wounded at that last terrible massacre, and we’ve been suffering ever since”. This sentiment is expressed throughout the remaining article as well as in Sherman Alexie’s Reservation Blues.

    Read More

  • The Story of Wounded Knee

    2623 Words  | 6 Pages

    “What have the ‘hostiles done? It seems to be so far a white man’s war” (Qtd. in Hines 30). The Indians that were killed at Wounded Knee committed no crime on their reservation in the time before the battle (Hines 36), they only practiced religion. The Ghost Dance movement resulted in a massacre at Wounded Knee which had a lasting impact on many people.

    Read More

  • Native American Policy

    622 Words  | 2 Pages

    Beginning in the 1860s and lasting until the late 1780s, government policy towards Native Americans was aggressive and expressed zero tolerance for their presence in the West. In the last 1850s, tribal leaders and Americans were briefly able to compromise on living situations and land arrangements. Noncompliance by Americans, however, resumed conflict. The beginning of what would be called the "Indian Wars" started in Minnesota in 1862. Sioux, angered by the loss of much of their land, killed 5 white Americans. What resulted was over 1,000 deaths, of white and Native Americans. From that point on, American policy was to force Indians off of their land. American troops would force Indian tribe leaders to accept treaties taking their land from them. Protests or resistance by the Indians would result in fighting. On occasion, military troops would even lash out against peaceful Indians. Their aggression became out of control.

    Read More

  • Native American Relations with The United States

    4013 Words  | 9 Pages

    One of the critical tasks that faced the new nation of the United States was establishing a healthy relationship with the Native Americans (Indians). “The most serious obstacle to peaceful relations between the United States and the Indians was the steady encroachment of white settlers on the Indian lands. The Continental Congress, following [George] Washington’s suggestion, issued a proclamation prohibiting unauthorized settlement or purchase of Indian land.” (Prucha, 3) Many of the Indian tribes had entered into treaties with the French and British and still posed a military threat to the new nation.

    Read More

  • The Subjugation Of The American West

    1214 Words  | 3 Pages

    The movement westward during the late 1800’s created new tensions among already strained relations with current Native American inhabitants. Their lands, which were guaranteed to them via treaty with the United States, were now beginning to be intruded upon by the massive influx of people migrating from the east. This intrusion was not taken too kindly, as Native American lands had already been significantly reduced due to previous westward conquest. Growing resentment for the federal government’s Reservation movement could be felt among the native population. One Kiowa chief’s thoughts on this matter summarize the general feeling of the native populace. “All the land south of the Arkansas belongs to the Kiowas and Comanches, and I don’t want to give away any of it” (Edwards, 203). His words, “I don’t want to give away any of it”, seemed to a mantra among the Native Americans, and this thought would resound among them as the mounting tensions reached breaking point.

    Read More

More about Death

Open Document