Indian War Dbq

Native Americans experienced extreme lifestyle changes between 1860 and 1900 due to the Indian Wars, the US government’s not knowing what to do with the uprooted population, and the ‘white man’s burden’. Due to manifest destiny, the removal and containment of Native Americans was an easy decision for the US Government to make, but a nearly detrimental one for all of the tribes involved.
The Indian Wars were the most logical outcome due to the mindset of the US in the early 19th century. The US believed Indians had a ‘carelessness’ towards the land, ignoring small pieces while roaming around large pieces of land. Indians believed in the natural right to roam a region rather than the westernized idea of owning parcels of land. The US also justified

its treatment of the Natives on grounds of Manifest Destiny, also known as the belief that we are destined to expand our territories coast to coast at any cost necessary. In a letter to the secretary of the interior on January 23, 1867, Commissioner Lewis V. Bogy wrote about how he believed that Indians should be permanently put on reservations, explaining that the expansion of the US would not be prevented, and would continue unchecked (McDermott, 1998, p. 7).
There were three significant battles that took place during this time; The Battle at Rosebud (1876), The Battle at Little Big Horn (1876), and The Wounded Knee Massacre (1890). The Battle of Rosebud was one of the largest battles during the Indian Wars.
In spring of 1876, the Lakota and Cheyenne faced the US Army. They hadn’t come to terms about the reservation act. Crazy Horse waited at Rosebud Creek with over 250 warriors ready to bombard Brigadier Gen. George Crook, who had just split his army up to scout the creek. After six hours, and ten of Crook’s men killed, and twenty-one wounded, the Lakota’s and Cheyenne called off the fight. This is acknowledged as a win for the Lakota and Cheyenne in defending their territory.
The Battle at Little Big Horn, also known as Custer’s last stand, took place against the Lakota at Little Big Horn river on June 25, 1876. George A. Custer was an army officer who’s claim to fame was being an ‘Indian fighter’. He led an army of 647 men, which he split up into three groups with the assumption that there were only a thousand Indians in the valley. To his dismay, there were actually around two to five thousand, and not one of his men survived. Crazy Horse was again present but was soon killed, as well as the Lakota tribe scattered by the US army in retaliation for the events at Little Big Horn.
The Wounded Knee Massacre is commonly known as the Indians last stand. About three hundred Lakota men, women, and children were killed on December 29, 1890. The 7th Cavalry had been escorting a group of Lakota that they had ran into to Wounded Knee in order to make camp. That morning, troops went in to disarm the Lakota. Tensions had been high due to them practicing the Ghost Dance against the advisement of the Cavalry. The Ghost Dance was a mix of Christian and Indian beliefs that was spread by the prophet Wovoka that was supposed to promote a successful future.
There are many versions of the story, but the fact that every single one echoed was that someone fired a shot. This resulted in the 7th Cavalry open firing on the Lakota, and the Lakota defending themselves with what weapons they had. Unfortunately, their attempts at defense were quickly suppressed. Any survivors tried to flee, but were quickly killed.
Wounded Knee was the last ‘battle’ of the Indian wars. The tribes had been thinned out either by famine due to the US government hunting Buffalo, disease, or violence. It was at this point that pushing them onto reservation land proved to be an easy task. Their numbers had been decimated, with over 80% of the population deceased or injured. General Sherman summed up the Indian Wars the best when he wrote, “We took away their country and their means of support, broke up their mode of living, their habits of life and against this they made war. Could anyone expect less?” (McDermott, 1998, p. 12).
In 1851, the Indian Appropriations Act was passed, which gathered money to move tribes onto reservations.

Part of the reason this passed was because without the Indians controlling the land and roaming freely, the US was free to spread out and do as they pleased (expansion wise). Another reason was because of the white man’s constant need to ‘save’ the Indian. They believed that moving them away from settlers and onto reservations would avoid conflict, despite the fact that the settlers were moving onto the Indians’ land.
In 1887, the Dawes General Allotment Act was passed by Henry L. Dawes who, at the time, was chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. He believed that in order for the Indian to be properly assimilated, they had to ‘forget’ everything about their past culture. Dawes felt that if the Indian didn’t assimilate, didn’t completely separate themselves from who they used to be, they were doomed to a life of savagery and death.
His feelings were later mirrored by Carl Schurz, a German immigrant who practiced law. He originally was not a major backer of pushing the Indians off their land, but later changed his views due to 19th-century reformers. He became a strong proponent for assimilation and made strong pushes while serving as secretary of the interior, such as not allowing Native religions to sway who became reservation agents (Gorman, 2013, p.

86).
When the Dawes Acts was passed, reservations were split into pieces of land that could be individually owned. A head of household would be given 160 acres, a single person over eighteen would receive 80 acres, and anyone under eighteen would receive 40 acres. Dawes believed that owning land would bring a sense of responsibility to the Indian. He also believed this would push them to become farmers, which was a further step towards assimilation into society. However, the land would be held in trust by the government for 25 years. Qualifying Indians were treated on a first come, first serve basis. Anything that was left after the allotment would be sold by the whites to pay for Indian education. (Fritz, 1963, p. 35)
The Dawes Act was supposed to inspire the Indians to be farmers when in reality a lot more viable Indian land fell into the hands of white people. The land that did go to the Indians wasn’t suitable for farming due to it being too dry, and the plots were too small to sustain livestock. In 1891, there was an amendment that allowed the Indians to lease the land they were given, which finally allowed them to make income.
Part of the white man’s burden is ensuring that the Indians followed the proper religion, which at the time was Christianity. The missionaries were trying to ‘save’ the Indians, but the Indians didn’t necessarily feel they had to even be saved.
While some Indians would express interest in learning about the religion, and appreciate the sharing of cultures, almost none of them showed signs of wanting to convert, and this posed a problem for the US at the time. Missions would be built up only to become abandoned due to lack of interest or high tensions with the neighboring Indians, who didn’t want to devote the years it would take to convert. Some missionaries tried to force it, but this only resulted in bloodshed.
Around 1870, congress began claiming Native American youths as ‘wards of the government’.

Nine years later, an army officer by the name of Richard Pratt opened up the first boarding school for Native American youth in Carlisle, PA. His motto was ‘kill the Indian, save the man.’ (Stout, 2012, p. xvi). It was the first of its kind, even having before and after pictures taken of the students to showcase their transformations into proper westerners.
There was to be no representation of Native culture at any point in order to be properly assimilated into US culture, according to the Carlisle School. The government thought it was ‘saving’ the youth, providing them with a proper, western, protestant-catholic education. Many more schools started to appear on the horizon, following the teaching methods of Richard Pratt. By the early 1900’s, there were twenty-five federally funded schools devoted to Indian education.
They didn’t take into account was the fact that after all of the previous tragedy, ripping away children from their families only to attempt to strip away their identities wouldn’t be an easy task. Many of the experiences would be described as harsh, especially for the younger children. Initially, a lot of the students were children of Indian leaders, or prominent figures. The US felt that educating these children and keeping them from their parents would keep those communities pacified. Many women were forcibly removed as well in order to train them to be proper housewives

and aid their husbands in assimilation. (Churchill, 2004, p. 67)
The students were all given a traditional European name, some younger children chose theirs while some were randomly handed out. They were dressed in western style, and forbidden to speak their native language, even amongst themselves, and practice their native religion. They were expected to attend church regularly and convert to Christianity. This cost these them not only their language, but their names and basic culture.
Most of these schools were repurposed military bases, run by military personnel. When students arrived, they had their tribal clothing removed and were immediately given a haircut. The whole school was run like a military academy, with strict rules and guidelines for the students to follow. They were taught when to properly eat, sit, clean, sleep, bathe, and so on. Students were also taught about proper family structure, how to make a living, manners, and how to properly express emotion. Everything was done on a timetable, and it had to be done right.
Children would be punished if they wouldn’t or couldn't comply, sometimes severely. There was much mental, sexual, physical and emotional abuse that took place at these schools as a form of ‘corrective punishment’. One girl from a Phoenix Indian School explained how the matron would strap the girls who were cleaning while they were still on their hands and knees. (Churchill, 2004, p. 112)
Another common problem was the spread of disease in these schools. They were sometimes unable, or unwilling to provide the proper nutrition and medical aid to the students attending the school which increased the amount of sick or unhealthy children. They lived in close quarters, and the schools didn’t practice regular cleaning and hygiene skills, which resulted in the spread of disease, and even death. (Adams, 1995, p. 98)
Due to the Indian Wars, Manifest Destiny, and the white man’s feeble attempt at ‘saving the Indian’, nearly 90% of the population had been thinned out by 1900. Indian Boarding schools took care of assimilating the women and children in full military style while reservations began to follow suit. Language and culture became more and more muddled until it was barely existent. The US expanded without many further issues (on their soil), while entire tribes went extinct. As a country, the US successfully committed a genocide against group of people, while feeling completely justified about doing so, and are still making amends for the mistakes that were made.