|
|
1800-1820
Exploration and Settlement (Texas).
1800
the Great Sioux Nation dominates :-the northern Plains, an
area including most of the Dakotas, northern Nebraska, eastern
1800
Creeks
and Seminoles capture Spanish fort at St. Marks :-William Augustus Bowles,
born in 1763, was a Creek leader and adventurer who helped drive the Spanish
from Florida. In 1800, with a force of Lower Creeks and Seminoles, he captured
the Spanish fort at St. Marks, but in 1803 the Upper Creeks turned him over to
the Spanish. He was sent to Havana where he died in prison in 1805.
1803
The United States purchases the Louisiana Territory
from France:- The westward expansion that follows eventually leads to depletion of
the buffalo, an animal central to the Lakota way of life
1804
Sacagawea assists Lewis and Clark Sacagawea:- (c. 1787-c.
1812) was a Shoshone who was captured as a child by Minnetaree Indians. She was
later sold to Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian who had been living
among the Minnetaree in the Dakota Territory for five years. They married in
1804, the same year in which the Lewis and Clark Expedition hired them as
guides.
1804-1806
Lewis and Clark expedition with Sacagawea :-President Jefferson sent
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to chart the western territory. Shown here
are Lewis and Clark attempting to communicate with the Indians.
1806
Treaty Signed by Jefferson :- Initially Jefferson
wanted Native Americans to assimilate into the European culture, but that
eventually conflicted with goal of land aquisitions to secure land for white
settlement
1808
American Fur Company founded :- After the Lewis and Clark expedition, fur
trading among Europeans and Indians expanded. Pictured in this Currier and Ives
print are trappers and Indians around a campfire.
1811
Battle of Tippecanoe :- William Henry Harrison
took a militia of a thousand men and marched on the confederated Indian
settlement of Prophetstown, founded by Tecumseh. In an effort to pre-empt the
attack, Tenskwatawa raided Harrison's camp on the Tippecanoe River during the
battle, on November 7,1811
1811
Broken Arrow Council :- In 1811, at the Broken
Arrow Council, a tribal law was enacted forbidding Indians to sell any more of
the Creek nation's lands, under penalty of death. In 1802, Georgia agreed to cede
its western property to the United States, while the federal government
proceeded gradually to "extinguish" Indian title to all the lands
within the area. The settlers became increasingly impatient to claim the lands
as their own, while Creek Indians watched anxiously as their territories
diminished around them.
1813
Tecumseh killed in battle in War of 1812 :-Today, Tecumseh is
remembered as a visionary who sought to unite all Indians against the advance
of white society. He maintained that land could not be sold by or purchased
from individual tribes because the land belonged to all Indians.
1813
Battle of Thames :-At the battle of the
Thames, William Henry Harrison led an army of five thousand and defeated the
remaining British and Indian forces in western Ontario, killing Tecumseh in the
midst of the fighting
1813
Creek War :- In 1813, there was fighting on two fronts
in America: the War of 1812 against the British, and the Creek War against the
Creek Indians. (shown here
is a Library of Congress engraving depicting the outbreak of the Creek War)
1814
Battle of Horshoe Bend :- When the battle of
Horseshoe Bend was over in 1814, 750 Creeks lay dead, while the Americans
suffered losses of barely fifty men. Major General Andrew Jackson moved his
army down the Tallapoosa River and set up camp in the heart of Creek country,
at Hickory Ground. Recognizing the futility of further resistance, many of the
Creek leaders came forward to surrender. The battle effectively ended Creek
military power in the South.
1825
Treaty of Indian Springs :-Creek Indian Chief
William McIntosh (c.1790-1825) was best remembered for signing the Treaty of
Indian Springs on February 12, 1825, in which he and several other chiefs gave
up large tracts of their ancestral lands to the state of Georgia.
1825
Chief McIntosh Killed :- Upset by Chief William
McIntosh's conciliatory efforts in ceding Creek land piecemeal to the whites, in
violation of the tribal law passed in 1811, Menawa, who was war chief of the
Upper Towns Creek, and born in the 1780s, .led a raiding party which killed
McIntosh in 1825.
1825
The grand council at Prairie du Chien :-The grand council at
Prairie du Chien took place in Wisconsin in August, 1825. Participating were
members of the Chippewa, Sauk, Fox, Menominee, Iowa, Sioux, Winnebago, Ottawa,
and Potawatomi tribes. The tribes made an agreement with government
representatives to set specific boundaries for their land claims, leaving to
the U.S. government the right to adjust the final claims. Within 25 years most
of the tribal hunting grounds had been ceded to the Americans. As more and more
lands passed from tribal to white ownership, Indians lost their traditional
hunting grounds and with them their principle means of subsistence. Many
tribes, convinced that negotiations with the settlers were futile, found no
recourse but to relocate west of the Mississippi.
1828
Cherokee newspaper started :- The Cherokee Phoenix, a
weekly newspaper was started on February 21, 1828, with Elias Boudinot as
editor and Reverend Samuel Worcester, a missionary to the Cherokee, as
director. Written in both English and Cherokee, it was widely circulated and
read among the Cherokee tribe.
The Cherokee alpahbet was developed by
Sequoya , (c.1770-1843 and used
to successfully make the Cherokee literate in their own native tongue, using
the Cherokee Alphabet.
1820-1835
Exploration and Settlement (Texas)
1830
Indian Removal Act :- Mandated the removal of
Native Americans from east of the Mississippi River to the newly established
Indian Territory located in what is present-day Oklahoma. Tribes subjected to
removal included the Shawnee, Potawatomis, Sacs and Foxes, Kickapoos, and
Winnebagos.
1830
Red Jacket
(1758-1830) was a Seneca chief known more for his eloquence than his
prowess in battle. :- He not only represented his tribe in the Iroquois Confederacy but
also spoke on behalf of the Indians to the white man, negotiating complex
treaties with America against the British during the Revolutionary War. Red
Jacket fought with equal verve for Indian autonomy, representing the Iroquois
both in white courts for land disputes and against Christian missionaries who
sought to convert the Indians. Nonetheless, when Red Jacket died, local
missionaries took possession of his body and gave him a Christian burial, in
spite of his stand against forcible religious conversion.
1831-2
Trail of Tears. :-Cherokees Resist
Removal In two key cases, Cherokee
Nation v. Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832),
the Supreme Court upheld the right of the Cherokee to stay on their lands.
President Andrew Jackson ignored the court's opinion and sent federal troops to
forcibly remove the Cherokee and other Civilized Tribes. The Cherokee were
removed in 1838 during harsh winter conditions resulting in significant
hardship and loss of life; the Cherokee remember this time as the "Trail
of Tears."
This depiction of the Trail of Tears shows how little the Indians were able to
take with them on their mandatory relocation. John Ridge and his father,
Cherokee chief Major Ridge, believed survival of Cherokee nation was in moving
west, while others were vehemently against it.
1832
Black Hawk's War :- Black Hawk (1767-1838),
also called Makataimeshekiakiak, was the leader of the Thunder clan of the Sauk
Indians in Illinois. In an effort to halt the settlers' westward expansion, he
sided with the British against the Americans in the War of 1812. When he led
his tribe back to settle their disputed homeland in Illinois, two Sauks were
shot by a body of Illinois volunteers. This led Black Hawk's War in 1832, a
guerrilla conflict waged against the Americans. The war ended the same year in
the The Battle of Bad Axe, with Sauk warriors trapped by land and water.
Finally, left with only a few warriors, Black Hawk, dressed in white deerskin,
turned himself in. Though a prisoner, he was immensely popular, and in 1833 was
presented to President Andrew Jackson. Jackson allegedly felt so threatened by
Black Hawk's popularity that he released the chief and sent back to the West.
1832
Propaganda depicts Native Americans as
"savages" :-This broadside, printed in
1832, is based on the story of the capture of two white women from a frontier
settlement.
1832
Anjonjon visits Washington, DC :-Assiniboin named Anjonjon
("The Light") as he appeared before and after visiting Washington,
D.C.
1834
Sources of the Mississippi River (Texas)
1835-42
The Second Seminole War :-When Jackson became President, he set about moving the
Seminoles out of Florida, leading to the second War between Seminoles and
United States. This image is of the first Seminole conflict, with Jackson at
Pensacola When Seminoles refused to cede their land and were giving refuge to
runaway slaves, slave owners and plantation farmers demanded immediate
retribution. The American army committed several atrocities, including hunting
Indians with bloodhounds and the capture of the Seminole warrior Osceola while
under a flag of truce.) It was the most fierce and costly war in America's
history up to that time. Billy
Bowlegs was the last Seminole leader to make peace with the US army, on
August 14, 1842.
1835
Potawatomis cede last of their ancestral land and
move westward :- Wabaunsee (c.1780-c.1840) was renowned Potawatomi war chief. His
people inhabited an area on the Kankakee River in Illinois, forty miles
southwest of Lake Michigan. In 1835, after convincing his tribe that they could
not survive while surrounded on all sides by Americans, Wabaunsee went to
Washington D.C., and signed a treaty. The treaty gave away the remainder of the
Potawatomi ancestral lands to the government in exchange for lands westward,
near Council Bluffs on the Missouri River
1835-1850
Exploration and settlement (Texas).
1839
Conflict amongst the Cherokees after the Trail of Tears. :- John Ridge was killed
after the Trail of Tears was complete, by the factions of Cherokee who had
originally oposed the Removal Act and who were against the Indian counsils that
were already established when they arrived in Oklahoma Territory.
1839
John Ross, president of the Cherokee, 1839:-John Ross, born in 1790,
was a Scot who was one-eight Cherokee Indian. He was a commander of a regiment
of Indians under General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812, and fought in the
Creek War, from 1813 to 1814. Ross led his people west on the Trail of Tears,
during which one in four Indians died en route. Ross served as president of the
Cherokee nation from 1839 until his death in 1866.
1841
Oregon Trail begun :-The Oregon Trail was a
vital passage to the Pacific Northwest Territory. The first wagon train set out
on the long trail across the plains and through the Rocky Mountains in 1841; by
1845 more than five thousand pioneers had made the journey.
1848
Gold is discovered at Sutter's Mill, California:-. The subsequent
"Gold Rush" and Euro-American settlement in California results in a
drop in California Indian population from about 120,000 in 1850 to fewer than
20,000 by 1880. Gold miners changed the environment so much that Indians could
no longer pursue their traditional means of procuring food. Indians raided
mining camps for food and miners retaliated. Indians caused such problems for
miners, that by 1851 the governor of California condoned a policy of
extermination against California Indians.
1848
U.S. wins the War with Mexico :-Purchases the territory which
become the states of California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and Colorado from
Mexico for $5,000,000.
1850-1890
Exploration and Settlement:- (Texas).
1851
Treaty of Fort Laramie :- The U.S. and several
Plains tribes including the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho enter into the Treaty.
The purpose of the Treaty was to force the Indians to agree to allow
Euro-Americans to pass through their territory on their way to the far west,
i.e., California, Washington, and Oregon. In exchange, the U.S. government agreed
to respect tribal boundaries.
1851
Fort Defiance Established :- Navajo considered the
site of Fort Defiance to be sacred and thus the fort as an invasion of their
territory. A pattern of violent confrontations between the U.S. and the Navajo
begins.
1851
The Treaty of Santee Sioux :-The Treaty of Santee
Sioux at Camp Traverse des Sioux was signed on July 16, 1851, in the Minnesota
Territory; it ceded lands to the government in return for $3 million, some
allotted for agriculture, some for schools and other programs to help the Sioux
adjust to the white economy.
1851
Fort Laramie Treaty :-On September 1, 1851, ten thousand Indians with representatives
of the U.S. government gathered together-the largest such assembly ever held-to
negotiate the Fort Laramie Treaty. Irish-born mountain man and frontiersman
Thomas Fitzpatrick (1799-1854), (image)
called Broken Hand by the Indians, was appointed Indian agent
1851
Minnesota Santee Sioux cedes their land. :- Minnesota Santee Sioux
had their lives uprooted when they ceded their land to the U.S. government in
1851. For eleven years, they were entirely dependent on white merchants and
government annuities. When the annual payment failed to arrive in 1862, the
Santee rioted that August. Some white settlers
fleed to safety.
1852
Church of St. Columba :-rst Episcopal church
built for use by Native Americans west of the Mississippi.
1852
Wichita village :-he villages of the
Wichita Indians were usually located near the banks of a river, and sometimes
contained as many as a thousand grass lodges. The lodges were each fifteen to
thirty feet across, and were made of heavy poles and coarse grass. This lithograph
shows a Wichita village as seen in 1852.
1854
War with Brule Sioux :- Brule Sioux were especially hostile to the whites who came to
Wyoming, and their attacks on white settlers led to war against the U.S. Army,
led by General William S. Harney. The conflict started in 1854, after a band of
Brules killed an emigrant's cow.
1855
The Walla Wala Council :- In1855, Governor Issac
Ingalls Stephens, accompanied by translator and artist Gustavus Sohon, convened
a meeting with all the tribes of the Upper Columbia River in order to sign land
treaties with them.
1857
Last Major Intertribal War in SouthWest :- In 857, the Yuma
Indians, with help from the Apache and the Mojave tribes, attempted a sneak
attack on a Maricopa village. The Pimas had been alerted and came to the aid of
the Maricopas, and hundreds of Yuma Indians were killed. It was the last major
intertribal war of the 19th century in that area.
1860-1864
Navajo War :- Tensions between the Navajo Indians and
American military forces in the New Mexico Territory resulted in the Navajo
War, which lasted from 1860 to 1864. During a final standoff at Canyon de
Chelly, fears of starvation and harsh winter conditions forced t he Navajo to
surrender to Kit Carson and his troops in January 1864. Carson ordered the
destruction of their property and organized the Long Walk of the Navajo to the
Bosque Redondo, a reservation already occupied by Mescalero Apaches on the
Pecos River.
.
1861
Civil War Erupts :-Many tribes including the Five Civilized Tribes (now living in
Oklahoma Territory) side with the Confederacy which promises in return for
Indian support to respect Indian sovereignty. After the end of the War, the
U.S. government punishes the Five Civilized Tribes by forcing the Tribes to
cede land.
1863
Kit Carson
(army scout and Indian fighter) forces Navajo leaders to surrender to
the U.S:-
Navajo peopleare herded some 350 miles eastward (referred to as "the Long
Walk") to become prisoners at Bosque Redondo (Fort Sumner) until assigned
reservation land in 1866.
1864
Sand Creek Massacre :- Cheyenne and Arapaho
were awaiting surrender terms when attacked; more than 120 people
killed--mostly women and children.
1865
General Ely Samuel Parker (1828-95), :-a Seneca Indian, was made
commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the first Native American to hold
the position.
1866
"The Battle of One Hundred Slain" :-In retaliation for the Sand Creek Massacre and other
atrocities, Plains tribes banded together and declared war on the United
States.
1866
Choctaw Leader proposes name, :-Oaklahoma Choctaw leader
Allen Wright first suggested the name for Oklahoma, meaning "red
people" in the Muskogean language. Wright was a minister who went on to
become the principal chief of the Choctaw Indians in 1866.
1866-68
Red Cloud leads the successful fight to close off
the Bozeman Trail, :-a pass leading to the gold mines of Montana. The trail crosses over
the traditional hunting grounds of the Teton
1867
Treaty of Medicine Lodge :-The largest treaty-making
gathering in U.S. history, between U.S. and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Nations;
results in the removal of the two tribes to a reservation in Indian Territory.
Their reservation is created out of lands taken from the Five Civilized Tribes
who had been forced to give them up because of their support for the South
during the Civil War. Crow, Comanche, Kiowa, Sioux, Apache and dozens of other
tribes were represented.
1868
The Fort Laramie Treaty :-Sioux Indians sign a
treaty guaranteeing their rights to the Black Hills of Dakota. Later that year,
the U.S. Army led by George Armstrong Custer slaughters an unarmed gathering of
Cheyenne encamped at the Washita River--again killing mostly women and
children. General Sherman and members of the Peace Commission held a meeting
with Cheyenne and Arapaho Indian leaders at Fort Laramie in Wyoming in May
1868. The commissioners were especially anxious to reach an agreement to end
Red Cloud's war, but the chief refused to meet with them until all U.S.
soldiers were withdrawn from the forts along the Powder River (part of the
Bozeman Trail). That summer Fort Smith, Fort Philip Kearny, and Fort Reno were
officially closed; on November 6, Red Cloud rode in to Fort Laramie and signed
the treaty, securing the Powder River Valley as a hunting ground for his tribe.
After signing the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868, Chief Red Cloud went to
Washington. His purpose was to discuss some of the articles of the treaty with
the new President, Ulysses S. Grant..
1868
Chief Washakie (c.1804-1900) signed the Treaty of
Fort Bridger. :- The agreement offered the Union Pacific Railroad the right of way
through the Green River Valley in exchange for Indian reservation land.
1868
1868
Battle of Washita :-Lieutenant-Colonel George
Custer fought the so-called Battle of the Washita in November 1868. This raid
on Cheyenne Chief Black kettle's camp on Oklahoma was in retaliation for Cheyenne
raids on Kansas settlements the previous month. It was part of a massive
military campaign to contain all Indians who refused to stay within their newly
assigned reservations.
1868
The
Battle of Beecher's Island :-US
Military and Cheyenne Indians clash.
1869
Transcontinental Railroad cuts iron paths through
Native lands on the Great Plains
1870
Manuelito, Navajo Chief (1870-1884) Born in 1818, :-Manuelito was an
important war leader for the Navajos. In 1863, he led his tribe in the fight against
General James Carleton, who was sent to remove the Navajos from their native
territories. He was Navajo chief from 1870-1884. Navajo family system and
tradition evolved Navajo women of the southwest Navajo tribes raised basket
weaving to an art form.
1873-74
The "Buffalo War" :-A last desperate attempt
by the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche and Kiowa to save the few remaining buffalo
herds from destruction by Euro-American hunters in Oklahoma and Texas.
1874
Gold Discovered in the Black Hills :-An expedition led by Lt.
Col. George A. Custer discovers gold in the Black Hills, sending a rush of
prospectors to the area. The Sioux revolt
1875
Comanches Surrender :-Chief Quanah Parker and
his Comanche braves surrendered at Ft. Sill in their fight against buffalo
hunters backed by U.S. Army troops.
1875
Fort Simpson :- built in British Columbia in 1831, was an important post for
the Hudson Bay Company in its tradings with the Tsimshian and other Canadian
Indian tribes.
1876
Battle of the Little Big Horn :-On June 25, Custer attacks a large hunting camp of Sioux,
Cheyenne and Arapaho on the Little Big Horn River in Montana. Sitting Bull,
Gall, Crazy Horse, and several Cheyenne leaders defeat Custer and the 7th Cavalry.
General Custer and 250 soldiers are killed.
1877
Nez Perce War :-After an impressive
flight of more than 1,000 miles from their homeland in Oregon, the Nez Perce
led by Chief Joseph finally surrender. The U.S. relocates the Nez Perce to
Indian Territory, breaking its promise to allow them to return to their
homeland.
1878
1881
Helen Hunt Jackson's A Century of Dishonor
published :-Detailing the plight of Native Americans and criticizing U.S.
treatment of Indians.
1883
Sarah Winnemucca publishes Life Among the
Piutes :-Winnemucca was a tireless spokesperson for her people and traveled
throughout the country lecturing on conditions in Indian country.
1886
Geronimo and his band of Chiricahua Apache surrender :-After more than two
decades of armed conflict with the U.S. government, Geronimo and his band
(including women and children) are sent by train to Florida and imprisoned at
St. Augustine.
1887
Dawes Allotment Act :-During the 1880s, Euro-American
reformers grew concerned that Indians were not improving themselves and
becoming self-sufficient but were sinking into poverty and despair. The purpose
of the Act was to force individual Indians to live on small family farms. Every
Indian would receive 160 acres of land. Any land left over was sold. One goal
of allotment was to destroy Indian "communalism," i.e., the practice
of many families living together and sharing property. Tribes affected by
allotment were those located in states where land was most sought after for
farming by Euro-American settlers: North and South Dakota, Kansas, Minnesota
and Wyoming. Within the first ten years of allotment, more than 80 million
acres of Indian land were opened for Euro-American settlement.
1889
An act by the U.S. Congress in March 1889 splits the
Great Sioux Reservation into six smaller reservations. :-Some of the tribes begin
performing the Ghost Dance, a religious ceremony thoughtto extinguish the
whites, return the buffalo, and the former way of life. South Dakota is
admitted to the union in November.
1890
Ghost Dance Religion Created :-Wovoka, a Paiute prophet,
defined a new religion combining Christian and Native elements. This religion
was dubbed the "Ghost Dance" religion because its followers believed
that practicing ritual dance would bring back dead loved ones (both human and
animal) and restore the land to Native peoples. The Ghost Dance religion swept
through the Great Plains quickly gaining a huge following from peoples
devastated by disease, warfare, and Euro-American encroachment. Ghost dancers
believed that clothing worn in the dance would make them invulnerable to
bullets or other forms of attack. The U.S. government became increasingly
anxious about the spread of the Ghost Dance religion because of the large
number of Indians who came together to participate in the ceremony.
1890
Sitting Bull is murdered :- on the Standing Rock
Reservation. Following this event, Big Foot and his Mnikowoju band flee to Pine
Ridge to seek protection under Red Cloud.
1890,
December 29
Massacre at Woun ded Knee Creek :- The Lakota Sioux held a
ghost dance on the Pine Ridge Reservation. When an Indian Agent learned of the
dance he requested that federal troops be sent to stop it. Armed troops opened
fire on a band of Big Foot's band of Lakota people killing 200-250 men, women
and children. The event is often described as the last major conflict between
the U.S. Army and the Great Sioux Nation.
1894
1898
Congress passes the Curtis Act :-Mandated allotment of
tribal lands in Indian Territory and ended tribal sovereignty in the Territory.
1890s
Boarding School Policy :-U.S. government began an
aggressive campaign to "civilize" Indian people by rounding up Indian
children and sending them away to boarding schools. The first step in
"civilizing" the children was to cut their hair and burn their
clothes and replace them with "civilian" or Euro-American style of
dress. The children were forbidden to speak their Native language subject to
severe punishment if they violated this rule. These boarding schools were a
breeding ground for disease, and many Indian children died while at the
schools.
