Essential Question

How did western settlement affect the

Plains Indians?

Miners and Ranchers in the West

Growth of the Mining Industry

Deposits of gold, silver, and copper

Needed by growing industry in the East

Brought settlers to the mountain states

Virginia City

Pikes Peak, Colorado (1858)

Leadville, Colorado

Black Hills, South Dakota

Copper in Montana

New States

North Dakota

South Dakota

Montana

Cattle Ranching

Texas longhorn cattle thrived on the tough prairie grass

Arrival of Railroads By the 1860s –

railroads reached Kansas and Missouri

Western ranchers sold cattle to be shipped east

Cattle Drives

Moved cattle to the railroads

Chisholm Trail – to Abilene, Kansas

Chisholm Trail

Homestead Act (1862)

Individuals could file for a 160-acre homestead (tract of public land)

Received title after living on land for five years

Great Plains

Great Plains Homestead

New Farming Inventions

Steel plows

Reapers

Threshing machines

Wheat Belt

Nebraska

Kansas

Dakotas

Oklahoma April 22, 1889

Opened the territory for settlement

10,000 people chose land within hours

Native Americans

Western Environment, 1860s

Plains Indians Nomads

following the buffalo herds

Divided into bands headed by governing councils

Arrival of Settlers Deprived Indians

of hunting grounds

Broke treaties guaranteeing Indian lands

Forced Indians to relocate

Chief Red Cloud

Chief Sitting Bull

Crazy Horse

Crazy Horse Monument

Sand Creek Massacre Nov. 1864

Chief Black Kettle brought Cheyenne to negotiate peace at Fort Lyon

American troops attacked their village

Loss of Buffalo Native

Americans depended on the buffalo for life

By 1889, few buffalo were left

Battle of the Little Bighorn Gold found in

the Black Hills (SD)

Americans violated Indian treaties

Indians attacked

Battle of the Little Bighorn June 25, 1876

George A. Custer attacked a large force of Lakota and Cheyenne

All of Custer’s forces dead

Nez Perce Led by Chief

Joseph

Refused to move to a reservation in Idaho

Fled to Canada

Nez Perce Traveled 1300

miles

Surrendered in October 1877

Exiled to Oklahoma

Quote, Chief Joseph

“Our chiefs are killed . . . The little children are freezing to death. My people have no blankets, no food . . . Hear me, my chiefs; I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.”

Nez Perce Trail

Wounded Knee Lakota

reservation (1890)

Continued to practice the Ghost Dance

Led by Sitting Bull

Wounded Knee Soldiers sent to

arrest Sitting Bull, who died by gunfire

Dec. 29, 1890

Soldiers attacked Native Americans at Wounded Knee Creek – hundreds killed

Indian Frontier to 1890