Guided Reading 13-1

Guided Reading 13-1

1) The discovery of gold affected the settlement of the West because it caused thousands of miners to flood to the area. The land there had been Native American land before the miners came, and since the Native Americans didn’t believe that anyone could own the land, it was untouched. The settlers said that the fact that the Natives hadn’t settled down to “improve” the land meant that they had forfeited it, and what was once the unspoiled landscapes upon which the Natives had made their homes became dirty, ramshackle, overcrowded camps and boomtowns in which miners and entrepreneurs lived.

2) The federal government passed an act that gave the entire Great Plains to the Natives in 1834, but by the 1850’s, its policy had changed and the government made treaties that defined specific boundaries for each tribe. The Natives, however, ignored this for the most part and continued to hunt on their native lands, which sometimes lead to trouble. In 1864, many members of the Cheyenne tribe peacefully returned to the Sand Creek reserve in Colorado for the winter, under the impression that they were under the protection of the government. However, General S. R. Curtis, who was a commander in the West, sent a telegram to Colonel John Chivington ordering him to attack, and so he and his men descended upon the Cheyenne and Arapaho, who were camped at Sand Creek, killing more than 150 people.

3) The Terms of the Treaty of Fort Laramie were: in return for the government closing the Bozeman Trail (white men settling there caused skirmishes between the Natives and the whites), the Sioux would live on a reservation along the Mississippi River. The Treaty was forced upon the leaders, and Sitting Bull, who was the leader of the Hunkpapa Sioux, had never even signed it. The other leaders had seen it, but thought that they would be able to use their traditional hunting grounds under the treaty. The treaty failed because the settlers continued to move Westward and the Sioux continued to struggle against the restrictions imposed upon them. They hated that they were being forced to assimilate, and give up their traditional ways for farming and living in a house, as well as other practices of the white man.

4) After about 4 years of the Treaty of Fort Laramie being signed, miners started to search the Black Hills, which were sacred to the Sioux, for gold. When Colonel George Custer reported that there was a large amount of gold there, there was a gold rush, and the appeals of the chieftains did nothing. Sitting Bull had visions of soldiers and some Natives falling in battle during a sun dance, and when Colonel Custer came, the Natives were prepared. They outnumbered the Colonel and his men, and they efficiently crushed all of his troops. Within an hour, Colonel Custard and the entire Seventh Cavalry were dead.

5) The purpose of the Dawes Act was to force the Natives to assimilate, or basically become “Americanized”. The act broke up reservations and part of the land was given to each head of household or unmarried adult. The remainder of the land would be sold by the government to the settlers and the money made from the sales would be used to buy the Natives farm equipment. However, by the 1930’s, two thirds of the land set aside for the Natives was owned by white settlers and the Natives never got any money.

6) On December 28, 1890, about 350 starving a freezing Sioux were taken by the Seventh Cavalry to a camp at Wounded Knee Creek. The soldiers demanded the next day that the Natives give up their weapons, and a shot was fired from one side, it is unclear which. The Cavalry open fired with a cannon, and within minutes, 300 unarmed Natives were murdered. This was the last of the Indian wars.