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The Trail of Tears
As part of Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy (1830), 5 tribes were forced to give up their lands east of the Mississippi River and to migrate to an area in present-day Oklahoma. It began with the Choctaw in 1831 and ended with the Cherokee in the winter of 1838/1839. -
Treaty of Fort Laramie
An agreement made with the Dakota Sioux that guaranteed their ownership of the Black Hills region. When gold was discovered in the region, General George Armstrong Custer led a detachment of troops into the region to defend miners. In 1876, a conflict erupted between the U.S. Army and the Sioux and Cheyenne, known as the Battle of Little Bighorn. In 1877, the land was confinscated from the Sioux. The legal battle of ownership is still being fought. -
Carlisle Indian Industrial School
The flagship Indian boarding school. It would become the model for 26 other Assimilation schools for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Enrollment would reach approxiamately 60,000 across the U.S. in 1973. -
Wounded Knee Massacre
On the Lakota Pinne Ridge Reservation, the U.S. 7th calvary encountered a Lakota camp on near wounded knee creek. The calvary surrounded the camp and demanded that the Lakota surrender their weapons. A scuffle ensued when a deaf Lakota tribesman, named Black Coyote, refused to surrender his rifle because he had paid a lot for it, and a shot was fired. The clavary then began shooting indescriminately, killing more than 200 men, women,a nd children. -
AIM
The American Indian Movement begins in Minneapolis, MN, in order to address American Indian sovereignty, treaty issues, spirituality, and leadership, while simultaneously addressing incidents of police harassment and racism against Native Americans forced to move away from reservations and tribal culture by the 1950s-era enforcement of the U.S. federal government-enforced Indian Termination Policies originally created in the 1930s. -
Heart Of The Earth Survival School
Heart of the Earth Survival School was established in January 1972 by the American Indian Movement. Instrumental in the creation of Heart of the Earth was Title IV of the Indian Education Act, adopted by Congress on June 23, 1972. This act allowed Indians to have control over educating their people; a different policy than the US government had previously adopted with the boarding schools that dominated Indian education throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. -
Trail of Broken Treaties
The caravan began on the west coast of North America in October, with protesters traveling by car, bus, and van. It reached Washington, D.C. in early November (the week before the day of the presidential election). The Nixon Administration refused to meet with the protesters, creating a conflict that culminated with the takeover of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building by participants. -
Take-over of Bureau of Indian Affairs
A group of around 500 American Indians with the American Indian Movement (AIM) took over the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) building in Washington, D.C. -
Wounded Knee Incident
Approximately 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The protest followed the failure of an effort of the Oglala Civil Rights Organization (OSCRO) to impeach tribal president Richard Wilson, whom they accused of corruption and abuse of opponents. Additionally, protestors attacked the United States government's failure to fulfill treaties with Indian people.
