Native American Timeline

By dlewisgwd51

  • The Reservation System

    The Indian reservation system was created to keep Native Americans off of lands that European Americans wished to settle.

  • Sioux Treaty of 1868

    In the spring of 1868 a conference was held at Fort Laramie, in present day Wyoming, that resulted in a treaty with the Sioux. This treaty was to bring peace between the whites and the Sioux who agreed to settle within the Black Hills reservation in the Dakota Territory

  • The Dawes Act

    The Dawes Act of 1887 authorized the federal government to break up tribal lands by partitioning them into individual plots. Only those Native Americans who accepted the individual allotments were allowed to become US citizens.

  • The Wounded Knee Massacre and The Ghost Dance

    By the end of the nineteenth century, due to a series of forced removals and brutal massacres at the hands of white settlers and the US Army, the native population of North America had dwindled to a mere fraction of what it had once been.

  • Sitting Bull

    Sitting Bull is killed during a confrontation with Indian police in Grand River, South Dakota.

  • Charles Curtis

    Charles Curtis becomes the first Native American U.S. Senator.

  • Choctaw Soldier

    Choctaw soldiers use their native language to transmit secret messages for U.S. troops during World War I's Meuse-Argonne Offensive on the Western Front. The Choctaw Telephone Squad provide Allied forces a critical edge over the Germans.

  • Indian Citizenship Act

    U.S. Congress passes the Indian Citizenship Act, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born in the territorial limits of the country. Previously, citizenship had been limited, depending on what percentage Native American ancestry a person had, whether they were veterans, or, if they were women, whether they were married to a U.S. citizen.

  • First Native American Vice President

    Charles Curtis serves as the first Native American U.S. Vice President under President Herbert Hoover.

  • Navajo Nation

    Members of the Navajo Nation develop a code to transmit messages and radio messages for the U.S. armed forces during World War II. Eventually hundreds of code talkers from multiple Native American tribes serve in the U.S. Marines during the war.