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The Gnadenhutten Massacre
A group in Pennsylvania killed 96 Christianized Delaware Indians, illustrating the growing contempt for native people. Captain David Williamson, who had been blamed for attacks on white settlements, to go to the cooper shop two at a time, where militiamen beat them to death with wooden mallets and hatchets. Delawares were the first Native Americans to capture a white settler and the first to sign a U.S. Indian treaty four years -
Battle of Tippecanoe
The Prophet, convinced Indians of various tribes that it was in their interest to stop tribal in-fighting and band together to protect their mutual interests. The decision by Indiana Territorial Governor (and later President) William Henry Harrison in 1811 to attack and burn Prophetstown, the Indian capital on the Tippecanoe River, while Tecumseh was away campaigning the Choctaws for more warriors, incited the Shawnee leader to attack again. -
Indian Removal Act
Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida–land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. But by the end of the decade, very few natives remained anywhere in the southeastern United States. Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians’ land, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk hundreds of miles to a specially designated. -
The reservation system
The Indian reservation system was created to keep Native Americans off of lands that European Americans wished to settle.The reservation system allowed indigenous people to govern themselves and to maintain some of their cultural and social traditions. -
Sioux Treaty of 1868
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. -
Dawes Act of 1887
The 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 Ghost Dance
Wovoka, a shaman of the Northern Paiute tribe, had a vision. Claiming that God had appeared to him in the guise of a Native American and had revealed to him a bountiful land of love and peace, Wovoka founded a spiritual movement called the Ghost Dance. He prophesied the reuniting of the remaining Indian tribes of the West and Southwest and the banishment of all evil from the world. -
The massacre at Wounded Knee
While attempting to disarm the Sioux, a shot was fired and a scuffle ensued. The US army soldiers opened fire on the Sioux, indiscriminately massacring hundreds of men, women, and children. The few Sioux survivors of the battle fled. In the aftermath of the massacre, an official Army inquiry not only exonerated the 7th Cavalry, but awarded Medals of Honor to twenty soldiers. US public opinion of the massacre was generally favorable. -
Navajo Code Talkers
Native American soldiers have made important contributions during all U.S. wars. But during the two world wars, Indigenous languages became the basis of a secret communications strategy that stumped enemy intelligence—and proved essential to winning key battles. When three enlistees from the Choctaw nation deployed to France were overheard by an officer speaking their native language. -
US Indian Reorganization Act
Which instituted a “New Deal” for Native Americans, authorizing them to reorganize and form their own tribal governments. The act ended the land allotments created by Dawes Act and thereby resurrected the reservation system, which remains in place today.