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Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act
The Act appropriated $500,000 to negotiate new treaties with southern Indians, specifically the Five Civilized Tribes -- Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole. The tribes would voluntarily leave their lands east of the Mississippi and resettle in present-day Oklahoma. This is the beginning of the Trail of Tears -
Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia
Cherokees take the state of Georgia to court claiming that the Cherokee nation was a foreign nation with its own constitution and laws. Therefore, because Georgia is a state, it had no right to pass laws on the Cherokees as a foreign nation. The Supreme Court refused to hear the case. -
Worcester vs. Georgia
Georgia had passed a law requiring all white people who live in Cherokee territory to get a license from the state. Samuel Worcester, a missionary working among the Cherokee, refused to do so and was arrested. The Supreme Court decided that states do not have the power to make laws in Native American territories. -
Treaty of Fort Laramie
The United States government agreed to pay $50,00 a year for 50 years (later reduced to 10 years) so that the Sioux and their allies limited their movement on the plains. They promised to stay away from the migrants traveling on the Oregon Trail. The Sioux believed that this treaty affirmed their dominance on the Great Plain. -
Medicine Lodge Treaty
First of three treaties is signed in Kansas between the US government and the southern Plains tribes. In return for government supplies, most for the Southern Plains peoples agreed to restrict themselves to the reservation. -
Second Fort Laramie Treaty
The Northern Plains Indians did not sign onto the reservation as quickly as the Southerm Plains Indians had. Instead, they sought further government concessions. This treaty guaranteed to the Lakota ownership of the Black Hills, and further land and hunting rights in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. -
Battle of Little Bighorn
After the discovery of gold in SD in the Black Hills, thousands of settlers poured onto Indian territory. When the Lakota Sioux rejected demands that they cede their lands to the miners, the government sent in the army, led by General Custer.
Custer divided his army in 2 and then he failed to keep them in communication with each other. Custer and hundreds of his men were slaughtered at Little Bighorn, Montana in 1876 by Indian warriors led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. -
Chief Joseph and the Nez Perces Flee
Chief Joseph leads the Nez Perces into Yellowstone in an attempt to reach Canada. They managed to avoid the army, but hunger and the difficult terrain forced them to return. The Nez Perces agreed to go to their reservations. -
Dawes Severalty Act Signed by Grover Cleveland
Under the Act, land within the reservations was broken up into separate plots and distributed among individual families. The goal was to force Indians to live like white farmers. But the plots were usually poor and small that their owners sold them as soon as they were allowed. By the beginning of the 20th century there were no reservations left except for a few areas in the Southwest. -
Ghost Dance Appears Among Plains Indians
This was a mystical movement among the Dakotas, Lakotas and other Plains Indians. The Ghost Dancers believed that the world would soon be transformed and that dead Indians would be reincarnated to inherit an earth cleansed of the whites. The Ghost Dance did not advocate war or killing, but white authorities saw it as a threat to the peace and moved to stamp out its gatherings. -
Wounded Knee Massacre
Under the orders to stop the Ghost Dance religion among the Sioux, the army attacked the Sioux camp at Wounded Knee, SD. About 200 men, women and children were killed.
