Treatment of Native Americans timeline

  • Battle of Tippecanoe

    Battle of Tippecanoe
    convinced Indians of various tribes that it was in their interest to stop tribal in-fighting and band together to protect their mutual interests
  • indian removal act of 1830

    institutionalized the practice of forcing Native Americans off of their ancestral lands in order to make way for European settlement
  • Indian Appropriations Act of 1851

    authorized the establishment of reservations in Oklahoma and inspired the creation of reservations in other states as well. The US federal government envisioned the reservations as a useful means of keeping Native Americans off of lands that white Americans wished to settle
  • Mankato Executions

    Mankato Executions
    Annuities and provisions promised to Indians through government treaties were slow in being delivered, leaving Dakota Sioux people, who were restricted to reservation lands on the Minnesota frontier, starving and desperate. After a raid of nearby white farms for food turned into a deadly encounter, Dakotas continued raiding, leading to the Little Crow War of 1862, in which 490 settlers, mostly women and children, were killed
  • Sioux Treaty of 1868

    Sioux Treaty of 1868
    signed at Fort Laramie and other military posts in Sioux country, the United States recognized the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation, set aside for exclusive use by the Sioux people
  • The destruction and resurrection of the reservation system

    the US Congress passed the Dawes Act, which ended the reservation system by authorizing the federal confiscation and redistribution of tribal lands. The aim of the act was to destroy tribal governing councils and assimilate Native Americans into mainstream US society by replacing their communal traditions with a culture centered on the individual
  • The Dawes Act

    The Dawes Act
    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

    The Ghost Dance
    During a solar eclipse, 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
  • The massacre at Wounded Knee

    The massacre at Wounded Knee
    the US 7th Cavalry Regiment surrounded an encampment of Sioux Indians near Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. 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
  • Amendments to the Dawes Act

    id not apply to the so-called “Five Civilized Tribes” (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole). They had already adopted many elements of American society and culture, which is why they were characterized as “civilized.” Moreover, they were protected by treaties that had guaranteed that their tribal lands would remain free of white settlers