western expansion

  • government passed act

    government passed act
    the federeal government had passed an act that designated the entire Great Plains as one enormous reservation, or land set aside for Native American tribes
  • government changed policy

    govenment changed its policy and created treaties the defined specific boundaries for each tribe
  • Massacre at Sand Creek

    Chivington and his troops descended on the Cheyenne and Arapaho. About 200 warriors and 500 women and children camped at Sand Lake. Attach at dawn killed over 150 inhabitants, mostly women and childen
  • Death on the Bozeman Trail

    Death on the Bozeman Trail
    The warrior Crazy Horse ambushed Captain William J. Fetterman and his company at Lodge Trail Ridge. Over 80 soldiers were killed. Native Americans called this fight the Battle of the Hundred Slain. Whites called it the Fetterman Massacre.
  • Treaty of Fort Laramie

    Treaty of Fort Laramie
    the Sioux agreed to live on a reservation along the Missouri River, was forced on the leaders of the Sioux. Sitting Bull leader of Hunkpapa Sioux, had never signed it.
  • Gold Rush

    Gold Rush
    Colonel George A. Custer reported that the Black Hills had gold "from the grass roots down," a gold rush was on
  • Period: to

    Red River War

    U.S. Army responded by herding the people of friendly tribes onto reservations while opening fire on all others. General Philip gave orders to destroy their villages and ponies, to kill and hang all warriors, and to bring back all women and children.
  • Custer's Last Stand

    Custer's Last Stand
    Led by Crazy Horse, Gall, and Sitting Bull, the warriors with raised spears and rifles outflanked and crushed Custer's troops. Within an hour, Custer and all of the men of the Seventh Cavalry were dead.
  • The Dawes Act

    The Dawes Act
    Aiming to "Americanize" the Native Americans. The act broke up the reservation land to individual Native Americans 160 acres to each head of household and 80 acres to each unmarried adults. The government would sell the remainer of the reservations to settlers , and the resulting income would be used by Native Americans to buy farm implements.
  • Wounded Knee

    Wounded Knee
    Custer's old regiment rounded up about 350 starving and freezing Sioux and took them to the camp at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. the nest day, the soldiers demanded that the Native Americans give up all their weapons. A shot was fired: from which side, it was not clear. the soldiers opened fire with deadly cannon.