Board of indian commissioners 1 inexperienced church

Board of Indian
Commissioners
(1) Inexperienced church-appointed agents quickly encountered obstacles
(2) Frustrated, the federal govt began ignoring the church and making their own
appointments for agents in 1880s
4. Red River War (1874-1875) and Skeleton Canyon (1866)

a) Defiant Natives continued resistance in the 1870s
b) On the southern plains, native raids in the TX panhandle set off the Red River War
(1) In a winter campaign, regular army troops destroyed Native supplies and effectively
ended Native American independence in the South
c) In the Southwest, the Apaches fought an intermittent guerrilla war until their leader,
Geronimo, surrendered in 1886 at Skeleton Canyon
C. Custer’s Last Stand
1. 1868, the Great Sioux Reserve had been set aside for the Sioux
2. 1873, Sioux in ND, SD, MT, and WY managed concessions of staying on their lands by playing
local officials against the federal govt
3. The non-treaty Sioux intimidated whites with raids, and found a powerful leader in Lakota Sioux
chief, Sitting Bull
4. 1874, Gen Sherman sent Col George Custer into the Black Hills of SD
a) Custer was young, and since his days as a young Civil War officer, a celebrity
b) Custer was supposedly sent to find a location for a new fort, but his real objective was to
confirm rumors of gold in the Black Hills By confirming so in a report, a stampede of
pioneers migrated out to find gold
c) The gold stampede gave the army justification for interfering with Natives Custer was in fact
a part of a deliberate army plan to force concessions from the Sioux
5. Nov 1875, negotiations broke down because the natives asked too high a price due to a
mistranslation
6. Jan 31, 1876, President Grant and his generals decided to hunt down and take by force all natives
not inside reservations
a) June 25, underestimating the Natives’ resistance, Custer, with 209 men, recklessly advanced
along the Little Bighorn
(1) Custer’s men were wiped out
b) June 27, cavalry attacks came upon the same fate, and all of Custer’s men lay dead
c) Some Americans criticized Custer’s leadership or the federal policy, but most supported the
govt even more
7. The troops harassed supplies for 5 years, leading to Sitting Bull’s surrender in 1881
a) Similar measures were used against Chief Joseph (Nez Perces Indians) and against
Cheyennes
8. 1878, Chief Dull Knife led his survivors north in an attempt to join the Sioux, but was
intercepted and imprisoned in Fort Robinson
a) After the army denied their request to stay near traditional lands, Dull Knife led a suicidal
escape, shooting guards and breaking to freedom Dull Knife and half of his people were
gunned down
9. Sporadic resistance continued, but these brutal tactics sapped Natives’ will to resist
D. “Saving” the Indians
1. A growing number of Americans were outraged by massacres and flagrant violations of Indian
treaties
a) The Women’s National Indian Rights Association , founded in 1883, and other groups took
up the cause
b) Helen Hunt Jackson published her A Century of Dishonor (1881) to rally public opinion
against the govt’s broken treaties
2.