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KS 66285
913-708-5119
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Native
American Timeline of Events |
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July 1865 |
General Patrick Conner
organizes 3 columns of soldiers to
begin an invasion of the Powder River Basin, from the
Black Hills,
Paha Sapa, to the Big Horn Mountains. They had one order:
"Attack and kill every male
Indian over twelve years of age." Conner builds a fort on the
Powder River. Wagon trains begin to cross the Powder River Basin on
their way to the
Montana
gold fields. |

Spotted
Tail,
Roman Nose,
Old
Man Afraid of His Horses, Lone Horn,
Whistling Elk, Pipe and unknown. This
image available for photographic prints
HERE!

Chief Red
Cloud,
Lakota
Sioux
Chief
This
image available for photographic prints
HERE!
“I am poor and naked, but I am the
chief of the nation. We do not want riches but we do want to train our
children right. Riches would do us no good. We could not take them
with us to the other world. We do not want riches. We want peace and
love.” -
Chief Red Cloud (Makhipiya-Luta)
Sioux
Chief

Sitting
Bull

Sioux
Maiden, 1908.
This
image available for photographic prints
HERE!
“When a child my mother taught me
the legends of our people; taught me of the sun and sky, the moon and
stars, the clouds and storms. She also taught me to kneel and pray to
Usen for strength, health, wisdom, and protection. We never prayed
against any person, but if we had aught against any individual we
ourselves took vengeance. We were taught that Usen does not care for
the petty quarrels of men." -
Geronimo [Goyathlay],
Chiracahua
Apache

Zuni Pueblo
This
image available for photographic prints
HERE!

Sioux
Tipis, 1902.
This
image available for photographic prints
HERE!

Mandan
Man making an offer of the
buffalo skull, 1908.
This
image available for photographic prints
HERE!
“Whenever the white man treats the
Indian as they treat each other, then we will have no more wars.
We shall all be alike--brothers of one father and one another, with
one sky above us and one country around us, and one governmnet for
all.” -
Chief Joseph,
Nez Perce

Mandan
Indian atop the bluffs of the Missouri River, 1908.
This
image available for photographic prints
HERE!
"We are now about to take our leave and
kind farewell to our native land, the country the Great Spirit gave
our Fathers, we are on the eve of leaving that country that gave us
birth, it is with sorrow we are forced by the white man to quit the
scenes of our childhood...we bid farewell to it and all we hold
dear." - Charles Hicks, Tsalagi (Cherokee)
Vice Chief speaking of The Trail of Tears, November 4, 1838
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July
24-26, 1865 |
Battle of
Platte Bridge - The
Cheyenne
and
Lakota besiege the most northerly outpost of the U.S. army and
succeed in killing all members of a platoon of cavalrymen sent out to
meet a wagon train as well as the wagon drivers and their escorts.
|
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Late
August, 1865 |
Battle of Tongue River - Connor's
column destroys an
Arapaho
village, including all the winter's food supply, tents and clothes.
They kill over 50 of the
Arapaho
villagers. |
|
Late
September, 1865 |
Roman
Nose's Fight - The
Cheyenne
Chief,
Roman Nose,
in revenge for the
Sand Creek
Massacre, led several hundred
Cheyenne
warriors in a siege of the Cole and Walker columns of exhausted and
starving soldiers who were attempting to return to
Fort
Laramie. Because they were armed only with bows, lances and a few
old trade guns, they were unable to overrun the soldiers, but they
harasses them for several days, until Connor's returning column
rescued them. |
|
October
14, 1865 |
The
Southern
Cheyenne
chiefs sign a treaty agreeing to cede all the land they
formerly claimed as their own, most of
Colorado
Territory, to the U.S. government. This was the desired end of the
Sand Creek
Massacre. |
|
October,
1865 |
Connor
returns to
Fort
Laramie leaving 2 companies of soldiers at the fort they had
constructed at the fork of the Crazy Woman Creek and the Powder River.
Red Cloud
and his warriors kept these men isolated and without supplies all
winter. Many died of scurvy, malnutrition and pneumonia before
winter's end. They were not relieved until June 28th by Colonel
Carrington's company. |
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Late
Fall, 1865 |
Nine
treaties signed with the
Sioux
including the Brulés, Hunkpapas, Oglalas and Minneconjous. These were
widely advertised as signifying the end of the Plains wars although
none of the war chiefs had signed any of these treaties. |
|
December
21, 1865 |
An illegal Executive Order removed lands
from the
Oregon
Coast
Indian Reservation, cutting the territory in half. |
|
1866 |
The
Sioux
Nations are angered as the US Army begins building forts along the
Bozeman Trail, an important route to the gold fields of Virginia City;
Captain Fetterman and 80 soldiers are killed. |
|
April 1,
1866 |
Congress
overrides President Johnson's veto of the Civil Rights Bill,
giving equal rights to all persons born in the U.S. (except
Indians). The President is empowered to use the Army to enforce
the law. |
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Late
Spring 1866 |
War
chiefs
Red Cloud,
Spotted
Tail, Standing Elk,
Dull Knife
and others come to
Fort
Laramie to negotiate a treaty concerning access to the Powder
River Basin. Shortly after the beginning of the talks, on June 13,
Colonel Henry Carrington and several hundred infantry men reached
Fort
Laramie to build forts along the Bozeman trail. It was clear to
the chiefs that the treaty was a mere formality; the road would be
opened whether they agreed or not. This was the beginning
Red Cloud's
War. |
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July 13,
1866 |
Colonel
Carrington begins building Fort Phil Kearney He halts his
column between the forks of the Little Piney and the Big Piney Creeks,
in the best hunting grounds of the Plains
Indians, and pitches camp. The
Cheyenne
visit and decide that the camp is too strong for them to attack
directly and begin plans for harassing the soldiers who leave the camp
and for drawing out soldiers by using decoys. All summer they harasses
the soldiers and make alliances with other Plains groups, forming a
coalition of
Lakota,
Cheyenne,
Arapaho
and Crow groups. |
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December
21, 1866 |
Fetterman
Massacre - Early in December the young
Lakota
warriors, including
Crazy
Horse, executed an elaborate decoy manuever to draw soldiers out
of the fort. They were very successful and killed several officers and
severely wounded several other soldiers. In the next weeks an ambush
was carefully planned and a location for a trap was chosen. Two
thousand warriors moved south and set up camp two miles north of the
chosen trap location. Ten young warriors were selected from the
different tribal groups represented for the most dangerous job of
decoying the soldiers. These decoys performed elaborate manuevers to
lure the soldiers into the trap. When they were all inside the trap,
the decoys signaled to the concealed warriors who rose up and killed
all 80 of the soldiers. Nonetheless, casualties among the
Indians were great because they were poorly armed to compete with
the new repeating rifles of the soldiers. The
Indians named this battle The Battle of the Hundred Slain.
The whites knew it as the Fetterman Massacre because the soldiers were
led by Captain Fetterman, who had boasted that he could defeat the
entire Sioux
Nation with a single company of cavalrymen.
Colonel Carrington was
appalled by the mutilation of the bodies they found. Had he seen the
bodies of the
Indians slain at
Sand Creek,
the condition of these bodies would have come as no surprise.
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1866 to 1867 |
Red Cloud's
fight to close off the Bozeman Trail - The Oglala
Sioux
Chief
Red Cloud
successfully fought the US army in an effort to protect
Sioux
lands against American construction of the Bozeman Trail which was to
run from
Fort Laramie to the
Montana
gold fields. |
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Summer,
1867 |
Treaty of Medicine Lodge - After
Congress passed a law to confine the Plains tribes to small
reservations where they could be supervised and "civilized," US
representatives organized the largest treaty-making gathering in US
history. Members from the
Arapaho,
Cheyenne,
Apaches,
Comanches,
and Kiowas met at Medicine Lodge in
Kansas.
The Grand Council of 6,000 tribes
was attended by
Crazy
Horse,
Red Cloud,
and
Sitting Bull, among other great leaders, pledged to end further
encroachment by the whites. The treaty ensured that all tribes would
move onto reservation lands. Thereafter, the army was instructed to
punish
Indian raids and to "bring in" any tribes that refused to live on
reservations. |
|
1868 |
Nez Perce Treaty - This was the
last
Indian treaty ratified by the US government.
Second Treaty of
Fort
Laramie - This treaty guaranteed the
Sioux
Indians' rights to the
Black Hills
of Dakota and gave the
Sioux
hunting permission beyond reservation boundaries. The treaty also
creates the Great
Sioux
Reservation and agrees that the
Sioux do
not cede their hunting grounds in
Montana
and
Wyoming
territories. The Army agrees to
abandon the forts on the Bozeman Trail and the
Indians agree to become "civilized."
George Armstrong Custer established himself as a great
Indian fighter by leading the Massacre on the Washita in
Indian
Territory ( Oklahoma )
in which Black Kettle is killed. The entire village was destroyed and
all of its inhabitants were killed.
In June,
Navajos
signed a treaty after the Long Walk when Kit Carson rounded up 8,000
Navajos
and forced them to walk more than 300 miles to the Bosque Redondo
reservation in southern
New Mexico .
English officials called it a reservation, but to the conquered and
exiled
Navajos it was a prison camp.
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|
1869 |
First
Sioux War
ends with the Treaty of
Fort
Laramie; the US agrees to abandon Forts Smith, Kearney, and Reno.
Board of
Indian Commissioners - Congress created the Board to
investigate and report alleged BIA mismanagement and conditions on
reservations where corruption was widespread. The Board continued to
operate as an investigative and oversight commission that also helped
shape and direct
American Indian policy.
Federally-sponsored
Sac and Fox and Iowa tribes in
Nebraska.
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1870 |
Buffalo herds are diminished to a crisis point for Plains
Indians.
On January 20,
Buffalo Soldiers, under the command of Captain Francis Dodge, came
upon a settlement of Mescalero
Apaches
in the most remote region of New Mexico’s Guadalupe Mountains and
attacked them, killing ten Mescalero
Apaches
and taking 25 ponies.
On January 23, in the Massacre on the
Marias, 173 Blackfeet men, women and children were slaughtered by U.S.
soldiers on the Marias River in Montana in response for the killing of
Malcolm Clarke and the wounding of his son by a small party of young
Blackfeet men.
On March 30, the Fifteenth Amendment
was ratified. It finally recognized the natural right of all men to
vote, including
Indians. Women continued to be second-class citizens. |
|
March 3, 1871 |
Indian Appropriation Act - This Congressional Act specified that
no tribe thereafter would be recognized as an independent nation with
which the federal government could make a treaty. (From 1607 to 1776,
at least 175 treaties had been signed with the British and colonial
governments, and from 1778 to 1868, 371 treaties were ratified the US
government.) All future
Indian policies would not negotiated with
Indian tribes through treaties, but rather would be determined by
passing Congressional statutes or executive orders. Marking a
significant step backwards, the act made tribal members wards of the
state rather than preserving their rights as members of sovereign
nations. |
|
April 30, 1871 |
One Hundred Forty-Four
Apaches,
most of them women and children, were murdered outside Camp Grant,
Arizona,
where they had been given asylum, when members of the Tucson Committee
of Public Safety arrived with a force of Papago
Indians, the
Apaches'
long-time enemies. All but 8 of the 144 dead were women and children.
They were clubbed to death, hacked to pieces or brained by rocks. The
committee members claimed they acted in retaliation for raids by
various
Apache bands at distant points across the region, but public
opinion, particularly in the East, linked the event to the recently
investigated
Sand Creek
Massacre of 1864 as further evidence of Westerners' deep-seated
hatred for
Indians. |
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July 5, 1871 |
Kiowas, Santana and Big Tree are arrested
for murdering wagon drivers in the raid on May 18th. The trail
for the two is held in Jacksboro,
Texas
near Fort Richardson. After three days of testimony they are
found guilty. Satanta tells the court, "If you let me go, I will
withdrawn my warriors from Tehanna, but if you kill me, it will be a
spark on the prairie. Make big fire-burn heap." Although sentenced to
be hanged, the
Texas
Governor, fearing a Kiowa uprising, decides to commute the sentences
to life in a
Texas
prison. Eventually, Big Tree and Satanta are freed. |
|
1872 |
The Mining Act of 1872 was passed by the
U.S. Congress. Alaskan natives were excluded from claiming ownership
to their own land. During this period of history natives were not
accepted as citizens of the nation and had no land or load claim
rights, something that took many years to change. |
|
1873 |
Custer
and the Seventh Cavalry come to the northern plains to guard
the surveyers for the Northern Pacific Railroad. He has a chance
encounter with
Sitting
Bull and
Crazy
Horse.
On June 5,
Alcatraz’s
first
Indian prisoner known as Paiute Tom started his prison term at the
infamous facility. Tom’s stay at the prison was short. He was shot and
killed by a guard two days after arriving. It’s unknown today what he
was convicted of or why he was killed. |
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1874 |
George Armstrong Custer
announced the discovery of gold in the
Black Hills
of Dakota, setting off a stampede of fortune-hunters into this most
sacred part of
Lakota
territory. Although the 1868
Fort Laramie Treaty required the government to protect
Lakota
lands from white intruders, federal authorities worked instead to
protect the miners already crowding along the path
Custer
blazed for them, which they called "Freedom's Trail" and the
Lakota
called "Thieves’ Road."
On February 25, the Skokomish
reservation was established, near Shelton,
Washington .
On July 26, the order was given that
friendly
Indians were to remain in fixed camps at the Wichita Agency,
Indian
Territory ,
and answer periodic roll calls.
On September 10, a group of Kiowa and
Comanche
attacked a military supply caravan along the Washita River,
Indian
Territory ,
in present day
Oklahoma .
The soldiers barricaded themselves for several days until others came
to help. One soldier was killed. |
|
1875 |
The
U.S. government attempts to purchase
Paha Sapa (the
Black Hills)
and fails. Second
Sioux War
erupts after the
Sioux
refuse to sell the lands north of the Platte to the federal
government. On November 9, the
Indian Bureau reported that Plains
Indians outside reservations were "well-fed . . . lofty and
independent in their attitudes, and are a threat to the reservation
system." |
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January,
1876 |
The U.S. government issues an ultimatum
that all Sioux
who are not on the Great
Sioux
Reservation by January 31 will be considered hostile. The
winter is bitter and most
Sioux do
not even hear of the ultimatum until after the deadline. |
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February
1, 1876 |
The Secretary of the Interior notified the
Secretary Of War that time given to "hostile"
Sioux and
Cheyenne
Indian families to abandon their villages and come into U.S.
agencies had expired; it was now a military matter. |
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February
7, 1876 |
The War Department authorized
General Philip Sheridan to commence operations against "hostile"
Lakota,
including bands of
Sitting
Bull and
Crazy
Horse. |
|
March 17,
1876 |
General George Crook's
advance column attacked a
Sioux/Cheyenne
camp on the Powder River in
South
Dakota ,
mistakenly believing it to be the encampment of
Lakota
warrior
Crazy Horse. The people were driven from their lodges and many
were killed. The lodges and all the winter supplies were burned and
the horse herd captured. |
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Spring
1876 |
George Armstrong Custer
and the Seventh Cavalry begin to forcibly place the
Lakota
Sioux onto
reservations.
Sitting
Bull organizes the greatest
gathering of
Indians on the northern plains. |
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May 15,
1876 |
President Ulysses S. Grant issued an
executive order creating the Cabazon Reservation for the Cahuilla
Indians. Prior to the order, the Cahuilla moved many times due to
Southern Pacific Railroad’s claim to local water rights. |
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June 17,
1876 |
In the
Battle of the Rosebud,
General Crook is forced to retire from the "pincers"
campaign. |
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June 25,
1876 |
The
Battle of the
Little
Bighorn - Ignoring
warnings of a massed
Sioux army
of 2,000-4,000 men,
Custer and 250
soldiers attack the forces of
Sitting
Bull and
Crazy
Horse at the
Little
Bighorn.
George Armstrong Custer
and 210 men under his command are killed. The news reaches the
east for the Independence Day Centennial celebrations. In response,
the federal government spent the next two years tracking down the
Lakota,
killing some and forcing most onto the reservation. On July 6, The
New York Times referred to those American people as “red devils.” |
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October
1876 |
Colonel Nelson "Bear Coat" Miles arrived
on the Yellowstone River to take command of the campaign
against the northern plains
Indians. The Manypenny Commission demands that the
Sioux give
up Paha Sapa or starve. Having no choice,
Red Cloud,
Spotted
Tail, and the other
reservation chiefs signed over Paha Sapa. |
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November
25, 1876 |
The U.S. took retaliatory action for the
Battle of the
Little
Bighorn against the
Cheyenne.
U.S. troops under General Ronald Mackenzie burned
Chief Dull
Knife's village, even though
Dull Knife
himself didn’t fight at the
Little
Bighorn. |
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From the Rocky Mountain General Store
Native
American Postcards
-
Legends of America and
the
Rocky Mountain General Store has collected numerous
Native American postcards - both new and vintage. For many of these, we have only one available.
To see this varied collection, click
HERE!
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