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The Wages of Manifest Destiny, or
How the Sioux Lost Their Culture
∗
Dr. James Ross-Nazzal
This work is produced by OpenStax-CNX and licensed under the
†
Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0
Abstract
This chapter covers the Indian Wars from 1865 until 1891.
The Wages of Manifest Destiny, or How the Sioux Lost Their Culture
1 title
Policy of Consolidation
Although Americans and Indians had been ghting each other since the creation of the United States,
the term The Indian Wars applies to US-Indian warfare following the Civil War and lasting until 1891.
Following the Civil War, more Americans than ever before migrated out West. The idea of "the West" thus
was pushed farther and farther west. One of the biggest land rushes occurred in what had been proclaimed
to be "Indian Territory" since the presidency of Andrew Jackson: Oklahoma. The rst push into Oklahoma
occurred within a two million square mile area in 1889 called "No Man's Land" (the panhandle, directly
west of all Indian lands). The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 was the beginning of the end for Indian domain
throughout Oklahoma and American settlers increased pressure on Congress to secure and then open more
Indian lands for American settlement purposes.The relatively bloodless take over of Indian Territory was
rare in the history of the American West, especially when compared to the experiences of the Sioux. From
the 1830s through the Civil War, the US policy on dealing with the Indians was know as consolidation:
compel Indians to migrate creating densely populated Indian areas, such as Oklahoma for many of the
Eastern Indians or parts of Arizona for the Indians of the American southwest. Just like American sought to
conquer the wilderness thus Americans needed to conquer the Indians. Mass extinction through the use of
warfare was not universally accepted by Americans in the early nineteenth century. However Indians could
not be allowed to stay on their ancestral lands because of the promise of wealth intrinsic to those lands. For
example, the California gold rush of the late 1840s brought hundreds of thousands of Americans out West,
creating new westerward routes which cut through established Indian lands. Indians were thus seen as an
obstacle to western migration and thus Indians needed to be removed. Tasked with primarily dealing with
the "Indian problem" was the Bureau of Indian Aairs. Although extinction was not the ocial US policy,
there was nonetheless endemic warfare between Indians and the US government throughout the nineteenth
century. For example, Apache Indians fought both American settlers as well as the US military's attempts
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† http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
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to force the Apaches to leave their ancestral homes of Texas and New Mexico to settle on a reservation in
southern Arizona. The US constructed dozens of forts throughout the West and by 1865 military force was
the primary agent of change.
1.1 title
The Sioux Reservation
Indians were moved from richer, more attractive lands to less viable, less attractive lands. In the case of the
Sioux (which consisted of numerous types of Sioux such as the Dakota, Lakota, and Nacota), these Plains
Indians were consolidated onto the Sioux Reservation from places like Minnesota in he east and Nebraska
in the south. Reservations were well-dened tracts of land, where Indians could live without getting in the
way of west ward expansion. The use of the military was the driving force behind the policy of consolidation
through the Civil War and by 1865 the US had experienced military supremacy throughout the West.
However, in 1865 the Dakota territorial governor, Newton Edmunds, called on Congress to begin peace
initiatives with the Indians. Dakota was a war torn territory. And more white settlers were leaving Dakota
than arriving so the people of Dakota sought to bring an end to its endemic warfare in order to be able
to grow its white population. In October of 1865, Edmunds traveled along the Missouri River proclaiming
peace. At the same time, Congress negotiated a peace treaty with the Kiowas and Comanches of Kansas.
With the Civil War behind them, it appeared that the US had adopted a new way of dealing with the
Indians. One of the Sioux's military leaders was named Red Cloud, an Oglala Sioux. After many years of
ghting other Indians, and in the face of destitution following a particularly harsh winter, Red Cloud was
receptive to the US government's peace initiative and thus the two sides met at Fort Laramie in June of
1866. But, the US government did not speak with one voice on Indian issues. On one side were those who
supported the military solution such as Generals Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman, and Phil
Sheridan as well as Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. Supporting the new peace policy were the Secretary of
the Interior Orville Browning, Nathaniel Taylor (head of the Bureau of Indian Aairs), and members of the
Senate such as James Doolittle and John Henderson. Although Red Cloud was interested in the US peace
initiatives, he also demanded that white settlers stop using the Bozeman Trail and threatened to attack any
whites who migrated through Sioux Territory on the trail. Indian-US tensions were high and in December
of 1866 Sioux warriors lured a detachment of troops out of the Bozeman Trail post of Fort Phil Kearny.This
was a decoy, which was led by the young, up-and-coming Sioux warrior Crazy Horse. As the soldiers left
the safety of the fort, the Sioux fell back and the soldiers pursued.
Nearly two thousand Sioux warriors
came out of their hiding places and ambushed the troops,who were led by Captain William J. Fetterman.
The Fetterman Massacre became a national debate. "We must act with vindictive earnestness against the
Sioux," said General Sherman. In January of 1867, Senator James Doolittle published a report on the health
and welfare of the Plains Indians. They were dying. They feared white encroachment and Indians would
continue to attack white settlers as long as the Indians fear that they are losing their lands. Thus Doolittle
concluded that the solution to the Indian policy lay in the reservation system. Not only should land be set
aside specically (and in perpetuity) for Indians, but that Indians must be civilized: they need to learn how
to farm and become self-sucient, their children need to attend school, and Christian missionaries must be
sent to help in their spiritual transformation. Indians of the Northern Plains wanted peace and they wanted
a secure parcel of land and so the commission set up to investigate the Fetterman Massacre called to close
the Bozeman Trail and to create two parcels of land for Indians along the Missouri and Yellowstone river
basins. All Plains Indians would be consolidated on these two reservations. In October of 1867, members of
the US government and representatives of Indians signed the Medicine Lodge Treaty. The Medicine Lodge
Treaty allowed Indians to hunt bualo in specic areas for as long as the bualo roamed; Indians would get
an annual annuity for thirty years, and immediately upon signing the treaty Indian leaders would be given
beads, buttons, bells, pans, cups, knives, blankets, bolts of fabric, coats,hats, and arms and ammunition.
Upon signing the Treaty Indians pledged to take up the plow, get their children educated, and yield all lands
outside of the reservations to the US government. The following year Sioux and American representatives
signed the Fort Laramie Treaty, which created the Sioux Reservation surrounding the Black Hills. Also in
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1868, Indians gathered at Fort Larned to receive their rst annual annuity issued under the Medicine Lodge
Treaty. Some of the Indians were restless and attacked white settlers over a two-day raid. The US military
response was quick and it looked like Congress was going to abrogate the Medicine Lodge Treaty by sending
the US military to round up the Indians and compel them to stay on the reservation.
The Grant Presidency, 1871-1879
The presidency of Ulysses S. Grant ushered in a new era of US-Indian relations, "All individuals disposed
to peace will nd the new policy a peace-policy," said Grant on the eve of his inauguration. Grant's peace
policy centered on the old reservations where Indians would be civilized by American missionaries on how to
till the land, educate their children, and convert to Christianity. That was not new. What was new was the
abandonment of the treaty system. The Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 barred the US government from
ever entering into treaties with Indians. Grant sent military and Christian missionary emissaries out West
to meet and make peace with Indians. For example, Grant sent the old Civil War general Oliver O. Howard
to negotiate peace with Cochise, an Apache leader. Even Red Cloud wanted to talk to the new president.
Peace, nonetheless, did not break out throughout the West.
For example, Modoc Indians of California
left the reservation and held o the US army for most of 1872.
When peace talks began in 1873 Modoc
leaders ambushed the American representatives and the ghting resumed. The Modoc War almost ended
Grant's peace policy. In northern Texas Cheyenne, Comanche, and Kiowas attached US settlements which
resulted in a military response from the US. Even the Sioux Reservation was threatened in the mid 1870s
when an expedition led by General George Armstrong Custer discovered gold in the Black Hills. Discovery
of gold resulted in thousands of Americans ignoring the boundaries of the Sioux reservation.
largest white settlements within the borders of the Sioux reservation was Deadwood.
One of the
Deadwood was so
economically important that the city received the telephone in 1877. To keep the Sioux and white settlers
apart, the US government demanded that all Sioux return to their reservations, or else. In the summer of
1876 Sioux warriors and the US Army skirmished along the Powder River.
Sioux leaders such as Sitting
Bull and Crazy Horse prepared for war and by the early summer of 1876 Sioux encamped along a river
they called Greasy Grass and had earlier performed the Sun Dance in which Sitting Bull received a vision
of American troops would die in the Indian camps. Crazy Horse took a large force to meet the US Army
along the Rosebud River.
The clash lasted for six hours before both sides withdrew.
Tensions mounted.
Believing that he was on a mission from God, and believing in his invincibility, General Custer, with only a
few hundred troops, attacked the main Sioux encampment along the Greasy Grass river (which the whites
called Little Big Horn) on Sunday, June 25th, 1876. Custer and his Seventh Calvary were wiped o the face
of the earth. Fighting continued throughout the fall and into the winter when Colonel Ranald Mackenzie
launched an attack against the Cheyenne villages of Dull Knife and Little Wolf. The surviving Cheyenne
took refuge with Crazy Horse. In January of 1877 Sioux-Cheyenne clashed with the US army. Grant's peace
policy was in shambles. After the battle of Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull and some of his Sioux followers ed
to Canada.
Likewise the Nez Perce (of northern Idaho) refused to be placed on a reservation and thous
they began a 1500 mile trek to link up with the Sioux in Canada. The US government sought to prevent
that so Generals Nelson a. Miles and Howard were sent in pursuit of the Nez Perce. On September 30th,
1877, less than forty miles to the Canadian border, Miles and the Nez Perce clashed. But,many of the Nez
Perce avoided capture and continued their march to freedom. The leader of the Nez Perce was named Chief
Joseph. Joseph's people were staggered all over northern Idaho. Crossing the Bitteroot Mountains in winter
is a formidable task and many of his people fell to the elements. Wanting to bury the dead and round up the
children, on October 5th, 1877 Chief Joseph surrendered. "I am tired of ghting . . . My heart is sick and
sad. From where the sun now stands, I shall ght no more forever," he said. The Nez Perce were rounded
up and sent to Indian Territory (Oklahoma). Missing his ancestral lands, Sitting Bull returned from exile in
1881 and surrendered to US ocials, marking the end of the Plains Wars.
Reformers and the Indians
In upstate New York, American reformers met annually to discuss their ideas on helping American Indians
in their transformation from "savage" to "civilized." The Lake Mohonk home was owned by Quaker brothers
Albert and Alfred Smiley. The Smiley's home was so large that they turned it into a resort and every summer
the well-educated Protestant elite of New York came to Lake Mohonk. Starting in 1883, the Smileys began
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to host an annual meeting of like-minded reformers.
One of those in attendance was a woman author
named Helen Hunt Jackson. In 1881 she published an expose on US-Indians relations called "A Century
of Dishonor." Another reformer was Clinton Disk who created Fisk University to help the ex-slaves in their
transition from slavery to freedom. These reformers embraced a simple mechanism for helping American's
Indians and it was known as Americanization. Americanization was the convergence of American nationalism
and American protestantism. The ideal American, according to this belief, lived a Christian life according
to Protestant principles, was self-sucient, and was an uncritical supporter of everything American. The
rst step was to "detribalize" Indians -to break all tribal connections such as the roles of chiefs and medicine
men, remove all communal ways of being and thinking. The second step was then to substitute American
ways of being and thinking. Reformers sought to ultimately get rid of the reservations themselves because
true Americans did not live communally.
Private property was the driving force of America.
A Mohonk
supporter was the US Senator from Massachusetts, Henry L. Dawes. Congress followed suit by passing, in
1887, the Dawes General Allotment Act. The Dawes Act was an attempt to Americanize the Indians. First,
communal lands would be replaced with private property. Each head of the household would receive 160
acres of land, each single male would receive 80 acres and each child 40 acres. The federal government would
hold the land in a trust for twenty-ve years. For twenty-ve years Indians would have to successfully use
the land for farming and grazing. They had to forswear all aspects of Indian culture. If, after twenty-ve
years, the Indians successfully transformed themselves into Americans then they would get ownership of the
land. All tribal lands in excess of the 160 acres allocations would be sold by the federal government.
1.2 Wounded Knee
Wounded Knee
Throughout US history the US government signed numerous treaties with Indians, to include treaties creating
the Sioux Reservation centered on the Black Hills of what is today South Dakota. The Black Hills held a
religious signicance to the Sioux. In the 1870s gold was discovered in the Sioux reservation and thousands
of Americans ignored the Sioux reservation treaty and poured into the reservation, setting up camp in the
town of Deadwood. Of course if the Indians attacked the whites, the US government would respond in kind
thus the Indians and the settlers lived in a rather tense existence. Deadwood was such an important mining
town that the telephone was introduced in 1877. A year before the US government sent in General George
Armstrong Custer and the 7th Cavalry Division into the Sioux reservation to keep the Indians apart from the
white settlers. Custer believed that he was on a mission from God. And when his Indian scouts told Custer
that thousands of Sioux warriors were waiting to ambush Custer's troops in the Valley of the Little Bighorn,
Custer ignored their advice and instead ordered his 400-plus men to enter the Valley.
The Sioux proved
Custer wrong a d wiped his division o the face of the Earth. Meanwhile, Congress debated the reservation
system. Many in Congress, led by US Senator Henry Dawes of Massachusetts, saw the reservation system
as un-American. In the reservation system Indians collectively owned the land and, for the most part, they
hunted and engaged in traditional socio-cultural activities. We need to help the Indians transform themselves
from "savages" to citizens and to start Congress will divide the Sioux reservation into family parcels. Each
Sioux family would receive approximately 250 acres of land and ownership of the land was be transferred to
the head of each Indian family after a twenty-ve year period. During those twenty-ve years Indians were
required to break all ties to their traditional ways of life: no more hunting bualo, or performing the Ghost
Dance, or wearing traditional clothing. "What the Indian needs is pants with pockets, pockets that yearn
to be lled with gold," Julies Seelye, President of Amherst College said. In fact Sioux children would be
sent o to one of the new "Indian schools," such as the famous Carlyle School in Pennsylvania where Indian
children would have their hair cut in accordance to American styles, dress in American clothes, be taught
English and American history, and eventually returned to their parents.
With only handing over around
100 acres per family, there were millions of what Congress called "excess" lands, which would be sold o to
various railroad interests. Older Sioux leaders such as He-Kills-First, Sitting Bull, or Big Foot rejected the
Dawes Act while younger Sioux warriors supported the government plan, especially those who the federal
government "promoted" to join the Sioux police force as they received the best food, clothes, and of course
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weapons. The result was a divergence within the Sioux community, at times sparking violence between the
older and younger generations. The old chief Sitting Bull was more than just a raspberry seed in the Sioux
police's wisdom teeth. He was fomenting rebellion so in 1890 Sioux police went to arrest Sitting Bull. The
melee that followed resulted in Sitting Bull being shot and killed by the reservation police. Around that same
time a Sioux cleric named Wovoca had a vision and in that vision his ancestors told him that Indians must
resume performing the Ghost Dance. The Ghost Dance was specically prohibited by the Dawes Act because
Sioux preformed the Ghost Dance in preparation for going to war. In December of 1890, the reconstituted
7th Cavalry division was sent to the reservation town called Wounded Knee to meet with tribal leaders and
reservation police in order to try to put an end to the ghost dance. Fearing that violence was imminent and
not wanting a repeat of history, members of the 7th cavalry began to disarm the Sioux, going from tepee
to tepee taking guns, knives, anything that could be used as a weapon against the troops. The troops then
segregated the men from the women and children and armed with a new repeating rie and cannons, the
troops oped re. A reported watching the attack said that children leaving the school house when the guns
hit them was like watching grass before the sickle. The lifeless bodies froze in the late December weather
and after nearly 500 years of constant Anglo-Indian warfare, this was how the Sioux lost their culture.
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