American Indian Wars
There is perhaps a tendency to view the record of the military in terms of conflict, that may be why the U.S. Army's operational experience in the quarter century following the Civil War became known as the Indian wars. Previous struggles with the Indian, dating back to colonial times, had been limited. There was a period where the Indian could withdraw or be pushed into vast reaches of uninhabited and as yet unwanted territory in the west. By 1865 the safety valve was fast disappearing. As the Civil War was closed, white Americans in greater numbers and with greater energy than before resumed the quest for land, gold, commerce, and adventure that had been largely interrupted by the war. The besieged red man, with white civilization pressing in and a main source of livelihood, the buffalo, threatened with extinction, was faced with a fundamental choice: surrender or fight. Many chose to fight, and over the next 25 years the struggle ranged over the plains, mountains, and the deserts of the American West. These guerrilla wars were characterized by skirmishes, pursuits, raids, massacres, expeditions, battles, and campaigns of varying size and intensity. In 1865, there was a least 15 millio
The Allotment Act of 1887 or Dawes Act, was legislation that converted communally owned Indian reservation lands into individually owned parcels. Excess acreage was sold to white settlers. Enactment contributed to the further decline of tribal populations, traditions, and well being. The war amounted to a series of harassments. The Indians cut off the mail route, attacked wagon trains and either destroyed them or forced them to turn back. Camps of the Sioux war faction were strung out along the Tongue River, and the restless warriors constantly raided the trail and the posts. n buffalo, ten years later, fewer than a thousand remained. The army and the Bureau of Indian Affairs went along with and even encouraged the slaughter of the animals. By destroying the buffalo herds, the whites were destroying the Indian's main source of food and supplies. The only thing the Indians could do was fight to preserve their way of life. There was constant fighting among the Indian and whites as the Indians fought to keep their civilization. Indian often retaliated against the whites for earlier attacks that whites had imposed on them. They often attacked wagon trains, stage coaches, and isolated ranches. When the army became more involved in the fighting, the Indians started to focus on the white soldiers. Fetterman's massacre was not a major engagement, but it was like an exclamation point in the war of harassment that Red Cloud had pursued and would continue to press for months to come. All the whites in the east and west wanted peace, but Red Cloud would not grant it. The Sioux Chief demanded that the whites take their forts out of Sioux country, and finally the government yielded to his wishes. In May 1868, the army ordered the abandonment of all three forts. In the late summer of the same year, as the soldiers marched out from the posts, the Indians burned them to the ground. He was the first and only Western Indian Chief to have won a war with the United States. Red Cloud was beginning to emerge as a major leader in 1863, when settlers and miners began to pour over a new road called the Powder River Trail, or the Bozeman Trail after the scout who blazed it. This road was to connect Fort Laramie, Wyoming, to the new mining centers right through the best of all the Sioux hunting grounds. The Indians under Red Cloud's leadership harassed travelers on the trail with such determination that in the summer of 1866 white leaders arra
Some common words found in the essay are:
Minnesota River, Indian Affairs, Civil War, Little Horn, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud, Creek December, Red Cloud's, Fort Laramie, Henry Sibley, red cloud, white soldiers, fort laramie, civil war, sitting bull, indian wars, white settlers, crazy horse, attacked wagon trains, attacked wagon, wagon trains,
Approximate Word count = 1661
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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