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 1874 George Custer, on a reconnaissance mission with his cavalry, reported the discovery of gold in the Black Hills. Prospectors poured onto Indian land, and under the leadership of Chief Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and Gall, angry Indians raided and harassed the white settlements. The Indians were told by the Commissioner of Indian affairs to move back within the boundaries of their reservation or they would be deemed hostile. In 1862, when the north and south were locked in Civil War, Minnesota felt the fury of an even more fundamental internal conflict. The Santees, an eastern branch of the Sioux Nation, having endured ten years of traumatic change on the upper Minnesota River, launched the first great attack in the Indian wars. Eleven years earlier the tribe had sold 24 million acres of hunting ground for a lump sum of $1,665,000 and the promise of future cash annuities. The Santee's culture was not only disrupted, the Sioux gradually found themselves dependent on trade goods, which made them easy prey for the white merchants. The merchant would give them credit and collect directly from the government. The Indians saw little of the annuities for which they had sold their birthright. Their anger finally reached the flash point when, following a winter of near starvation, the annual payment failed to arrive on time. 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. llion 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 po
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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