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Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ mission is to enhance the quality of life, to promote economic opportunity, and to carry out the responsibility to protect and improve the trust assets of American Indians, Indian tribes and Alaska Natives. -
Indian Removal Act
A law authorizing the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders. A few tribes went peacefully, but many resisted the relocation policy. -
Battle of Apache Pass
In Apache Pass, Arizona, in the United States, between Apache warriors and the Union volunteers of the California Column as it marched from California to capture Confederate Arizona and to reinforce New Mexico's Union army. It was one of the largest battles between the Americans and the Chiricahua during the Apache Wars. -
Homestead Act
It allowed any American, including freed slaves, to put a claim for up to 160 free scres of federal land. Over time, the growing American agriculture led to the replacement of individual homesteads with smaller numbers of larger farms. -
Little Crow’s War
Also known as the Dakota War. Was an armed conflict between the United States and several bands of the eastern Sioux. -
Cheyenne Uprising
The land was very poor and survival for the Indians was virtually impossible. In 1863 faced with starvation, they began to attack wagon trains and steal food. -
Sand Creek Massacre
The peaceful southern Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians are massacred by a band of Colonel John Chivington's volunteers. It was caused because of the conflict for control of the Great Plains of eastern Colorado. -
Fetterman Massacre
A small band of Indians made an attack on a party of woodcutters. Soldiers were wiped out in a massive attack. One of the only Indian victories. Started when John Bozeman blazed the Bozeman trail. -
Red Cloud’s War
Furious when white settlers began using the Bozeman Trail which passed through the Sioux hunting grounds and began attacking travellers. The government were forced to withdraw the army and abandon the forts. -
Fort Laramie Treaty
Was an agreement between the United States and the Oglala, Miniconjou, and Brulé bands of Lakota people. Signed at Fort Laramie in the Wyoming Territory, guaranteeing to the Lakota ownership of the Black Hills, and further land and hunting rights in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. The Powder River Country was to be henceforth closed to all whites. The treaty ended Red Cloud's War. -
Completion of Trans-Cont R.R.
Was a 1,907-mile (3,069 km) contiguous railroad line constructed between 1863 and 1869 across the western United States to connect the Pacific coast at San Francisco Bay with the existing Eastern U.S. rail network at Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the Missouri River. -
A Century of Dishonor by Helen Hunt Jackson
A non-fiction book by Helen Hunt Jackson first published in 1881 that chronicled the experiences of Native Americans in the United States, focusing on injustices. an attempt to change government ideas/policy toward Native Americans at a time when effects of the 1871 Indian Appropriations Act. -
Indian Appropriations Act
In the late nineteenth century, Indian policy began to place a growing emphasis on erasing a distinctive American Indian identity. To weaken the authority of tribal leaders, Congress passed the Indian Appropriation Act, which ended the practice of treating tribes as independent, sovereign nations. -
Camp Grant, AZ Apache massacre
Was an attack on Pinal and Aravaipa Apaches who surrendered to the United States Army at Camp Grant, Arizona, along the San Pedro River. The massacre led to a series of battles and campaigns fought between the Americans, the Apache, and their Yavapai allies, which continued into 1875, the most notable being General George Crook's Tonto Basin Campaign of 1872 and 1873. -
The Lakota War
was a series of battles and negotiations which occurred between 1876 and 1877 involving the Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne against the United States. As gold was discovered in the Black Hills, settlers began to encroach onto Native American lands, while pressure was mounted by the federal government for the Natives to remain on the Sioux reservation. -
Battle of Little Bighorn
Federal troops fought against a band of Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. Cuased by the discovery of gold on Native American lands. When the tribes missed a deadline to move onto reservations they decided to confront them. -
Desert Land Act
Was passed to encourage and promote the economic development of the arid and semiarid public lands of the Western states. Through the Act, individuals may apply for a desert-land entry to reclaim and irrigate public lands. -
Billy the Kid
was a 19th-century gunman who participated in the Lincoln County War and became a frontier outlaw in the American Old West. According to legend, he killed twenty-one men, but it is generally believed that he killed eight. He killed his first man at the age of 17. -
Capture of Nez Perce
Cheif Joseph surrendered his forces to General Nelson A. Miles and General Oliver Otis Howard. They were promised a safe return to the Wallowa Valley. -
Pratt Boarding School
Carlisle Indian Industrial School at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, the first of many nonreservation boarding schools for Native Americans. Pratt did not regard his innovations at Fort Marion as limited to Native Americans only.African-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Latinos, Pacific Islanders, Asian-Americans, and Mormons. He took his pedagogical inspiration from the Puritans. -
Gunfight at O.K. Coral
Was a 30-second gunfight between outlaw Cowboys and lawmen. In Tombstone, Arizona Territory. It was the result of a long-simmering feud between Cowboys Billy Claiborne, Ike and Billy Clanton, and Tom and Frank McLaury, and opposing lawmen. -
Chinese Exclusion Act
Was a United States federal law. It was one of the most significant restrictions on free immigration in US history, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers. -
Bill Cody’s “Wild West Show”
Was also known as Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Performed in shows that displayed cowboy themes and episodes from the frontier and Indian wars. -
Capture of Geronimo
The Apache Cheif, Geronimo, surrenderd to the U.S. Government. It signaled the end of the Indian wars in the Southwest. It happened because they were the last Indian warriors. -
Edmunds-Tucker Act
Was an Act of Congress that focused on restricting some practices of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints . It was passed in response to the dispute between the United States Congress and the LDS Church regarding polygamy. -
Dawes Act
To break up reservations by granting land allotments to individual Native Americans. They did it to protect Indian property rights during the land rushes on the 1890's. It resulted in the Indian living in or near the deserts which were unsuitable for farming. Which the Indians didn't want to take up. -
Wounded Knee Massacre
Was the sight of two conflicts between North American Indians and representaives of the U.S. Government. It happened because U.S. Armycalvary surrounded a band of ghost dancers, they demanded their weapons and as that was happening a shot went off and the massacre began. -
Forest Reserve Act
Law that allowed the President to set aside forest reserves from the land in the public domain. Harrison issued proclamations establishing 13 million acres of land as froest reserves. -
Turner Thesis
The argument that the American democracy was formed by the American frontier. Impacted the poineers. The land was free for taking. -
Carey Act
Allowed private companies in the U.S. to erect irrigation systems in the western semi-arid states, and profit from the sales of water. It was a new approach for the disposal of public desert land, as the federal government decided this task was too large for individual settlers.Through advertising, these companies attracted farmers to the many states which successfully utilized the act, notably Idaho and Wyoming.
