# 9 Aim: What happened to the Plains Indians?

As white settlers pushed into the Great Plains, attracted by the offer of free land by the Homestead Act and by advertising by US rail lines, they intruded on traditional Indian lands. Most of these new settlers were immigrants from northern Europe … Sweden, Norway, and Germany, all looking for cheap farmland.

The govt. tried to keep peace with the Indians by signing many treaties to keep settlers off their land. However these treaties were constantly being broken as more and more settlers moved onto the Great Plains, and as gold was discovered there. The Indians were now forced to fight to protect their land.

The US govt. sent the army to the Plains to build forts & to protect white settlers & miners. The army began a policy of extermination of the huge buffalo herds that were the Indian’s main source of meat & clothing.

Between 1870 & 1900 approximately 20 – 30 million buffalo were slaughtered. They were killed for their hides, tongues, to provide meat for the rail road workers, for sport, for their bones, and to prevent them from tearing up railroad track or derailing trains. Buffalo also competed with cattle for grazing land and could destroy farmer’s crops. With the slaughter of so many buffalo, the Indian way of life was destroyed &

Many Indians died. By the early 19^th century only about 150,000 wild buffalo remained.

The Indians were finally defeated and were forced to move to reservations where they were encouraged to abandon their old traditions & become farmers. These reservation lands were very isolated and of poor quality. The Indians suffered greatly, and could not adjust to reservation life, and resisted this change to their traditional existence. Even after the govt. created the Bureau of Indian Affairs, there were few improvements in the Indian’s standard of living. The Bureau was very corrupt and cheated the Indians out, land, oil & mineral rights, and govt. programs.

Dawes Act – 1887. Created Indian schools on the reservation and encouraged Indians to become farmers. Even today Native Americans suffer from high rates of poverty, illiteracy, alcoholism, various diseases, poor medical care, unemployment and domestic violence. One reason for this is neglect by the govt. plus the Indians have been very slow to integrate and assimilate into mainstream US society, as they have attempted

To hold on to their old traditions.

Only recently, have many tribes prospered, as gambling casinos have opened on reservation land and attracted many tourist and gambling dollars.

HOMEWORK: Read pgs. 449 – 455. Do. Vocab pg. 449 plus pg. 449 ques. 3 & pg. 458 ques. 4A & B