The Effects Of Tribal Life, During The Conquest Of The West
For 250 years the Indians had been driven out of their own territory, but shortly before the Civil War they still inhabited roughly half the United States. In 1860 the survivors of most of the eastern tribes were living peacefully in Indian Territory, what is now Oklahoma. In California resided the forty-niners, and in eastern Kansas and Nebraska nearly a quarter of a million Indians dominated the land. By far the most important lived on the high plains from the Blackfoot of southwestern Canada and the Sioux of Minnesota and the Dakotas to the Cheyenne of Colorado and Wyoming and the Comanche of northern Texas, the plains tribes possessed a uniform culture. All lived by hunting the hulking American bison, or buffalo, which ranged over the plains by the millions. Although the plain Indians seemed to represent freedom, pride, and self-reliance, they had begun to fall under the sway of white power. In 1951 Thomas Fitzpatrick, a founder of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and an Indian agent, summoned a great “council” of the tribes. About 10,000 Indians representing nearly all the plains tribes gathered that September. Fitzpatrick persuaded each tribe to accept definite limits to its hunting grounds. In return the Indians were promised gifts and annual payments. This policy was known as “concentration was designed to cut down in on intertribal warfare and to enable the government to negotiate separately with each tribe. The War to Save the Buffalo started when the Kiowas had gained permission to hunt buffalo again and became angry against white hunters who were coming from Kansas down to Texas to kill thousands of buffalo. The white hunters also took only the skins leaving the bloody carcasses to rot on the plains. The first attack was May 17, 1871 when the Kiowas ambushed a train of ten freight wagons and killing seven white settlers. The tribal leaders Satanta, Satank, and Big Tree, turned themselves in to protect their tribe from receiving any...
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