native americans post civil war history mid-term essay

Cassanndre Sager
History 222 Sennet
13 November 2006
Mid Term- Native American tribes after the Civil War

At the beginning of the Civil War the Native American Indians were still in possession of one half of the current United States territory. 10 years later the Native Americans were placed on reservations and it was government policy to get rid of the Native American culture in favor of having the Native Americans integrated into the American society.
The Native American tribes of the high plains were some of the most important tribes. They included the Blackfoot, Sioux, Cheyenne, and Comanche tribes. The culture of these tribes was overall the same- it had a strong basis in buffalo. These Native Americans lived by hunting the many buffalo that roamed the high plains. Buffalo provided the High Plains Native Americans with food, clothing, shelter, and fuel (for those tribes that didn’t have many trees around). The buffalo was also a religious symbol for these Native Americans.
The integration of “white” technology into the Native American culture had devastating effects. From the white men, Native Americans received horses, swords, and rifles. The horses and weapons enabled easier hunting of the buffalo for the Native Americans, which caused the amount of buffalo on the High Plains to decrease, thus endangering the Native American culture, independence, and even existence. (It should also be noted that with the white people came illnesses that the Native Americans had no immunity for, causing many deaths among the Native American tribes that interacted with white people.)
The United States army also contributed to the decrease of buffalo in the high plains. The army had no qualms about shooting buffalo for fun, and thusly killed many buffalo and leaving the carcasses behind, unused, and wasted. Without knowing it, the United States soldiers had engaged in the most expeditious manner of removing the Native Americans of the High Plains. Getting rid of the buffalo in the high plains would later show an obvious correlation to the decline of the Native American population and way of life.
The Nez Perce Indian tribe became well-known for its leader Chief Joseph and his outmaneuvering the US Army. Chief Joseph managed to lead his tribe over 1,000 miles of land without being captured by the United States army. This struggle, however, ended in 1877 when Chief Joseph surrendered in October. The Nez Perce Indian tribe was then moved to Oklahoma, where they became afflicted with malaria.
In the 1880s “whites” began to move in mass numbers to the plains. Many were greedy and wanted to solve what they called the “Indian problem”. The necessary solution which they saw was to get the Native Americans to be “civilized”. Native Americans were pushed to work on family farms to support themselves in the plains.
In 1887, the Dawes-Severalty Act was passed. It split up the Native American land into smaller “allotments”. This Act was considered to be a humanitarian-centered one, though its effects were opposite of those hoped for. The government tried to make certain that the Native Americans wouldn’t be tricked into selling their lands for low prices by enforcing a limit as to when they could sell their lands- after receiving an allotment, and Indian had to wait at least 25 years to sell it. The Severalty Act also allowed for government funding of Native American schooling and training. If the Native Americans lived “separate from any tribe” and “adopted the habits of civilized life”, the Dawes-Severalty Act gave them citizenship in the United States.
In the end, all of these factors successfully removed a large portion of Native American culture, thereby leaving them without a culture for support while trying to be assimilated into the American way of life. The Indians were ticked into giving up land for little money (despite the Dawes-Severalty Act). If they did keep their lands, they were taxed at unfair rates for them.