Native Americans and the expansion of the USA

Native Americans and the expansion of the USA

Salma Barma investigates how Native American nations experienced the expansion of the USA in the nineteenth century

For over 10,000 years, North America has been populated by people now known as ‘Native Americans’, ‘American Indians’, or ‘Indigenous Americans’. When the USA was created, its government recognised native tribes as independent nations whose governments they needed to cooperate with. Between 1778 and 1871, the USA made over 360 treaties with these nations.

During the late 1800s, the US government increasingly sought to expand its territory to stretch ‘from sea to shining sea’, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. To achieve this, it deliberately reduced indigenous territory, ultimately making it impossible for native nations to continue their traditional way of life. Throughout, nations refused to accept the actions of the US government. This article explores how some nations of the Great Plains experienced and responded to US expansion.

Which nations occupied the Great Plains in the 1800s?

In the 1830s, the USA was a relatively new country, with territory mostly in the east of North America. To its west, across the Mississippi River, lay the Great Plains. The Great Plains covered almost a third of the continent: from the Rocky Mountains in the west to the Mississippi River in the east, from Canada in the north to Mexico in the south.

Although the USA saw this land as ‘unorganised’, waiting to be settled, the Plains had been home to many native nations, including Dakota, Lakota and Nakota Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapahos, Kiowa, Comanches, Apaches and Paiutes, for thousands of years. By the nineteenth century, many of these nations lived as nomads, without settling permanently, hunting buffalo that roamed the Plains.

Key features of native nations’ way of life

Since there are many native nations, each with specific beliefs and practices, this section will focus on one: the Oceti Sakowin, now known in English as ‘the Sioux’. Oceti Sakowin is an alliance of nations that speak three dialects of the same language: Dakota, Lakota and Nakota. In the 1800s, each nation comprised several nomadic bands living on the northern Plains.

Bands

Bands were the basic unit of each nation. Bands represented a ‘larger family’ bound together by blood and marriage. Shared activities strengthened the band. For example, families constructed tipis together, with men preparing buffalo skins and poles for the tipi and women building it. Lakota bands practised four key values: wacantognaka (generosity), wotitakuye (kinship), wacintaka (fortitude) and woksape (wisdom). These values held each band together and allowed the nations of the Great Plains to coexist in relative harmony.

Each band was led by their chief and a council of respected elders. Similarly, each nation had a council that made decisions about alliances and trade. The Seven Council Fires, comprising three nations, met at least once annually to socialise, trade and discuss politics. Council decisions were made by talking until they reached agreement.

Land

Oceti Sakowin believed in Wakan Tanka, the Great Spirit, who created the world and all life. They believed humans, like all other beings, came from the earth — therefore, land should be shared, and not owned by individuals or nations. Oceti Sakowin’s sacred sites were natural landmarks. Perhaps the most important was the Black Hills, He Sapa — the Place of Origin. They believed their ancestors emerged onto the earth here. As these hills were seen as the source of Oceti Sakowin’s strength, they became a holy site where the dead were buried and where holy men went for guidance.

For Oceti Sakowin, land sustained life. At first, nations farmed corn. After horses were introduced in the seventeenth century, a nomadic existence became possible and following buffalo over distances became easier. Once hunted, no part of a buffalo was wasted — buffalo meat provided food, skin was used for clothing and tipi covers, hooves became glue, and hair became headdresses, ropes and pillows.

Since buffalo were so precious, native peoples were careful not to kill too many. By the mid-nineteenth century, it was estimated that 30 to 60 million buffalo roamed the Plains, and it was rare for more than 200,000 buffalo to be killed each year. As the buffalo thrived, so the nations thrived in turn.

How did Oceti Sakowin experience westward expansion?

From the seventeenth century, Europeans established colonies in the east, pushing many nations out of their homelands. From the late 1830s, many settlers began crossing the Great Plains. They were motivated by their belief in ‘Manifest Destiny’ — the idea that it was the USA’s God-given duty to expand its territory and spread its version of ‘civilisation’. Between 1860 and 1890 the USA expanded aggressively, endangering native nations’ way of life.

Using laws to create borders

In 1862, the US government passed the Homestead Act, the Pacific Railway Act, and the Morrill Act, which obtained native territory through treaties or by seizing it, and giving it to white settlers. Many settlers saw the land as ‘free’ because it was not ‘owned’ by individuals or native nations. Therefore, they believed it was acceptable to occupy, divide and sell the land. This disrupted nations’ nomadic way of life, which relied on freedom to move around all the land.

Reservations

The USA had long forcibly removed nations from their lands to enable white settlement. The Indian Appropriations Act (1851) pushed this further by creating ‘reservations’ — territories that theoretically allowed indigenous people to govern themselves and maintain their traditions, while keeping them off lands which the USA wanted. By the 1860s, native nations were confined to shrinking parcels of land.

Resisting reservations

Conditions on reservations were often harsh, and many nations resisted them. In 1862, the Dakota rose up to resist starvation. The US army suppressed this uprising, executing 38 Dakota in the largest mass execution in US history. In the conflict known as ‘Red Cloud’s War’, Oceti Sakowin bands successfully deployed guerrilla warfare against US army troops building forts on their territory.

The US government had to resolve the conflict by proposing the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868. This formally recognised that the US army had ignored earlier treaties, and promised the sacred Black Hills would remain Oceti Sakowin’s hunting grounds ‘so long as the buffalo may range thereon in such numbers as to justify the chase’. Oceti Sakowin interpreted this as a permanent guarantee, believing the immense number of buffalo on the Plains would always make hunting, and their traditional way of life, possible.

In 1874, the discovery of gold in the sacred Black Hills brought thousands of white settlers onto the hunting grounds of Oceti Sakowin. Ignoring the terms of the 1868 treaty, the US army protected white miners, triggering the Great Sioux War of 1876–1877. In June 1876, Colonel George Custer attacked the main Oceti Sakowin camp at Little Bighorn. Custer was intercepted by warriors led by native leaders Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, and was defeated decisively. However, the US army responded forcefully, pressuring both Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull to flee, and making others move onto reservations.

Railways

In 1869, construction of the transcontinental railroad was completed. There was now a direct route through the Plains, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. However, the railroad was disastrous for native nations. Many new towns were built along the railway, the US army increasingly built forts and enforced the reservation policy and the railways divided and scared away buffalo herds.

Extermination of buffalo

From the 1870s, the US government began systematically exterminating buffalo. US hunters killed entire buffalo herds, using long-range rifles to shoot them from passing trains. Hundreds of thousands of buffalo were killed every few months. By the end of the 1880s, fewer than 1,000 buffalo remained on the Plains. This proved one of the most effective ways of destroying the nations’ independence. Without buffalo to hunt, it was easier to confine the nations to reservations.

The completion of expansion

The Dawes Act (1887) divided reservations into 160-acre parcels that were given to individual native families. Any remaining parcels of land were sold off to white settlers. This undermined the sharing of land which native nations practised.

Finally, at Wounded Knee Creek in 1890, US troops surrounded a US army camp where remaining Oceti Sakowin bands had been forced to surrender. After one young man resisted being disarmed, the troops opened fire, killing almost 300 Oceti Sakowin and at least 25 US soldiers. These events are often interpreted as the symbolic end of native freedom.

Continued resistance

In 1980, the US Supreme Court finally acknowledged that the Great Sioux nation had never been compensated for the US army’s role in breaking the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty during the gold-rush. The Supreme Court decided that the US government should pay $105 million to the Great Sioux nation. However, the Great Sioux nation refused this money, insisting the sacred lands of the Black Hills were rightfully theirs and should be returned. They still refuse to accept the payment, which with interest is now worth over $1 billion.

Today, long after the losses of the 1800s, Native Americans continue to fight for their communities, beliefs and lands. In doing so, they continue resisting the ‘destruction’ of their way of life. HS