Native American Settlers

The Native Americans and english settlers don’t have the best past together. We have all heard the stories of the bloody battles between the proud Native Americans and the white Americans. There is no excuse to how we treated this group of people who were on this land first, we forced them out of there areas and would slaughter them if they wouldn’t leave. It is one of the most disturbing times in American history, and something that should never be repeated again.

At the beginning, Native Americans worked with the european settlers when they first came to America (Anitei, 2007). Jamestown Virginia was the first settlement in America and was created with the help of the Powhatan Indians (Anitei, 2007). Without there help, the settlers wouldn’t

The Sioux tribe, led by Chief Sitting Bull, were moved to the Black Hills which was in the Dakota Territory, and were living there without any issues. Miners then targeted Black Hills as another area for a potential gold rush in 1875. General Custer and his troops were called to move the Sioux away from their lands so the miners could mine. The Sioux did not stand for this and decided to fight, this fight would be known as the Sioux War and lasted from 1876 to 1877 (Weiser, 2012). On June 25th, 1877, General Custer was told to overtake the mining heaven know as Little Bighorn. The settlement had well over 7000 indians from tribes such as Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho (Weiser, 2012). Even with US troops outnumbered, Custer planned to use the element of surprise to take advantage of these Indians (Weiser, 2012). He divided his men into groups of 200 that would surround the tribes and launch an attack. Before all this could take place, Custer found himself surrounded by a Native American sneak attack, led by legendary Chief Crazy Horse (Weiser, 2012). Armed and passionate, the Indians attacked Custer and his men without mercy. The two hour battle led to Crazy Horse’s 2,500 warriors slaughtering Custer and his 264 men. This did not ensure safety for him and his tribe, so Cheif Sitting Bull marched his army to Canada (History.com Staff, 2009). were to settled down into peaceful residents. The Sioux settled in the northern

This group was based in Oregon and Idaho and giving up most of their land to the United States just to be left alone. The United States continued to make attempts to move the Nez Perce into smaller areas (Hillstrom, 2014). In 1877, the United States told the Nez Perce they would be removed from their area, either by agreement or force (Hillstrom, 2014). Of course the Nez Perce resisted and several battles ensued. Both the United States, and Nez Perce lost many lives (Hillstrom, 2014). Chief Joseph was known as being a human and noble leader, he did not want to battle. He went to seek Chief Sitting Bull’s words of wisdom, but had to travel all the way up to Canada to speak to him. The trip would take 75 days, and cover 1,500 miles, this was all for nothing because US forces stopped them 30 miles from Chief Sitting Bull’s location (Hillstrom, 2014). At first the United States promised to return the tribe to its lands in Idaho, but then moved the Nez Perce south, to a camp in Kansas. The camp was riddled with dangerous diseases, malaria ended up killing over third of the Nez Perce while in Kansas (Hillstrom, 2014). Eventually the rest were moved to Oklahoma, as time went on they were able to return to the northwest but never allowed to return to the Wallowa Valley (Hillstrom, 2014). All this movement took a major toll on the Nez Perce tribe, cutting their numbers down to only a fraction of what they