d was discovered on their lands. Joseph and his people were sent to live on the non Nez Pierce reservation of Colville, eastern Washington, where Joseph died in 1904.
15/9/1877, Crazy Horse, Sioux Chief, one of the leaders at the victory of Little Big Horn in 1876, died.
6/5/1877. Chief Crazy Horse and his Sioux Indians gave themselves up to US troops, abandoning claims to Nebraska.
25/6/1876. Custer’s Last Stand took place at Little Bighorn, Montana. Custer died with all 264 men of his 7th cavalry. The killing was done by Sioux Indians led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Gall. The Battle was the result of a confused policy by the US government towards the Indians. The Indians, Eastern Sioux, and Northern Cheyennes, had been guaranteed exclusive possession of the Dakota territory west of the Missouri River, but white miners were settling in the Black Hills area searching for gold. The US government refused to move the miners and so conflict became inevitable. The Indians were asked to leave or be considered hostile and in June 1876 US soldiers moved in. However Custer, with his 650 men, was unaware that the Indians had 1,500 warriors close by. After the disaster of Little Bighorn, the US army flooded the area with soldiers, forcing the Indians to surrender.
31/1/1876, All American Indians were ordered to move to reservations.
2/7/1874, The US Government ordered General George A Custer to lead a reconnaissance expedition into the Black Hills territory of the Sioux Indians.
9/6/1874, Cochise, Apache chief and war leader against White settlers, died.
3/3/1871, US Congress passed the Indian Appropriation Act. Many Amerindians had already ceded their lands by treaty and then been moved to reservations. However this Act now made all tribes wards of the US Government and voided all previous treaties recognising each tribe’s reservation status as a separate nation.
27/11/1868, Lieutenant Colonel George Custer and his 7th cavalry attacked the village of Cheyenne Indian chief Black Kettle. The Indians had been resisting the building of a railway in their territory.
6/11/1868. Oglala Sioux Indians, led by Chief Red Cloud, signed a peace treaty with General William Sherman, representing the US Government, at Fort Laramie. This ended 2 years of fighting between Indians and gold miners.
21/5/1867, Frances Theresa Densmore was born in Red Wing, Minnesota. She recorded and documented the songs and music of over 30 Amerindian tribes before her death at age 87.
29/11/1864, The Sand Creek massacre; Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians were waiting to surrender to US forces when soldiers under the command of Colonel Chivington slaughtered them.
3/3/1863. Congress provided for the forcible removal of all Indians from the state of Kansas.
17/8/1862, A Sioux uprising in Minnesota led by Little Crow was suppressed.
30/4/1860, Fort Defiance, New Mexico, was attacked by 1,000 Navajo Indians, angered by the shooting of their sheep and goats by the fort’s soldiers. The Navajo, with bows and arrows, almost succeeded in capturing the fort. |However they retreated when the fort fired cannon on them.
11/9/1858, The Mountain Meadows Massacre in Utah. 135 migrants on the Fancher wagon train were ambushed, and nearly all killed, by Pahute Indians; however the Indians were acting under instructions from the Mormon leader, Brigham Young.
29/11/1847. Cayuze Indians massacred 14 members of an Oregon mission.
5/12/1839, Birth of George Armstrong Custer, US cavalry commander famous for ‘Custer’s Last Stand’ against the Cheyenne and Sioux Indians.
1838, Indian title to the lands of Minnesota was extinguished by the US Government.
23/5/1838, General Winfield-Scott ordered the forced removal of the Cherokee Indians from their original lands into reservations in what is now Oklahoma. About a quarter of the Cherokees died along the ‘Trail of Tears’.
29/12/1835, The Treaty of New Echota was signed between the US Government and the Amerindian Cherokee Nation, after which the Cherokees were moved to the Oklahoma Territory along the ‘Trail of Tears’.
27/5/1831, Comanche Indians on t