The Great Sioux War of 1876 , also known as the Black Hills War , is a series of battles and negotiations that took place in 1876 and 1877 between the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and the American government Union. The cause of war is the desire of the US government to gain Black Hills ownership. Gold has been found in the Black Hills, the settlers began to spread to the land of Native Americans, and Sioux and Cheyenne refused to give up ownership to the US Traditionally, the American military and historians put the Lakota at the center of the story, especially given. their numbers, but some Indians believe that Cheyenne is the main target of the US campaign.
Among the many battles and battles of war is the Battle of Little Bighorn, often known as Custer's Last Stand, the most storied of many meetings between US troops and the Indian Plains. But India's victory, the United States exploit national resources to force the Indians to surrender, especially by attacking and destroying their camp and property. The Great Sioux War takes place under the presidencies of Ulysses S. Grant and Rutherford B. Hayes. The Treaty of 1877 (19 Stat, 254, enacted Feb. 28, 1877) officially annexed the land of Sioux and a permanently established Indian reservation.
Video Great Sioux War of 1876
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Cheyenne migrated west to the Black Hills and Powder River Country before Lakota and introduced them to horse culture around 1730. By the end of the 18th century, the developing Lakota tribe began to expand its territory west of the Missouri River. They drove Kiowa and formed an alliance with Cheyenne and Arapaho to control the rich buffalo hunt in Great Plains in the north. The Black Hills, located in western South Dakota today, are an important source for Lakota for lodge mines, plant resources and small games. They are considered sacred to the Lakota culture.
At the beginning of the 19th century, North Cheyenne became the first person to engage in tribal wars. Because European Americans use many different names for Cheyenne, the military may not be aware of their unity. The US Army destroyed seven Cheyenne camps before 1876 and three more that year, more than any other tribe that suffered during this period. From 1860, Cheyenne was a major force in the war in the Lowlands. "There is no other group on the plains that reach centralized tribal organizations and tribal authorities." The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, signed by the US by Lakota and Cheyenne North leaders after the Red Cloud War, set aside part of Lakota as the Great Sioux Reservation. It comprises the western half of South Dakota, including the Black Hills region for their exclusive use. It also provides "unprocessed areas" in Wyoming and Montana, Powder River Country, as a hunting ground for Cheyenne and Lakota. Both on reservation and in areas not covered, whites are prohibited from violations, except for US government officials.
More and more illegal miners and settlers in the Dakota Territory, however, quickly scrapped the protection. The US government can not let settlers out. In 1872, territorial officials considered harvesting rich timber resources in the Black Hills, to be navigated to the Cheyenne River to Missouri, where new terrain settlements required timber. The geographical appointment area suggests potential mineral resources. When a commission approached the Red Cloud Agency about the possibility of signing Lakota off Black Hills, Colonel John E. Smith noted that this was "their only part [of their reservations] of any value to them". He concludes that "nothing is shorter than their destruction will get it from them".
In 1874, the government sent the Custer Expedition to examine the Black Hills. The Lakota is worried about his expedition. Before the Custer column had returned to Fort Abraham Lincoln, the news of their gold discovery was telegraphed nationally. The presence of valuable mineral resources was confirmed the following year by the Newton-Jenney Geological Expedition. Prospectors, motivated by the economic panic of 1873, began trickling into the Black Hills in violation of the Fort Laramie Agreement. This droplet turned into a flood when thousands of miners invaded Bukit before the gold rush ended. Organized groups come from the states as far as New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.
Initially, the United States Army struggled to keep miners out of the area. In December 1874, for example, a group of miners led by John Gordon of Sioux City, Iowa, managed to avoid army patrols and reached the Black Hills, where they spent three months before the Army drove them out. Such evictions, however, increased political pressure on the Grant Administration to secure the Black Hills from Lakota.
In May 1875, the Sioux delegation led by Spotted Tail, Red Cloud, and Lone Horn traveled to Washington, D.C. in an eleven-hour effort to persuade President Ulysses S. Grant to honor existing agreements and stem the flow of miners into their territory. They met with Grant, Columbus Delano Secretary of the Interior, and Indian Affairs Commissioner Edward Smith. US leaders say that Congress wants to pay $ 25,000 tribes for land and move them to the Territory of India (in Oklahoma now). The delegates refused to sign a new agreement with this provision. Spotted Tail says, "You are talking about another country, but it's not my country, it's none of my business, and I want nothing to do with it I was not born there... If it's a good country you have to send people whites are now in our country there and leave us alone. "Although the leaders were unsuccessful in finding a peaceful solution, they did not join Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull in the battle that followed.
That fall, the US commission sent to each Indian institution to hold a council with Lakota. They hope to get the people's approval and thus put pressure on Lakota leaders to sign a new deal. Government efforts to secure Black Hills failed. While the Black Hills are at the center of a growing crisis, Lakota's outrage has grown as US interests expand in other parts of the Lakota region. For example, the government proposed that the North Pacific Railway route would cross through the last major buffalo hunt area. In addition, the US Army had committed several devastating attacks on the Cheyenne camp before 1876.
Maps Great Sioux War of 1876
Combatants
The number of Indian combatants in the war is debated with estimates ranging from 900 to 4,000 soldiers. The seven bands in Lakota Sioux in the 1870s numbered perhaps 15,000 men, women, and children, but most of them lived on the Great Sioux Reservation and were non-combatants. An Indian agent in November 1875 said the Indians who lived in non-mined areas were "several hundred warriors." General Crook estimates that he may face up to 2,000 soldiers. The majority of Sioux residents who remain in unrepaired areas where the war will occur are Oglala and Hunkpapa, totaling around 5,500. Added to this are about 1,500 Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho for a total hostile Indian population of around 7,000, which may include as many as 2,000 soldiers. The number of soldiers who participated in the Battle of Little Bighorn is estimated at between 900 and 2,000.
Indians have an advantage in mobility and knowledge of the country, but all Indians are part-time warriors. In the spring, they are partially mobilized by the weakness of their surviving long winter horses with limited feed. Most of the summer and autumn they spend hunting buffalo to feed their families. About half of Indian soldiers are armed with weapons, ranging from repeating rifles to ancient rifles, and half with bows and arrows. The short and short Indian bow is designed to be used from horses on and off at short distances, but is virtually worthless against distant or well-fortified foes. Ammunition is not widely available. Indian warriors have traditionally fought for individual prestige, rather than strategic goals, although Crazy Horse appears to have invested in Sioux some sense of collective effort. Cheyenne is the most centralized and best organized of Indian Plains. The Sioux and Cheyenne are also at war with their old enemies, Crow and Shoshoni, who spend much of their resources.
To combat Sioux, US forces have a series of bastions that trap the Great Sioux Reserves and unshakeable territory. The largest troops facing India at one time were in the summer of 1876 and consisted of 2,500 troops deployed in unadulterated territory and accompanied by hundreds of Indian scouts and civilians. Many of the soldiers were new immigrants and inexperienced at the border and in Indian warfare. The Cavalry soldiers were armed with one-caliber and.45-caliber revolvers, the Springfield Model 1873, a one-shot, load-laden rifle that gave the soldiers a great advantage within the reach of most of the Indian arms.
Launch war
Grant and his government began to consider alternatives to failed diplomatic efforts. In early November 1875, Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan, commander of the Missouri Division, and Brigadier General George Crook, commander of the Platte Department, were summoned to Washington, DC to meet with Grant and several members of his cabinet to discuss the Black Hills issue. They agreed that the Army should stop driving offenders from reservation, paving the way for the Black Hills Gold Rush. In addition, they discussed to start military action against Lakota and Northern Cheyenne bands who refused to come to Indian institutions for the council. Indian Inspector, Erwin C. Watkins supports this option. "The correct policy in my judgment," he wrote, "is to send troops against them in the winter, the sooner the better, and whip them to bow."
Concerned about launching the war against Lakota without provocation, the government instructed Indian agents in the region to notify all Lakota and Sioux to return to the reservation on January 31, 1876, or face potential military action. US agents at the Standing Rock Agency expressed concern that this is insufficient time for the Lakota to respond, due to limited winter travel. His request to extend the deadline was declined. General Sheridan considers the notice to be a waste of time. "The matter of telling the Indians to come may be good to put on paper," he commented, "but it will most likely be considered a good joke by the Indians."
Meanwhile, on the council board of non-treaty bands, Lakota's leader seriously discussed the notice to return. Short Bull, a member of the Soreback Band of the Oglala, later recalls that many bands gathered on the Tongue River. "About a hundred people came out of the agency to persuade hostile people to come by pretending that the issue of the Black Hills should be solved," he said. "... All enemies agree that because it's too late [in that season] and they have to shoot for ride [ie, buffalo hunt] they will come to the agency next spring."
When the Jan. 31 deadline passed, the new Indian Affairs Commissioner John Q. Smith wrote that "without receiving news about the surrender of Sitting Bull, I see no reason why, in the wisdom of Hon, the Secretary of War, military operations against him should not start at once. "His boss, Home Secretary Zachariah Chandler agrees, adding that" the Indians are hereby submitted to the War Department for such actions on the Army's side as you deem fit in this situation. " On February 8, 1876, General Sheridan sent telegram General Crook and Terry, ordering them to start their winter campaign against the "enemy", thus starting the Great Sioux War of 1876-77.
Reynolds' Campaign
While General Terry quit, General Crook immediately launched his first attack. He sent Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds with six cavalry companies, who founded a village of about 65 loge and attacked on the morning of March 17, 1876. Crook accompanied the column but did not play any command role. His troops initially controlled and burned the village, but they quickly retreated under enemy fire. US troops leave some soldiers on the battlefield, an act that led to military court Colonel Reynolds. The US captured a band of horse bands, but the next day, Lakota recovered many of their horses in attack. At that time, the Army believed they had attacked Crazy Horse; However, it is actually the North Cheyenne village (led by Old Bear, Two Moons and White Bull) with some Oglala (led by He Dog.)
Summer expedition
In the late spring of 1876, a much larger campaign was launched. From Fort Abraham Lincoln march in Dakota Column, ordered by General Alfred Terry, with 15 companies or about 570 people, including Custer and all 12 companies of the Seventh Cavalry. The Montana column, ordered by Colonel John Gibbon, leaves Fort Ellis. General Crook ordered the third column leaving Fort Fetterman to head north. The plan is that all three columns gather simultaneously at the Lakota hunting ground and pinch the Indians between the approaching troops.
Battle of the Rosebud
Column General Crook was the first to make contact with the northern bands in the Battle of Rosebud on 17 June. While Crook claimed victory, most historians noted that the Indians had effectively examined his progress. Thus the Battle of Rosebud is at least a tactical draw if not a victory for the Indians. After that General Crook remained in the camp for several weeks waiting for reinforcements, basically taking his column out of the battle for a significant period of time.
Battle of Little Bighorn
Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry were ordered out of the main Dakota Column to spy the Rosebud and Big Horn valleys. On June 25, 1876, they met a large village on the west bank of Little Bighorn. US forces were seriously beaten in the Battle of Little Bighorn and nearly 270 people were killed, including Custer. Custer separated his troops shortly before the battle and the direct command of his company's five cavalry was destroyed without any survivors. Two days later, a joint force consisting of Colonel Gibbon columns, along with Terry headquarters staff and Dakota Field infantry, reached the area and saved survivors of the Reno-Benteen struggle. Gibbon then headed his troops east, chasing footsteps but could not engage Sioux and Cheyenne fighters in battle.
Battle of Lean Buttes
Reinforced with the Fifth Cavalry, General Crook took to the field. Relating briefly to General Terry, he immediately moved on his own but did not find the big village. In short supply, the column turned south and made what Horsemeat called March to a mining settlement for food. On September 9, 1876, a company advanced from its column on the way to Deadwood to get supplies stumbled in a small village on Slim Buttes, which they attacked and looted. Crazy Horse knew about the attack in the village and the next day led a counter-attack, which was repulsed. After reaching Camp Robinson, Crook's troops disbanded.
Crackdown in agency
After Custer's defeat at Little Bighorn, the Army changed his tactics. They increased the number of troops in Indian institutions. That fall, they tied most of the troops to the Army for operations. They confiscated horses and guns belonging to a friendly band at the agency, for fear they would be given to the fighting northern bands. In October 1876, Army troops surrounded Red Cloud and Red Leaf villages. They capture and imprison leaders shortly, asking them to take responsibility for failing to hand over the people who arrived at the camp from hostile bands. The US sent other commissions to the agencies. According to historian Colin Calloway, "Congress passed a law that extinguished all Lakota rights outside of the Great Sioux Reservation."
Mackenzie campaign
Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie and his Fourth Cavalry were transferred to the Platte Department after the defeat at Little Bighorn. Originally stationed at Camp Robinson, they formed the core of the Powder River Expedition which departed in October 1876 to search for villages in the north. On November 25, 1876, his column found and defeated the North Cheyenne village in the Dull Knife Battle of the Wyoming Territory. With their loge and inventory destroyed and their horses confiscated, North Cheyenne soon surrendered. They hope to be allowed to live with Sioux in the north. They are pressed to move to a South Cheyenne reservation in the Indian Territory. After a difficult council, they agreed to leave.
When they arrive at a shelter in Oklahoma right now, the conditions are very difficult: inadequate rations, no buffalo living near reservation places, and malaria. A portion of the Northern Cheyenne, led by Little Wolf and Dull Knife, attempted to return northward in the fall of 1877 in the Northern Cheyenne Exodus. They made it to the north. After they were divided into two bands, led by Dull Knife were arrested and imprisoned in an unheated barracks at Fort Robinson without food or water. When Cheyenne escaped on January 9, 1878, many were killed at the hands of the US Army in the ensuing Fort Robinson massacre. Eventually the US government gave Northern Northern reservation Northern Cheyenne, North Cheyenne Reservation in southern Montana today.
Miles Campaign
Another strategy of the US Army is to place troops deep within the heart of the Lakota Region. In the autumn of 1876, Colonel Nelson A. Miles and the Fifth Infantry established Canton on the Tongue River (later renamed Fort Keogh) from where he operated throughout the winter of 1876-77 against every enemy he could find. In January 1877, he fought Crazy Horse and many other bands in Battle of Wolf Mountain. In the following months, his troops fought in Lakota on Clear Creek, Spring Creek, and Ash Creek. Miles's campaign continues to encourage a number of Northern Cheyenne and Lakota to surrender or sneak across the border into Canada. Miles then ordered the US Army during the Spanish-American War.
Annexation
The Treaty of 1877 (19 Stat, 254, enacted Feb. 28, 1877) officially took the land of Sioux and a permanently established Indian reservation.
Diplomatic efforts
While military leaders began planning a spring campaign against Lakota and Northern Cheyenne that refused entry, a number of diplomatic efforts were being made in an effort to end the war.
"Sell or Starve"
After the defeat at the Battle of Little Bighorn in June 1876, Congress responded by attaching what Sioux called "selling or starving" the riders (19 Stat. 192) to the Indian Appropriations Act of 1876 (enacted Aug. 15, 1876) which cut all rations to Sioux until they end hostilities and hand over the Black Hills to the United States.
George Sword Mission
As the winter passed, rumors reached Camp Robinson that the northern bands were interested in giving up. The commanding officer sent a peace delegation. About 30 youths, mostly Oglala and North Cheyenne, departed from the Red Cloud Agency on January 16, 1877 to make dangerous journeys to the north. Among the most prominent members of this delegation is a young Ogala named Enemy Bait (better known later as George Sword). He is the son of a courageous brave tribal chief. The delegate found Crazy Horse in the Powder River, but found no indication that he was ready to surrender. Other nearby Oglala camps, however, were more willing to hear the message and seriously considered giving in to agencies. In late February, some delegates went on to find Northern Cheyenne, where they delivered the same message.
Spotted Tail Mission
The influential Brulee's Spotted Tail chief also agreed to lead the peace delegation out to meet the "enemy". Departing from his agency on February 12, 1877 with about 200 people, the Spotted Tail moved north along the eastern edge of the Black Hills. They soon discover the great village of Minneconjou under Touch the Clouds, near Short Pine Hills in Little Missouri River. After several days of council, they agreed to go in and surrender at the Spotted Tail Agency.
The Spotted Tail's delegation went on to the Little Powder River, where they met Minneconjou, Sans Arc, Oglala and several Northern Cheyenne, including leaders such as Black Shield, Fast Bull, Lame Deer and Roman Nose. Most of these bands also agreed to enter the Spotted Tail Agency to surrender. Crazy Horse is not in the camp, but his father gives the horse to the members of the delegation, as evidence that the warlord Oglala is ready to surrender.
Johnny Brughier's Mission
Not to be outdone by General Crook's diplomatic efforts, Colonel Miles sent a peace initiative from Tongue River Cantonment. Scout Johnny Brughier, assisted by two captive Cheyenne ladies, finds the North Cheyenne village in Little Bighorn. They met on the council for a few days. His efforts will cause a large contingent of Northern Cheyenne to finally surrender in Tongue River Cantonment.
Red Cloud Mission
On April 13, the second delegation departed from the Red Cloud Agency, led by the renowned Oglala leader Red Cloud, with nearly 70 other members from various bands. The delegation met with the Crazy Horse people on their way to the agency to surrender and accompany them along the driveway.
Surrenders
Sustained military campaigns and intensive diplomatic efforts finally began to bear fruit in the early spring of 1877 as a large number of northern bands began to surrender. In April 1877, an assistant to General Crook wrote to a friend: "I am now completely satisfied that the great Sioux War is now over and we will have once again a chance to have peace." A large number of Northern Cheyenne, led by Dull Knife and Standing Elk, surrendered at the Red Cloud Agency on April 21, 1877. They were sent to the Indian Territory the following month. Touch Cloud and Roman Nose arrived with the band in Spotted Tail Agency. Crazy Horse surrendered with his band in Red Cloud on May 5th.
Death of Crazy Horse
Oglala's respected leader Crazy Horse spent several months with his band at the Red Cloud Agency in the midst of an intense political environment. Fearing he would escape, the Army moved around his village and captured the leader on September 4, 1877. The Mad Horse slipped away to the Spotted Tail Agency. The next day, Crazy Horse was brought back to Camp Robinson with the promise that he could meet with the postal commander. Instead, he was taken to a guardhouse that was being held. During his struggle to escape, he was conquered by a soldier.
Flights to Canada
While many Lakota people surrender at agencies along the Missouri River or in northwestern Nebraska, Sitting Bull leads a large contingent across the international border into Canada. General Terry was part of a delegation sent to negotiate with the band, hoping to persuade them to surrender and return to the US, but they refused.
Not until the buffalo is completely exhausted, and problems begin to surface with other indigenous tribes in Canada, whether they end up coming back. In 1880-81, most of the Lakota of Canada surrendered in Fort Keogh and Fort Buford. US forces transferred them by steamboat to the Standing Rock Agency in the summer of 1881.
Aftermath
The Great Sioux War of 1876-77 contrasted sharply with the Red Cloud War that fought a decade earlier. During the 1860s, the Lakota leaders enjoyed widespread support from their band for battle. By contrast, in 1876-77, nearly two-thirds of all Lakota had settled in Indian institutions to receive allotments and obtain subsistence. Such bands do not support or participate in combat.
The deep political divisions within the Lakota continued into the initial reservation period, affecting indigenous politics for decades. In 1889-90, the emergence of the Dance Ghost movement found most of its followers among non-agency bands who had fought in the Great Sioux War.
While the population is much more numerous, bands in Lakota are generally independent and make separate decisions about warfare. Many bands are allied with Cheyenne, and there is inter-ethnic marriage. An alternative view is that lowland Indians consider the war of 1876-77 as "The Great Cheyenne War".
References
External links
- Map: Prelude to the Great Sioux War of 1876
- Map: The Beginning of Little Bighorn Campaign
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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