The American West

1850s: The land was formally recognized as belonging to the Cheyenne and Arapaho nations through formal treaties.
1851: Treaty of Fort Laramie acknowledged Cheyenne and Arapaho land rights.
Gold Rush settlers pressured the government to renegotiate with the Cheyenne and Arapaho for land reduction.
1860: A new treaty limited land but kept most of Eastern Colorado under Cheyenne and Arapaho control.
Some Cheyenne and Arapaho leaders refused to recognize the new boundaries and raided white homes, stole stock, and committed acts of violence towards white settlers.

1864: The Huncate family was murdered in Eastern Colorado.
Governor of Colorado Territory, John Evans, displayed the bodies in Denver, inciting terror and panic among white settlers.
Calls for the extermination of native people on the frontier emerged.
John Evans received permission from the war department to recruit volunteers to resolve the Indian war.
Evans aimed to "exterminate hostile native people."
Distinguishing between "friendly" and "hostile" native people was difficult.
Many native people wanted peace but resisted white encroachment.

Evans raised the third Colorado Cavalry.
Cheyenne and Arapaho leaders recognized the danger.
Black Kettle and White Antelope sought peace with Governor Evans.
Evans, a Methodist minister and abolitionist, viewed native people as a threat to white settlers.
Evans led the regiment under the assumption that native people were hostile.
Black Kettle and White Antelope were camping peacefully when targeted.
Shimmington spun a narrative that they were there to cause violence.
Black Kettle escaped.
Differing Narratives: Three accounts emerged after the event.
- Shimmington claimed it was a battle, not a massacre.
- Others recognized it as a massacre and genocidal campaign.

The Sand Creek Massacre was a bloody war spawned by continental expansion.
Shimmington described it as a genocidal campaign that required an official report.
Important prelude for future violence, tension, and debates over who tells the history of continental expansion.
The narrative of who gets to tell the history reveals power dynamics in the country.

Expansion represented the creation of political democracy and economic mobility.
People moved west to find new land and build their lives.
Manifest Destiny: The belief that Americans had a righteous project to occupy the entirety of the continent.
The federal government created new organized territories and political governments that later became states.
The West was diverse in terms of geography and people.
Foreign-born immigrants accounted for about half the population in the West in the 1870s and 1890s.
California and Texas had been settled by the Spanish and Mexicans.
Immigrants from China, Italy, and Greece settled in San Francisco and Seattle.
Europeans from Sweden and Germany moved from the Midwest to various Western states.

The Homestead Act: Encouraged people to move west.
Required settlers to improve the land over five years to gain property rights.
Enticed people to move to Kansas, Missouri, Colorado, and other Western states.
The General Land Office dispersed 500,000,000 acres between 1860 and 1900.
- Much of the land went to railroads and industry.
Railroads facilitated westward settlement.
The federal government offered land to railroads and made railroad travel easier.

The federal government attempted to use Reconstruction templates to "pacify" native people.
Clashes emerged between the federal government (through the army) and native people.
Comanches had their own empire stretching from Southern Colorado to Northern Mexico.
A series of forts were established for trading and military purposes.

Whites moved west to trade in bison hides for industrial purposes.
Native people used bison for various purposes.
The U.S. government aimed to starve native people to conform to a vision of individual farms and agriculture by decimating Bison populations.
The goal was to impose a new way of life on native people.

Grant's Peace Policy established reservations.
Reservations were bounded acreage where native people were moved and expected to live, relinquishing claims to former territory.
Reservations were generally established under executive order.
The military confined native people and removed them from their homelands.
Chief Joseph: Chief Joseph became a sympathetic figure due to published speeches highlighting the hypocrisy of the U.S. government's treatment of native people.
A quote attributed to Chief Joseph underscores the conflict between American ideals of equality and freedom and the constraints placed on native people.

Part of Grant's larger Peace Policy.
Allotted land to individual Native Americans:
- One quarter of a section to each head of family.
- One eighth of a section to each single person over 18 years of age.
- One eighth of a section to each orphan child under 18 years of age.
- One sixteenth of a section to each other single person under 18, now living or who may be born prior to the date of the order of the president directing an allotment
The U.S. government could purchase and release lands from the tribe.
Lands adapted to agriculture would be sold or released to the United States for the sole purpose of securing homes to actual settlers in tracks not exceeding 160 acres to any one person
Funds from land sales would be held in the treasury for the education and civilization of the tribes.
Native Americans who voluntarily took up residence separate from any tribe and adopted the habits of civilized life were declared citizens of the United States.
The act aimed to eradicate what many white Americans saw as a disappearing race.
The act divided tribal lands into 160-acre parcels for distribution.
Native Americans were encouraged to adopt a more "Americanized" appearance, including cutting their hair and wearing non-native clothing.
These policies have lasting legacies.

After the Sand Creek Massacre, the U.S. Army collected bones and skulls of native people and soldiers to ship back to the Army Medical Museum.
The Army Medical Museum was founded during the Civil War.
The museum perpetuated the idea that Native American people had different-sized skulls and different size related to their intelligence.
Based on the false assumptions of a hierarchy within the human race.

The Cheyenne and Arapaho nations reclaimed and repatriated the bones of ancestors.
Advocacy and activism resulted in new laws protecting native graves and cultural objects.