Trail of Tears Era
The forced march of ~16,000 Cherokee to Oklahoma, resulting in over 4,000 deaths
The Trail of Tears
A series of brutal conflicts from the 1850s-1890s to force Plains and Western tribes onto reservations and open land for white settlement.
Key conflicts include the Sand Creek Massacre (1864), Battle of Little Bighorn (1876), and Wounded Knee Massacre (1890).
The Indian Wars
Era defined by policy designed to "civilize" Native Americans by systematically destroying their culture.
Slogan: "Kill the Indian, Save the Man".
Assimilation
The right of a nation or state to self-govern and possess independent authority.
Sovereignty
A peaceful spiritual revival; the government mistook it for a war movement
The Ghost Dance
One of the "Five Civilized Tribes"
The Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, or Seminole
Tribes were confined to small, often undesirable land parcels, losing their traditional lifestyles and food sources. Life here was characterized by poverty and dependence on government rations, and cultural practices were outlawed by the BIA.
Reservation or Reservation System
1887 legislative act designed to break up communal reservation land into individual plots and destroy tribal cohesion
The Dawes Act
A new era of Native American activism and direct action.
Goals: Tribal sovereignty, upholding treaty rights, and self-determination.
Key events: Occupation of Alcatraz (1969-1971) and Wounded Knee (1973).
Red Power
One main reason behind the push for Indian removal in the Southeast during the 1830s?
Land greed, demand for cotton, or the Georgia Gold Rush
The act, signed by President Andrew Jackson, that gave the federal government power to exchange Native-held land in the east for "Indian Territory" west of the Mississippi River.
Indian Removal Act
Strategy used by the U.S. Army regarding buffalo during the Indian Wars. This devastated the Plains tribes.
Encouraged the slaughter of millions of bison to destroy Native economies
Individual plots of land broken up from communally-owned reservation land by the Dawes Act, with the goal of turning Native Americans into independent farmers.
Allotments
A key activist group in the Red Power Movement fighting for sovereignty and treaty rights; founded in 1968.
American Indian Movement (AIM)
A treaty signed in 1835 by a minority faction without authorization from the Cherokee Nation's government. It gave the U.S. the "legal" cover it wanted to seize all Cherokee land prior to the Trail of Tears.
Treaty of New Echota
In 1832, the Supreme Court reversed course and sided with the Cherokee, ruling that Georgia state law had no force inside Cherokee territory. It affirmed tribal sovereignty.
Worcester v. Georgia
1851 legislative act designed to confine tribes to specific parcels of land (reservations)
Indian Appropriations Act
A tool of assimilation in which Native American children are forcibly assimilated by destroying their culture and language.
(Hair was cut, forced to wear military-style uniforms, children sent far from home.)
Indian Boarding Schools
This 1934 legislative act ended the policy of allotment and promoted tribal self-government.
Indian Reorganization Act
Granted U.S. citizenship to all Native Americans. This was passed partially as a reward for the thousands who had served in World War I. (1924)
Indian Citizenship Act or "Indian New Deal"
The 1831 legal case which established that tribes were "domestic dependent nations" rather than foreign states.
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia
The 1890 event where U.S. troops massacred around 300 unarmed Lakota, considered the end of major armed resistance in the Indian Wars.
Wounded Knee Massacre
Phrase that summarized the assimilation policy of the late 19th century.
"Kill the Indian, save the man"
Significant promise in the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty which was violated by the U.S. government.
The guarantee that the Black Hills, sacred to the Lakota, would be part of their reservation.
The most famous event of the Red Power Movement. ~200 Oglala Lakota and AIM activists occupied the town after which this event is named on the Pine Ridge Reservation to protest the corrupt tribal president, Richard Wilson, and the U.S. government's failure to honor treaties.
Wounded Knee (1973)