Extermination Of The Plaines Indians Essay, Research Paper
Extermination of the Plains Indians
The Plains Indians in the early nineteenth century, numbered approximately
250,000. The Zuni, Hopi, Navaho, Pawnee, Sioux, Apache, and Cheyenne were the
major tribes of the West. By the late nineteenth century the Indians were reduced to
roughly 10,000. Because of new technological advances and new industries, America
expanded to the Mid-West. The railroad caused thousands of people to move west
therefore reducing the number of Plains Indians and partly destroying their culture. The
decline of the Plains Indians were caused by three primary factors: the transcontinental
railroad, the decrease of the buffalo, and war with the white Americans.
Easy access to the West, because of the railroad, introduced a new way of life for
Americans; consequently, the process destroyed the buffalo, essential to Indian survival.
The buffalo supplied the basic necessities of life. The Indians used the meats as food, the
hides for shelter, and the bones for tools. About 13 million buffalo roamed the Plains
before the arrival of the white settlers. Due to the railroad, the settlers nearly made the
buffalo extinct. To the “superior” white man, the buffalo interfered with construction and
derailed trains. Cattle ranching, mining, and farming appeared in the West since the rail
as finished. Cattle ranchers shipped the buffalo northeast to be sold. The discovery of
gold attracted thousands of people to the West by rail, contributing to the decline of the
buffalo. Mining coal and steel were needed for the railroads to operate, and the Indians
interfered because of their reverence to the land. Furthermore, the whites had no respect
for the Indians? sacred lands. The confrontations between the settlers and Indians lead to
war.
Violent battles between the American Government and the Indians greatly reduced
the Indian population. The Indians had no concept of land ownership causing
misunderstandings between the natives and the settlers. To the Indian, owning land was
like owning the air we breath. The Indians unintentionally wandered onto settlers? land to
hunt for food. Settlers in the West took trespassing seriously and bloody confrontations
were frequently occurring. Anglo-American culture is competitive and individualistic.
The plains Indians lived in tribes and placed the well-being of the tribe over the
prosperity of the individual. Therefore, with the huge cultural differences, fighting between
the Indians and the settlers was inevitable. This led to Congress taking action with troops
to protect the lives of the settlers. Whites viewed the Indians as a barrier to the American
expansion. The Indians were slaughtered in many different battles, and in the end, the
Indians were reduced to an unthreatening number.
As a result, the United States, after reducing the Indian population so they were not
a threat, changed their policy to ethnocide. Congress wanted to assimilate the Indians
into American society by destroying the Plains Indians? culture. The Dawes Severity Act
was passed as an attempt to assimilate the Indians. The Act divided the reservations into
individual pieces of land to break up the tribes. Schools were built to teach Indian
children the customs of Americans and the English language. American sports were even
taught to the Indians. The Snyder Act was passed in 1924, which made all Indians born
in the United States citizens. This was the last action taken by Congress. The
Congressmen believed they had assimilated the Indians into American society. The
schools failed to destroy Indian culture completely, but the government believed it had
done its job.
The Indians lost millions of acres originally given to them because they did not
understand the meaning of private property. The Indians fought off the white man for
almost two hundred years, but the completion of the railroad brought the people to the
West in huge numbers. The government took necessary action to protect its citizens
which resulted in the Indians culture being partially destroyed.