Following the Civil War, the United States had a large, experienced army that could turn its attention to the “pacification” of the Indian nations in the West. At the same time, the United States was opening up vast tracts of land for non-Indian settlement, thus increasing tensions and violence between the Indians who saw the … Continued
By 1869, the Indian policies of the United States government were largely focused on reservations. It was generally felt that by confining Indians to small reservations out of the way of non-Indian settlement, Indians could be made into English-speaking, Christian farmers. Or they could become extinct. The well-known Indian-fighter General William T. Sherman once defined … Continued
By the last quarter of the nineteenth century, most American Indian cultures had dramatically changed, and many Indian tribes ceased to exist. Many Americans, particularly politicians and academicians, were convinced that American Indians were a vanishing race and would be gone by the first part of the twentieth century. With this in mind, some scientists … Continued
Death Valley, located in California, is the hottest, driest, and lowest place in the United States. It is an area of sand dunes and wilderness. Non-Indian tourism into this desolate region actually began in 1926 and in 1933 President Herbert Hoover created the Death Valley National Monument by Presidential Executive Order. While some saw this … Continued
The Franklin County Historical Society and Museum in Pasco, Washington, includes several displays of American Indian artifacts, both historic and prehistoric. With record to prehistoric American Indians, the museum display mentions the Marmes Rockshelter, which is one of the oldest archaeological sites in the Columbia Plateau. For thousands of years, the ancestors of today’s American … Continued
During the first part of the nineteenth century, the American government policy was to remove Indians from east of the Mississippi River and to “give” them reservations in Indian Territory. The primary argument in favor of Indian removal claimed that European Christian farmers could make more efficient use of the land than the Indian heathen … Continued
During the nineteenth century, the United States had attempted to settle all Indians on well-defined reservations on lands deemed unsuitable for non-Indian development. Here Indians were to remain until they became extinct or had fully assimilated into the Christian American lifestyle. By the end of the nineteenth century, the government began the process of dismantling … Continued
When Ulysses S. Grant became President of the United States in 1869, the Indian Office (also known as the Indian Service, and the Indian Bureau) was generally seen as the most corrupt branch of the American government. The Office of Indian Affairs in the Department of the Interior was headed by the Commissioner of Indian … Continued
In 1719, the French were continuing their exploration of North America. Historian William Eccles, in his chapter in North American Exploration. Volume 2: A Continent Defined, explains: “In the eighteenth century the French had four main aims in their thrust into the Far West: to discover new supplies of furs; to find new tribes to … Continued
Indians, according to the non-Indian social philosophers, bureaucrats, and politicians of the nineteenth century, were going to simply disappear by the end of the century or in the early twentieth century. Many history books about Indians stop their stories at the end of the nineteenth century adding to the illusion that Indians somewhat stopped being … Continued
