Exploring American History
Unit VI – A Growing America
Chapter 18
Section 2 – War for the West
Wars for the West
The Big Idea
Native Americans and the U.S. government came
into conflict over land in the West.
Main Ideas
• As settlers moved to the Great Plains, they encountered
the Plains Indians.
• The U.S. Army and Native Americans fought in the
northern plains, the Southwest, and the Far West.
• Despite efforts to reform U.S. policy toward Native
Americans, conflict continued.
Main Idea 1:
As settlers moved to the Great Plains, they
encountered the Plains Indians.
• The U.S. government negotiated treaties with
Plains Indians Plains Indians, including the
Sioux, Pawnee, and Cheyenne, lived by hunting
buffalo.
• Buffalo were used for food, shelter, clothing, and
utensils.
• Conflict grew with the Plains Indians as miners
and settlers increased in number.
Struggle to Keep Land
The Treaty of Fort Laramie
reservations, areas of federal land set aside
for the indian.
Crazy Horse.
1867 Treaty of Medicine Lodge
Main Idea 2:
The U.S. Army and Native Americans fought in the northern
plains, the Southwest, and the Far West.
• When Native Americans resisted
confinement on reservations U.S.
troops forced them to go.
–buffalo soldiers
• Geronimo
Fighting on the Plains
Northern Plains
• In 1876 George
Armstrong
Custer, Crazy
Horse and
Sitting Bull at
the Battle of
Little Bighorn.
• Massacre at
Wounded Knee
in 1890.
Southwest
• Navajo
• Long Walk
Far West
• Nez Percé.
Main Idea 3:
Despite efforts to reform U.S. policy toward
Native Americans, conflict continued.
• Ghost Dance movement
• Sarah Winnemucca,
• Dawes General Allotment Act of
1887
Treatment of Native Americans1820-1850
Treatment of Native Americans1867-1886
• 1867-1886 - 20 years of
war and containment
• 1871- No more treaties
to be made, Indians are
wards of the state
Treatment of Native Americans- 1867-1886
Treatment of Native Americans1887-1934
1889Ghost Dance
Helen Hunt Jackson’s books.
Dawes Act 1887-.
Indian Citizenship Act June 2,
1924
1934- Indian New Deal-
Buffalo
The Ghost Dance- Hope to the
People
Wounded Knee