Conflict and tension Flashcards

All 7 cards in this deck

What was the 'Permanent Indian Frontier'?

A line, guaranteed by the US government in 1834, west of which the land was set aside for Indigenous peoples and white Americans were not to settle.

What did the first Fort Laramie Treaty (1851) agree?

Tribes allowed settlers safe passage and US roads and forts on their land; each tribe was given a set territory and promised $50,000 a year.

What did the Indian Appropriations Act (1851) do?

It created the reservation system, confining Indigenous peoples to reservations and forcing them off their traditional lands.

Give one reason why early mining towns and settlements in the West were lawless.

They were hundreds of miles from the nearest government, with no law officers, courts or prisons.

What were vigilance committees (vigilantes)?

Groups of citizens who took the law into their own hands, catching and often hanging suspects without a proper trial, e.g. in San Francisco in 1851.

How did the growing number of migrants on the Oregon Trail increase tension with the Indigenous peoples of the Plains?

Wagon trains along the trail scattered the buffalo, so tribes went hungry and fought each other more over hunting grounds; settlers saw these war parties as a danger to themselves and called on the government for army protection.

What were miners' courts?

Courts that miners set up themselves in remote mining camps, with an experienced miner chosen as judge, to settle disputes over claims such as claim jumping (seizing another man's claim).