Indigenous peoples of the Plains: the destruction of their ways of life Flashcards

All 9 cards in this deck

Give one reason the buffalo were hunted almost to extinction by the 1880s.

A new tanning process (1871) made buffalo hides valuable for industrial leather, so professional hunters killed millions and the railroads carried the hides east.

How did the loss of the buffalo give the US government control over Indigenous peoples on reservations?

With no buffalo to hunt, they became reliant on government supplies, which could be used as a form of control.

Give one consequence of the removal of the buffalo for white settlement of the Plains.

The Plains could be exploited for cattle ranching.

Give two features of life for Indigenous peoples on the reservations.

Land was poor and unsuitable for farming, and they depended on government rations handed out by Indian agents.

How did boarding schools affect Indigenous children on the reservations?

Children were taken to be taught English and white American ways, and were banned from using their own language and customs.

What did the Dawes Act (1887) do?

It broke up communal reservation land into individual allotments for Indigenous families, with the rest sold to white settlers.

Give one consequence of the Dawes Act (1887) for Indigenous land.

Within ten years they had lost half their land, as unallocated reservation land was freed up for white settlers.

Roughly how many buffalo were left on the Plains by the mid-1880s?

Only a few hundred, down from many millions in the 1840s.

Give one way the US government reduced the power of chiefs on the reservations.

Either: from 1871 it stopped making treaties with chiefs; or from 1883 special courts, not chiefs, judged and punished offenders on the reservations.