Cowboys and Indians. Of all the tragedies that have befallen America, from slavery to debacles in foreign policy, none is perhaps as relentlessly sad as the plight of the Indians. In 1860 the territory west of the Mississippi contained 60% of America’s land but only 4% of the population. Some 250,000 Indians roamed the Great Plains or lived in settled communities in that area. Before the Civil War they were able to stave off some of the advance of the white man, or at least to keep certain areas to themselves; but once the Civil War ended, the great land rush began to overwhelm them.

The history of the interaction between Indians and whites began with Columbus. The story is a long, tragic tale of duplicity, greed, relentless shoving, land grabs, insensitivity, xenophobia and ultimately genocide. The Indians were not without their admirers and defenders, but even “humanitarian” plans to assist Indians often backfired by giving them what they did not want or need. The Indians could have defended themselves, and often tried to do so. Yet they were unable to unify because of their cultural diversity, and thus were divided and conquered. Europeans and Americans made many mistakes in dealing with Indians. They never fully understood the Indians, and many whites still don’t to this day.

First, whites never understood the complexity and diversity of Indian life and culture. There were hundreds of tribes in North America. They differed more from each other in many cases than did the various ethnic groups that came to America from Europe. Second, whites never fully understood the Indians’ relationship to the land. For many Indians the concept of land “ownership” was foreign or even profane. Indians felt land was there for use, not abuse (although some tribes practiced “slash and burn” agriculture.) They might fight over the use of a piece of land, but not over permanent ownership. Unlimited right of occupancy is not the same thing as sovereignty, a concept alien to Indian thinking.

The building of the transcontinental railroads and their branches was the beginning of the end for the Indians’ way of life. By 1900 they had been reduced to often pitiful relics of a once free and proud people. What happened was not unavoidable, but there was a certain inevitability about the tragedy stemming from cultural insensitivity. Misunderstanding and error existed on both sides, and although the moral claim against the white settlers and the government is strong and irrefutable, the Indians managed at times to make things worse for themselves. That is not to say in any way that the Indians were responsible for what happened—they were victims by any definition—but if they had been more clever, or perceptive, or if they had put aside inter-tribal animosities and organized themselves, they might have been able to reduce the damage. The Indians have told their own story—sadly and eloquently—but perhaps the best thing that can be said about the history of the American Indian is that it is not yet over. (See Indian Stories, Appendix.)

Indian warfare operated under different rules from those of Europe, and that created further misunderstanding and hatred. Indians were hard fighters who felt that a brave enemy was a worthy opponent, and that those who could withstand pain were the bravest of all. That aspect in Indian fighting often struck the Europeans as torture. Captured enemy warriors were “allowed” to die in painful ways in order to demonstrate their courage. Further, the wearing of enemy clothing was for Indians a sign of respect, but it was seen by American soldiers as a sign of contempt or mockery when Indians donned the uniforms of captured or slain U.S. Army troops or officers.

Capturing enemy women and children was a method Indians sometimes used to increase their own tribes, a practice they felt necessary as a result of losses from warfare or disease. Paradoxically, Indians loved children, but often kidnapped them. Captured women, including whites, were often welcomed into the tribe as brothers or sisters and were generally treated kindly.

Trying to convert Indians to agriculture was often a failure. Many Indian males considered farming women’s work, and refused to do it. (That fact also made Indians in colonial times quite useless as slaves; they were quick to escape and difficult to recover.) Those who tried farming, for example, were scorned and even attacked by others. In one case when government agents tried to teach a tribe how to plow up the ground in order to plant crops, the Indians rejected the advice. The tribe worshiped the earth, and their leaders responded, “Would I stick a knife in my mother’s breast?” The agent tried another tack by suggesting burning off the surface grass before planting. To that suggestion the Indians responded, “Would we set fire to our mother’s hair?”

Many attempts were made to convert Indians to Christianity, sometimes with apparent success. But in the end, as one historian of Indian culture has said, it is very difficult to convert Indians into anything other than Indians!

Just as Indians have been called “Americanizers” of the European settlers, so were the Indians profoundly changed by their contact with whites. The four factors introduced by whites that most influenced the Indians were:

• Disease: The arrival of the Europeans meant the arrival of diseases to which the Indians had not developed immunity. The results were devastating.
• Horses: The Spaniards introduced the horse to the Indians, and one historian has called it “a marriage made in heaven.” The horse transformed the life of the Plains Indians in much the same way that the automobile changed modern people’s lives.
• Guns: The bow and arrow in the hands of an Indian brave was a powerful weapon—an Indian hunter could drive an arrow through the thick body of a buffalo while riding rapidly across the prairie. But rifles could shoot farther and do more damage, and Indians got them whenever and wherever they could.
• Whiskey: Indians did not know how to handle whiskey, and the spread of alcoholism among Indian males is a problem that has persisted into modern times.

None of those were necessarily deliberately introduced to hurt or help Indians, except for alcohol. American “diplomacy,” however, was deliberate. It failed by treating Indian tribes as if they were sovereign, European-style nations. Chiefs were not “political” leaders in the sense that presidents and kings are political leaders. True, they often followed quasi-democratic processes in electing chiefs or sachems, but the chiefs did not have the power (nor the right, perhaps) to sign treaties that bound all the members of their tribes. Even if they wanted to, Indian chiefs who signed treaties could not enforce them, nor could they control all their members, any more than the U.S. government could keep miners and settlers off the reservations. Because they were an additional obstacle to further white migration, the Native Americans lost their lands despite their attempts to defend it, and their cultures were radically changed by the end of the 19th century. By 1867 many of the nearly a quarter of a million Indians in the western half of the U.S. were originally from the East, displaced by relentless waves of settlers. Others were native to the region, with cultures suited to their environments. By the 1880s, confrontations with still more white settlers had driven the Indians onto increasingly smaller reservations, and diseases introduced by whites had decimated the California Indians and others. By the 1890s the Indian cultures had crumbled.

Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce. The Nez Perce (Indian name Nimi'ipuu) were a peaceful tribe. Although they considered themselves warriors, they did not practice scalping. They lived in northern Idaho and sometimes functioned as intermediaries between western coastal tribes and prairie Indians. They had very strong feelings of attachment to their land, which included the belief that cultivating the earth was wrong. When pressured to move, they refused to give up their territory in Idaho. An old Nez Perce chief named Joseph had a son named Chief Thunder Rolling in the Mountain. who became Young Chief Joseph. One of the most dignified Americans ever, he was a wise and gentle man. When one of his braves was murdered, Joseph pronounced a “life” sentence on the murderer; that is, he pardoned the enemy brave, who would otherwise have been killed.

An early treaty had awarded the Wallowa Valley to the government, but Young Joseph did not want to leave. He had thousands of horses, which equated to wealth, and there was no room for them on the reservation. Joseph agreed to leave the reservation, but hundreds of his horses were stolen, and in retaliation, 18 whites were killed. Joseph turned out to be a prodigious fighter who was pursued by General O. O. Howard. Joseph finally decided to lead his band to Canada, and fought his way over 1000 “mountain miles.” Joseph’s chiefs included Looking Glass, White Bird and Ta Hool Hool Shute. Although the Nez Perce fought with great skill, they were finally obliged to surrender about 30 miles from the Canadian border. Finally willing to stop fighting, Joseph made a speech that was recorded by an Army officer in General Howard’s command.

Chief Joseph’s Speech

“Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before I have in my heart. I am tired of fighting. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. Ta Hool Hool Shute who led the young men is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food; no one knows where they are—perhaps freezing to death. I want to have some time to look for my children, and see how many I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs, I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.”

Chief Joseph
Smithsonian Institution

Today the population of the Nez Perce tribe is approximately 3,400. The tribal reservation is located in Lapwai, Idaho. You can find information about the Nez Perce on their website (www.nezperce.org), as you can for hundreds of other Native American tribes as well.

Sitting Bull in 1878

Little Bighorn. In 1876 one of the most famous Indian battles took place along the Little Bighorn River in Montana. Colonel George Armstrong Custer attacked a band of Sioux Indians under Chief Sitting Bull, not realizing that he was badly outnumbered. Custer had divided his command into three groups, and his 210 troops of the 7th Cavalry became isolated. They were overrun by a combined force of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians. Custer and all of his men were killed in one of the worst defeats in the history of the U.S. Army. For years the Indian side of the battle was not well known, and the historic site was known as the Custer Battlefield. The story was passed down orally among Sioux and Cheyenne tribesman, however, and in 1996 the National Park Service, recognizing the need to honor Native American history, changed the name of the site of the Little Bighorn Battlefield. Today visitors to the site can hear stories told by Native Americans as part of the presentations of the historic event.

Three excellent books on the epic battle:

• Son of the Morning Star: Custer and The Little Bighorn by Evan S. Connell
• Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors by Stephen E. Ambrose
• Sitting Bull: The Life and Times of an American Patriot by Robert M. Utley

1850

Whites outnumber Indians by 20 million (mostly east of the Mississippi) to about 360,000. By now the idea of a well-defined reservation is accepted, but railroads cut into reservation territory. Gold rushes also put whites and Indians into conflict, as do growing numbers of immigrants who cross the Atlantic by steamship.

1851

Great Council at Fort Laramie arranged by Thomas Fitzpatrick (Broken Hand). Attended by 8-12,000 Indians—Shoshone, Sioux, Crow, Arikara, Assiniboins, Arapahoes, etc. Twenty days of meetings. Indians warned not to attack settlers on Oregon Trail, avoid fights with each other. U.S. will maintain forts along the trail and provide $50,000 per year in food, etc. Chiefs accept boundaries and promise to be tolerant of settlers, but then the gold rush gears up.

1853

1861-65

1864

1865-70

Radicals in Congress try to resolve Indian question fairly. Reformers, many of them former abolitionists, see Indians as "noble savages" and reservations as "prisons" into which civilization cannot penetrate. Others feel Indians can be assimilated like other nationalities. But a majority of Americans feel a reservation policy is the only feasible solution. Regional attitudes toward Indians differ. Westerners just see the savage and are furious at "the foolishly sentimental attitude of eastern reformers." They have seen Indian barbarity first hand—stripping bodies, torture, rape, kidnapping children. Easterners do not blame Indians alone.

1866

1867

1872-74

1870

1871-1872

1874-75

1876-77

1876

1879

1881

1884-86

1886

1887

1890

1901

1906

1887-1934

1980