In this essay I will be demonstrating how government policies were the main reason why the Indians lost control of the Great Plains. However I will also show how other factors also contributed

Why did the Indians lose control of the Great Plains?

In this essay I will be demonstrating how government policies were the main reason why the Indians lost control of the Great Plains. However I will also show how other factors also contributed.

Government policies were the main reason the Indians lost control of the Great Plains. This was because the Indians received no money or support from the government and had to fend for themselves. The Indians weren’t seen as American people to the government and they weren’t allowed to live their traditional ways. Also there were many conflicts between Indians and homesteaders, ranchers and miners, and the American government was always against the Indians. Sending in the army to deal with them. The government also promoted the idea of manifest destiny. Americans believed it was their manifest destiny to control the whole continent and people used it as a justification to how they treated the Indians. So it was inevitable that the Americans and Indians would clash and a conflict between the two was unavoidable. The government also promoted the destruction of the buffalo so that they could force the Indians to live on the reservations therefore controlling them. In 1874, Congress passed a bill protecting the buffalo, but president Ulysses S. Grant did not pass it as law. This shows how the government wanted to exterminate so that the Indians would have no food supply and have to live on the reservations. Another government policy that contributed was the timber culture act of 1873. This was a law passed by the government that allowed settlers to have 160 acres of free land provided they planted 40 acres with trees. This contributed because the Indians saw the land as sacred and they thought it belonged to them and conflict was again inevitable.

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Another important reason was the Indian tactics and weapons when fighting the US army. They fought in a completely different way to the army and this cost them many battles. They were unwilling to suffer heavy casualties and they could not replace their loses. Their technology was also a lot less advanced than the armies and in some battles not every Indian had a weapon. Also the conflicts between the Indian nations themselves helped them to lose control of the plains. The Sioux were constantly fighting the Crow and the Pawnee and if the had all formed together they would have had a much better chance at keeping control of the plains. The Indians were also very badly organised. They could never mount a long campaign against the army and bands would often split. The Indian warriors would not be forced into doing something that they did not want to do.

One of the main reasons was the Settlers moving from east to west. This includes the miners, the homesteaders and the ranchers. The reason the miners searching for gold helped lose them control was the fact that the miners would try to dig up what the Indians saw as sacred land. Also when the miners discovered gold in the black hills they immediately hurried there. However the black hills were the Indians most sacred land and they would not give it up without a fight and when they fought the miners the government called in the army to defend the miners and kill the Indians. The ranchers caused conflict because they wanted land for them to graze their cattle on but again it was the Indians land and they would not give it up without a fight and again the army was called in and the Indians were defeated. The homesteaders wanted to fence of their land and this upset the Indians into attacking them. These all link to government policies because every time the government would send in the army to kill the Indians.

The reservations also had a big role in the Indians losing control of the Great Plains. They were very convenient to the US government because once the buffalo were destroyed, the reservations were a way that the Indians could be controlled and they would be completely dependent on Government. Also whilst on the plains the American government began to educate the children. They almost brainwashed them and when they returned they were no longer able to live their traditional ways on the Plains. One factor that didn’t contribute greatly but had an impact on everything was the end of the US civil war. The veterans from the war had know nothing else but fighting and were eager for it to resume. Also they were anxious to live on the plains and the Indians days were numbered.

The Government policies were the biggest reason why the Indians lost control because of Manifest Destiny, the reservations and the destruction of the buffalo. The government were to blame for the extermination of the Indians and how they lost the Great Plains.

By Lewis Belcher