Another main reason that saw the collapse of the Indians was the discovery of gold in Colorado and Montana in 1858, which was also found years later in the Black Hills in 1874. Both significant events brought thousands of miners onto the Plains, which inevitably destroyed the Plains Indians’ land. The rapid development of the mines broke existing treaties and encouraged miners and the Plains Indians into direct conflict. This then led to a military intervention which intertwined with the Indians religious beliefs and the destruction of land in the surrounding areas. This would have been quite scary for some of the Indians as most of them would have lacked sufficient equipment and the fair use of technology, for example some of the weapons and equipment that was used to develop the mines would have never have seen by the Indians before. This is definitely a main cause because if the gold or gold mines were never to be found then the two causes below would have also been prevented.
The US government, on the whole supported homesteaders, miners and ranchers, as opposed to the Indians themselves. The money granted by the government was often given to those who were in less need of it, for example less money was spent on the Indians’ reservations which would have enabled them to carry on living traditionally. Instead of this the money was spent on the encouraged development of the mining industry. The system of reservations used by the government, were used to control the Indians and prevent any conflict between the two sides. At the time this may have seemed like a good idea, removing all sense of the Indians lifestyle; for example their weapons and freedom. They were then banned from leaving the reservations at any time, and so forth the government had taken away their power to resist. These two causes are linked together, because if the US government hadn’t of decided to be in favour of the homesteaders, then no reservations would have been set up in the first place. Enabling the Indians to win back what land was rightly theirs before hand.
As soon as the government received any confirmation of conflict, the US army would have been sent in to help control the attacks. The US army were far too powerful for the Indians, which made it very challenging for them to fight back. The system of forts gave the US army bases total authority in which to control the Great Plains and the people living on them, i.e. the Indians, homesteaders and/or miners. The introduction of such strategies would have suspended any of the Indian tactics and would have prevented them from being able to fight the army on equal terms. Usually the Indians always appeared to be less armed than the army as a whole; every soldier which was involved was either armed with a rifle or a Gatling gun which looking back at the event would now seem extremely unfair. By the end of the American civil war all hope of winning back what was rightly the Indians home, was already beginning to look what was thought to be impossible.
Another significant factor which contributed to the Indians loss was the extermination of thousands upon thousands of the buffalo that lived on the Plains. Not only were the buffalo very important to the Indians way of life, but also they were used to make special tools and weapons too. The Indians were completely dependant on the buffalo, for example if the buffalo herd was to move on, the Indians would had to follow them. With the buffalo missing the lifestyles of the Indians were surely going to change too. The spread of cattle ranching across the west was another factor that was just as important which also contributed to the fall of the Indians. The land which they wanted to use for the cattle ranches was the land that the Indians used for their home and also hunting, without any consideration for the Indians or their lives which would be changed. This caused a lot of trouble and eventually forced the Indians to move on and find new land in the Plains.
Another vital reason that saw the collapse of the Indians was the building of the transcontinental railroad which enabled easy access through the Plains from all over America. The builders of the railroads, such as the Union Pacific Railroad Company needed to address their work by selling land grants to homesteaders. Automatically this would have driven the Indians out of their homes. The railroads brought even more buffalo hunters to the Plains because they provided a way of transporting the dead buffalo back to the east. The railroads also supplied the army bases such as Fort Abraham Lincoln, with soldiers and military equipment. This reason is also linked with the extermination of the buffalo because without the use of transport from the Plains to the east, then there would have been no more hunters coming to live on the Plains because there would have been no way of them shipping the buffalo back to the east.
The last main reason that saw the collapse of the Indians was the American ‘Manifest Destiny’. Most of the American population believed that it was their Manifest Destiny to occupy the whole of the continent from one side of America to the other. This is almost a justification or almost a cover up which led to the way they treated the Plains Indians so badly. It also lay behind the mistreatment of other ethnic groups at the time too. ‘Manifest Destiny’ was an important reason because it was almost seen as the American’s guide or a task which had to be seen through. However the reasons such as the arrival of the Homesteaders and the discovery of the gold mines are more primary causes, where as the rest are more secondary causes.
All the reasons above each contributed in someway to the downfall of the Indians living on the Great Plains. Without one the other wouldn’t have happened, each one of the reasons is linked in one way or another. Overall I think that the most significant reason was the development of homesteading. This is because once homesteaders had moved onto the Plains; conflict broke out between them and the Indians causing the rest of the reasons to take place.
