Lives of Native Americans, 1877–90 (AQA A-Level History): Revision Notes
Lives of Native Americans, 1877–90
By 1880, the majority of Native Americans had been confined to designated reservations. Westward expansion during the late 1870s and 1880s brought further white settlement onto the Plains, producing substantial changes to Native American existence. Seven years after initial settlement, Native Americans held approximately 138 million acres, though much of this territory proved unsuitable for agriculture. The Bureau of Census announced in 1890 that the frontier had closed—no longer could a clear boundary be drawn between frontier and established settlement.
The closure of the frontier in 1890 represented a symbolic turning point in American history, marking the end of westward expansion and the complete confinement of Native American peoples to reservation lands.
Americanisation
Americanisation refers to the deliberate government policy designed to integrate Native Americans into mainstream white American society by abandoning their traditional culture. This transformation required Native Americans to learn English, convert to Christianity, and adopt farming as their primary occupation—often called the "Three E's" of Americanisation: English, Education, and Evangelisation.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (established in 1824 and also known as the Office of Indian Affairs) operated within the War Department to oversee Native American policy and attempted to reduce corruption and mistreatment. President Rutherford B. Hayes renewed reform efforts through this agency. However, even organizations sympathetic to Native American welfare, such as the Indian Rights Association, rejected the continuation of traditional tribal culture. Rather than supporting Native autonomy, reformers promoted complete cultural transformation as the solution to what they termed the "Indian problem."
The Reality of "Reform"
Even well-intentioned reformers sought to eliminate Native American culture entirely rather than protect Native autonomy. This reflected the paternalistic attitudes of the era, where the destruction of tribal identity was seen as a "progressive" solution rather than cultural genocide.
Education and forced assimilation
Education formed the cornerstone of Americanisation. Congress allocated funds to establish boarding schools where Native American children received instruction in English, Christianity, and farming techniques. These institutions deliberately removed children from their families and communities to minimize parental influence and accelerate cultural transformation. The children learned skills and attitudes intended to make them productive citizens within white American society.
Federal investment in this educational programme expanded substantially. By 1899, the government spent $2.5 million annually maintaining 148 boarding schools and 225 day schools serving 20,000 Native American children. This represented a deliberate, systematic effort to eliminate tribal culture within a single generation.
The Dawes General Allotment Act 1887
Americanisation efforts reached their height with the Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887, named after Senator Henry Dawes of Massachusetts. This legislation gave legal authority to a practice already occurring unofficially for many years: dividing communal reservation land into individual private plots.
Provisions
The Act divided reservation territories into small units held by individuals or families:
- Heads of families could receive 160 acres (65 hectares) of farmland or 340 acres of grazing land
- Single male adults received 80 acres
- Native Americans who accepted these allotments and "adopted the habits of civilised life" would be granted US citizenship after 25 years
Many reformers initially praised the legislation as a progressive achievement that would end tribal relationships and promote economic independence through farming.
Implementation and failure
The Dawes Act proved disastrous in practice. The legislation assumed Native Americans could be transformed into farmers, yet it failed at a time of widespread agricultural depression across America. Moreover, no provision ensured that Native Americans received arable land suitable for cultivation. Following the initial allotments, surplus reservation land was sold commercially to white settlers. Most Native Americans possessed little understanding of what the Act required, since the concept of private property ownership contradicted their cultural traditions. Within a short period, most had sold or lost their allocated land to whites and descended into poverty.
Why the Dawes Act Failed
The Act's failure stemmed from multiple factors:
- No guarantee of arable land suitable for farming
- Implementation during agricultural depression
- Private property ownership alien to Native American culture
- Lack of farming knowledge and resources
- Surplus land sold to white settlers
- Most Native Americans lost their allotments and fell into poverty
An 1891 amendment altered the distribution formula, awarding 80 acres to each individual Native American regardless of family status. After this change, conditions on reservations deteriorated rapidly and became thoroughly inadequate.
Chief Joseph's Testimony (1877)
Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé tribe, forced onto a reservation in Oklahoma in 1877, expressed the emptiness of government promises:
"Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do not pay for my country, now overrun by white men. Good words will not give my people good health and stop them from dying. Good words will not get my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves."
This powerful statement captured the betrayal felt by Native Americans as treaty promises proved worthless.
The Battle of Wounded Knee
The final tragedy for Native Americans and military triumph for the US Army occurred in December 1890 when despairing Sioux in South Dakota responded to the teachings of Wovoka. This religious leader promised that performing a ceremonial dance would restore Native lands and power. The Ghost Dance movement spread rapidly across the Plains with such intensity that it alarmed white authorities.
An attempt to arrest Sitting Bull, one of the chiefs encouraging the Ghost Dance, resulted in his death. Bands of Lakota Sioux fled their reservations with the army pursuing them. In December 1890, the nervous Seventh Cavalry fired into a group of Sioux at Wounded Knee. Approximately 200 Sioux—many of them women and children—perished. Thirty-one soldiers also died.
The Nature of Wounded Knee
The "battle" constituted an accident rather than a planned engagement: neither side genuinely wanted to fight. The entire incident, born of mutual distrust, misunderstanding, and fear, epitomized relations between Plains Indians and Americans during the late nineteenth century. It marked the violent end of Native American resistance on the Plains.
Conditions on reservations by 1900
Historian M. Josephy Jr, writing in his 1968 work The Indian Heritage of America, described the reality of reservation life:
"Indian life was marked by poverty, squalor, disease, and hopelessness. In general, Indians received little or no education and were still treated as wards, incapable of self-government or making decisions for themselves. Whatever revenues the tribes received from land sales was dissipated, with virtually none of them going to assist the Indians to create sound foundations for the development of the human and economic resources of the reservation."
By 1900, Native Americans had been deprived of the lands granted to them by treaty in the 1860s. They encountered the same prejudice experienced by other ethnic groups in the USA, particularly African Americans, when attempting to exercise voting rights. Rather than transforming them into Americans, government policy stripped Native Americans of their distinctive identity. They became the poorest group of people in the USA.
The population decline illustrated the devastation. By 1900, only approximately 100,000 of the 240,000 Native Americans who had inhabited the Plains in 1865 remained. They had lost their land, their freedom, their pride, and their self-respect.
Devastating Population Decline
The Native American population on the Plains fell by more than half in just 35 years:
- 1865: 240,000 Native Americans
- 1900: 100,000 Native Americans
- Loss: Over 140,000 people—a decline of more than 58%
This catastrophic reduction resulted from disease, poverty, violence, and the destruction of traditional ways of life.
Historiographical debate
Historians have offered differing assessments of federal treatment of Plains Indians during this period:
Critical perspective
Scholars such as M. Josephy Jr, whose work appeared during the 1960s and 1970s, strongly condemned the destruction of Native American culture and the appalling conditions on reservations. His research demonstrated that within less than two decades, Plains Indians' political, cultural, social, and economic systems had been destroyed. The reservation policy produced physical disease, alcoholism, dependency, and poverty.
Defensive perspective
Other historians, including Donald L. Parman, defended the federal government's approach towards Plains Indians. For those willing to adapt to white expectations, reservations offered opportunities for economic self-sufficiency. Some found employment off-reservation. Native American performers toured with Wild West shows—Buffalo Bill hired between 75 and 100 Native Americans during the 1880s.
The complexity of policy
The historical debate reflects the genuine difficulty of formulating consistent policy at the time. Different officials and groups favoured either suppression or Americanisation as solutions. Additionally, there existed a tendency to romanticize Plains Indians whilst simultaneously acknowledging their brutal warfare tactics: they slaughtered white settlers, sometimes tortured captives to death, and took no prisoners at the Little Bighorn. Even with the benefit of hindsight, determining a better solution than the reservation policy proves challenging, given American settlers' determination to occupy the West.
| Key dates |
|---|
| 1887 – The Dawes Act divided reservation land into individual allotments |
| 1890 – Massacre at Wounded Knee marked the violent end of Plains Indian resistance |
Key Points to Remember
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By 1880, most Native Americans lived on reservations totalling 138 million acres; the Bureau of Census declared the frontier closed in 1890, marking the end of westward expansion.
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Americanisation policy attempted cultural transformation through the "Three E's": English language education, Christian conversion, and agricultural training in boarding schools (148 boarding and 225 day schools served 20,000 children by 1899 at a cost of $2.5 million annually).
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The Dawes Act (1887) divided reservations into individual plots (160 acres for family heads, 80 acres for single males), offering citizenship after 25 years, but failed catastrophically as Native Americans lost most land to whites due to unsuitable farming conditions, agricultural depression, and alien concepts of private property.
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Wounded Knee (December 1890) saw approximately 200 Sioux (including women and children) and 31 soldiers killed in an accidental clash arising from the Ghost Dance movement and mutual distrust.
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By 1900, only 100,000 of the 240,000 Plains Indians from 1865 remained; historians debate whether federal policy offered limited opportunities (Parman) or constituted cultural destruction producing poverty, disease, and loss of identity (Josephy).