Group+2

Read pp. 637-639 (through "Bellowing Herds of Bison") a. What were the circumstances that led to the Battle of Little Bighorn? Be able to IDENTIFY this battle. -Whites would massacre innocent Indians to keep them from causing trouble -Colonel J. M. Chivington and his militia massacred 400 Indians in Colorado in 1864 -After Chivington's attack (in 1866), a Sioux war party ambushed Captain Fetterman's soldiers- Fetterman Massacre -The Fetterman Massacre is what officially led to the Battle of Little Bighorn


 * __Battle of Little Bighorn__**
 * Who?** Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Indians vs. White Americans
 * What?** One of only few violent battles in which the Indians defeat whites. Aka "Custer's Last Stand"
 * When?** June 25 and 26, 1876
 * Where?** South Dakota
 * Why?** Native Americans were defending their right to remain on their homelands; the victory did not last long when the US Army exacted retribution

b. Besides the Sioux, what other Plains Indians resisted the reservation policy? -with help from the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians, Sioux the took to the warpath, inspired by the influential and wily Sitting Bull -Apache tribes of Arizona were the most difficult to subdue: led by Geronimo they were pursued into MX by federal troops using the heliograph scattered remnants of the warriors were finally persuaded to surrender after the Apache women had been exiled to F

c. What finally brought an end to resistance by the Plains Indians? What factors led to their defeat? -The building of railroads brought unlimited numbers of troops, farmers, cattlemen, sheepherders, and settlers -Indians were also ravaged by the white peoples diseases of which they showed little resistance and their "firewater" (whiskey), which they could resist even less - The virtual extermination of the buffalo doomed tha plains Indians' nomadic way of life

d. How and why were the great buffalo herds of the Plains destroyed? -15 million buffalo grazed the grass lands when the civil war ended -With the building of the railroads, the massacre of the herds began in deadly earnest -Millions of buffalo were massacred and killed and left fewer than a thousand by 1885: they were slain for their hides, tongues, and other chouce cuts for amusement