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Native American History TimelineThis timeline is based on information provided by Stephen Trimble, The People: Indians of the American Southwest, Santa ,Fe: School of American Research Press, 1993; James Olson & Raymond Wilson, Native Americans in the Twentieth Century, Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1984; Barbara Leitch, Chronology of the American Indian, St.Clair Shores, MI: Scholarly Press, Inc. 1975.
1830
l Congress passes the Indian Removal Act in 1830 which mandated the removal of Native Americans from east of the Mississippi River to the newly established Indian Territory located in what is present-day Oklahoma. Tribes subjected to removal included the Shawnee, Potawatomis, Sacs and Foxes, Kickapoos and Winnebagos.
l The so-called "Five Civilized Tribes" were also subjected to removal. The Five Civilized Tribes was a term invented by Euro-Americans to refer to the Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, Cherokees and Seminoles. These tribes were originally located in the southeastern United States. Euro-Americans referred to these tribes as 'civilized' because they lived in settled towns, farmed and had a sophisticated form of government. During the 1820s, the Cherokee developed a written alphabet for their language and regularly published a newspaper.
l The Cherokees resisted removal and sued in the U.SS. Supreme Court for the right to stay on their lands. In two key cases, Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831) and Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the Supreme Court upheld the right of the Cherokee to stay on their lands. President Andrew Jackson ignored the court's opinion and sent federal troops to forcibly remove the Cherokee and other Civilized Tribes. The Cherokee were removed in 1838 during harsh winter conditions resulting in significant hardship and loss of life; the Cherokee remember this time as the "Trail of Tears."
1840
l Gold is discovered at Sutter's Mill, California in 1848. The subsequent "Gold Rush" and Euro-American settlement in California results in a drop in California Indian population from about 120,000 in 1850 to fewer than 20,000 by 1880. Gold miners changed the environment so much that Indians could no longer pursue their traditional means of procuring food. Indians raided mining camps for food and miners retaliated. Indians caused such problems for miners, that by 1851 the governor of California condoned a policy of extermination against California Indians.
l U.S. wins the War with Mexico in 1848 and purchases the territory which become the states of California, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and Colorado from Mexico for $5,000,000.
1850
l The U.S. and several Plains tribes including the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho enter into the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1851. The purpose of the Treaty was to force the Indians to agree to allow Euro-Americans to pass through their territory on their way to the far west, i.e., California, Washington and Oregon. In exchange, the U.S. government agreed to respect tribal boundaries.
l In 1851, the U.S. Army establishes Fort Defiance near present-day Window Rock, Arizona (the heart of Navajo country); the Navajo considered the site of Fort Defiance to be sacred and thus the fort as an invasion of their territory. A pattern of violent confrontations between the U.S. and the Navajo begins.
1860
l In 1861 the U.S. Civil War erupts. Many tribes including the Five Civilized Tribes (now living in Oklahoma Territory)
side with the Confederacy which promises in return for Indian support to respect Indian sovereignty. After the end of the War, the U.S. government punishes the Five Civilized Tribes by forcing the Tribes to cede land.
l Kit Carson (army scout and Indian fighter) forces Navajo leaders to surrender to the U.S. in 1863. The Diné (Navajo people) are herded some 350 miles eastward (referred to by the Diné as "the Long Walk") to become prisoners at Bosque Redondo (Fort Sumner) until assigned reservation land in 1866.
l Sand Creek Massacre (1864) of Cheyenne and Arapaho awaiting surrender terms when attacked; more than 120 people killed--mostly women and children.
l In retaliation for the Sand Creek Massacre and other atrocities, Plains tribes banded together and declared war on the United States. In December 1866, the Lakota Sioux and allies defeated the U.S. Army in "the Battle of One Hundred Slain."
l Treaty of Medicine Lodge of 1867 between U.S. and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Nations results in the removal of the two tribes to a reservation in Indian Territory. Their reservation is created out of lands taken from the Five Civilized Tribes who had been forced to give them up because of their support for the South during the Civil War.
l The Sioux Indians sign a treaty with the U.S. (1868) guaranteeing their rights to the Black Hills of Dakota (sacred to the Sioux). Later that year, the U.S. Army led by George Armstrong Custer slaughters an unarmed gathering of Cheyenne encamped at the Washita River--again killing mostly women and children.
l Transcontinental Railroad cuts iron paths through Native lands on the Great Plains (1869).
1870
l The "Buffalo War" (1873-74); a last desperate attempt by the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche and Kiowa to save the few remaining buffalo herds from destruction by Euro-American hunters in Oklahoma and Texas.
l General George Custer and his army troops are sent to prospect for gold in the Black Hills of Dakota (1874). Gold is discovered and Euro-American prospectors pour into the area. The Sioux revolt but later are expelled from the Black Hills by act of Congress (1877).
l In 1875 Chief Quanah Parker and his Comanche braves surrendered at Ft. Sill in their fight against buffalo hunters backed by U.S. Army troops.
l The Battle of the Little Big Horn (1876): General Custer and 250 soldiers are killed when they attack a large hunting camp of Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho on the Little Big Horn River in Montana.
l After an impressive flight of more than 1,000 miles from their homeland in Oregon, the Nez Perce led by Chief Joseph finally surrender. The U.S. relocates the Nez Perce to Indian Territory, breaking its promise to allow them to return to their homeland.
l In the 1870s, Southern Plains warriors imprisoned at Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida where they make drawings on ledger paper and sketch books.
1880
l Geronimo and his band of Chiricahua Apache surrender after more than two decades of armed conflict with the U.S. government. Geronimo and his band (including women and children) are sent by train to Florida and imprisoned at St. Augustine (1886).
l Helen Hunt Jackson's A Century of Dishonor, detailing the plight of Native Americans and criticizing U.S. treatment of Indians, is published (1881).
l Sarah Winnemucca, Paiute, publishes her autobiography Life Among the Piutes (1883). Winnemucca was a tireless spokesperson for her people and traveled throughout the country lecturing on conditions in Indian country.
l During the 1880s, Euro-American reformers grew concerned that Indians were not improving themselves and
becoming self-sufficient but were sinking into poverty and despair. In response to these concerns, Congress passed the Dawes Allotment Act in 1887. The purpose of the Act was to force individual Indians to live on small family farms. Every Indian would receive 160 acres of land. Any land left over was sold. One goal of allotment was to destroy Indian "communalism," i.e., the practice of many families living together and sharing property. Tribes affected by allotment were those located in states where land was most sought after for farming by Euro-American settlers: North and South Dakota, Kansas, Minnesota and Wyoming. Within the first 10 years of allotment, more than 80 million acres of Indian land were opened for Euro-American settlement.
1890
l In the 1890, Wovoka, a Paiute prophet, defined a new religion combining Christian and Native elements. This religion was dubbed the "Ghost Dance" religion because its followers believed that practicing ritual dance would bring back dead loved ones (both human and animal) and restore the land to Native peoples. The Ghost Dance religion swept through the Great Plains quickly gaining a huge following from peoples devastated by disease, warfare, and Euro-American encroachment. Ghost dancers believed that clothing worn in the dance would make them invulnerable to bullets or other forms of attack.
l The U.S. government became increasingly anxious about the spread of the Ghost Dance religion because of the large number of Indians who came together to participate in the ceremony. By the late fall of 1890, it had became apparent that the ghost dance could not be stopped, and in December 1890, the Lakota Sioux held a ghost dance on the Pine Ridge Reservation. When the Indian Agent learned of the dance he requested that federal troops be sent to stop it. Armed troops opened fire on a band of Lakota people killing over 200 men, women and children. This event came to be known as the Massacre at Wounded Knee Creek.
l In 1894, the U.S. Army imprisons hostile Hopi leaders on Alcatraz Island.
l Congress passes the Curtis Act (1898) which mandated allotment of tribal lands in Indian Territory and ended tribal sovereignty in the Territory.
l During the 1890s, the U.S. government began an aggressive campaign to "civilize" Indian people by rounding up Indian children and sending them away to boarding schools. One of the most famous boarding schools, Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania (founded in 1879) received Indian children from reservations throughout the West. The first step in "civilizing" the children was to cut their hair and burn their clothes and replace them with "civilian" or Euro- American style of dress. The children were forbidden to speak their Native language subject to severe punishment if they violated this rule. These boarding schools were a breeding ground for disease, and many Indian children died while at the schools.
1900
l Geronimo exhibited along with other Native peoples at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
l Oklahoma becomes a state in 1907, merging Oklahoma and Indian Territories and opening the former Indian
Territory to additional Euro-American settlement.
l In the early 1900s, the Fred Harvey Company commissioned silver jewelry from Navajo silversmiths creating a market for Indian jewelry and other traditional arts among tourists.
1910
l After the suppression of the Ghost Dance religion, a number of Plains tribes began to revive the traditional Sun
Dance. Beginning in 1910, bands of Shoshones began meeting with Southern Paiutes and other tribal groups to
participate in the Sun Dance.
l In 1919, Maria and Julian Martinez, of San Ildefonso Pueblo in New Mexico, begin making a distinctive type of pottery characterized by a glossy black finish. Their pottery became very popular with Euro-Americans and created a booming market in Pueblo pottery.
1920
l In 1921, the BIA produces Circular 1665 which ordered Indian agents to suppress "immoral" tribal dances,
particularly those practiced by the Pueblo groups.
l The Bursum Bill (1922) is proposed in Congress--if passed, the bill would have opened Pueblo lands to Euro-American settlement. Congress later passed the All Pueblo Lands Act which was supposed to guarantee the Pueblos title to their lands.
l The Gallup Intertribal Ceremonial is established providing an annual gathering for Indians; Santa Fe Indian Market is founded, providing a market for Native American arts and crafts (1922).
l U.S. Congress passes a law declaring all Native American U.S. citizens, entitling Native people to the right to vote in national elections (1924). Out of concern over conditions in Indian country, John Collier persuaded John D. Rockefeller to finance a team of social scientists headed by John Meriam to investigate. Meriam and his fellow scientists spent seven months visiting Indian reservations. Their more than 800 page report--dubbed the Meriam Report but officially known as the Problem of Indian Administration--stated that Indians were living in deplorable conditions of stark poverty, ill-health, and malnourishment. The report criticized allotment policy and recommended that Congress increase funding to improve Indian health and education and encourage the development of Native
American art.
l Kiowa Indian Art is published (1929).
l The Heard Museum opens (1929).
1930
l During the early 1930s, Mary Little Bear Inkanish, Cheyenne, and a group of other Cheyenne and Kiowa women formed the Woman's Heart Society, a women's society dedicated to making crafts for sale. They became very successful in selling their crafts and traveled to intertribal events such as the Gallup Ceremonial to market their products.
l John Collier, long-time advocate of Indian tribalism, becomes Commissioner of the BIA in 1933.
l The Indian Reorganization Act (1934) is passed by Congress encouraging Native Americans to "recover" their cultural heritage. It allows the teaching of art in government Indian schools and ends allotment policy. In order to take advantage of funding under the IRA, tribes are required to adopt a U.S. style constitution. While many tribes do adopt a constitution, many other tribes including the Navajo refuse to do so.
l Indian Arts & Crafts Board is formed in 1935 under the aegis of Department of Indian Affairs. The purpose of the Board is to encourage Native arts and crafts by funding art classes and placing a trademark on arts and crafts products guaranteeing that they have been produced by "real" Indians.
l The Art Program is established at Bacone Junior College in Oklahoma in 1935.
l The exhibition Indian Art in the US and Alaska (1939) is held at the Golden Gate International Exposition in San Francisco bringing national and international visibility to contemporary art of Native Americans.
l During the later part of the 1930s, the BIA began closing Indian boarding schools, allowing Indian children to attend day schools closer to home. In addition, the BIA began to allocate funding to reservation day schools for the teaching of tribal languages.
1940
l The U.S. enters World War II in December 1941. Throughout the war, Indians migrate to urban centers where war related job opportunities were available.
l Museum of Modern Art, New York City exhibition of Indian art (1941).
l Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma annual competition of Indian artists (1946).
l Alan Houser wins a Guggenheim Fellowship for painting and sculpture (1948).
1950
l In the early 1950s, Dillon Myer was appointed Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Myer, who was in charge of the Japanese internment camps during World War II, believed that Indians should be "liberated" from the "prison" of reservation life.
l The conference "Directions in Indian Art" (1959) is convened at the University of Arizona to discuss ways to expand the ethnic art market to increase income derived from Indian arts and crafts.
l During the 1950s, the U.S. government adopted an official policy of "terminating" tribes. Termination involved settling all federal obligations to a tribe, withdrawing federal support (e.g., health services, education) and closing the reservation. Frequently, tribal members were then relocated to urban areas. Eventually, Congress would terminate services to over 60 tribes including Klamaths, Paiutes, Menominees, Poncas and Catawbas. By 1990, more than 50% of Indians lived in urban areas.
1960
l The Diné found the Navajo Tribal Museum at Window Rock, Arizona, to preserve their heritage (1960).
l The Institute of American Indian Arts is established in Santa Fe, New Mexico (1962).
l In 1964, Helen Cordero, of Cochiti Pueblo, made the first Storyteller figure--a grandfather seated with five children hanging on him. Cordero was inspired to make figurative pottery by her memories of her grandfather telling stories to her and other Cochiti children. Cordero's innovation inspired dozens of other potters, and the Storytellers have become one of the most popular Native crafts of the Southwest.
l In 1961 over 500 Native Americans gathered for the American Indian Chicago Conference to promote tribal
sovereignty and survival. Later that year, a more militant organization called the National Indian Youth Council is formed. Many other Indian organizations are formed throughout the 1960s, and they all sought an end to termination and relocation policies and demanded self-determination for Indian peoples.
l A small group of militant Native Americans calling themselves the "Indians of All Tribes" occupy the (abandoned) island of Alcatraz in November 1969 to protest conditions in contemporary Indian America. The occupation lasted for two years and brought national attention to problems in Indian country. Dennis Banks and George Mitchell, two Chippewa (Anishinaabe) living in Minneapolis--St. Paul, organize the American Indian Movement (AIM) to protest police brutality against Indians.
l The Heard Museum's Gallery of Indian Art and the Five Civilized Tribes museum open.
l N. Scott Momaday, Kiowa/Cherokee, House Made of Dawn is published in 1968 and later wins the Pulitzer Prize; Momaday is the first Native American to win the prize.
l Singer/songwriter Floyd Westerman releases his LP "Custer Died for Your Sins" (1969).
l Vine Deloria's Custer Died for Your Sins (1969) and N. Scott Momaday's The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969).
Momaday starts an American Indian Literature Program at the University of California.
1970
l In 1970, President Richard Nixon formally ended the Termination policy.
l The Sacred Blue Lake is returned to Taos Pueblo (1970). Blue Lake located in the Sangre de Cristo mountains near the Pueblo, is a sacred area to the Pueblo and is vital to their religion. The Blue Lake and surrounding forest had been declared a national forest in 1904. Taos Pueblo people were not allowed to travel to the lake without a permit from the U.S. government. For the next 60 years, the Pueblo formally protested the government's treatment of Blue Lake.
They finally succeeded in regaining possession of the Lake and 48,000 acres around the lake in 1970.
l Dee Brown, Bury my Heart At Wounded Knee (1970).
l AIM members and other Indian leaders organize "The Trail of Broken Treaties" during fall 1972. Thousands of Indians drove to Washington, D.C. to demand that the U.S. government recognize tribal rights to self-determination. While in Washington, Indians occupy BIA headquarters.
l In Winter 1973, AIM members and Lakota Sioux occupy the trading post at Wounded Knee Village to draw attention to problems on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
l In 1973, the Menominee Tribe regains federal recognition after being terminated in 1961. Ada Deer, Menominee woman, spearheaded the efforts of her tribe to regain federal recognition.
l In response to the storm of Indian protests, Congress passes the Indian Self-Determination Act (1975). The Act states in part that, "the Congress hereby recognizes the obligation of the United States to respond to the strong expression of the Indian people for self-determination by assuring maximum Indian participation in the direction of educational as well as other Federal services to Indian communities so as to render such services more responsive to the needs and desires of those communities."
l Two FBI agents are killed at Pine Ridge in 1975 and Leonard Peltier, an AIM member, is later convicted of the killings and sent to federal prison. This event is the subject of a 1992 documentary, Incident at Oglala, directed by Michael Apted and a book entitled In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Mathiessen.
l Leslie Marmon Silko, Laguna Pueblo, Ceremony (1977).
l Congress passes the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (1978) requiring federal agencies to analyze the impact of federal development on Native American sacred sites.
l John Trudell, Santee Sioux, former chairman of the American Indian Movement, begins career as
singer/writer/performer to vocalize change (1979).
1980
l The Jackpile mine at Laguna Pueblo, the largest uranium mine in the world, closes in 1982; tribal unemployment rises from 20% to 80%. Laguna Pueblo begins to cope with the astonishing levels of radioactive pollution left behind by the mining operation.
l Louise Erdrich, Love Medicine (1984). Katsina Village, a sacred site sometimes called "Zuni Heaven," is returned to Zuni Pueblo in 1984.
l In the 1980s, Wilma Mankiller, Cherokee, became the first modern woman leader of the Cherokee Nation. Mankiller was re-elected as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1991.
1990
l Congress passes Public Law 101-644 (1990) to prevent the selling of "authentic" Native American fine art created by
non-Natives through the measurement of blood quantum.
l 1992 Quincentenary: commemorating the 500th anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the Americas.
l Anti-Quincentenary protest art made by numerous Native artists including Shared Visions an exhibition sponsored by the Heard Museum, Phoenix, The Submoluc Show/Columbus Wohs organized by Atlatl, Phoenix, Arizona.
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