Preview

Why Did the Native Americans Lose the Plains Wars Essay Example

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1138 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Why Did the Native Americans Lose the Plains Wars Essay Example
When the Euro-Americans (whites) and Native Americans came into contact, there was conflict. This conflict eventually led to The Plains wars, which the Native Americans lost. In this essay the details as to why the Native Americans lost the plains war will be explained. These details include seven main points, which are- the end of the civil war and the manifest destiny, different attitudes towards land, the whites upsetting the population balance, the effect of reservations, the start of the Californian gold rush, the weapons that both the sides used during war, and the actual wars that made up the plains war.

At the end of the civil war the god-fearing Christian whites believed that god had told them to spread the freedom and democracy of the United States westward into North America. This was the manifest destiny. Whites everywhere were willing to fight for the land and for god. The fact that the Native Americans were not very good long-term fighters, made the natives weak, also the whites had just been in a long term wars so they had many physically powerful men. This proves that the manifest destiny and the end of the civil war were one of the reasons as to why the Native Americans lost the Plains wars.

Another factor that is to be considered is that the Whites and the Native Americans both had different attitudes to land. The Native Americans believed that land could not be owned, and looked at it as a life source, while the Whites though the private ownership of land was extremely important. This made the Native Americans more likely to lose because, if a white settler came and lived on some land, the white would think e owned the land, while the Native Americans wouldn’t mind because they thought that the land couldn’t owned by the Whites. This scenario would not have been a problem, but if the amount of whites increased, the Native Americans would eventually have no space for their living. The Native Americans didn’t notice this, and the population

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    All through the historical backdrop of the New World, there has been strife between indigenous populaces and approaching pioneers that usurp the land and assets. The uncovered histories and ficticious belief surrounding the Trail of Tears and the victory of the Incas and other local societies reminds us as readers that genocide and ethnic purifying leaves a sign of an awesome misfortune on American…

    • 65 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Have you ever imagined life as a Native American in the time period of the Columbian Exchange? Did life change drastically for thousands of people? What events went on as more and more new things were exposed into the lives of the Native Americans? Daniel K. Richter turns the gaze of early American history around and forces the reader to consider stories of North America during the period of European settlement rather than just the European colonization of North America in his novel, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America. Richter, being an American Historian focuses both his research and teaching on colonial North America and on Native American history dating back before 1800. Through Richter’s writing he reintegrated Indians into the history of North America by expressing their side of the event and/or time in history as well as the side of the first-hand settlers in America. Richter states in the novel, “Perhaps the strangest lesson of all was that in the new nation Whites were the ones entitled to be called “Americans.” Indians bizarrely became something else” (p.2). Through the detailed writing in the novel it is not possible to dismiss the formative role of the Native Americans in the history of colonial and early America.…

    • 805 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When English colonists first arrived to the New World, the Native American Indians were curious yet kind to these “white men”. However, as time passed the colonists’ hunger for more land grew stronger. They began to take advantage of the Indians by signing treaties that were not completely understood by the natives. Consequently, a brave Indian took upon the initiative to protect their properties. Tecumseh, leader of the Shawnee, began his quest to put a stop to American greed by uniting the molested tribes to defend their lands.…

    • 126 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Little Big Horn Bat

    • 764 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The battle of little big horn took place on 25th June 1876. All 210 soldiers in General Custer’s force were killed by Indians led by sitting bull. The Battle began because the white settlers and the Native American’s lived in peace but the American’s started to abuse their trust with the Native American’s as they started to dig for gold, as the gold was discovered in the Rocky mountain and build train lines to get to the mountain. The us government then started to build more train lines and started to scar the buffalo away, the Native American’s needed the buffalo for food and many other items. The Native American’s than had enough of the White settlers destroying their land and traditional customs, Red cloud addressed the US government representative and announced “the great Father (US president) sends us presents and wants us to sell him the road, but the white chief comes with soldiers to steal it before we say yes or no. I will talk to you no more. I will go now and I will fight you”. In this essay I will try to explore the battle and whether the US defeat was because of General Custer.…

    • 764 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    A CONQUERING SPIRIT

    • 2541 Words
    • 11 Pages

    In the mind of the Creeks, the battle was more than just a fight for survival; it was a struggle to tenaciously hold on to traditions and culture which the Creeks felt to be under attack by American colonists. As John Walton Caughey mentions in McGillivray of the Creeks, “Our lands are our life and breath, if we part with them, we part with our blood. We must fight for them.”1 This statement seemed to be a common theme among the Upper Creeks. American colonists and the government hoped the Creeks could be assimilated in a peaceful manner into American society through negotiations and financial enticements: “Westward expansion could then proceed in an orderly way, with Indian population retreating before the advancing American frontier or assimilating with American society.”2 The mainstay of…

    • 2541 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tecumseh Research Paper

    • 446 Words
    • 2 Pages

    With the Confederation almost complete, forwarded Shawnee decision to send Tecumseh, a young renowned warrior and a strong speaker ‘to traverse the Miscopy Valley, seeking to revive Neolin’s pan Indian alliance of the 1760s. Feeling that the only alternative to westward expansion was extermination, as one chief asked “Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pocanet, and other powerful tribes of our people? ‘They have vanished before the avarice {greed) and oppression of the white man, as snow before the sun.’ Indians, he proclaimed, must recognize that they were a single people and equal right in the land. He repudiated, “chiefs who had sold land to the federal government were no better than their white rivals.”…

    • 446 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Black Elk

    • 426 Words
    • 1 Page

    The history presented here covers the defeat of the Plains Indians by the US Army, the violent change from nomadic life to life on the reservation, and the death of a culture as we watch it go from a way of life to a Wild West show to be presented in large cities.…

    • 426 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dbq Indian Removal Act

    • 753 Words
    • 4 Pages

    “The Creek, Cherokee, Chickasaw, and the Choctaw knew that they could not defeat the Americans in war” ( ) the settlers were so “land hungry” that the Native Americans knew that all they could do was try to appease the white man. Native Americans were willing to ty to do whatever they could do to be able to keep even just a small portion of their own land. “One method was to adopt Anglo-American practices such as large-scale farming, western education and slave holding. (www.pbs.org) having done so the natives were designed designated as the “five Civilized Tribes”. The Natives Americans did all of these things in order to co-exist the white settlers and try to keep the hostility at a minimum. With everything the Native Americans did it still wasn’t good enough and just lead to the settlers having resentment and anger towards…

    • 753 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Native Americans were hopelessly outnumbered by the whites. The Native Americans had lacked modern farming techniques. The Native Americans had also lacked political unity. The whites had more power than the Native Americans. Native American had lost their reign to their land.…

    • 204 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Conflicts over land developed between Native Americans and the settlers. The Natives took up most of the land because they moved from place to place. They did not have a set territory. They were like “foxes and wild beasts…” Colonist said “so it is lawful now to take a land which none useth; and make use of it.” Europeans believed that land was essential for a society to progress. On the other hand, Native American viewed the land as a resource to be used and left unchanged. Because of this fight over land and misunderstanding of cultures, colonists justified wars against the Native Americans.…

    • 420 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    In the 1991 film Black robe, Jesuit missionaries are sent to the city of Quebec in hopes of changing the native Indians from savages to Christians. Both the French and the Natives have formed strong perceptions of each other characterized by unusual similarities, undeniable differences, and evident physical traits. The mission the Jesuits have embarked on introduces both societies to experience a never before seen culture, serves to transform an internally confused Frenchman, and lastly provides religious understanding and tolerance.…

    • 1395 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the 19th century, the United States had began to expand it’s territory towards the western frontier. This era of U.S. history was dominated by the belief in manifest destiny – the idea that the United States was destined to expand to the west coast, and was justified in doing so (History.com Staff, 2010). However, settlers heading west faced many hindrances to their grand plans along their way, including the Native Americans, who had been living on the land for centuries before western expansion began. Thus began the long balancing act between manifest destiny and the rights of Native Americans. This attempt at balance lead to many unavoidable interactions between the white settlers and the natives, including trade and the attempted relocation and assimilation of the natives.…

    • 595 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The list of wars and battles that the Native Americans have been through to protect their land, freedom, and culture starts in the 1500’s till the 1900’s. The Native Americans have conquered some battles and had to surrender too many battles they did not want to be in. In the late 1880’s, when their spirits were broken, the Ghost Dance movement came about. This gave them hope when the conditions on the reservations were at their worst. The US government took this as a threat when the tribes banned together. The troops were sent in to take control and this brought about the battle of Wounded Knee Massacre. This was the last military conflict between the Native Americans and Whites. The end result of this battle was at least 150 men, women and children Native Americans lost their lives.…

    • 1085 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Finally, during the mid-nineteenth century, the United States government created reservations for Native Americans. These zones, however, were often undesired land with few resources available. Occasionally reservation treaties would even be broken if resources were discovered on Native’s lands. These injustices led to Native American revolts and several Native American wars. These were fought in the second half of the nineteenth century but, “by the 1880s Native American resistance was basically over, and the tribes were confined to reservations.”…

    • 1685 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    At the start of the seventeenth century, Native Americans greeted European settlers with much excitement. They regarded settlers as strange, but were interested to learn about the new tools and weapons Europeans brought with them. The native people were more than accommodating to the settlers, but as time passed, Europeans took advantage of their generosity. “Once these newcomers disembarked and began to feel their way across the continent, they forever altered the course and pace of native development.” Native Americans and Europeans faced many conflicts due to their vast differences in language, religion and culture. European settlers’ inability to understand and respect Native Americans lead to many struggles that would eventually erupt into violent warfare.…

    • 911 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays