Impact of settlement on the Plains Indians up to 1876

Question 1

What did the Pawnee, Omaha and Winnebago peoples decide to do when the Northern Pacific Railroad cut across their lands?

Answer 1

Moved to reservations in Nebraska

Question 2

What impact did barbed wire fences have on the buffalo?

Answer 2

Disrupted their migration patterns

Question 3

Who did the railroad companies see the buffalo as an ideal food source for?

Answer 3

The thousands of railroad workers

Question 4

How many buffalo were killed each year as a result of the railroads?

Answer 4

Around 200,000

Question 5

Which states had zero cattle in 1860 but hundreds of thousands in 1880?

Answer 5

Colorado, Montana, Wyoming

Question 6

How many cattle were in Kansas in:
1860
1880

Answer 6

1860: 93,000
1880: 1.5 million

Question 7

What did cattle and buffalo have to compete for?

Answer 7

Grass and water

Question 8

What did the cattle bring with them that affected the buffalo?

Answer 8

Diseases

Question 9

How did the Plains Indians respond to cattle drives?

Answer 9

Raided them

Question 10

Why were the Plains Indians wiped out in California?

Answer 10

They were replaced by gold miners

Question 11

Where was gold discovered in 1858?

Answer 11

Colorado

Question 12

Where was gold discovered in 1862?

Answer 12

Montana

Question 13

What impact did large numbers of wagons, horses and people migrating west have on the Plains Indians?

Answer 13

Strain on resources of grass and water

Question 14

What diseases did migrants bring to the Plains Indians?

Answer 14

Tuberculosis, diphtheria

Question 15

What did miners do to get to gold deposits that angered Plains Indians?

Answer 15

Trespassed across Plains Indian lands

Question 16

What did the US government do to stop miners trespassing on Plains Indian lands?

Answer 16

Nothing

Question 17

What did miners do to Plains Indian land while tribes were elsewhere?

Answer 17

Divided it up, built on it, and refused to leave

Question 18

How much did miners pay Plains Indians to build on their land?

Answer 18

Nothing

Question 19

How were the railroads and gold mining linked?

Answer 19

The railroads made it easier to move people and goods to and from the mining settlements

Question 20

How were the railroads and cattle industry linked?

Answer 20

Railroads were used to transport cattle

Question 21

How were gold mining and the cattle industry linked?

Answer 21

The mining towns were an important market for beef

Question 22

What impact did the railroads, mining towns and cattle industry have on the Plains Indians?

Answer 22

Left them increasingly marginalised and desperate - forced to accept government handouts of rations and to move onto reservations

Question 23

What three things did the US government agree if the Plains Indians moved onto a reservation?

Answer 23

1) They would not lose any more land

2) They would be protected from attack by whites

3) They would be given an annuity

Question 24

Why did Plains Indian tribes agree to move onto reservations despite serious doubts?

Answer 24

They felt there was no other way for the tribe to survive

Question 25

What did the US government promise chiefs about the care of tribes on the reservations? Did they stick to these promises?

Answer 25

They would be given regular supplies of food and the opportunity to use their hunting grounds Absolutely not

Question 26

How did the government believe that the reservations would "benefit" Plains Indians?

Answer 26

They could learn about farming and Christianity, and their children could learn to read and write

Question 27

Why did the reservations show no understanding of Plains Indian cultural values?

Answer 27

Treaties about reservations were agreed with chiefs, but chiefs often had no authority to make bands or brotherhoods stay on the reservation

Question 28

Why was the challenge of farming on the Plains worse for Plains Indians than white settlers?

Answer 28

Reservations often had very poor farming land and some tribes had no traditions of farming at all

Question 29

Whose job was it to run the reservations?

Answer 29

The Bureau of Indian Affairs

Question 30

What sort of men did the Bureau of Indian Affairs appoint to run the reservations?

Answer 30

Corrupt men who cheated the tribes to make themselves wealthy

Question 31

Why did white settlers complain about the reservations?

Answer 31

They said they were too big and the Plains Indians were being treated better than they were