American History Series: Indian Wars
Native Americans Went to War to Protect Their Lands
31 March 2010
Burial of Lakota Sioux Indians
BOB DOUGHTY: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION – American history in VOA Special English.
The United States began to expand west during the middle eighteen hundreds. People settled in the great open areas of the Dakotas, Utah, Wyoming, and California. The movement forced the nation to deal with great tribes of Native American Indians. The Indians had lived in the western territories for hundreds of years.
Settlers and cattle ranchers pushed the Indians out of their homelands. The result was a series of wars between the tribes and the federal government.
This week in our series, Steve Ember and Sarah Long tell about some of these conflicts.
STEVE EMBER: At first, the United States government had just one policy to deal with the Indians. It was brutal. Whenever white men wanted Indian land, the tribes were pushed farther west. If the Indians protested, or tried to defend their land, they were destroyed with crushing force.
By the middle eighteen-hundreds, almost all the eastern Indians had been moved west of the Mississippi River. They were given land in Indian territory in what is now the state of Oklahoma. The government described these Indians as "civilized." This meant they were too weak to cause more trouble. Many agreed to follow the ways of the white men.
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