Figure 1.--A young Native American boy here poses with a bow and arrows, about 1900. Unfortunately we do not know his tribe, but his attire looks to us like one of the Plains tribes. Source: Library of Congress LC-USZ62-94944.) |
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Geographically the area inhabited by the Plains Tribes was the Great Plains--the emense grasslands occupying the heartland of North America. It was a realtively flat area of plains, rolling hills, and praries unbroken by forests west of the the Missisippi River. This was the range of the vast heards of bufalo (bison) which as based on grazing on the vasr grasslands. Summers on the Great Plains could be very hot and winters extended and cold. It is the plains tribes that have come to dominate modern imagery of Native Americans. It is the Plains Tribes that dominate movie depictions of Native Americans. The typical plains culture is characterized by bufalo hunting, the tepe, after the mid-16th century the domestication of the horse, the travois, the camp circle, a soldier police fraternity, the sun dance, and highly individualitic geometric art. The acquisition of horses from the Spanish was the most important in Native American life during modern times. Major tribes included the Blackfoot, Crow, Cheyene, Comanche, Gros Ventre, Kiowa, Pawnee, Sioux, Teton-Dakota, and several other smaller tribes. The Sioux were especuially important on the northern plains. The Spanish were unsable to subdue the Plains tribes once they possed the mobility provided by horses. America came in possession of the Great Plains as a result of the Louisiana Purchase (1803). And the Lewis Clarke Expedition provided a record of the Plsains Tribes at the peak of their cultural development.
Geographically the area inhabited by the Plains Tribes was the Great Plains--the emense grasslands occupying the heartland of North America. It was a realtively flat area of plains, rolling hills, and praries unbroken by forests west of the the Missisippi River. This was the range of the vast heards of bufalo (bison) which was based on grazing on the vast grasslands. Summers on the Great Plains could be very hot and winters extended and cold. The grasslands of the Great Plains and the bufalo heards became the great prise for the different tribes that vyed to control the area. Some tribes such as the Comanche were at first driven from the Plains. Other tribes were recent arrivals, Eastern Woodland trines pushed on to the Plains by Americans moving west into their lands.
It is the plains tribes that have come to dominate modern imagery of Native Americans. It is the Plains Tribes that dominate movie depictions of Native Americans. The typical plains culture is characterized by bufalo hunting, the tepe, after the mid-16th century the domestication of the horse, the travois, the camp circle, a soldier police fraternity, the sun dance, and highly individualitic geometric art. The acquisition of horses from the Spanish was the most important in Native American life during modern times.
There were pre-historic horses in the America, but they died out before Native Americans began populating the New World. Horses were reintrofuced by the Spanish andd the Spasnish war horse played an important vrole in the military success of the Spanish Conquistadortes. Over time horses for one reason or another escaped from the Spanish and began populting the Great Plains. The vast greasslands that supported the ememse heards of bufalo also supported heards of wild horses. Thus the Plsains tribes began to acquire horses (mid-17th century). Horses significantly increased the molbility of the tribles andd their ability to follow the bufalo heards. Horses greatly increased the effectiveness of the tribes in hunting bufalo. The tribes with the most horses were the most prosperous because of their great value in hunting.
Thus an important part of Plasins' culture was stealing horses from rival tribes.
The British attempted to restrict the Colonisys from moving west of the Apalachans. This was one of the several British policies that led to the Revolutionary War. The pressure of the Colonists and then the A,ericams inexorably drove the Eastern Woodlands tribes west. This process was quickened by the defeat of the major trines diring the War of 1812. Thus the eastern trines pushed west and push tribes on the fringe of the Plains on to the Plains. began to move on to the Great Plains. And as the Native American population increased on the Plains, rivalries developed with the new arrivals as well as thintensified between the tribes already there. The Cheyenne and the Arapaho appear to have arrived on the Great Plains region from North Dakota or Minnesota (18th century). These traditional allies lived on the eastern plains of Wyoming. The Sioux were relocated from Minnesota and Wisconsin, also began hunting in the eastern plains of Wyoming. The Crow were found in the Bighorn Mountains (early-29th century). The Blackfoot who fought the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, and Sioux, settled along the Snake River country and the Three Forks of the Missouri River in Montana. Further west on the mountaneous slopes were found the Shoshone and Bannock. To the south, the Comanche emerged as a great power.
Major tribes included the Blackfoot, Crow, Cheyene, Comanche, Gros Ventre, Kiowa, Osage, Pawnee, Sioux, Teton-Dakota, and several other smaller tribes. The Sioux were especuially important on the northern plains. The Spanish were unsable to subdue the Plains tribes once they possed the mobility provided by horses. The Plains tribes developed great skills with horses and their warriors have been described as the best light calvalry in the world. This was left to the Texas Rangers and the U.S. Calvary after the United States acquired the lands of the Plains tribes in the Louisiana Purchase. Some of the tribes are the best known Native American peoples whose economy and life style was strongly associated with the vast herds of bufalo (bison) on the Great Plains. It is the mounted Plains tribes that are generally depicted by Hollywood in the enumeral encounters between Native Anerican peoples and the U.S, calvary.
Blackfeet has become the official name of this tribe, although it is name given to them by white authorities. Whites noted the dark colored moccasins of the tribe. The name is not plural in the Blackfoot language. Some American Blackfoot people (in Montana object to the pluralization.) The Blackfoot tribe were nomadic plains hunters. They fought with the Shoshone and Nez Perce. They were an important buffalo-hunting tribe of the northern plains. Their hunting grunds centered on what is now Montana and Idaho in America and neigboring Alberta in Canada. There are four Blackfoot bands: three in Canada and one in the United States. the Blackfeet nation was led by a council of chiefs, one from each clan. The Blackfoot were at first friendly with the Europeans, in part because they brought horses needed for bufalo hunting. Gradually relastions worsened. The Blackfeet like other Native american tribes were affected by European diseases to hich thehey had no resisance--especially smallpox. The Blackfeet were descimated by the Indian Wars folling the Civil War. Mountauin Chief led a hostile band thast resisted the U.S. calvalry.
The tribes economic base was undermined by the destruction of the Great Plsins bufalo heards. Many Blackfeet starved to death. The Government forced the Blackfeet into sedentary reservation life. The Blackfeet have done better at prederving their culture. About half of the Blackfoot speak their native language. It is a musical language that has especially complicated verbs. It is one of the few Native American languages that may survive as a living lznguage.
The Cheyenne people originated east of the Mississippi. They lived in permanent villages and engaged in agriculture. They began moving west and southwest, pushed by the tribes beung driven west by the English settlers. Eventually the Cheyenne moved into the Great Plains east of the Rockey Mountains. The Cheyenne dialect belongs to the Algonquin language family. The alphabet consists of only fourteen letters. As the Cheyenne moved west on to the Plains, their culture changed from a settle agricultural existence to a more nomadic hunting society. The men capture wild horses which descended from animals that escaped from the Spanish. An important custom shared with orther Algonquin people was the smoking of the peace pipe. There was a some very carefully followed process involving the smoking of the pipe. A prayer was offered before the pipe was lit. Braves often had their own way to smoke the pipe. Another important Cheyenne tradition was story telling.
The Comanche began their modern history as a small tribal group living along the northern boundary of the Spanish Mexican colony They lived along the northern border of the current American state of New Mexico. This was an area with few Spanish settlers and only loosely controlled by the Doanish. They had been driven into this desolate, poorly watered area by warfare on the Great Plains among the various tribes vying for control of the most productive areas. Even here they faced competition from the Apache. From modest beginings the Comnanche forged perhaps the largest empire of any North American tribal group. Comanche lands would come to include much of the American southwest, southern Plains, and northern Mexico. This was a vast area, larger in fact than the European controlled lands of North America (north of the Rio Grande) The Comanche were the most sucessful tribe at oposing European encrochments. The Comanche were empire builders that included slavery in their trade-based economic system. Those authors who promote the uncritical view of native Americans as victims should study the Comanche for a more nuance perspective. The Comanche sought to spread their language and culture across the vast region they controlled. The Comanche power only peaked after the Mexican-American War. Unlike the Spanish and Mexicans, American control of the Southwest brought large numbers of settlers and the rapid undermining of Comanche power. The Comanche were superb horsemen, but could not compete with the Americans following the development of the revolver and repeating rifle. The Civil War resulted in a temporary respite, but after the War, the Comanche and 20 other Plains tribes were defeated and forced on to reservations. For the Comanche, defeat came in the canyonlands of the Texas Panhandle. [Hämäläinen]
The Crow called themselves the Apsaalooke. As it means "children of the large-beaked bird." White thus began calling them Crows and gradually the Tribe itself began using the term. The Crow had a wide range on the northern Plains once like the other Plains' tribes, they acquired horses. At the time they were encountered by Louis and Clark they were located in what is now Montana and Wyoming. The Crow were ruled by a council of chiefs, who were chosen by clan leaders based on the war honors. The Crow became famous as warriors and also as scouts for the U.S. Army to fight their traditional nemies--the Sioux.
The Crow were moved to a reservation in Montana comprising a portion of their former territory (1868).
The Osage people appear to have originated Kansa, the Ponca, the Omaha, and the Quapaw in the Ohio Valley, but were pushed west. At the time of their first contact with Europeans, they were living along the Missouri River on the oerifery of the Western Great Plains. The Osage people called themselves the Ni-U-Kon-Ska, meaning meaning "Children of the Middle Waters." The modern Osage use the term Wah-Zhá-Zhi. They had friendy relations with the French who first reached the Mississppi Valley. The French translated the tribe's name as Ouazhigi, which evolved into the English name Osage. The Osages were described as the tallest Native American people with men averaging over 6 feet tall. The Osage are related to the Sioux. Their language belongs to the Dhegihan branch of the Siouan Native American languages. Along with the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache, they dominated western Oklahoma. They also lived with the Quapaw and Caddo in Arkansas.
The first Osage began treaty with the United States followed soon after the Louisana Purchase (1803). The larger part of the tribe moved to the Three-forks region of what was to become Oklahoma shortly after the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The Osage peple agreed to the Osage Treaty, ceeding their lands in Missouri which included their hoeland on the Osage River (1808-09). The Osages subsequently ceded their traditional lands across Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. The Federal Government moved them into the southeast corner of Kansas. A reservation was created there in the Cherokee Strip. Subsequent treaties and Federal laws through the 1860s further shrunk the lands of the Osage. Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer after the Civil War hired Osage wariors as scouts (1867). They were known for scouting expertise, knowledge of the local terraine, and military skills. They played a role in operations against the Cheyenne chief B;ack Kettle. Congress passed an Act (1870) ordering that what was left of the the Osage land in Kansas be sold and the tribe relocated to Indian Territory in the Cherokee Outlet. Thus the Osage became in esence the only American Indian nation to buy their own reservation. The Osage Reservation is now Osage County, Oklahoma in the north-central area of the state. We note a portrait of Theodore Red Eagle taken in Pawhuska during the 1890s before statehood.
The Sioux, also called the Dakotas, were the most powerful tribe of the notthern plains. Sioux life came to center on the bufalo after they were able to capture and tame wild horses. The Sioux followed the migrations of the bufalo. They lived in bufalo hide teepees which were highly portable, an important atribute on the Great Plains. They could be easily put up and taken down. The poles needed for tepes could be pulled by the Sioux horses.
The Great Plains were claimed by both the Spanish and French. The Spanih claimed the southen Plains as part of New Spain or their Mexican colony. Spanish srettlement was very light, even in Texas. The northern boundary was never set with any precession. The only Europeans to reach the Northern Plains were French and American fur trappers. The French moved down the Missisippi. The conflict between the British and French led to the French and Indian War (1754-63). The British vctory led to the Ohio Valley coming under Britih control and what was called the Louisina Territory turned over to the Spanish. Napoleon's early victories allowed France to acquire Louisana back from Spain (1800), America sought to buy New Orleans. French control of the interior was infeasible without New Orleans and thus Napoleon decided to sell all of Louisana. While there were settlements along the Mississppi, threr were none west of the river. he name Louisaaerritory testified to the importance of New Orleans. America set out to buy New Orleans, but came in possession of the Great Plains as a result of the Louisiana Purchase (1803). The Lewis Clarke Expedition provided an invaluable record of the Plains Tribes at the peak of their cultural development.
Hämäläinen, Pekka. Comanche Empire.
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