Native American Encyclopedia Ross, John To Thanksgiving
8 Salt Creek Prairie Salt Creek Prairie a raid by Kiowa warriors on a freight wagon train led to their final defeat In 1871 after the Medicine Lodge Treaty’s failure Kiowa leaders Big Tree Satanta and Satank led a raid to Texas from Indian Territory At Salt Creek Prairie they killed seven wagoneers and took supplies and mules After this raid the U S set into motion a plan to break Kiowa resistance using total warfare See also Medicine Lodge Treaty and Satanta Sand Creek Massacre occurred in eastern Colorado in 1864 when John Chivington’s 3rd Colorado Calvary attacked Black Kettle’s village killing about 270 Cheyenne and Southern Arapaho Most were women and children The U S government had earlier promised Black Kettle’s band protection there However Colorado prospectors discovered gold in 1858 and new settlers pressed for more land Chivington acting on his own decision ordered the attack See also Chivington John San Carlos Reservation founded in 1871 became the home of several bands of Apache Located in southeastern Arizona the San Carlos landscape includes desert mountain meadows and pine forests covering almost 1,900,000 acres 769,000 hectares Tourism gaming cattle ranching and peridot mining generate needed income Colored sands poured into patterns form large sandpaintings Sandpainting a custom practiced by some southwestern tribes is believed to have the power to heal As part of certain ceremonies sandpainters sift colored sands and mineral powders on the ground in patterns to form designs with powerful healing elements The Dineh or Navajo include sandpainting in some of their spiritual rituals The world gemstone market gets 80 to 95 percent of its supply of peridot from the San Carlos Reservation
The Pueblo trapped Spanish colonists in the Santa Fe Governor’s Palace Santa Fe Trail 9 Santa Fe New Mexico was the site of the struggle between the Pueblo people and the Spanish in two major battles in the 1600s In 1680 the final battle of the Pueblo Rebellion occurred here To end nearly 100 years of Spanish rule the Pueblo people destroyed every Spanish outpost in New Mexico including Santa Fe They besieged Santa Fe in the August heat After six days the Spanish inside the Governor’s Palace made a successful break for the border rather than die of thirst After the Pueblo Rebellion drought continued Pueblo bands fought for limited food resources In 1693 Spanish soldiers and colonists returned to New Mexico They attacked the city and after two days the Pueblo people surrendered From this time forward other revolts by the Pueblo Indians against the Spanish failed See also Pueblo Rebellion trail passed through hunting grounds and home territories of the Kiowa Comanche Cheyenne Arapaho Plains Apache Osage Kansas Ute Pueblo and Jicarilla Apache Early travelers traded with the mostly friendly native peoples they met Santa Fe Trail Timeline The trail served different purposes at different times in its history 1821-1846 American and Mexican trade route 1846-1848 Used by Army of the West in the Mexican-American War 1848-1880 Main route to new U S territories in the Southwest words to know Santa Fe Trail connected Missouri with Santa Fe New Mexico the heart of the United States new territories gained at the end of the Mexican-American War The peridot PAIR-uh-daht a yellow-green to green gemstone occurring in very few places in the world including Arizona total warfare TOH-tuhl WOR-fair a military strategy that wars against all parts of the enemy’s society and culture including attacks on entire villages food sources and transportation
10 Sarcee Sarcee also known as Sarci Sarsi and Tsuu T’ina their own name for themselves lived in the northern plains in Canada’s Alberta province They speak an Athabascan language After getting horses in the early 1800s they lived by hunting bison Seeking protection from their Cree enemies they joined the Blackfoot Confederacy Smallpox a silent enemy killed many as waves of the disease passed through in 1836 and 1870 Hudson’s Bay Company fur traders brought with them a deadly disease called scarlet fever Today Sarcee descendants live on a reserve in Alberta Sayenqueraghta about 1707-1786 became a Seneca war chief in 1751 and later served as a war chief of the Iroquois Confederacy He led warriors against the British at the Battle of Devil’s Hole during Pontiac’s Rebellion In 1765 he along with Handsome Lake and others led warriors against the Choctaw and Cherokee In 1777 the Iroquois sided with the British in the American Revolution and named Sayenqueraghta and Cornplanter as war chiefs He survived the war and died in New York See also Handsome Lake and Pontiac’s Rebellion Satanta 1820-1878 also known as Set’tainte and White Bear served as a Kiowa war chief In the 1840s many settlers and Santa Fe Trail travelers began invading Kiowa hunting grounds The Kiowa responded by attacking the settlers and wagon trains In 1867 Satanta signed the Medicine Lodge Treaty When U S treaty promises did not appear Satanta led the Salt Creek Prairie raid and went to prison After more attacks on nonnatives Satanta again received jail time After four years in prison he took his own life See also Medicine Lodge Treaty and Salt Creek Prairie Scalping or cutting off the skin and hair from a downed enemy’s head sometimes occurred during battles as a way of collecting a trophy or proving bravery Some Native American tribes and some frontiersmen practiced scalping In some cases early colonist governments paid money for the scalps of Native Americans Victims usually died but not always Scalp lock refers to a certain hairstyle adopted by some Native American men where the head is shaved except for a single section of hair on top Lenni Lenape and other tribes in the Northeast Culture Area practiced this tradition Some warriors also took scalp locks from
downed enemies They wore them as symbols of bravery Modoc to Oklahoma as war prisoners He died at the Quapaw Agency in Oklahoma Schurz Carl 11 See also Modoc War Schurz Carl 1829-1906 in his job as head of the Department of the Interior under President Rutherford Hayes helped improve the Bureau of Indian Affairs At the Bureau of Indian Affairs Schurz insisted they hire honest skilled people He opposed military actions against native peoples supported keeping treaty promises and helped find a peaceful solution to the Ute War of 1879 He also supported land allotment and assimilation of native peoples two things that tribes did not support See also Bureau of Indian Affairs Big Mouth Spring photographed by Edward S Curtis in 1910 wears a decorated scalp lock on his right shoulder Scarfaced Charley about 1851 1896 also called Chikchikam Lupalkuelatko meaning wagon scar faced a Modoc military leader may have fired the first shot of the Modoc War at the Battle of Lost River He became known for having mercy on enemies He protested the killing of General Canby and a clergyman and allowed a trapped regiment to retreat in a Modoc ambush After the Modoc surrendered the U S Army sent Scarfaced Charley and the remaining Carl Schurz’s service to the U S has been honored in many ways A statue of Carl Schurz stands in New York City
