4.8 End of the frontier

Closing of the frontier

The 1890 U.S. Census announced that a continuous line of frontier settlement no longer existed. For Native Americans, this wasn't just a statistical footnote. It confirmed what decades of displacement had already made clear: the era of open territory, free movement, and traditional ways of life on the Plains was over. What followed was an intensified push toward confinement on reservations and forced assimilation into white American culture.

Turner's frontier thesis

In 1893, historian Frederick Jackson Turner presented his famous argument that the frontier experience had shaped American democracy and national character. He claimed that the availability of free land fostered individualism, self-reliance, and democratic values.

The thesis was enormously influential in how Americans understood their own history, but it had a glaring blind spot: it almost entirely ignored Native Americans. Turner treated the frontier as "empty" land waiting to be settled, erasing the peoples who had lived there for thousands of years. For this course, understanding Turner matters because his framework dominated American historiography for decades and reinforced the idea that westward expansion was a natural, positive force.

Impact on Native Americans

The frontier's closure concentrated the damage that had been building for decades:

• Loss of ancestral lands and territories through treaties, military force, and legal maneuvering
• Destruction of traditional food sources, especially the buffalo herds that Plains tribes depended on
• Forced lifestyle changes, as tribes that had been nomadic hunters were pushed into farming on unfamiliar, often poor-quality land
• Widespread poverty, malnutrition, and disease on reservations with limited resources
• Cultural dislocation, as traditional knowledge, ceremonies, and social structures were disrupted or actively suppressed

Reservation system establishment

Reservations were the government's primary tool for confining Native peoples to defined areas and exerting control over their lives.

• Reservations were typically placed on less desirable land with limited resources, far from tribes' original territories
• The stated goal was to "civilize" Native Americans through agriculture and Western education
• Movement was restricted, which was devastating for tribes with nomadic traditions
• Tribes became dependent on government rations and services, since their traditional economies had been destroyed
• The system gave the federal government enormous control over nearly every aspect of Native life, from food distribution to governance

Westward expansion

Manifest Destiny ideology

Manifest Destiny was the belief that the United States had a divine right and duty to expand across the entire North American continent. This wasn't just a vague cultural attitude; it directly shaped government policy and public support for displacing Native peoples.

Proponents argued that expansion would spread democracy and "civilization." In practice, it justified the seizure of Native lands, the breaking of treaties, and military campaigns against tribes that resisted. The ideology framed Native Americans as obstacles to progress rather than as peoples with their own sovereign nations and rights.

Native displacement and relocation

Removal of Native peoples from their homelands happened through a combination of coerced treaties, outright deception, and military force.

• Treaties were frequently negotiated under duress, with tribal leaders pressured or tricked into signing away land. In some cases, the government negotiated with individuals who had no authority to speak for their tribe, then held the entire nation to the agreement.
• Relocations like the Trail of Tears (1830s) forced Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw peoples on grueling marches to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), killing thousands along the way. An estimated 15,000 of roughly 60,000 people removed during this period died from exposure, disease, and starvation.
• Diverse tribes with different languages and cultures were concentrated onto smaller, unfamiliar territories, disrupting traditional social structures and economies.

Conflicts with settlers

As white settlers pushed westward, clashes with Native peoples were inevitable. These ranged from local skirmishes over land and resources to full-scale wars.

• Violence was disproportionately directed at Native communities, including the destruction of villages and food supplies as military strategy
• Conflicts reinforced negative stereotypes of Native Americans in white public opinion, which in turn justified harsher government policies
• Major military campaigns in the 1860s through 1880s were specifically designed to crush Native resistance and force remaining free tribes onto reservations

Native resistance movements

Ghost Dance religion

The Ghost Dance was a spiritual movement that spread rapidly among Plains tribes in the late 1880s. It was founded by Wovoka, a Paiute prophet who taught that performing the Ghost Dance would restore ancestral lands, bring back the buffalo, and cause white settlers to disappear.

For tribes facing starvation, confinement, and cultural destruction, the Ghost Dance offered powerful hope. But U.S. authorities saw it as a dangerous act of defiance. The government's fear of the movement led directly to increased military presence on Lakota reservations, setting the stage for tragedy.

Wounded Knee massacre

On December 29, 1890, U.S. soldiers of the 7th Cavalry attempted to disarm a group of Lakota at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. The situation escalated, and soldiers opened fire with rifles and Hotchkiss guns. Approximately 250 to 300 Lakota men, women, and children were killed, many while fleeing.

The massacre grew directly out of the government's campaign to suppress the Ghost Dance. It is widely regarded as the end of organized armed Native resistance to U.S. expansion. Twenty soldiers received the Medal of Honor for their actions that day, a fact that Native communities and advocates have long protested. Wounded Knee remains a profound symbol of the violence inflicted on Native peoples and continues to be a source of grief and remembrance.

Last Indian wars

The final decades of the 1800s saw a series of conflicts as the last free tribes fought against forced relocation:

• The Nez Perce War (1877): Chief Joseph led his people on a 1,170-mile retreat toward Canada, trying to escape forced removal to a reservation. They were captured just 40 miles from the border. His surrender speech included the famous words, "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."
• The Bannock War (1878): Bannock and Paiute peoples in Idaho fought back after settlers encroached on their treaty-guaranteed lands and destroyed camas root gathering grounds that the tribes depended on for food.
• These wars almost always resulted from broken treaties and land encroachment. Despite determined resistance, Native forces were ultimately outmatched by the U.S. military's superior numbers and resources, and the surviving peoples were confined to reservations.

Assimilation policies

Dawes Act of 1887

The Dawes Act (also called the General Allotment Act) was one of the most destructive pieces of legislation for Native peoples. Its stated purpose was to encourage Native Americans to become individual farmers and eventually U.S. citizens.

Here's how it worked:

1. Tribal lands held in common were divided into individual parcels (typically 160 acres per family head, 80 acres for single adults)
2. Allotments were held in trust by the government for 25 years, during which they could not be sold
3. Native Americans who accepted allotments and adopted "civilized habits" could receive U.S. citizenship
4. Any land left over after allotment was declared "surplus" and opened to white settlement

The real effect was massive land loss. The act undermined communal land ownership, which was central to most tribal cultures, and broke apart the territorial base of tribal governance.

Allotment system effects

The numbers tell the story clearly: Native American land holdings dropped from 138 million acres to roughly 48 million acres by 1934, a loss of about two-thirds.

• Tribal communities were fragmented as communal lands were carved into individual plots
• Much of the "surplus" land, along with many individual allotments that were later sold after the trust period expired, ended up in the hands of non-Native settlers and speculators
• A growing class of landless Native Americans had no choice but to depend on wage labor
• Traditional systems of governance and communal resource management were severely weakened
• Poverty and economic instability became entrenched on reservations
• The policy wasn't reversed until the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, which ended allotment and encouraged tribal self-governance

Cultural suppression efforts

Assimilation policy went far beyond land. The government actively tried to erase Native cultures:

• Boarding schools like the Carlisle Indian Industrial School (founded 1879 by Richard Henry Pratt) removed children from their families, sometimes by force. The motto was "Kill the Indian, save the man."
• Students were forbidden from speaking their Native languages, practicing their religions, or wearing traditional clothing. Punishments for violations were often harsh.
• Traditional ceremonies and rituals were banned on reservations under the Code of Indian Offenses (1883), which criminalized practices like the Sun Dance.
• Missionary organizations worked alongside the government to convert Native peoples to Christianity.

These policies created deep intergenerational trauma. Children who lost their language and cultural knowledge couldn't pass it to their own children, creating gaps in cultural transmission that communities are still working to repair.

Economic changes

Buffalo extinction consequences

The near-extinction of the American bison was catastrophic for Plains tribes. By the mid-1880s, herds that once numbered in the tens of millions had been reduced to fewer than 1,000 animals. The U.S. military actively encouraged buffalo hunting as a strategy to undermine Native resistance. General Philip Sheridan reportedly praised buffalo hunters for doing more to control Native peoples than the entire army had.

• The buffalo had provided food, clothing, shelter, tools, and spiritual meaning for Plains peoples
• Without the herds, tribes lost their primary food source and economic foundation
• Traditional hunting skills and the social practices built around communal hunts began to disappear
• Tribes were left with little choice but to accept government rations and reservation life

Transition to agriculture

The government promoted farming as the path to "civilization," but the transition was deeply difficult:

• Many Plains tribes had no agricultural tradition, and the skills required were entirely unfamiliar
• Reservation land was often arid, rocky, or otherwise poorly suited for farming
• Allotment parcels were frequently too small or too poor in soil quality to be productive
• Some tribes did adapt, but results were uneven and heavily dependent on local conditions
• The shift also disrupted traditional gender roles, since in many tribes women had been the primary farmers or gatherers, while men hunted

Dependency on government rations

With traditional food sources destroyed and farming often failing, many Native peoples had no alternative to government-issued rations.

• Rations were frequently low-quality and culturally unfamiliar (white flour, sugar, lard), replacing traditional diets of game, fish, and native plants
• This dietary shift contributed to long-term health problems, including high rates of diabetes and obesity that persist in Native communities today
• The ration system also functioned as a tool of control: compliance with government rules could determine whether a family received food
• A cycle of poverty and federal dependency took hold that proved extremely difficult to break

Legal and political developments

Treaty system breakdown

The U.S. had negotiated hundreds of treaties with Native nations, recognizing them as sovereign entities. Over time, the government increasingly ignored or violated these agreements.

• Treaties were broken when settlers wanted land that had been guaranteed to tribes
• The government shifted toward unilateral action, taking Native lands without meaningful negotiation
• Trust between tribes and the federal government eroded, and tribal sovereignty was steadily undermined
• The power imbalance was stark: tribes had no realistic means of enforcing treaty terms against the U.S. military and legal system

Indian Appropriations Act of 1871

This act marked a fundamental legal shift. Congress declared that no Native tribe would be recognized as an independent nation capable of making treaties with the United States.

• All Native Americans were effectively reclassified as wards of the federal government
• Existing treaties remained technically in effect, but no new ones would be negotiated
• This gave Congress and the executive branch direct control over Native policy without needing Senate treaty ratification
• The act stripped away a key element of tribal sovereignty and set the legal groundwork for the assimilation policies that followed

Citizenship and voting rights

The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 granted U.S. citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States. But citizenship didn't automatically mean equal rights.

• Many states used poll taxes, literacy tests, and other barriers to prevent Native Americans from voting
• Some states (notably Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah) denied Native voting rights into the 1950s and 1960s
• The relationship between tribal citizenship and U.S. citizenship raised complex legal questions that remain relevant today
• Over time, citizenship contributed to greater Native participation in American politics and helped fuel pan-Indian political movements in the 20th century

Cultural preservation efforts

Native American education

Education for Native peoples shifted significantly over the 20th century, moving away from the assimilationist boarding school model toward approaches that value and preserve Native cultures.

• Tribal colleges and universities began emerging in the 1960s and 1970s. Navajo Community College (now Diné College) was the first, founded in 1968.
• Curricula increasingly incorporate Native languages, histories, and traditional knowledge
• These institutions aim to address historical trauma while building cultural pride and practical skills
• Funding remains a persistent challenge, with many tribal schools operating on tight budgets

Language retention strategies

Of the roughly 300 Native languages once spoken in North America, many are critically endangered, with only elderly fluent speakers remaining. Preservation efforts include:

• Immersion programs where children learn entirely in their Native language
• Language nests for very young children, modeled after successful Māori programs in New Zealand
• Documentation projects that record vocabulary, grammar, and oral traditions before fluent speakers pass away
• Digital tools including apps and online courses to support learners
• Integration of Native languages into some public school curricula

The urgency is real: once the last fluent speakers of a language die, revival becomes exponentially harder.

Traditional practices continuation

Native communities have worked to maintain and revive cultural practices despite decades of suppression:

• Ceremonial and spiritual practices that were once banned are now openly practiced and taught to younger generations
• Traditional arts, crafts, and ecological knowledge are being preserved through community programs and cultural centers
• Connection to ancestral lands and sacred sites remains central to many tribal identities, though access is sometimes restricted by land ownership changes
• Many communities adapt traditional practices to modern contexts while preserving their core cultural meaning

Legacy of frontier closure

Reservation life challenges

Reservations today still bear the marks of their origins as instruments of confinement and control:

• Poverty rates on many reservations far exceed the national average. The Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, for example, has historically had unemployment rates above 80%.
• Housing, healthcare, and educational facilities are often inadequate
• Geographic isolation limits economic opportunities
• Environmental issues, including resource exploitation and contamination, affect many reservation communities
• Jurisdictional conflicts between tribal, state, and federal authorities create ongoing legal complications

Urban migration trends

Starting in the mid-20th century, many Native Americans moved to cities, often encouraged by federal relocation programs in the 1950s and 1960s that promised jobs and housing.

• Major cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Minneapolis, and Denver developed significant Native communities
• Urban life created new challenges: cultural preservation was harder away from tribal lands, and many relocatees faced discrimination and poverty
• Urban Native communities also became centers of political activism. The American Indian Movement (AIM), founded in Minneapolis in 1968, grew out of urban Native organizing.
• New forms of pan-Indian identity emerged as people from different tribes lived and organized together in cities

Modern Native American identity

Native American identity today is shaped by a wide range of experiences across reservation, rural, and urban settings.

• A resurgence of cultural pride has driven renewed interest in traditional languages, ceremonies, and arts
• Tribal enrollment and blood quantum requirements (rules about how much Native ancestry qualifies someone for tribal membership) remain contentious issues within many communities
• Native peoples continue to push back against cultural appropriation and stereotyping in mainstream media and sports
• Contemporary Native artists, writers, and filmmakers blend traditional and modern elements in ways that challenge old stereotypes
• The fight for tribal sovereignty and self-determination remains at the center of Native political life, from land rights and water rights to control over education and justice systems