Skip to main content

40. Closing the Frontier

Sand Creek, the Little Bighorn, the end of armed resistance, life on the reservations, and Wounded Knee.

40. Closing the Frontier

Little Bighorn Battlefield Natl. MonumentSitting Bull It was hard to believe the two regions were part of the same country. The rapidly industrializing East bo…

40a. The Massacre at Sand Creek

Library of CongressColonel John M. Chivington attacked an unsuspecting village of Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians camped on Sand Creek. An eyewitness testified…

40b. Custer's Last Stand

Custer's Last Stand Edgar S. Paxson, 1899 Another Broken Treaty Gold broke the delicate peace with the Lakota. In 1874, a scientific exploration group led by…

40c. The End of Resistance

"I have heard talk and talk, but nothing is done. Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do not pay for my dead people. They do not…

40d. Life on the Reservations

National ArchivesGeronimo (on the right) and his son waiting for a train that transported them and other Apache prisoners to Florida, in 1886. After being forc…

40e. The Wounded Knee Massacre

The armed resistance was over. The remaining Sioux were forced into reservation life at gunpoint. Many Sioux sought spiritual guidance. Thus began a religious…