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Unlock This CourseAs settlers, miners and railways moved west, the US government kept pushing Native Americans onto smaller areas of land. When Ulysses S. Grant became President in 1869 he promised a new approach, called the Peace Policy. Instead of fighting, the government would settle Native Americans on reservations (areas of land set aside for them) and teach them to farm, read and live like white Americans. It would also try to stop dishonest officials.
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Grant let Christian churches, such as the Quakers, choose many of the Indian agents (government officials who ran each reservation and handed out food and supplies). A Board of Indian Commissioners (1869) watched over them. But the aim was to replace Native ways of life with white ones, and many agents were unprepared. Food and supplies often arrived late or not at all.
Treaties promised land, but settlers and miners kept coming. In 1871 Congress stopped making treaties with Native American nations, which meant they were treated as people to be managed, not as nations to bargain with.
The policy also never ended the fighting. The army still fought groups who would not stay on reservations. The bigger problem was that the government was often unable, or unwilling, to stop its own citizens breaking the treaties.
In the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) the government promised the Lakota the Great Sioux Reservation, which included the Black Hills. In 1874 an army expedition led by Lieutenant Colonel George Custer entered the Hills, and gold was reported. Miners poured in. The army at first tried to keep them out, then gave up. In 1875 the Lakota refused an offer to sell the Hills. In December 1875 the government ordered the Lakota and Cheyenne bands still living off the reservation to move onto it by 31 January 1876 or be treated as enemies. Many could not or would not move in the middle of winter, and the army was sent against them.
On 25 June 1876 Custer led the 7th Cavalry towards a large camp of Lakota and Northern Cheyenne beside the Little Bighorn River in Montana. Leaders such as Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were among the Native American forces. Custer divided his regiment into parts and attacked. He and about 210 men with him were killed. It was the army's worst defeat in the Plains wars.
Aftermath: news reached the East in early July, just after the country's 100th birthday, and caused shock and anger. The army sent more troops, and the Lakota were hunted down. Congress threatened to stop food for the Lakota unless they gave up the Black Hills, and an agreement in 1877 took the Hills away. Crazy Horse surrendered in May 1877 and was killed that September. Sitting Bull went to Canada and returned in 1881. The victory brought the Native Americans no lasting gain. (In 1980 the Supreme Court ruled that the Black Hills had been taken without fair payment and awarded money. The Lakota have refused it, wanting the land back.)
The unit follows five themes. Here is how each changed.
How far did the role of the federal government in the USA change in the years 1783-1877? [16 marks]
You may use the following in your answer:
You must also use information of your own.
The federal government changed a great deal between 1783 and 1877, but the change was uneven.
In 1783 the Articles of Confederation left Congress weak. It could not raise taxes, as Shays' Rebellion showed in 1786-87. The Constitution of 1787 was the first big change, creating a president, courts and the power to tax. Hamilton's national bank and the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 then showed that the government could act boldly, though Jefferson worried about the limits of its powers.
The biggest change came with the Civil War. By defeating the Confederacy, the Union proved that states could not leave. Reconstruction then gave Washington new roles: the Reconstruction Act of 1867 placed the South under military districts, and the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments gave the government power to protect citizens' rights. By 1870 it was far more powerful than in 1783.
However, there was also continuity. States kept large powers and federal protection often proved weak. The Supreme Court narrowed the 14th Amendment in Cruikshank (1876), and the Compromise of 1877 withdrew the last troops, leaving the South to white Democrat control.
Its treatment of Native Americans shows both change and continuity. The government used its power to force the Cherokee out on the Trail of Tears in 1838 and, under Grant, to place Native Americans on reservations. But it failed to stop miners entering the Black Hills, which broke the Fort Laramie treaty, and war followed at the Little Bighorn in 1876. Here the government was strong in force but poor at keeping its word. Reservations and treaties also showed continuity: from the 1830s to the 1870s, Native Americans were moved aside whenever settlers wanted their land, whatever Washington had promised them.
Overall, the change was large in power, since a weak union became a nation whose government fought a war to keep it together and rewrote the Constitution. Judged by whether federal power changed people's lives, however, it was more limited, because the government lacked the will to protect black Americans and Native Americans. I therefore conclude that the change was large in what the government could do, but smaller in what it actually did.
What lifts this to the top level: it covers the whole period and several aspects, uses facts beyond the bullets, weighs change against continuity, and reaches a judgement based on a stated criterion.
For a question about change over a long period, move through the dates in order, then ask: what changed, what stayed the same, and which matters more? Finish with a judgement and say how you decided.