The Colorado Gold Rush: The Consequences Of The Civil War

“All manner of depredations were inflicted on their persons, they were scalped, their brains knocked out; the men used their knives, ripped open women, clubbed little children, knocked them in the head with their guns, beat their brains out, mutilated their bodies in every sense of the word…worse mutilated than any I ever saw before, the women all cut to pieces….” (Smith). On the morning of November 29, 1864, U.S. Army Colonel John Chivington along with 675 Third Colorado Volunteer Regiment soldiers rode from Fort Lyon to Sand Creek where, according to some of the Indians, the most friendly of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes camped under the assumed protection of the fort. The conflict between the Third Colorado Cavalry, and the Cheyenne and

During that time the Indian policy was secondary to the Civil War. One of the consequences of the Civil War was that during that time the United States couldn’t spend a lot of their time focusing on the Native Americans. Also in the 1860s, the Whites were still settling onto the Great Plains. In 1858 the Colorado Gold Rush had begun. A lot of Euro-American miners were coming into the Indian Territory to mine or settle. The government couldn’t do much about the situation because there were too many people coming into the territory and there was gold on the land. The tension between the Indians and Whites grew. Slowly the Natives started to get out of control. They started to steal farmers and ranchers cattle and some cases they would also burn ranches down. They would raid; wagon trains, miners, and settlers that were traveling through the Indians territory or settling the

The Whites benefited from it by gaining more land but was also a consequence because the Indians still, hunted and raided on the territory. The reason the Indians didn’t abide by the treaty was the fact that they thought that the land couldn’t be owned. They thought the treaty was nonsense but signed anyway it to get free food. The next year President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act of 1862. The Homestead Act promoted westward expansion and further displaced Indians. It allowed any American, including freed slaves to claim 160 acres of federal land. Eventually, 256 million acres would be claimed. After claiming their land the settler would then have to live on that piece of ground for five years continuously for them to have finally owned their claimed ground. In the winter of 1862, President Lincoln appoints one of his friends, John Evans to become the Territorial Governor of Colorado. The next year in March Lincoln had a meeting with some of the Indians leaders and told them that, “I really am not capable of advising you whether, in the providence of the Great Spirit, who is the great Father of us all. It is best for you to maintain the habits and customs of your race, or adept a new made of life. I can only say that I can see no way in which your race is to become as numerous and prosperous as the white race except by living as they do, by the cultivation of the