Native American Resistance by Zachary Deibel

Author:Zachary Deibel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cavendish Square Publishing, LLC

This 1867 sketch shows Cheyennes attacking a Union Pacific Railroad work crew.

These back-and-forth skirmishes continued throughout the railroad’s construction. In 1866, the Sioux attacked American forces along the Bozeman Trail. After the Americans were trapped by an ambush of Cheyenne, Sioux, and Miniconjous Natives led by Red Cloud, a Sioux chief, none survived. General William Tecumseh Sherman reportedly remarked, “We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women, children.” This retribution, however, would not come until the end of the nineteenth century. Resistance to the railroad continued. Cheyenne raiders derailed a train in 1867, leading to the death of many crew members. In 1868, the Sioux derailed a train, destroying telegraph lines and killing two crewmen.

However, the progress of the railroad proved too overwhelming. The United States completed the railroad in 1869, bringing in floods of new settlers for decades. The completion of the railroad, however, was not the end of Native resistance to American expansion. These tribes had been betrayed by American diplomacy. Treaties negotiated had been betrayed, and the Natives aimed to retake their land. However, the United States, as it often did, ignored its promises to Native Americans. It would continue to move Natives onto reservations, threaten warfare with those who resisted, and destroy those who refused.

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