January 31
Plains Indians refuse to return to their
reservations.
Despite a federal government ultimatum (see entry
for DECEMBER 1875), several thousand Lakota
Sioux and Northern Cheyenne, embittered by the
invasion of the Black Hills (see entry for SUMMER
1874), refuse to report to their reservation agen-
cies. In response, General Philip Sheridan sends out
three columns of soldiers—led by General George
Crook, Colonel John Gibbon, and General Alfred
H. Terry—to subdue the Indians, now branded as
“hostiles,” and force them to live within reservation
boundaries.
March 17
U.S. troops are defeated at the Battle of
Powder River.
General George Crook orders Colonel Joseph J.
Reynolds and his men to launch a surprise attack on
a Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne village in the Powder
River Valley, in what is now Montana. Confronted
by Reynolds’s forces at daybreak, the Indians, still
dressed in nightclothes, flee into the frozen coun-
tryside. Having taken their weapons with them, the
warriors of the village quickly regroup and return
to fight the soldiers, who are torching the Indians’
tipis and possessions. The warriors inflict heavy ca-
sualties and force the troops to retreat. Although an
embarrassing defeat for the United States, the Battle
of Powder River does succeed in alerting the Lakota
Sioux and Cheyenne to the army’s commitment to
battling Indians found outside reservation borders
(see entry for JANUARY 31, 1876).
April 12
The Canadian Parliament passes the
Indian Act.
Enacted nine years after the confederation of Can-
ada (see entry for JULY 1, 1867), the Indian Act of
1876 announces the new government’s intention
to uphold the paternalistic policies toward Indians
that were initiated under British rule. The act ap-
plies only to people of full Indian descent, thereby
excluding the Métis (a people of Indian and French
ancestry) and the Inuit.
The Indian Act recognizes the Indian reserves
established by treaty and allows for the creation of
band councils. The real governing power on re-
serves, however, is to be held by agents, employees
of Canada’s Department of Indian Affairs. The de-
partment’s goal is to “civilize” Canada’s Indians by
assimilating them into non-Indian society.
The act also creates for Indians a distinct legal
status that is to be defined exclusively by the govern-
ment. For example, the government’s new definition
of “Indianness” holds that an Indian man can give up
his Indian status in exchange for citizenship and that
an Indian woman who marries a non-Indian man
forfeits her Indian status under the law. (See also en-
tries for 1920; 1927; JUNE 20, 1951; and 1989.)June 8Sitting Bull has a vision of fallen soldiers.
While performing the Sun Dance, a traditional ritual
of supplication, Lakota leader and holy man Sitting
Bull hears a voice instructing that he study a vision
that appears to him as he stares at the sun. Sitting
Bull sees a great number of soldiers riding toward an
Indian village. The soldiers and their horses are up-
side down, as are a few of the Indians. The voice tells
him that the soldiers will all die, but Sitting Bull and
his men must not plunder their bodies.
The vision is greeted with great enthusiasm by
Sitting Bull’s followers. It is interpreted as a prophesy
that a great army of soldiers will descend on them. Al-
though some Lakota will die in battle (as symbolized
by the upside-down Indians), all of the soldiers will be
killed. (See also JUNE 25 TO 26, 1876.)June 17U.S. troops meet Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne
warriors in the Battle of the Rosebud.
From the Crow and Shoshone scouts accompa-
nying his soldiers, General George Crook learns