Images & Documents

Unit 1: Native American History Activity 4

Images and Documents
Activity 4: Native American
1	Adjustment to a settled way of life was especially difficult for the nomadic Plains Indians. The United Indian Force, led by Comanche chief Quanah Parker, surrendered to the U.S. army in 1875, and the tribes were settled in what is today Oklahoma. Parker encouraged his people to keep Indian traditions alive, but also to adopt new ways necessary for survival, such as the leasing of land to earn income by farming. Shown above is one of Parker's wives scavenging for beef entrails near a reservation slaughterhouse. Along with poverty and disease, hunger was a common condition on the reservation.
2	The Apache tribe was the last to surrender to government control in the 1880s. Under the leadership of Mangus Colorado, his son-in-law Cochise and later the famous Geronimo, the Apaches fiercely resisted domination. The Apaches, traditionally a nomadic people, faced a particularly difficult adjustment when settling down to life on the reservation. During the final years of the Apache wars, uprising on the San Carlos reservation in Arizona occurred frequently, and Geronimo and his followers tried to escaped three times. The years around the turn of the century were an especially bleak time for Native Americans: hunger, poverty, and despair characterized daily life on the reservation. Shown above are Apaches measuring cloth rations given to them by the federal government.