1878
Northern Cheyenne make a futile attempt to leave the Oklahoma reservation and return to their native homeland in Montana.
Carl Schurz head of a commission looking into affairs of the Indian Bureau terminates John Q. Smith along with several more bureau staff for, “cupidity, inefficiency, and the most barefaced dishonesty and the departments affairs were a reproach to the whole nation.”
1879
Former Indian-fighter Captain Richard Henry Pratt founded the Indian Training and Industrial boarding school at Carlisle Pennsylvania, to take away young Indians from their native culture and modernize them as members of mainstream American culture.
James Francis “Jim” Thorpe a member of the Sac and Fox Nation was a graduate of Carlisle Indian School. He excelled in sports and went on to be the first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal in 1912 for the United States of America.
Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce speaks in front of the U.S. Congress about their tribal homelands that have been stolen through treaties broken by the government, “it was like having horses that I do not want to sell being sold by his neighbor, with the neighbor then letting the buyer take the horses from me.”
In Oregon, in the middle of winter, the last 540 Paiute Native Americans were rounded up by the U.S. Army and forced to walk the Paiute Trail of Tears to the Yakima Reservation in Washington.
1880 – 1935
Congress passes Civilization Regulation laws that only Native Americans can break like, leaving the reservation without permission and putting a prohibition on Indian religious practices such as the Sun Dance ceremonies and the medicine man.
1881
A Century of Dishonor, Helen Hunt Jackson’s book focusing on criticizing the U.S. Government for mistreatment of the Indians is published.
Washington state assimilates Native American homelands and establishes the Spokan Indian Reservation.
Sitting Bull is promised a full pardon if he and his 186 followers that are still alive come in and surrender at Fort Buford, North Dakota, but as soon as he does he is arrested and held as a prisoner of war for two years.
Crow Dog succeeds in a plot to wrestle control from a stronger leader when he kills Spotted Tail but the white officials dismiss the murder as a simple squabble between two Indians that went too far.
1882
A Congressional Act of Congress states, mandatory education of Indians in industrial schools will be funded by the government and George Wright was appointed Superintendent of Indian schools.
The Indian Rights Association was created to protect the rights of Indians but it was established by white reformers that insisted the Indians abandon their native cultural and mystical beliefs and conform to their view of American values.
The civil authorities at the San Carlos Reservation are charged with gross mismanagement by a federal Grand Jury in Arizona.
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