Also, In contrast to the whites, the Plains Indians held a different view of the land. They believed that the idea of owning land was not in their jurisdiction to control, and should be used for common use and did not entrust in individual property ownership. From that, we can see it would only be a matter of time until the government and land hungry settlers would eventually intrude on the “promised Indian land.” Strategies such as Grant’s peace policy, Small Reservation policy were established to act as a more humane way of dealing with the Native Americans on the Great Plains. For the Grant’s Peace policy some of the rational goals were to implement and engage in more humanitarian measures and to be less reliant on the military and have strategies to assimilate Indians into mainstream American culture. This aspect of Grant’s Peace policy was designed to concentrate all Indians on small well-defined reservations therefore Red Cloud agreed to keep his followers out of …show more content…
To overcome tribalism and traditional Indian cultural practices, which many officials believed to be an impediment to Native Americans, federal agents created a set of strategies to carry out. With warfare still raging on the Great Plains, the U.S. Indian policies shifted again as treaty making with Indian tribes effectively ended with the Appropriations Act of March 3, 1871. A clause in this bill provided that “henceforth, no Indian nation or tribe within U.S. territory shall be acknowledge or recognized as an independent nation or power with whom the United may contract by treaty.” Thus, no longer acknowledging the Native American tribes as independent nations, Indian affairs were now handled with statues, and to top it off the consent of the Natives were no longer important. The Government established its dominance over the Natives and once again demonstrated the immoral choices at the time. The U.S. government ceased its practice of involving Christian groups in Indian matters and the administration of Indian affairs was centralized in the Department of Interior. Although Indian affairs were no longer important they obliged to appoint an Indian agent to each reservation. Special Indian Courts: The government also established special courts on the reservations to prosecute crimes by