European Philosophical Influence

• Although the direct cause of the downfall of the Plains Indians was the result of U.S. westward expansion and fighting with settlers and the army, an indirect cause of the downfall of the Indians can be traced to the attitude of the Divine Mandate of Christian Europeans. This Divine Mandate relates to the belief that European Christians had a right to live and expand in all places of the earth, subjecting its peoples to colonization and with it came war, disease, trade and, in some cases, slavery. This attitude of Eurocentrism was adopted into the American psyche of exploration and conquering the vast American landscape as its population grew and began to migrate westward into the territory of the American Indians.
  
  

18th Century

• During the late 18th Century, the newly formed United States of America issued a ruling that once a territory of the country has established a population of 60,000 inhabitants, it may draw up a state constitution and enter the country as a state of the union. As settlers moved into the Northwest Territory, which includes modern-day Ohio and other parts of the Ohio River basin, treaties were forced upon Native Americans by American delegates. However, Native Americans and settlers both broke the terms of treaties as raids were commenced by Kentucky frontiersmen on Native American villages. As a result, violent fighting erupted between different tribes and settlers; eventually the U.S. Army defeated the Native Americans, opening up the way for states such as Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin in the early and mid-1800s.
  
  

Native American Philosophy

• As exhibited by the warrior Tecumseh during the early 1800s, Native Americans had no philosophical or legal concept of ownership of land, unlike Europeans and Americans. As a result, the establishment of treaties and setting of boundaries determining the settlement of frontiersmen across the Midwest seemed a foreign and outrageous way of life to Native Americans. According to Native American thought, all land was owned equally by those who lived on it as a natural resource. Tecumseh is quoted in saying, "Sell a Country! Why not sell the air, clouds and the great sea? Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?" Due to the Native American's philosophy and outrage at the ownership of land by frontiersmen and expansionists, the only other option for Native Americans was to fight against the white settlers.
  
  

Late 1800s

• During the late 1800s, Native Americans residing in the westernmost regions of the Great Plains also came under attack as settlers migrated beyond the boundaries of the Mississippi River. Westward expansion of Americans was pioneered by the building of railroads and the cheap sale of land by the American government to those who formerly could not afford to purchase property on the East Coast. As white settlers and hunters migrated westward, they wiped out entire herds of buffalo, which the Plains Indians relied on for sustenance and nourishment. Some Native American tribes migrated themselves to accommodate the westward expansion of the white men; however, even those tribes, such as the one led by Black Kettle, were massacred by white militias. Rumors of gold also led to more fighting between Native Americans and settlers in the form of militias and the U.S. Army.