CHRONOLOGY

1851

  • First Treaty of Fort Laramie negotiated.

    • 1862

  • Homestead Act passes.

  • Great Sioux Uprising (Santee Uprising) kills 1,000 settlers.

    • 1864

  • Sand Creek massacre kills several hundred Indians.

    • 1867

  • Treaty of Medicine Lodge negotiated.

    • 1868

  • Washita massacre led by Custer.

  • Second Treaty of Fort Laramie negotiated.

    • 1869

  • First transcontinental railroad completed.

    • 1870s

  • Hunters begin to decimate bison herds.

    • 1873

  • “Big Bonanza” discovered on Comstock Lode.

    • 1874

  • Gold discovered in Black Hills.

    • 1876

  • Battle of the Little Big Horn destroys Custer’s army.

    • 1877

  • Chief Joseph surrenders.

    • 1879

  • Carlisle Indian School opens.

  • Exodusters move to Kansas.

    • 1881

  • Sitting Bull surrenders.

    • 1882

  • Chinese Exclusion Act passes.

    • 1886

  • Geronimo surrenders.

    • 1886–1887

  • Severe blizzards decimate cattle.

    • 1887

  • Dawes Allotment Act passes.

    • 1889

  • Ghost Dance spreads.

  • Two million acres in Oklahoma opened for settlement.

    • 1890

  • Sitting Bull killed.

  • Massacre at Wounded Knee kills several hundred Indians.

    • 1893

  • Last land rush occurs in Oklahoma Territory.

  • Frederick Jackson Turner presents “frontier thesis.”