Table : CHRONOLOGY
1851
  • First Treaty of Fort Laramie.
1862
  • Homestead Act.
  • Great Sioux Uprising (Santee Uprising).
1864
  • Sand Creek massacre.
1867
  • Treaty of Medicine Lodge.
1868
  • Washita massacre.
  • Second Treaty of Fort Laramie.
1869
  • First transcontinental railroad completed.
1870s
  • Hunters begin to decimate bison herds.
1873
  • “Big Bonanza” discovered on Comstock Lode.
1874
  • Discovery of gold in Black Hills.
1876
  • Battle of the Little Big Horn.
1877
  • Chief Joseph surrenders.
1879
  • Carlisle Indian School opens.
  • Exodusters move to Kansas.
1881
  • Sitting Bull surrenders.
1882
  • Chinese Exclusion Act.
1886
  • Geronimo surrenders.
1886–1887
  • Severe blizzards decimate cattle.
1887
  • Dawes Allotment Act.
1889
  • Rise of Ghost Dance.
  • Two million acres in Oklahoma opened for settlement.
1890
  • Sitting Bull killed.
  • Massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
1893
  • Last land rush in Oklahoma Territory.
  • Frederick Jackson Turner presents “frontier thesis.”