How the West Was Lost

This episode relives the Long Walk of 2,400 Navajos from their home in Canyon de Chelly to the Bosque Redondo in Eastern New Mexico. It was 1864 when General James H. Carleton assigned Colonel Kit Carson to force the Navajos on the walk. During the trek, 200 Navajos died and the rest suffered horribly. It was one example of the European settlers forcibly removing Native Americans from their land. In 1868 Navajo leaders journeyed to Washington and convinced President Andrew Johnson to let their people go home and leave the disease and insect-ridden poverty of the Bosque Redondo. This episode includes interviews with direct descendants of the Navajo leaders.

This episode follows the 1,600-mile path taken by the Nez Perce 114 years ago, as they fought 13 battles with the United States Army, for the right to the Nez Perce homeland. The Nez Perce are a Native American tribe of the northwest who were first visited by white missionaries in the 1830s. The white men presented the Nez Perce with two treaties which resulted in the loss of 90 percent of their sacred land, and then the further loss of 90 percent of what was left. The Nez Perce, who became Christians, accepted their fate but others embarked on the 1,600-mile war path. The Nez Perce outmarched, outwitted and outfought the US Army for four months before surrendering.

This is the story of Geronimo and Victorio, two Apache leaders who repeatedly struck out against, and were victorious over, the white men who tried to oppress their people and force them to live on a hot, barren, malarial flat on the Gila River in Arizona, called the San Carlos Reservation. For years, US and Mexican troops attacked Victorio and Geronimo and eventually won their surrender only to find that the two had escaped once again from the reservation and had resumed the battle. In 1886, with Victorio now dead, Geronimo formally surrendered to General Nelson Miles. In this episode viewers will meet direct descendants of Geronimo and Victorio and other Apache.

No Native American tribes suffered more than the Cheyenne and the Arapaho when Union soldiers from the Civil War spilled over into the West and attacked these groups and others. In 1861 the Cheyenne and Arapaho accepted, in exchange for the vast land they once occupied, a small reservation in Southeastern Colorado, the Sand Creek Reserve. There were few buffalo on the reservation and without them, the Indians could not survive. A series of battles broke out, with Black Kettle leading his Cheyenne against the ambitious Col. John Chivington, his rival and enemy. This episode visits Sand Creek and other battlefields from the conflict and talks to ancestors of the warriors.

The 1865 Montana gold rush pitted white prospectors against Lakotas of the Great Sioux Nation, and Northern Cheyenne, whose hunting ground had to be crossed to get to the gold. The white treasure hunters blazed the Boseman Trail through sacred Lakota ground. For the next two years, Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and the Cheyenne Chief Dull Knife fought anyone who tried to use the Boseman Trail. In 1868 peace was reached. In 1874, more gold in South Dakota started the battles again. This time General Custer was involved and met his fate at the Battle of Little Bighorn. This episode explores the greatest Indian triumph in American history.

This episode tells the story of the final battles for Indian land - the battle at Wounded Knee. Within a year of the Indian's triumph over General Custer at Little Big Horn, most of Custer's defeaters had surrendered to reservations. The white government continued to impose restrictions on the remaining Native Americans, giving them less hospitable land. Out of their need for spiritual uplifting, the Indians developed the Ghost Dance to ward off whites. The government banned the dance and murdered Sitting Bull. When the smoke cleared, Big Foot and 350 followers were also dead. The rest were taken to reservations where they remained, spirits broken.