American Indian Wars

(noun)

Multiple conflicts between European settlers or the U.S. government and the indigenous peoples of North America from the time of earliest colonial settlement until 1924. 

Related Terms

Examples of American Indian Wars in the following topics:

  • American Indians and the War Effort

    • Some 44,000 Native Americans served in the United States military during World War II, which was one-third of all able-bodied Indian men.
    • Some 44,000 American Indians served in the United States military during World War II.
    • The war's aftermath, says historian Allison Bernstein, marked a "new era in Indian affairs" and turned "American Indians" into "Indian Americans."
    • Upon returning to America after the war, some American Indian soldiers suffered from PTSD and unemployment.
    • Examine how American Indian involvement in the war brought profound changes to their culture

  • Madison's American Indian Policy

    • James Madison's presidency saw the continuation of the American Indian Wars as the United States expanded into and invaded indigenous territory.
    • Like most American leaders at the time, Madison had a paternalistic and discriminatory attitude toward American Indians.
    • He encouraged American Indian men to give up hunting and become farmers and supported the conversion of American Indians to a European way of life.
    • Army to protect some of the American Indian lands from intrusion.
    • Many consider Governor William Henry Harrison's victory over the American Indian confederacy at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811 the climax of the war.

  • The War in the West

    • The Revolutionary War in the west was fought primarily between civilian settlers and American Indians allied with the British.
    • When the American Revolutionary War began in 1775, the Ohio River marked a tenuous border between the American colonies and the American Indians of the Ohio Country.
    • Ohio Indians—Shawnees, Mingos, Delawares, and Wyandots—were divided over how to respond to the war.
    • In order to provide a strategic diversion for operations in the Northeast, the British in Detroit began recruiting and arming American Indian war parties to raid American settlements.
    • For the American Indians, the hostilities would continue under a different name: the Northwest Indian War.

  • American Indians and the Revolution

    • American Indian tribes were divided over whether to support Great Britain or the Patriots during the American Revolution.
    • For the Iroquois Confederacy, based in New York, the American Revolution resulted in civil war.
    • Noncombatants suffered greatly during the war.
    • The British made peace with the Americans in the Treaty of Paris (1783), through which they ceded vast American Indian territories to the United States without informing or consulting with the American Indians.
    • The Northwest Indian War was led by American Indian tribes trying to repulse American colonists.

  • Pontiac's Uprising

    • British expansion into American Indian land after the French and Indian War led to resistance in the form of Pontiac's Rebellion in 1763.
    • While the French had long cultivated alliances among certain of the American Indian tribes, the British post-war approach was to subordinate the tribes, and tensions quickly rose between the American Indians and the British.
    • Relations between British colonists and American Indians deteriorated further during Pontiac's Rebellion, and the British government concluded that colonists and American Indians must be kept apart.
    • For American Indians, Pontiac's War demonstrated the possibilities of pan-tribal cooperation in resisting Anglo-American colonial expansion.
    • Although the conflict divided tribes and villages, the war also saw the first extensive multi-tribal resistance to European colonization in North America and was the first war between Europeans and American Indians that did not end in complete defeat for the American Indians.

  • Indian Resistance and Survival

    • Indian tribes fought over 40 wars for survival, killing at least 19,000 white settlers and soldiers and at least 30,000 American Indians.
    • Native American nations on the plains in the West continued armed conflicts with the United States throughout the 19th century through what were called generally "Indian Wars. " The Battle of Little Bighorn (1876) was one of the greatest Native American victories.
    • Indian Wars continued into the early 20th century.
    • Bureau of the Census (1894), The Indian Wars under the government of the United States have been more than 40 in number.
    • Census Bureau estimated that about 0.8% of the U.S. population was of American Indian or Alaska Native descent.

  • The Northwest Territory

    • The Northwest Indian War (1785–1795) led to further expansion of the United States into American Indian territory.
    • The Western Confederacy, an alliance among the American Indian nations dating back to the French colonial era, was renewed during the American Revolutionary War.
    • Invaders retaliated with equally violent attacks on American Indians.
    • Although the Northwest Indian War, known in the U.S.
    • However, the war was a key part of a long offensive in the Ohio Country, which included the Beaver Wars (1650s), the Seven Years' War (1754–1763), Pontiac's Rebellion (1763–1764), Lord Dunmore's War (1774), and the American Revolution (1775–1783).

  • European Wars in the Colonies

    • Britain and France fought four wars that became known as the French and Indian Wars—followed in 1778 with another war when France joined the Americans in the American Revolution.
    • The Iroquois suffered heavily in King William's War and were brought, along with other western American Indians, into the French trading network.
    • The British colonists' treatment of American Indian tribes led directly to the Wabanaki tribe's involvement in the war.
    • The conflict also involved a number of American Indian tribes as well as Spain, which was allied with France.
    • Following Queen Anne's War, relations between Carolina and the nearby American Indian populations deteriorated, resulting in the Yamasee War of 1715 and Father Rale's War a few years later, which very nearly destroyed the province.

  • Changes in American Indian Life

    • The invasion of North America by European powers had widespread effects on American Indian life.
    • Smallpox proved particularly fatal to American Indian populations.
    • When Europeans arrived as colonists in North America, many American Indian tribes began selling war captives to Europeans rather than integrating them into their own societies as they had done before.
    • The slave trade of American Indians lasted only until around 1730 and gave rise to a series of devastating wars among the tribes, including the Yamasee War.
    • The Indian Wars of the early 18th century, combined with the increasing importation of African slaves, effectively ended the American Indian slave trade by 1750.

  • American Indians and the New Nation

    • Rather than secure peace, the Treaty helped set the stage for the next round of hostilities between American Indians and British colonists along the Ohio River, and this would culminate in Lord Dunmore's War.
    • The cultural assimilation of American Indians was an assimilation effort by the United States to transform American Indian culture to European-American culture between the years of 1790 and 1920.
    • When the Indian Wars had concluded, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the government outlawed the practice of traditional religious ceremonies.
    • It established American Indian boarding schools that children were required to attend.
    • These societies encouraged the assimilation and Christianization of American Indians.