Indian Wars - in American history, general term referring to the series of conflicts between Europeans and their descendants and the indigenous peoples of North America.
Early Conflicts Each of the colonial powers in North America met and overcame Native American resistance. In the Southwest the most notable incident precipitated by the Spaniards was the ferocious Pueblo uprising led by
Popé in 1680. New France was constantly menaced because of the hostility of the
Iroquois Confederacy, although the French missionaries and traders maintained better relations with other Northeastern tribes. The history of the English settlements is studded with tribal conflicts, including the war of the
Pequot against the Connecticut settlers in 1637; the uprising of the
Wampanoag and
Narragansett against the New England colonies in 1675–76, known as
King Philip's War; the wars with the Yamasee on the South Carolina frontier; and
Pontiac's Rebellion in the Northwest Territory in 1763. Struggles in the Northwest Territory After the American Revolution, the most pressing Native American problem facing the new government was the unwillingness of the tribes of the Northwest to acquiesce in the settlement of the Ohio valley. After unsuccessful expeditions under generals Josiah Harmar (1790) and Arthur
St. Clair (1791), Gen. Anthony
Wayne defeated the tribes of the Northwest Territory at the battle of
Fallen Timbers in 1794. By the Treaty of Greenville (1795) they agreed to give up their lands in Ohio and move to Indiana. Settlers soon began to encroach on Native American lands in Indiana, provoking the Shawnee chief,
Tecumseh, and his brother, the
Shawnee Prophet, to organize a powerful native confederacy. In 1811, William H.
Harrison defeated the Shawnee Prophet at
Tippecanoe. Tecumseh allied himself with the British in the War of 1812 and was killed in the battle of the
Thames (1813), which ended the threat from Native Americans in the Northwest Territory. During the War of 1812 the
Creek also rose and were defeated (1814) by Andrew
Jackson. Relocation across the Mississippi After 1815 a policy of removing the indigenous population to reservations across the Mississippi River was pursued by the U.S. government with such success that by 1860 the great majority of the tribes had been relocated. Often, however, this was accomplished only after a struggle. The attempt to remove the
Seminole from their lands in Florida resulted in a number of wars; the most notable
Seminole War involved the celebrated
Osceola. Similarly the refusal of the
Sac and Fox to be removed led to the
Black Hawk War of 1832. Wars in the West After 1860 the wars continued but they now took place W of the Mississippi; the heaviest fighting occurred on the Great Plains, but there was also intermittent warfare in the Southwest and Northwest. In these conflicts most of the fighting was done by the regular army led by two of the more renowned Indian fighters, generals George
Crook and Nelson
Miles. Much of the opposition was furnished by four tribes: the
Sioux, the
Apache, the
Comanche, and the
Cheyenne. Other tribes that presented courageous but generally futile opposition to the white man's rapacity were the
Arapaho, the
Kiowa, the
Ute, the
Blackfoot, the
Shoshone, the
Nez Percé, and the
Bannock. Among the Native American fighting leaders were
Geronimo,
Crazy Horse, Chief
Joseph,
Captain Jack,
Red Cloud, and
Mangas Coloradas. The warfare was characterized by numerous atrocities on both sides. Until 1861 the Plains people had been relatively peaceful, but the advance of white settlers, with their wanton slaughter of the buffalo herds on which the Native Americans depended for their livelihood, led to the first of the numerous outbreaks in the West. Dissatisfaction among the Native Americans continued; the contributing causes were corrupt Indian agents, transgressions by prospectors seeking valuable minerals in tribal lands, and the interference of the railroads with the tribes' traditional hunting practices. Hostilities between the army and indigenous tribes reached its height between 1869 and 1878, when over 200 pitched battles were fought. Although the Native Americans fought fiercely and courageously, the continuing flow of settlers to the West and the spread of a Western railroad network made their resistance ineffectual. Notable incidents in this bloody warfare include the virtual siege of Tucson by a band of Apaches led by
Cochise, the massacre at
Sand Creek, the Fetterman Massacre (see under
Fetterman, William Judd), Custer's last stand (see
Custer, George Armstrong), and the battle of
Wounded Knee. Wounded Knee in 1890 is often considered the last battle of the Indian Wars although there was an expedition against the
Ojibwa in Minnesota in 1898. By 1887, with the passage of the
Dawes Act, a new era had begun. The resistance of the Native Americans was at an end, and the government had successfully confined them to reservations. Bibliography See A. Britt, Great Indian Chiefs (1938, repr. 1969); M. F. Schmitt and D. A. Brown, Fighting Indians of the West (1948, repr. 1966); R. H. Lowie, Indians of the Plains (1954, repr. 1963); A. M. Josephy, The Patriot Chiefs (1961); J. Tebbel and K. W. Jennison, The American Indian Wars (1961); J. Tebbel, The Compact History of the Indian Wars (1966); A. W. Eckert, Wilderness Empire (1969); D. A. Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970); S. Longstreet, War Cries on Horseback (1970); H. Bird, War for the West, 1790–1813 (1971); S. L. A. Marshall, Crimsoned Prairie (1972). See also the bibliographies under the various chiefs, tribes, and wars cited. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved. | 
