Native American History 1763 to 1890

Page history last edited by Mr. Hengsterman 9 years, 11 months ago

Milestones in Native American History
Confrontation, Forced Assimilation, reservations

(NEW ENGLAND) King Philip’s War (1675) - A series of battles in New Hampshire between the colonists and the Wompanowogs, led by a chief known as King Philip. The war was started when the Massachusetts government tried to assert court jurisdiction over the local Indians.

The colonists won with the help of the Mohawks, and this victory opened up additional Indian lands for expansion. Wampanoag leader organized neighboring tribes to attack settlements in 1675, resulting in 1000 white and 4500 Indian deaths

Resistance and Rebellions

Schenectady Massacre (1690)

French militia and their Indian allies raided into what is today the State of New York. The result was the Schenectady Massacre (1690)

How does the Schenectady Massacre serve as a CASE STUDY for the larger European struggle to control the North American continent?

Think about who was involved, where the conflict took place and what was the impact of the massacre

A party of more than 200 French militia and their Indian allies (Mohawk and Algonquin) warriors attacked the unguarded Dutch community, destroying most of the homes, and killing or capturing most of its inhabitants. Sixty residents were killed, including 11 African slaves.

Pueblo Revolt (1680) The Franciscan friars and Spanish political officials forced the Pueblos to pay tribute, work on encomiendas and convert to Christianity. In 1680, a charismatic Pueblo leader named Pope, organized a widespread rebellion known as the Pueblo Revolt. The Pueblo rebels killed over 400 Spanish settlers and destroyed all the Catholic churches.

French and Indian War, 1754-1763

Proclamation Line of 1763

Pontiac's Rebellion (1763) was a war that was launched by a loose confederation of elements of Native American tribes primarily from the Ohio Country who were dissatisfied with British postwar policies in the Great Lakes region after the British victory in the French and Indian War (1754–1763). Warriors from numerous tribes joined the uprising in an effort to drive British soldiers and settlers out of the region. The war is named after the Ottawa leader Pontiac, the most prominent of many native leaders in the conflict.

The Paxton Boys (1764) were frontiersmen of Scots-Irish origin from along the Susquehanna River in central Pennsylvania who formed a vigilante group to retaliate in 1763 against local American Indians in the aftermath of the French and Indian War and Pontiac's Rebellion. They are widely known for murdering 21 Susquehannock in events collectively called the Conestoga Massacre.

Iroquois Confederation They were known during the colonial years to the French as the "Iroquois League" and later as the "Iroquois Confederacy", and to the English as the "Five Nations" (before 1722) and later as the "Six Nations", comprising the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida,Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora nations.

The Battle of Tippecanoe ( 1811), near present day Lafayette, Indiana between United States forces led by Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory and Native American warriors associated with the Shawnee leader Tecumseh. Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa (commonly known as "The Prophet") were leaders of a confederacy of Native Americans from various tribes that opposed US expansion into Native territory. As tensions and violence increased, Governor Harrison marched with an army of about 1,000 men to disperse the confederacy's headquarters at Prophetstown, near the confluence of the Tippecanoe and Wabash Rivers.

Tecumseh was a Native American leader of the Shawnee and a large tribal confederacy which opposed the United States during Tecumseh's War and became an ally of Britain in the War of 1812

Cherokee Nation v. Georgia: 1831 - The Supreme Court ruled that Indians weren't independent nations but dependent domestic nations which could be regulated by the federal government.

Worchester v. Georgia: 1832 - The Supreme Court decided Georgia had no jurisdiction over Cherokee reservations. Georgia refused to enforce decision and President Jackson didn't support the Court. “ John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” By 1836 – Bureau of Indian Affairs had been established under the Dept. of War

The removal included many members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations, among others in the United States, from their homelands to Indian Territory (eastern sections of the present-day state of Oklahoma). The phrase originated from a description of the removal of the Choctaw Nation in 1831.^[ Many Native Americans suffered from exposure, disease and starvation en route to their destinations. Many died, including 4,000 of the 15,000 relocated Cherokee.

The Battle of the Little Bighorn ( Custer's Last Stand) June 25–26, 1876, The U.S. 7th Cavalry, including the Custer Battalion, a force of 700 men led by George Armstrong Custer, suffered a severe defeat. Five of the 7th Cavalry's twelve companies were annihilated; Custer was killed, as were two of his brothers, a nephew, and a brother-in-law. The total U.S. casualty count, including scouts, was 268 dead and 55 injured.

Helen Hunt Jackson A Century of Dishonor (1881)
REVIEW: The Pen is Mightier than the Sword

"The history of the Government connections with the Indians is a shameful record of broken treaties and unfulfilled promises. The history of the border white man's connection with the Indians is a sickening record of murder, outrage, robbery, and wrongs committed by the former, as the rule, and occasional savage outbreaks and unspeakably barbarous deeds of retaliation by the latter, as the exception."
Helen Hunt Jackson

White Perspective “ Kill the Indian to save the man”

Dawes Severalty Act (1887)

Cultural absorption of American Indians in white America by forcing Native American
to abandon their traditional appearance and dress like “Americans”

Forced Assimilation:
The Carlisle Indian Industrial School (1879–1918)

Ghost Dance Movement, 1890

Excerpt from "Oh What a SLaughter" by Larry McMurty

I found it broadly interesting that in the last quarter of the 19th century, natives in at least four parts of the world kick out their white invaders in a final surge of native powers. All had intense dancing as a means of preparation; all felt that if they danced fervently enough they would become invulnerable to bullets (This belief still surfaces occasionally). The four groups were:

The Boxers in China

The Mahdists in the Sudan
The Zulus in South Africa
Ghost Dance Movement, 1890

Battle of Wounded Knee, 1890

On the morning of December 29, 1890, the army demanded the surrender of all Sioux weapons. Amid the tension, a shot rang out, possibly from a deaf brave who misunderstood his chief's orders to surrender. The Seventh Cavalry — the reconstructed regiment lost by George Armstrong Custer — opened fire on the Sioux. The local chief, BIG FOOT, was shot in cold blood as he recuperated from pneumonia in his tent. Others were cut down as they tried to run away. When the smoke cleared almost all of the 300 men, women, and children were dead. Some died instantly, others froze to death in the snow. This massacre marked the last showdown between Native Americans and the United States Army.

It was nearly 400 years after Christopher Columbus first contacted the first Americans. The 1890 United States census declared the frontier officially closed