Indian Wars
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- For criticism see Criticism of Indian_Wars
For wars in India see Military history of India. For all conflicts between Native Americans and Europeans in North America, see American Indian Wars.
The Indian Wars are the series of conflicts in the western United States between Native Americans, American settlers, and the United States Army. Many of the most well-known of these conflicts occurred during and after the Civil War until the closing of the frontier in about 1890, but in regions of the West that were settled before the Civil war such as Texas, Utah, Oregon, and New Mexico there were significant conflicts which predate the Civil War.
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Theaters
The wars were conducted in several theaters: the Great Plains involving the Kiowa, the Comanche, the Sioux, the Cheyenne and the Arapaho; the Rocky Mountains and Great Basin involving the Ute tribe, in the case of the Snake War, the Shoshone, the Paiute and the Bannock, and in the case of the Bannock War, the Bannock and the northern Shoshone; in New Mexico and Arizona territories including the Navajo Wars and the Apache Wars; in California, the Modoc War; and in the Pacific Northwest, involving the Nez Perce. There were also conflicts in neighboring contiguous regions such as Minnesota, the Dakota War of 1862 and Texas, Texas–Indian Wars, which played a role.
Background
The western United States had been penetrated by United States forces and settlers before this period, notably by fur trappers, the Santa Fe Trail, the Oregon Trail and the Mormon emigration to Utah, as well as by settlement of California and Oregon, but generally relations between American Immigrants and Native Americans were relatively peaceful, in the case of the Santa Fe Trail due to the friendly relationship of the Bents of Bent's Fort with the Cheyenne and Arapaho, and in the case of the Oregon Trail to the peace established by the Treaty of Fort Laramie made in 1851 between the United States and the plains Indians and the Indians of the northern Rocky Mountains, allowing passage by immigrants and the building of roads and the stationing of troops along the Oregon Trail.
The Pike's Peak Gold Rush of 1859 introduced a substantial White population into the Front Range of the Rockies supported by a trading lifeline that crossed the central Great Plains. Advancing settlement following the passage of the Homestead Act and the building of the transcontinental railways following the Civil War further destabilized the situation putting White settlers into direct competition for the land and resources of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountain West.[1][2] Further factors included discovery of gold in the Black Hills resulting in the gold rush of 1875–1878, and, earlier, in Montana during the Montana Gold Rush of 1862-1863 and the opening of the Bozeman Trail which led to Red Cloud's War and later the Great Sioux War of 1876-77.[3]
Indian wars on the Great Plains
Initially relations between participants in the Pike's Peak gold rush and the Native American tribes of the Front Range and the Platte valley were friendly.[4][5] An attempt was made to resolve conflicts by negotiation of the Treaty of Fort Wise which established a reservation in southeastern Colorado, but the settlement was not agreed to by all of the roving warriors, particularly the Dog Soldiers. During the early 60s tensions increased and culminated in the Colorado War and the Sand Creek Massacre where Colorado volunteers fell on a peaceful Cheyenne village killing women and children.[6] which set the stage for further conflict.
The peaceful relationship between settlers and the Indians of the Colorado and Kansas plains was maintained faithfully by the tribes, but sentiment grew among the Colorado settlers for Indian removal. The savagery of the attacks on civilians during the Dakota War of 1862 contributed to these sentiments as did the few minor incidents which occurred in the Platte Valley and in areas east of Denver. Regular army troops had been withdrawn for service in the Civil War and were replaced with the Colorado Volunteers, rough men who often favored extermination of the Indians. They were commanded by John Chivington and George L. Shoup who followed the lead of John Evans, territorial governor of Colorado. They adapted a policy of shooting all Indians encountered on sight, a policy which in short time ignited a general war on the Colorado and Kansas plains, the Colorado War.[7]
Raids by bands of plains Indians on isolated homesteads both to the east of Denver and on the advancing settlements in Kansas and on the stations on the stage lines along the South Platte, as at Julesburg,[8][9] and along the Smoky Hill Trail resulted in settlers both in Colorado and Kansas adapting a murderous attitude towards Native Americans and calls for extermination.[10] Likewise the savagery shown by the Colorado Volunteers during the Sand Creek massacre resulted in Native Americans, particularly the Dog Soldiers, a band of the Cheyenne, engaging in savage retribution.
Indian Campaign Medal
An Indian Campaign Medal was authorized in 1905 for presentation to veterans of major actions in the Indian Wars.
External links and further reading
- "Winning the West: The Army in the Indian Wars, 1865-1890" chapter 14 of American Military History, Army Historical Series, Office of the Chief of Military History, United States Army
Notes
- ^ Pages 24 and 25 of The Battle of Beecher Island and the Indian War of 1867-1869, by John H. Monnett, University Press of Colorado (1992), trade paperback, 236 pages ISBN-10: 0-87081-347-1
- ^ Page 213, Angie Debo, A history of the Indians of the United States
- ^ Section on the Bozeman Trail "WINNING THE WEST THE ARMY IN THE INDIAN WARS, 1865-1890"
- ^ THE DIARY OF LAMECH CHAMBERS
- ^ Pages 105 to 115, Life of George Bent: Written From His Letters, by George E. Hyde, edited by Savoie Lottinville, University of Oklahoma Press (1968), hardcover, 390 pages; trade paperback, 280 pages (March 1983) ISBN-10: 0806115777 ISBN-13: 978-0806115771
- ^ Pages 102 to 110, John M. Coward, The newspaper Indian
- ^ Pages 127 to 136, 148, and pages 162 and 163, Life of George Bent: Written From His Letters, by George E. Hyde, edited by Savoie Lottinville, University of Oklahoma Press (1968), hardcover, 390 pages; trade paperback, 280 pages (March 1983) ISBN-10: 0806115777 ISBN-13: 978-0806115771
- ^ "Julesburg to Latham"
- ^ Page 196, Angie Debo, A history of the Indians of the United States
- ^ Pages 55 to 73, Chapter 3, "The Settler's War" of The Battle of Beecher Island and the Indian War of 1867-1869, by John H. Monnett, University Press of Colorado (1992), trade paperback, 236 pages ISBN-10: 0-87081-347-1
