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HomeMy WebLinkAbout1790 INDIANWARS 1891 First Stars and Stripes, or Betsy Ross, flag. 14 June 1777 “We love the white man but we fear your success. is was a prey country you took away om us, but you see how dry it is now. It is only good for red ants, coyotes, and calemen.” Quanah Parker, last chief of the Comanches Conicts between Europeans and Indians had plagued colonial North America long before Britain recognized the independence of the United States in 1783. Cultural dierences, the erce competition for resources, and the willingness to use violent means to secure desired goals meant that such warfare would continue. Exacerbated by racism and a mutual unwillingness to understand the ways of the other, these conicts were oen conducted with a savagery that claimed the lives of countless numbers of non-combatants. More oen than not, U.S. ocials also enlisted their own Indian allies, whose assistance was oen crucial in defeating those peoples it deemed enemies of the United States. Fearing the aggressiveness of the United States, Ohio River valley tribes formed a loose confederation and sought out help from Britain. Boasting an unusual degree of tactical and strategic consensus as well as able Miami leaders such as Lile Turtle, in 1790, the Indians bested a mixed force of 1400 U.S. Army regulars and poorly disciplined volunteers as it moved into the Miami River valley. e following year, the Indians nearly annihilated Gen. Arthur St. Clair’s even larger army at the Bale of the Wabash (near the modern Ohio-Indiana border). Stung by the biggest defeat in the history of its wars against the Indians, the federal government organized a Legion of the United States, commanded by Gen. Anthony Wayne, to meet the challenges of woodlands warfare. When full-scale ghting resumed in 1794, Wayne claimed a hard-fought victory at the Bale of Fallen Timbers (near modern Toledo, Ohio). Demoralized by this defeat, the destruction of their most fertile farmlands, and the lack of support from their British allies, the Indian confederation collapsed. Although the Legion was soon dissolved in favor of a traditional army geared to meet a European-style foe, wars between the United States and the Indians continued. In the Old Northwest, the inspirational Shawnee brothers Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa (the Prophet) formed another Indian confederacy. In 1811, William Henry Harrison bested the Prophet's followers in bale at Tippecanoe Creek (near came in 1857 in Kansas at the Bale of the Solomon River, when Col. Edwin V. Sumner routed a large assemblage of Cheyennes. is encounter, in which the mounted forces of both sides had charged one another in almost cinematic fashion, marked a unique exception to the norms of Indian/non-Indian warfare, where skirmishing, hit-and-run combat, and surprise aacks against enemy population centers were the rule. Warfare in Florida and the Pacic Northwest proved more decisive. e ird Seminole War (1855-58) forced most of the remaining Seminoles to leave Florida. In Oregon and Washington, the Rogue River War (1855-57) resulted in only a bloody armistice, with federal and territorial authorities complaining bierly about the ineectiveness of the other. e uneasy truce ended in May 1858, when Spokane, Peolouse, Coeur d'Alene, and Yakima Indians routed Col. Edward J. Steptoe’s 157-man column near Tohotonimme Creek. e federal government dispatched reinforcements, and Col. George E. Wright's regulars, boasting new longer-ranged ries against the enemy's muskets, bows, and spears, won demoralizing victories in the bales of Four Lakes and Spokane Plain. As volunteers replaced regulars on the frontiers during the Civil War, combat operations continued unabated. Christopher “Kit” Carson’s repeated thrusts into Navajo country forced the tribe to capitulate. In Minnesota and Dakota, Lakota leader Lile Crow (Taoyateduta) and several Lakota (Sioux) soldier societies killed over 300 persons during a bloody week in August 1862. Although counteroensives over the next two years forced the Lakotas to come to terms, the conict spread west. With borderlands tensions at a fever pitch, in December 1864 Colonel John P. Chivington and 700 Colorado volunteers massacred nearly 200 Cheyenne and Arapaho followers of Black Kele. e grisly execution of so many women and children at Sand Creek, Colorado, would serve as perhaps the most horric example of the excesses so oen found in U.S. wars against the Indians. e return of army regulars aer the Civil War did not bring peace to the Plains. Lakota leader Red Cloud and a powerful coalition of Lakotas, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes blunted the army's occupation of the Bozeman Trail for nearly a decade. In a spectacular victory in December 1866, the Indians wiped out Capt. William J. Feerman and 80 soldiers just outside of Fort Phil Kearny in Wyoming. To the south, however, the army’s converging columns, loosely organized by Gen. Philip H. Sheridan and commanded by energetic ocers like Col. Nelson A. Miles and Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie, forced the Comanches, Plains Apaches, and Kiowas to accept federal reservations in the wake of the Southern Plains (1868-1868-69) and Red River (1874-75) wars. Notable was the victory by Mackenzie over Comanches at Palo Duro Canyon, Texas, in September 1874. In Oregon, Gen. George Crook’s relentless campaigns of 1866-68 forced the capitulation of the Northern Paiutes. For several months in 1873, a few dozen Modoc ghters skillfully resisted aempts to force them out of the lava beds south of Tule Lake until the army's continued pressure nally led to their removal to Oklahoma. e increasing disparity of resources between the United States and its Native American foes eventually proved decisive. In the summer 1876, under the dynamic Lakota leaders Siing Bull and Crazy Horse, a Lakota/Northern Cheyenne coalition won a devastating victory over Lt. Col. George Custer and over 200 troopers of the 7th Cavalry Regiment at the Lile Big Horn River in Montana. But the U.S. government poured in resources, and Crook, Mackenzie, and Miles forced most of the Northern Plains tribes to relocate to reservations. Subsequent conicts against Chief Joseph and the Nez Percés, the Utes, and the Apaches followed a similar paern: initial Indian triumphs led the government to send reinforcements and supplies, forcing even the most deant leaders such as Geronimo and the Apaches to surrender. Fearing the spread of the Ghost Dance, in 1890 thousands of bluecoated soldiers marched into Dakota and Nebraska. Bungled aempts to disarm Big Foot's followers led to still another disaster for the Lakota at Wounded Knee. ere, 64 soldiers and over 300 Indians were killed or wounded. But military resistance was futile in the face of the nowoverwhelming power of the federal government, and the century of warfare nally came to an end. Robert Wooster, PhD Texas A&M University Corpus Christi modern Terre Haute, Indiana). Even so, U.S. military dominance of the greater Ohio country would not be assured until aer the War of 1812, when Britain concluded that economic cooperation with the United States would be more protable than continuing to assist the Indians. e southern frontiers were also ablaze. In August 1813, the Upper Creeks (Red Sticks) slaughtered several hundred people at Fort Mims, Alabama. Revengeminded selers mobilized under the leadership of General Andrew Jackson. Giving no quarter to either his own rowdy volunteers or the Indians whom he believed were stiing U.S. expansion, General. Jackson won a crushing victory at Horseshoe Bend, Alabama, in March 1814. General Jackson’s undiminished determination to suppress borderlands threats led him in 1818 to launch a preemptive invasion of Florida in 1818 (sometimes dubbed the First Seminole War) to break up suspected alliances between Spain, Britain, and Indians. Tentative U.S. forays into the upper Missouri River region led to the misnamed Winnebago “war” of 1827, but major combat operations did not resume until federal ocials determined to forcibly remove eastern tribes across the Mississippi River. In 1832, in Wisconsin the Black Hawk War saw the army and selers defeat the Sauk and Fox Indians. In Florida, on the other hand, the Seminoles would bedevil the army throughout the Second Seminole War (1835-42). At a cost of $20 million and the lives of 1500 soldiers, all but about 300 of the most recalcitrant Seminoles were removed to the Indian Territory, an area of modern Oklahoma. U.S. territorial expansion during the 1840s led to new conicts. Badly fragmented tribes in California were virtually exterminated during the “Gold Rush,” but elsewhere Native-Americans posed more signicant military challenges. In New Mexico and Arizona, army thrusts into Navajo and Apache lands met stiresistance, and early encounters with the horse peoples of the Great Plains proved similarly indecisive. Perhaps the most notable combat action Major Charles Young, 10th Cavalry. President George Washington 1789 -1797 by Rembrandt Peale, 1795 Bualo soldiers of the 10th Cavalry. By Mort Kunsler. Henry O. Flipper, West Point graduate who fought in the Indian Wars.  Le-Write Ink CAMPAIGNS There were 14 Indian campaigns that covered the period 1790 to 1891. e streamer is red with two black stripes. Red is a sacred color with all Indians and is usually considered symbolic of strength and success. e color red, symbolic of war, is also a symbol of day and the Sun god. e color black, symbolic of death and mourning, is also a symbol of night and the Underworld god.  MIAMI 1790-1795  TIPPECANOE 1811  CREEKS 1813-1814, 1836-1837  SEMINOLES 1817-1818, 1835-1842, 1855-1858  BLACK HAWK 1832  COMMANCHES 1867-1875  MODOCS 1872-1873  APACHES 1873, 1885-1886  LILE BIG HORN 1876-1877  NEZ PERCES 1877  BANNOCKS 1878  CHEYENNES 1878-1879  UTES 1879-1880  PINE RIDGE 1890-1891 BELLIGERENTS  Colonial America  Native  United States VERSUS Americans  Confederate States STATISTICS  Total U.S. Service Members 106,000  Bale Deaths 1,000 © 2010 e Memorial for all Veterans of Brazos Valley, Inc.  1790 INDI A N WAR S 1891   In the beginning of the Indian Wars, the United States was ying the Betsy Ross ag of 13 stars. By the end of the wars, the United States was ying the 44-star ag. President Benjamin Harrison 1889 -1893 by eodore C. Steele “Trapdoor” Springeld Model 1873 Chief Quanah Parker by Henry H. Cross, 1880. Comanche village by George Catlin, 1834. Gen. Nelson A. Miles Lithograph by Bror ure de ulstrup. Chief Crazy Horse