The Native American’s land was walked upon without respect or remorse, taken, and they were forced onto reservations that were in terrible conditions against their will. The settlers moving west caused the Native Americans and settlers to compete against each other and cause major conflicts between them. I think the Indian Wars could and couldn’t have been avoided because settlers had to move since the illnesses were so bad in the east, and they thought the diseases wouldn’t be in the west, and because they needed the extra land. I also think these wars could have been avoided because the settlers didn’t have to take the Native American’s land and the settlers and Indians could have respected each other much more than they did.
The Indian Wars took place somewhere in the 1800s and the 1900s. The Indian Wars were generally started with the Whitman Massacre in 1847, but there were small fights before this. Most of the Indian tribes and most settlers were involved in causing and starting these wars. The main conflicts I found were the whites moving west and trespassing on the Native American’s land, then taking the land from the Native Americans and putting them on reservations that didn’t have the best accommodations and weren’t well suited for the Indians needs. The Indian Wars typically took place in the western half of the United States but some wars took place in the east and small fights broke out along the Oregon Trail because either the Indians didn’t want settlers moving west, or the settlers were being vulgar to the Indians.
One of the first causes of the Indian Wars was that the settlers were trespassing on Native American’s lands without authorization while they were looking for gold, or just trying to get to Oregon. ...
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...ve on. This was important since the Indians were dying in rapid numbers because the reservations they were put on were in extremely poor condition. The conflict could have been avoided if the settlers and the Indians didn’t compete for the lands and they were more respectful to each other.
Work Cited
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3. Morris, Richard B. The Indian Wars. United States: Lerner Publications Corp., 2000. P. 2-36. Print.
4. Rachlis, Eugene. Indians of the Planes. United States: American Heritage, a Division of Forbes. Inc., 1997. P. 14 Print.
5. Weiser, Kathy. “Cayuse War.” The Cayuse War. Legends of America, n.d. Web 10 May 2010.
...y robbing the Indians of their land, the English upset and hurt many of the Native American tribes, which lead to many disputes over ownership of the land.
The land of the Native Indians had been encroached upon by American settlers. By the
The Europeans invaded America with every intention of occupying the land, the bountiful natural resources as well as the complete domination of the native people. The Europeans desire for the land created an explosive situation for the native peoples as they witnessed their land and right to freedom being stripped from them. They often found themselves having to choose sides of which to pledge their allegiance to. The Europeans depended upon Indian allies to secure the land and their dominance as well as trade relations with the Indians. The Indians were in competition with one another for European trade causing conflict among the different tribes altering the relationships where friends became enemies and vice versa (Calloway, 2012, p. 163). These relationships often became embittered and broke into bloody brawls where it involved, "Indian warriors fighting on both sides, alongside the European forces as well as against European forces invad...
Borneman, Walter. The French and Indian War: Deciding the Fate of North America. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006.
5. Smith, Rose. "Guide to the Cayuse, Yakima, and Rogue River Wars Paper." nwda.com. N.p., 2004. Web. 13 Apr 2010.
There were many events that lead up to and caused the Trail of Tears. One of the main reasons that the U.S. wanted the Cherokee’s land was to open eastern lands to European American immigrants (Bertolet). During the 1820’s, as the eastern population grew, southern states urged the federal government to remove Indians from their lands. The government tried to appease the southern states by proposing treaties with the tribes. The Indians felt that the land was rightfully theirs, so they did not agree to these treaties. Since the Indians were not agreeing with the government, President Andrew Jackson approved and signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. This act allowed the president exchange Indian lands for land west of the Mississippi River. This act was unfair to the Cherokee nation and the Indian people because they had no say in the passing of this act. Supporters of the removal act said that it would allow for Americans and immigrants to...
Beginning in the 1860s and lasting until the late 1780s, government policy towards Native Americans was aggressive and expressed zero tolerance for their presence in the West. In the last 1850s, tribal leaders and Americans were briefly able to compromise on living situations and land arrangements. Noncompliance by Americans, however, resumed conflict. The beginning of what would be called the "Indian Wars" started in Minnesota in 1862. Sioux, angered by the loss of much of their land, killed 5 white Americans. What resulted was over 1,000 deaths, of white and Native Americans. From that point on, American policy was to force Indians off of their land. American troops would force Indian tribe leaders to accept treaties taking their land from them. Protests or resistance by the Indians would result in fighting. On occasion, military troops would even lash out against peaceful Indians. Their aggression became out of control.
During the West movement of 1830’s and 1840’s, there were many conflicts that American settlers faced. The first problem settlers had to solve was relations with the Native Americans. As the numbers of American settlers grew, the life of Native Americans was greatly affected. The Native Americans tried to maintain their cultural traditions and the peace with white settlers, but they were often forced to move out of their homeland. Then came the Black Hawk War, which was the Native Americans’ rebellion against the United States in Illinois and Wisconsin Territory. After failure of this rebellion, Native Americans were forced to abandon their lands and move to reservation even with the Fort Laramie Treaty, which promised the pea...
Before, during, and after the Civil War, American settlers irreversibly changed Indian ways of life. These settlers brought different ideologies and convictions, such as property rights, parliamentary style government, and Christianity, to the Indians. Clashes between the settlers and Indians were common over land rights and usage, religious and cultural differences, and broken treaties. Some Indian tribes liked the new ideas and began to incorporate them into their culture by establishing written laws, judicial courts and practicing Christianity, while other tribes rejected them (“Treatment”). Once the United States purchased Louisiana from the French in 1803, Americans began to encroach into the Indian lands of the south and west which led to more battles between the two groups, until Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forcibly removed Indians out of their lands in the southeast and into the western territories. These policies continued until the Civil War. Due to the Civil War, westward expansion slowed down which gave the Indians more autonomy and less interaction with the American settlers. The high cost of the war, high casualties, and fear of a split nation forced President Lincoln and Congress to ignore the Indian problem for some time. The signing of the Homestead Act of 1862 and the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 by President Lincoln had severe impacts on the Indians and their new western territories (Black). These two acts brought the Americans further into the western Indian territories, promoted the destruction of natural resources which supported the Indians, and started the eventual creation of Indian reservations as they are today (Black). The early and sustained policies of the United Sta...
McMurtry, Larry. 2005. Oh What a Slaughter: Massacres in the American West: 1846-1890. 10th Ed. New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
“Pontiac, chief of the Ottawa Indians, is trying to take Detroit, and the neighboring Indian groups join in and help. They have become disenchanted with the French, plus the French aren’t really there anymore. They hate the English. They want their land back. Starting to succeed and the British negotiate and reach a settlement. In order to keep Pontiac happy, no settlement allowed in the Frontier region. An imaginary line is drawn down the Appalachian Mountains, colonist cannot cross it. This doesn’t last long, in 1768 & 1770, Colonists work with the Iroquois and Cherokee and succeed in pushing back the line and send in surveyors. Colonists begin to settle. So, despite this line, colonists push west anyway” (Griffin, PP4, 9/16/15). During the Revolutionary War, “Native Americans fought for both sides, but mostly for the British, thought they stood to be treated more fairly by British than colonists. Those that fought against the colonists were specifically targeted to be destroyed during battles. There were no Native American representatives at the treaty meetings at the end of the war” (Griffin, PP8, 9/21/15). Even the Native American’s thought of their women, because they believed “an American victory would have tragic consequences: their social roles would be dramatically changed and their power within their communities diminished” (Berkin,
People know about the conflict between the Indian's cultures and the settler's cultures during the westward expansion. Many people know the fierce battles and melees between the Indians and the settlers that were born from this cultural conflict. In spite of this, many people may not know about the systematic and deliberate means employed by the U.S. government to permanently rid their new land of the Indians who had lived their own lives peacefully for many years. There are many strong and chilling reasons and causes as to why the settlers started all of this perplexity in the first place. There was also a very strong and threatening impact on the Native Americans through the schooling that stained the past and futures of Native Americans not only with blood but also with emotion. It was all a slow and painful plan of the "white man" to hopefully get rid of the Indian culture, forever. The Native American schools were created in an attempt to destroy the Native American way of life, their culture, beliefs and tradi...
One of the critical tasks that faced the new nation of the United States was establishing a healthy relationship with the Native Americans (Indians). “The most serious obstacle to peaceful relations between the United States and the Indians was the steady encroachment of white settlers on the Indian lands. The Continental Congress, following [George] Washington’s suggestion, issued a proclamation prohibiting unauthorized settlement or purchase of Indian land.” (Prucha, 3) Many of the Indian tribes had entered into treaties with the French and British and still posed a military threat to the new nation.
The whites used a policy of removal to get around the Indian “problem,” there is no question about that. Whenever it seemed that an Indian would get in the way they were moved to somewhere that was more convenient for the whites. The whites gave the Indians no respect and although atrocities were committed on both sides, it was the fault of the American government that things escalated to the point of all Indians being forced to reservations. Both sides lost people that should not have been killed, and for what? For a piece of land that the Indians were more than willing to share? For some yellow metal that was of no value to the Indians? There was no need for the killing that happened. Some may say that the Indians were terrorists, but that is not so. They were cooperative and willing to talk, whereas we lied and stole our way to “victory.” Our government should have tried to work together with the Indians to benefit both sides, instead of causing turmoil for everyone. Though today we may regret what we did, it could have been avoided if we just stopped and realized that what we were doing was pointless in the grand scheme of things.
The first settlers arrived in New England in 1620. They wanted to live in peace with the Natives. Problems began because settlers and the Natives had different views for the land. Settlers wanted to own large amounts of land because owning land often meant you were wealthy and powerful. The Native Americans believed that no one could own land but they can use it. The Native Americans taught settlers how to plant crops on this land but they did not understand that the settlers were going to keep the land for themselves. More settlers began to come over and take more land. They began kicking the Natives out. All of land taking was starting to cause tension between these two groups of people. By the 19th Century, the westward expansion of the US caused many of the Native Americans to move further west, usually by force. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 caused tens of thousands of Native Americans to be relocated. The Native Americans were not treated right. In the movies The Searchers and Avatar the bad way people treat natives is very evident.