Native American History

The region known as Apacheria had been fought over for centuries, firstly with the arrival of the Apache from the north, then later with the arrival of the Spanish and, finally, the United States. Events came to a bloody climax in the 1800s in a...

The Battle of the Little Bighorn and the massacre of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and five companies of the U.S. 7th Cavalry in June 1876 is one of the best-remembered events of the turbulent period known as the Wild West. This defeat...

The Wild West had more than its share of rough and tumble characters, some of them more intriguing than others. But few were quite as formidable as Chief Joseph. He led his people through one of the most challenging periods of their existence, when...

Famed Lakota warrior Crazy Horse was more than just a fearless fighter—he was a symbol of resistance and commitment to his people’s way of life. During his life, the Lakota faced relentless pressure from all sides. Rival tribes waged war over land and...

The French and Indian War is one of the most significant, yet least acknowledged and understood, periods of American history. Fought chiefly between the two imperial powers of England and France in the mid-18th century, the struggle would also draw in...

The legendary Geronimo led one of the last great Apache uprisings against American expansionism. The lands of the Apache tribe comprised what is today part of northern Mexico and the southwestern United States, and Geronimo was one of the last who...

Until surprisingly recently, most history books claimed America was discovered in 1492 by Christopher Columbus. In truth, by the time Columbus arrived, people had been living there for more than 12,000 years. During that span, the indigenous peoples...

A pioneer girl traveling west with her Mormon family at the mid-point of the nineteenth century, Olive Oatman’s life story began like many others. But when Olive’s family were massacred and she was taken captive by Native Americans, her story took a...

The name Pocahontas is one of the most recognized in the world, and many think they know the story of how she met and fell in love with a European colonist meddling in her Native American affairs. But is this really what happened? It certainly has...

Pontiac’s War erupted in the Great Lakes region of North America just as the French and Indian War came to a close in 1763. The French, who had initially established a European presence there, were usurped by the British, whose relations with...

Red Cloud’s War was one conflict in the long series of Indian Wars fought between the United States and the indigenous nations of North America. As white Americans scrambled for wealth and land further and further west, the people who had inhabited...

Sacagawea is widely known as the Native American woman who helped guide Lewis and Clark across the western frontiers of North America in the early 1800s. It was an extraordinary journey that took a small band of explorers thousands of miles into...

The Europeans who came to the New World did not land upon a continent devoid of people. Yet to the Spanish, French, and English who traveled from their countries in search of gold and land, the native populations already living on the North American...

A prominent Lakota Sioux chief and medicine man, Sitting Bull was both a man of peace and a man of war as he sought to simultaneously fight and negotiate on behalf of his people during the westward expansion of the United States. It was his visions...

The Apache became one of the best-known of all Native American peoples mainly because they were astonishingly capable guerilla fighters. They fought other Native American tribes, Spanish invaders, the authorities of the new state of Mexico and, from...

For many generations, the Aniyunwiya (meaning the “real people” or “principal people”) lived in harmony with the land they inhabited. They worshipped their ancestors and believed that every living thing—people, animals, trees, and plants—had a spirit...

The Comanche were once the most dominant Native American tribe in the Great Plains of North America. From their homelands on the prairies, they ranged across the American West and South into Mexico. They were also one of the most feared of all Native...

The Battle of the Little Bighorn, or Custer’s Last Stand, has gone down in legend, but this was just one part of an epic struggle between the Sioux and Cheyenne Indians and the United States of America.The Great Sioux War was the bloodiest of all of...

The American Revolution not only changed the continent of North America, but the ideas it represented would go on to change the world. The notion of a state where individual liberty was guaranteed to all citizens and where hereditary positions of...

The most common depictions of Native Americans feature mounted warriors and iconic events such as the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Wounded Knee Massacre. The best-known Native American leaders include Chief Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, and...

In the early 1800s, the Five Civilized Tribes—the Cherokee, Seminole, Chickasaw, Muscogee-Creek, and Choctaw—were living in lands allocated to them by the United States government in present-day Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee....