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The Indian Wars began the moment English colonists arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, when the settlers started an uneasy relationship with the Native Americans (or Indians) who had thrived on the land for thousands of years. At that time, millions of indigenous people had settled across North America in hundreds of different tribes. But between 1622 and the late 19th century, a series of wars and skirmishes known as the Indian Wars took place between American-Indians and European settlers, mainly over land control.

Colonial Period Indian Wars

On March 22, 1622, Powhatan Indians attacked and killed colonists in eastern Virginia. Known as the Jamestown Massacre, the bloodbath gave the English government an excuse to justify their efforts to attack Native Americans and confiscate their land.

In 1636, the Pequot War over trade expansion broke out between Pequot Indians and English settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Connecticut. The colonists' Indian allies joined them in battle and helped defeat the Pequot.

A series of battles took place from 1636 to 1659 between New Netherlands settlers in New York and several Indian tribes (Lenape, Susquehannocks, Algonquians, Esopus). Some battles were especially violent and gruesome, sending many settlers fleeing back to the Netherlands.

The Beaver Wars of 1640-1701 occurred between the French and their Indian allies (Algonquian, Huron) and the powerful Iroquois Confederacy. The fierce fighting started over territory and fur trade dominance around the Great Lakes and ended with the signing of the Great Peace Treaty.

King Philip's War

King Philip's War (1675-1676), also known as Metacom's War, began after bands of Indians led by Wampanoag Chief Metacom (later called King Philip) grew frustrated with their dependence on the Puritans and attacked colonies and militia strongholds throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

The attacks ignited a series of battles for power along the Connecticut River Valley between Metacom's warriors and a large colonial militia and their Mohawk allies. The war ended with Metacom's beheading and the decimation of the Native Americans in his coalition.

Queen Anne's War

Queen Anne's War of 1702-1713 occurred between French and English colonists and their respective Indian allies on several fronts including Spanish Florida, New England, Newfoundland and Acadia. The war ended with the Treaty of Utrecht, but the Indians were not included in peace negotiations and lost much of their land.

During the Tuscarora War (1711-1715), Tuscarora Indians burned North Carolina settlements and randomly killed colonists over treaty disputes. After two years of bloody fighting, North Carolina defeated the Indians with the help of the South Carolina militia.

In 1715, Yamasee Indians-frustrated with the loss of their hunting grounds and the high debts they owed white settlers of South Carolina-formed a confederacy with other local tribes and forced many settlers to flee, devastating South Carolina's economy.

French and Indian War

As France expanded into the Ohio River Valley from 1754 to 1763, it fought with Britain for control of North America. Both sides forged alliances with Indians to help fight their battles. Known as the French and Indian War, the struggle ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

In 1763, Pontiac Indians of the Ohio River became incensed upon learning King George III expected them to become British loyalists. During Pontiac's War, the Ottawa Chief Pontiac rallied support among other tribes and laid siege to Britain's Fort Detroit. When a British retaliatory assault plan on Pontiac's village was discovered, the Indians attacked and killed many British soldiers during the Battle of Bloody Run on July 31.

The Battle of Fallen Timbers happened on August 20, 1794, along Ohio's Maumee River between regional Indians (Miami, Shawnee, Lenape) and the United States. The well-trained U.S. Army decisively defeated the Indians and the battle ended with the adoption of the Treaty of Greenville.

In 1759, a series of battles known as the Cherokee Wars began from the valleys of Virginia to North Carolina and southward. Two peace treaties forced the Cherokee to give up millions of acres of land to settlers, provoking them to fight for the British in the Revolutionary War, hoping to keep what land they had left.
READ MORE: How 22-Year-Old George Washington Inadvertently Sparked the French and Indian War
Early American Indian Wars

Indians had to choose sides or try to stay neutral when the American Revolution broke out. Many tribes such as the Iroquois, Shawnee, Cherokee and Creek fought with British loyalists. Others, including the Potawatomi and the Delaware, sided with American patriots.

But no matter which side they fought on, Native Americans were negatively impacted. They were left out of peace talks and lost additional land. After the war, some Americans retaliated against those Indian tribes that had supported the British.

Cherokee Chief Dragging Canoe led bands of Indians against white settlers in the South from 1776 through 1794. At the Battle of the Bluffs, he led 400 warriors to destroy Fort Nashborough in Tennessee, but a pack of unleashed hunting dogs forced them back during the battle.

Nineteenth-Century Wars

At the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, Shawnee Chief Tecumseh formed a coalition to slow the flow of settlers into Illinois and Indiana. Territorial Governor William Henry Harrison led a force of soldiers and militia to destroy the Shawnee's village but agreed to a temporary cease-fire. Tecumseh's brother, "The Prophet," ignored the cease-fire and attacked. Harrison prevailed, however, and the Shawnee retreated north.

The War of 1812 was fought between Britain and the United States and their respective Indian allies. Tecumseh's defeat at the Battle of Tippecanoe led him to support the British. At the Battle of Thames (one of many battles in the War of 1812) along the Thames River in Ontario, British troops and Tecumseh's coalition were outnumbered and easily defeated again. Tecumseh died in the battle, leading many Indians to abandon the British cause.

By 1814, pro-American Creeks (Lower Creeks) and Creeks who resented Americans (Upper Creeks) were fighting a civil war. At the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in Alabama on March 27, American militia fought alongside Lower Creeks to defeat Upper Creeks. The battle ended with the signing of the Treaty of Fort Jackson and the Creeks ceding almost two million acres of land.

Seminole Wars

In the First Seminole War (1816-1818), the Seminoles, assisted by runaway slaves, defended Spanish Florida against the U.S. Army. In the Second Seminole War (1835-1842), the Indians fought to retain their land in the Florida Everglades but were almost wiped out. The Third Seminole War (1855-1858) was the Seminole's last stand. After being outgunned and outnumbered, most of them agreed to move to Indian reservations in Oklahoma.

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, allowing the U.S. government to relocate Indians from their land east of the Mississippi River. In 1838, the government forcibly removed around 15,000 Cherokee from their homeland and made them walk more than 1,200 miles west. Over 3,000 Indians died on the grueling route, known as the Trail of Tears. The involuntary relocation fueled the Indians' anger toward the U.S. government.

In 1832, Chief Black Hawk led around 1,000 Sauk and Fox Indians back to Illinois to reclaim their land. The battle, known as the Black Hawk War, was a disaster for the Indians who were greatly outnumbered by the U.S. Army, militias and other Indian tribes.

Sand Creek Massacre

The Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 occurred after about 750 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho led by Chief Black Kettle were forced to abandon their winter campsite near Fort Lyon in southeastern Colorado. When they set up camp at Sand Creek, volunteer Colorado soldiers attacked, scattering them while slaughtering 148 men, women and children.

Red Cloud's War (1866) began as the U.S. government developed the Bozeman Trail through Indian territory to allow miners and settlers access to gold in Montana Territory via the Powder River. For two years, an Indian coalition led by Lakota Chief Red Cloud attacked workers, settlers and soldiers to save their native lands. Their persistence paid off when the U.S. Army left the area and signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868.

The treaty established the Black Hills of western South Dakota and northeastern Wyoming as part of the Great Sioux Reservation. After the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, however, the U.S. government began setting up Army posts there, leaving angry Sioux and Cheyenne warriors-led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse -determined to defend their territory.

Battle of the Little Bighorn

At the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, General George Armstrong Custer led 600 men into the Little Bighorn Valley, where they were overwhelmed by approximately 3,000 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors led by Crazy Horse.

Custer and his men were all killed in the battle, known as Custer's Last Stand. Despite the decisive Indian victory, the U.S. government forced the Sioux to sell the Black Hills and leave the land.

The U.S. Army fought multiple skirmishes during the Red River War (1874-1875) against Southern Plains Indians who had left their reservations to reclaim former hunting grounds in the Texas Panhandle. The war ended after intense pressure from the U.S. Army forced the Indians to return to their reservations.

Driven by revenge for the slaughter of his family and the need to protect Apache native lands in northern Mexico and Southwest U.S. territory, the warrior Geronimo led his men in brutal attacks against Mexican troops, white settlers and the U.S. Army from 1850 until his capture in 1886.

Wounded Knee

In the late nineteenth century, Indian "Ghost Dancers" believed a specific dance ritual would reunite them with the dead and bring peace and prosperity. On December 29, 1890, the U.S. Army surrounded a group of Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee Creek near the Pine Ridge reservation of South Dakota.

During the ensuing Wounded Knee Massacre, fierce fighting broke out and 150 Indians were slaughtered. The battle was the last major conflict between the U.S. government and the Plains Indians.

By the early 20 century, the American-Indian Wars had effectively ended, but at great cost. Though Indians helped colonial settlers survive in the New World, helped Americans gain their independence and ceded vast amounts of land and resources to pioneers, tens of thousands of Indian and non-Indian lives were lost to war, disease and famine, and the Indian way of life was almost completely destroyed.
READ MORE: American Indian Wars: A Timeline
Sources

History of Queen Anne's War. History of Massachusetts Blog.
Native Americans in the Revolutionary War. History of Massachusetts.
Red River War (1874-1875). Oklahoma Historical Society.
Seminole Wars History. Seminole Wars Foundation.
The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
Tuscarora War. North Carolina History Project.
Indian Wars Campaign. U.S. Army Center of Military History.
The War of 1812 and Indian Wars: 1812-1821. Library of Congress.

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The Indian Wars began the moment English colonists arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, when the settlers started an uneasy relationship with the Native Americans (or Indians) who had thrived on the land for thousands of years. At that time, millions of indigenous people had settled across North America in hundreds of different tribes.

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The Granger Collection, New York

Nat Turner was inspired by visions of the Spirit to lead a slave uprising in Virginia on August 22, 1831.

Slaves did not accept their fate without protest. Many instances of rebellion were known to Americans, even in colonial times. These rebellions were not confined to the South. In fact, one of the earliest examples of a slave uprising was in 1712 in Manhattan. As African Americans in the colonies grew greater and greater in number, there was a justifiable paranoia on the part of the white settlers that a violent rebellion could occur in one's own neighborhood. It was this fear of rebellion that led each colony to pass a series of laws restricting slaves' behaviors. The laws were known as slave codes.

Although each colony had differing ideas about the rights of slaves, there were some common threads in slave codes across areas where slavery was common. Legally considered property, slaves were not allowed to own property of their own. They were not allowed to assemble without the presence of a white person. Slaves that lived off the plantation were subject to special curfews.

In the courts, a slave accused of any crime against a white person was doomed. No testimony could be made by a slave against a white person. Therefore, the slave's side of the story could never be told in a court of law. Of course, slaves were conspicuously absent from juries as well.

Slave codes had ruinous effects on African American society. It was illegal to teach a slave to read or write. Religious motives sometimes prevailed, however, as many devout white Christians educated slaves to enable the reading of the Bible. These same Christians did not recognize marriage between slaves in their laws. This made it easier to justify the breakup of families by selling one if its members to another owner.

As time passed and the numbers of African Americans in the New World increased, so did the fears of their white captors. With each new rebellion, the slave codes became ever more strict, further abridging the already limited rights and privileges this oppressed people might hope to enjoy.

Race, Religion, and the "Trail of Tears"
When the first Africans arrived in Jamestown in 1619, Europeans were already treating native Americans as slaves. Intermarriage between Africans and native Americans became so common, that a 1740 South Carolina slave code specifically addressed the status of mixed race children.

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Virginia's Slave Codes
Virginia's slave code of 1705 was designed to settle the questions about the status of non-Christian servants... they were all slaves. The law served as a model for codes in other colonies. This webpage from PBS provides a brief overview and links to related topics.

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African slave men outnumbered women 3 to 1, and native American men had been killed off by disease and in war. Intermarriage allowed each group to benefit from the surplus of the opposite sex. But what of the children of those marriages - were they slave or free?
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When families gather annually in the fall to eat turkey, watch football and perhaps partake in some Black Friday shopping, they might be surprised to learn how much we don't know about the origins of the Thanksgiving.

Nearly all of what historians have learned about one of the first Thanksgiving comes from a single eyewitness report: a letter written in December 1621 by Edward Winslow, one of the 100 or so people who sailed from England aboard the in 1620 and founded Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts. William Bradford, Plymouth's governor in 1621, wrote briefly of the event in Of Plymouth Plantation, his history of the colony, but that was more than 20 years after the feast itself.

According to this account (elements of which continue to be debated by historians, especially regarding the presence and role of Native Americans), the historic event didn't happen on the fourth Thursday in November, as it does today-and it wasn't known as Thanksgiving. In fact, it took place over three days sometime between late September and mid-November in 1621, and was considered a harvest celebration.

"Basically it was to celebrate the end of a successful harvest," says Tom Begley, the executive liaison for administration, research and special projects at Plimoth Plantation. "The three-day celebration included feasting, games and military exercises, and there was definitely an amount of diplomacy between the colonists and the native attendees as well."

It was a feast for a young crowd.

Just over 50 colonists are believed to have attended, including 22 men, four married women-including Edward Winslow's wife-and more than 25 children and teenagers. These were the lucky ones who had made it through a rough entry into the New World, including a harsh winter during which an epidemic of disease swept through the colony, felling nearly half the original group. Some 78 percent of the women who had arrived on the Mayflower had died during the first winter, a far higher percentage than for men or children. "For the English, [the first Thanksgiving] was also celebrating the fact that they had survived their first year here in New England," Begley points out.

The Plymouth colonists were likely outnumbered more than two-to-one at the event by their Native American counterparts. Winslow's account records "many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men." Massasoit (who was actually named Ousemequin) was the sachem (leader) of the Pokanoket Wampanoag, a local Native American society that had begun dealings with the colonists earlier in 1621.

"We don't know for sure how it came about that they were there," Begley says of the Native Americans at the first Thanksgiving. "Some native historians have suggested that Massasoit and his men were in the area anyways, because at the end of the harvest was when they typically made their diplomatic rounds to other native groups. Also, Massasoit commented to the Pilgrims in March of 1621 that they would be back to plant the corn on the south side of what we know as Town Brook in Plymouth. So he still recognizes that there are some planting grounds that are his peoples' in Plymouth."

The first feast was also about giving thanks.

While the 1621 event may not have been called Thanksgiving, the sentiment was certainly present in that historic celebration, just as it would play a defining role in how the tradition developed over the centuries to come.

"Giving thanks is really an important part of both cultures," Begley says. "For the English, before and after every meal there was a prayer of thanksgiving. For something on this scale, celebrating a successful harvest, there definitely would have been moments of giving thanks to their God."

For the Native Americans at the first Thanksgiving, giving thanks was a daily part of life. "We as native people [traditionally] have thanksgivings as a daily, ongoing thing," Linda Coombs, the former associate director of the Wampanoag program at Plimoth Plantation, told the Christian Science Monitor. "Every time anybody went hunting or fishing or picked a plant, they would offer a prayer or acknowledgment."

Venison and shellfish were on the menu.

When the colonists and Native Americans sat down to feast, they probably enjoyed quite different fare than what we're used to seeing on our Thanksgiving tables today. They may have eaten wild turkey, which Bradford mentions was plentiful in the colony, but it's not certain even that most ubiquitous of Thanksgiving staples was on the menu.

In addition to venison (Winslow wrote that the Native Americans killed five deer and presented it to the colonists), Begley says that the group probably ate fish and shellfish, which were abundant in the region, as well as fruits and vegetables that the colonists grew in their home gardens. "Cabbage, carrot, cucumbers, leeks, lettuce, parsnips, pumpkins," he lists. "There were also a lot of native wild plants that English learned how to cook, including Jerusalem artichokes, garlic, cranberries, Concord grapes, walnuts and chestnuts."

The Plymouth colonists certainly did not serve potatoes, which weren't available to them at the time, and it's unlikely they prepared the sweet cranberry sauce we know today-their cranberries were more likely a tart garnish. Pumpkin pie would have been impossible, as the colony didn't have butter, wheat flour or an oven.

As for who prepared the food for the first Thanksgiving, Winslow's account (like many contemporary sources) doesn't offer much in the way of domestic details. "There were only four English housewives that were alive in 1621, out of, I think, 20 that came on the Mayflower," Begley says. "That's not really a lot of people to help you prepare a meal for over 100. So we can speculate that the children, servants and probably some unmarried men were also helping out in preparing all the food."

The fall tradition took hold in New England.

While it's not known whether the Plymouth colonists repeated the 1621 celebration in subsequent years, the tradition of giving thanks to God merged with celebrations of the harvest to become a fall tradition in New England by the late 1600s.

But the significance of that first 1621 harvest celebration didn't really emerge until the mid-19th century, after the writer Alexander Young rediscovered Winslow's letter and made it famous in his 1841 book Chronicles of the Pilgrim Fathers. Bradford's manuscript, stolen by the British during the Revolutionary War, was recovered in the 1850s, just in time for the magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale to incorporate it into her campaign to create an official national Thanksgiving holiday.

In 1863, Hale achieved her goal when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the final Thursday in November as a national Thanksgiving holiday for the first time. From its roots in the Plymouth harvest celebration to Hale and Lincoln's attempt to mend a divided nation during the Civil War, we can trace the origins of the annual celebration of family, food and gratitude we know today.

As for Black Friday, that's a whole other story.

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Colonists at the First Thanksgiving Were Mostly Men Because Women Had Perished | HISTORY

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Most of the colonists at the three-day feast were men and, while they gave thanks, it wasn't much like today's holiday.

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p. 126-127 in your book

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Early on the morning of Sunday, September 9, 1739, twenty black Carolinians met near the Stono River, approximately twenty miles southwest of Charleston. At Stono's bridge, they took guns and powder from Hutcheson's store and killed the two storekeepers they found there. "With cries of 'Liberty' and beating of drums," historian Peter H. Wood writes in the Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, "the rebels raised a standard and headed south toward Spanish St. Augustine...Along the road they gathered black recruits, burned houses, and killed white opponents, sparing one innkeeper who was 'kind to his slaves.'"

Detail showing Stono River. A compleat description of the province of Carolina in 3 parts. London: Edw. Crisp, [1711?]. General Maps. Geography & Maps Division

Thus commenced the Stono Rebellion, the largest slave uprising in the British mainland colonies prior to the American Revolution. Late that afternoon, planters riding on horseback caught up with the band of sixty to one hundred slaves. More than twenty white Carolinians and nearly twice as many black Carolinians were killed before the rebellion was suppressed. As a consequence of the uprising, white lawmakers imposed a moratorium on slave imports and enacted a harsher slave code.

Ariel view of the countryside along the Stono River south of Charleston, South Carolina. Carol M. Highsmith, photographer, May 1, 2017. Highsmith (Carol M.) Archive. Prints & Photographs Division

Slaves frequently resorted to insurrection, first in the British colonies and later in the southern United States. At least 250 insurrections have been documented; between 1780 and 1864, ninety-one African Americans were convicted of insurrection in Virginia alone. The first revolt in what became the United States took place in 1526 at a Spanish settlement near the mouth of the Pee Dee River in South Carolina.

The Confessions of Nat Turner, the Leader of the Late Insurrection in Southampton, Virginia. Richmond: Thomas R. Gray, publisher, 1832. Rare Book Selections. Rare Book & Special Collections Division

Between 1800 and 1831, African Americans instigated several ambitious rebellions in the American South. Among these were Gabriel's Revolt, which began north of Richmond, Virginia, on August 30, 1800, and Vesey's Rebellion, an 1822 conspiracy to incite as many 9,000 plantation and urban slaves in the vicinity of Charleston, South Carolina. Nat Turner's Rebellion, the most effective slave revolt, erupted in Southampton County, Virginia, on the night of August 21, 1831. Nat Turner and his followers killed nearly sixty white people as they moved toward an armory at Jerusalem, Virginia. Halted mere miles from their goal, the approximately seventy-five insurgents were soon killed or captured by the militia. Turner's November execution failed to assuage fears of continued insurrection. Across the South, renewed legislative efforts to forbid education and greatly restrict movement and assembly further constrained the lives of enslaved people.

Horrid Massacre in Virginia. Illus. in: Authentic and impartial narrative of the tragical scene which was witnessed in Southampton County. [New York], 1831. Prints & Photographs Division.

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Early on the morning of Sunday, September 9, 1739, twenty black Carolinians met near the Stono River, approximately twenty miles southwest of Charleston. At Stono's bridge, they took guns and powder from Hutcheson's store and killed the two storekeepers they found there. "With cries of 'Liberty' and beating of drums," historian Peter H.