The Indian wars, genocide of Native Americans When talking about the Indian Wars, the attention of historians US immediately moves toward that long series of conflicts between the first settlers, mostly of European extraction, and the Indian tribes of the east, then, with the birth of the United States, between those states and native peoples in general (generally called American Indians or Indians), but especially those located west of the Mississippi. Some of the major wars were provoked or took inspiration from a series of discutibilissimi legislative acts of Parliament of the United States or of the governments of some states. Surely it is to remember, for the enormity contained therein, the Indian Removal Act, enacted unilaterally and heavy for the consequences that eventually trigger. European colonization of America by the eighteenth century up to the massacre at Wounded Knee and the closure of the border in 1890, the Indian Wars led to the conquest, the decimation, assimilation of the Indian nations, and the deportation of all tribes Indian reservations. With the Indian wars have occurred certain cultural traits that formed the solid basis of racial discrimination based on ethnicity and racism that afflict the United States from that time until the twentieth century. The scholar Russell Thornton, using US government and other information related to the census of 1894, has developed some data obtaining some estimates that from 1775 to 1890 at least 45,000 Indians and 19,000 whites would lose their lives. This calculation also includes its women, children and the elderly, since non-combatants often perished during border clashes and violence of the fighting did not spare, neither one side nor the other, their lives. Other contemporary elaborations, however, have produced vastly superior numbers and absolutely impressive. By now it is said that between fifty and one hundred million Native Americans lost their lives between 1494 and 1891 and this allows you to classify the Conquest of the Americas as the greatest genocide in human history. This site is particularly important given the events that have characterized the real conquest of the West, so in this article we limit ourselves to the Indian wars that have occurred to the west of the Mississippi since 1830 and until 1890, the year of the massacre Wounded Knee and the so-called Closing the Frontier. We talk about the issue Indian wars limiting ourselves to a partial representation of the countless conflicts. All that is missing, however, speak in other articles in full. As happened in the east, the advance of settlers westward, the Great Plains and the western highlands caused in a very short time of irreconcilable contrasts with the Indian people who lived in areas that were crossed by migratory flows. Were many tribes who chose the path of war against the whites, by Ute of the Great Basin to the Nez Perce of Idaho, but among all the Natives, groups that opposed the most tenacious and fierce resistance to the expansionary thrust of Americans were the Sioux and north Cheyenne and Apache and Comanche to the southwest. The Sioux were excellent horsemen and, therefore, particularly skilled in the battles on horseback. They were led by warrior chiefs resolute, as Red Cloud (Red Cloud) or Crazy Horse (Crazy Horse) whose authority was closely linked to their conduct and charisma. The Sioux had arrived recently in the plains coming from the huge Great Lakes region, but soon learned to tame, to assemble and use superbly horses and since then moved westward managing to defeat each tribe they encountered on their journey, becoming so formidable and experienced warriors. The Apache, tight among other Indian tribes and the formidable presence of Mexicans, practiced the art of war mainly in the arid zone and rich canyon. Also among the Apaches there were many differences between the various groups that were part of the main stem. The same location in an area rather than another southwestern determined the development of greater aggressiveness or belligerence. Their economy provided the breeding of animals, sporadic cultivation of plants, hunting, but an important part was made up of the raids that affected either the other Indian tribes and villages of the Mexicans. Towards the middle of the eighteenth century, some groups of Indians of the Great Plains came up in Texas and there clashes with the new arrivals, the European settlers, were not slow to grow and proliferate. Texas, however, it also became a destination for a large number of Anglo-American migrants who settled around the third decade of the nineteenth century. From then on, for about fifty years, there were many armed confrontations that saw opposing mainly the Texans, civil, military, militia and volunteers, and Comanche. Among the many skirmishes, the first real battle was that of the Fort Parker massacre of 1836. At that time a large group of warriors Comanche, Kiowa, and Wichita Lenape attacked the colonists who settled in the fort, killing some. Despite the relative low number of whites who lost their lives in that battle, it developed a blaze of anger mixed with real hatred directed against the Indians, adding to the motivations of the typical western frontier also kidnapping, which occurred during the Indian attack, a young woman, Cynthia Ann Parker. The Republic of Lone Star, Texas, gained independence only after a bloody war against the original homeland, Mexico. For the Indians who lived in Texas, however, things deteriorated further. The government, led by President Sam Houston, began a new relationship with the Indians through a serious policy of cooperation with the Comanche and Kiowa. But it did not go very advanced in years ... A misunderstanding, however, led the policy towards the Cherokee, with whom Sam Houston had lived for a while time. The Cherokees gave the idea of siding for Mexico during the war to fight the new and inexperienced Texas Republic. This was unacceptable, but Houston resolved the conflict without resorting to arms, refusing to believe that the Cherokee had been able to attack his own government! Things turned for the worst (for Native) under the administration of Mirabeau B. Lamar - who was elected immediately after Houston - who implemented a policy decidedly different in the relationship with the Indians. Lamar under the Texas Republic attempted to transfer the Cherokee to the west and in the end he managed to get the better. A long series of battles (with all the well-known corollary of raids) occurred following the attempt to deport the Comanche and Kiowa. The first major battle was the Battle of Council House where, during a meeting of peace, were seized surprise some heads of Comanche War, an event that triggered immediately after the Great Raid of 1840 and the Battle of Plum Creek. The government of Lamar remained famous for its policy towards the Indians expensive and totally unsatisfactory. It should be emphasized that in the four years of management Lamar costs incurred for the wars clearly exceeded the annual revenue, creating serious difficulties for the financial management of the new state. Was followed by the return of a government led by Sam Houston who immediately resumed a more diplomatic policy and assured the Texas and Texans to a series of treaties with all the Indian tribes of the area, including the warlike and feared Comanche. In 1846, Texas was integrated to the United States and, surprisingly, the years that went from 1856 to 1858 were particularly bloody Texan on the front because of the massive displacement of the settlers within the earth Comanche, the great and inviolate Comancheria. Followed painful clashes that ended the resistance of the people Comanche. There were the Battle of Little Robe Creek and shipping of Antelope Hills in 1858, which represented a huge blow in the heart of Comancheria. More fighting and real battles between settlers and Indians continued and in 1860, during the Battle of Pease River, Texan militias destroyed an Indian field discovering later that he had recovered the famous Cynthia Ann Parker, that little girl who had been kidnapped Comanche warriors in 1836. Cyntha returned to live with their family of origin, Parker, but he lost his children, one of whom, Quanah Parker, later became a notable tribal chief of the Comanche. The same Quanah Parker, however, could do nothing against the military power of the United States and after the first battle of Adobe Walls had to surrender to the overwhelming military superiority of the US government and, in 1875, to settle on a reservation in southwestern Oklahoma. The conflict between whites and Indians continued even during the Civil War, despite almost all the attention of the Unionist government was clearly placed on the war front with the rebellious South. The war with the Dakota in 1862 (also called the Great Sioux Uprising of 1862) was the first major clash between the US and the Sioux. After six weeks of battles in the ancestral territory of Minnesota, conducted for the most part by the brave and cunning war chief Little Crow, were recorded more than 500 deaths among US soldiers and settlers. The consistency of the losses in the great Sioux uprising was not documented, but after the war well 303 Indians were charged with murder and robbery by a US court and sentenced to death by hanging. Many of these sentences were commuted to prison, but December 26, 1862 in Mankato, a small town in Minnesota, he went to make one that still remains the largest mass execution in US history, with the hanging of 38 Sioux warriors. In 1864 however it happened one of the battles with the Indians that was covered with infamy as soon as you knew the precise contours. We talk about the Sand Creek Massacre. On that occasion, a detachment of local militia attacked a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians located in south-eastern Colorado and killed and mutilated men, women and children indiscriminately. The Indians who had camped along the banks of the River Sand Creek had assurances from the US government that they could stay where they were living quietly in their area, but those reassurances were not enough to appease the growing hatred of whites against native because of the many raids and clashes that had burned all the southern prairies. American politicians, public indignation pressed especially Europe, spread a public appeal against other carnage against the Indians, but it definitely fell into the void ... In 1875 the last real Sioux war erupted when the gold rush in the Dakota came to the Black Hills (Black Hills), sacred territory to those Indians. The US exerted not precluded really miners access to hunting areas Sioux, making the situation intolerable for the Indians who were close between not having to attack the whites and not be defended in its own right by the soldiers. Not only that, the army was also called to attack some bands that were hunting in the prairie, as indeed was their right under the treaties in force at ... In 1876 after meticulous organization of a campaign against the Indians called hostile, General George Armstrong Custer found the main camp of the Lakota Sioux and their allies near the Little Bighorn River. In the battle that takes its name from this river, Custer and his men, who had separated for strategic reasons by the rest of the troops, were annihilated by the Indians who boasted a numerical superiority and a tactical advantage due to the precipitation of the general in triggering the attack. In 1890, the reserve north of Lakota at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, the ritual of the Dance of the Ghosts (Ghost Dance) led the army groped to subdue the Lakota. During the assault were killed more than 300 Indians, mostly elderly, women and children. It was the last, futile slaughter. However, long before this event had already been eliminated the basis for the social existence of the tribes of the Great Plains, with almost complete extermination, during the 80s, with a bison hunt as indiscriminate as studied at the table with him to weaken the Indians and make unnecessary migrations. The Indian Wars of the southwest were held substantially from 1846 to 1895. All the Indian tribes of this vast geographic area, with the exception of Pueblo, were involved, like it or not, in the conflicts; in most cases these battles were a result of the previous war, the Mexican War of Independence. For several decades the Indian tribes were both involved in trading in the battles with the various foreign settlers until the whole territory of the southwest, including the current states of Colorado, California, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming and New Mexico, was annexed to the United States to the detriment of Mexicans between 1848 and 1850. Among all the Indian wars of the area, those that involved the Navajo and Apache, with the whole load of drama that we know today, are the most studied, but they were not the only ones. The largest US campaign in southwest involved 5,000 soldiers and forced, in 1886, Geronimo and his band of Apache warriors to surrender.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 12:05:22 +0000
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