Suspicion and hostility, stemming from technological and cultural differences as well as mutual feelings of superiority, have permeated relations betweenNative Americanand non-Indians in
North America. Intertribal antagonisms among the
Indians, and nationalistic rivalries, bad faith, and expansionist desires on the part of non-Indians exacerbated these tensions. The resulting white-Indian conflicts often took a particularly brutal turn and ultimately resulted in the near-de-struction of the indigenous peoples.
Warfare between
Europeans and Indians was common in the seventeenth century. In 1622, the
Powhatan Confederacy nearly wiped out the struggling
Jamestown colony. Frustrated at the continuing conflicts,
Nathaniel Bacon and a group of vigilantes destroyed the Pamunkey Indians before leading an unsuccessful revolt against colonial authorities in 1676. Intermittent warfare also plagued early
Dutch colonies in
New York. In
New England,
Puritan forces annihilated the
Pequots in 1636-1637, a campaign whose intensity seemed to foreshadow the future. Subsequent attacks inspired by
Metacom (
King Philip) against
English settlements sparked a concerted response from the
New England Confederation. Employing
Indian auxiliaries and a
scorched-earth policy, the colonists nearly exterminated the
Narragansetts,
Wampanoags, and Nipmucks in 1675-1676.
A major Pueblo revolt also threatened Spanish-held
New Mexico in 1680.
Indians were also a key factor in the imperial rivalries among
France,
Spain, and
England. In
King William’s (1689-1697),
Queen Anne’s (1702-1713), and
King George’s (1744-1748) wars, the
French sponsored
Abnaki and
Mohawk raids against the more numerous English.
Meanwhile, the English and their trading partners, the Chickasaws and often the Cherokees, battled the French and associated tribes for control of the lower
Mississippi River valley and the
Spanish in western
Florida. More decisive was the
French and Indian War (1754-1763).
The French and their
Indian allies dominated the conflict’s early stages, turning back several English columns in the north. Particularly serious was the near-annihilation of
Gen. Edward Braddock’s force of thirteen hundred men outside of
Fort Duquesne in
1755. But with English minister
William Pitt infusing new life into the war effort,
British regulars and provincial militias overwhelmed the French and absorbed all of
Canada.
But eighteenth-century conflicts were not limited to the
European wars for empire. In
Virginia and the
Carolinas,
English-speaking colonists pushed aside the
Tuscaroras, the Yamasees, and the Cherokees. The
Natchez,
Chick asaw, and
Fox Indians resisted French domination, and the
Apaches and Comanches fought against Spanish expansion into
Texas. In 1763, an
Ottawa chief, Pontiac, forged a powerful confederation against British expansion into the
Old Northwest. Although his raids wreaked havoc upon the surrounding white settlements, the British victory in the French and Indian War combined with the
Proclamation of 1763, which forbade settlement west of the
Appalachian Mountains, soon eroded
Pontiac’s support.
Most of the Indians east of the Mississippi River now perceived the colonial pioneers as a greater threat than the
British government. Thus northern tribes, especially those influenced by Mohawk chief
Thayendanegea (
Joseph Brant), generally sided with the
Crown during the
American War for Independence. In 1777, they joined the
Tories and the British in the unsuccessful offensives of
John Burgoyne and
Barry St. Leger in upstate New York.
Western Pennsylvania and New York became savage battlegrounds as the conflict spread to the
Wyoming and
Cherry valleys.
Strong American forces finally penetrated the heart of
Iroquois territory, leaving a wide swath of destruction in their wake
.
In the Midwest,
George Rogers Clark captured strategic
Vincennes for the
Americans, but British agents based at
Detroit continued to sponsor
Tory and Indian forays as far south as
Kentucky.
The Americans resumed the initiative in 1782, when
Clark marched northwest into
Shawnee and
Delaware country, ransacking villages and inflicting several stinging defeats upon the Indians. To the south, the British backed resistance among the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Creeks, and
Choctaws but quickly forgot their former allies following the signing of the
Treaty of Paris (1783).
- published: 06 Mar 2016
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