Mention the American Indian Wars and most minds think of the Old West and the Cowboy and Indian movies made by Hollywood and set mostly during the late 1800s. In fact, the American Indian Wars are the United States' most protracted conflict to date, stretching from 1775, at the beginning of the American Revolution, all the way until 1924. To retrace the events over this 250-year-plus period in American history is to recall a time when Europeans sought to control newly settled American land as wars raged between Native Americans and the frontiersmen who encroached on their territory, resources, and trade. Some of these confrontations are well known—the Battle of the Little Bighorn, for example. But there are numerous other military engagements of this kind that while perhaps less compelling are equally important when examining and understanding the role Indigenous peoples have played in shaping the nation we today call the United States of America.
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