Native American Timeline

  • The Gnadenhutten Massacre

    The Gnadenhutten massacre, also known as the Moravian massacre, was the killing of 96 pacifist Moravian Christian Indians (primarily Lenape and Mohican) by U.S. militiamen from Pennsylvania, under the command of David Williamson, on March 8, 1782, at the Moravian missionary village of Gnadenhutten, Ohio Country, during the American Revolutionary War.
  • Battle of Tippecanoe

    The Battle of Tippecanoe was fought on November 7, 1811 between the American forces under the command of William Henry Harrison, and Native American warriors under the leadership of Tenskwatawa, commonly referred to as “The Prophet.” Deemed an American victory, the battle had far lasting implications with Native American policy and the approaching conflict known as the War of 1812.
  • The Creek War

    In Florida, the Spanish encouraged the discord between Indians and settlers, hoping to gain politically and economically. A rift opened in the Creek Confederacy between those who wanted to remain loyal to the settlers and those who wanted to expel the whites.
  • Forced Removal

    Between the 1830 Indian Removal Act and 1850, the U.S. government used forced treaties and/or U.S. Army action to move about 100,000 American Indians living east of the Mississippi River, westward to Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma.
  • Mankato Executions

    On December 26, 1862, 38 Dakota men were hung in Mankato, an event which remains the largest single execution in American history. The men who had received a commuted sentence were sent to Camp McClellan in Iowa where they would remain interned for four years.
  • The Sand Creek Massacre

    Sand Creek Massacre, (November 29, 1864), controversial surprise attack upon a camp of Cheyenne and Arapaho people in southeastern Colorado Territory by a force of about 675 U.S. troops, mostly Colorado volunteers, under Col. John M. Chivington.
  • Sioux Treaty of 1868

    The Sioux Treaty of 1868, also known as the Fort Laramie Treaty, was an agreement between the United States government and various Sioux tribes that designated a large area of land in the Dakota Territory, including the Black Hills, as the Great Sioux Reservation, essentially setting aside this land for exclusive use by the Sioux people in exchange for peace with white settlers.
  • Wounded Knee

    The officers had lost all control of their men. Some of the soldiers fanned out and finished off the wounded. Others leaped onto their horses and pursued the Natives (men, women, and children), in some cases for miles across the prairies. In less than an hour, at least 150 Lakota had been killed and 50 wounded.
  • Dawes Act

    The federal government to break up tribal lands by partitioning them into individual plots. Only those Native Americans who accepted the individual allotments were allowed to become US citizens. The objective of the Dawes Act was to assimilate Native Americans into mainstream US society by annihilating their cultural and social traditions. As a result, over ninety million acres of tribal land were stripped from Native Americans and sold to non-natives.
  • Chinese immigrants and Mexican Americans in the age of westward expansion

    In the nineteenth century, Mexican American, Chinese, and white populations of the United States collided as white people moved farther west in search of land and riches.
    Neither Chinese immigrants nor Mexican Americans could withstand the assault on their rights by the tide of white settlers. Ultimately, both ethnic groups retreated into urban enclaves, where their language and traditions could survive.