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The Gnadenhutten Massacre
A group of militiamen from Pennsylvania killed 96 Christianized Indians. -
Battle of Tippecanoe
The decision by Indiana Territorial Governor (and later President) William Henry Harrison in 1811 to attack and burn Prophetstown, the Indian capital on the Tippecanoe River, while Tecumseh was away campaigning the Choctaws for more warriors, incited the Shawnee leader to attack again. -
The Creek War
Early Creek victories inspired General Andrew Jackson to retaliate with 2,500 men, mostly Tennessee militia, in early November 1814. To avenge the Creek-led massacre at Fort Mims, Jackson and his men slaughtered 186 Creeks at Tallushatchee. -
Indian Removal Bill
The U.S. army removed 60,000 Indians—Choctaw, Creek, Cherokee, and others—from the East in exchange for new territory west of the Mississippi. Thousands died along the way in what became known as the “Trail of Tears.” -
Mankato Executions
After a raid of nearby white farms for food turned into a deadly encounter, Dakotas continued raiding, leading to the Little Crow War of 1862, in which 490 settlers, mostly women and children, were killed. President Lincoln sent soldiers, who defeated the Dakota; and after a series of mass trials, more than 300 Dakota men were sentenced to death. -
The Sand Creek Massacre
Former Methodist minister, John Chivington, led a surprise attack on peaceful Cheyennes and Arapahos on their reservation at Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado. -
Sioux treaty
A conference was held at Fort Laramie, in present-day Wyoming, that resulted in a treaty with the Sioux. This treaty was to bring peace between the whites and the Sioux who agreed to settle within the Black Hills reservation in the Dakota Territory. -
Custer's Campaigns
On orders from General Philip Sheridan, Custer, and his Seventh attacked the Cheyennes and their Arapaho allies on the western frontier of Indian Territory. He later encountered the largest group of Indian warriors and fell defeat thinking it would be an easy victory. -
wounded knee
several weeks after the famed Sioux Chief Sitting Bull was killed while being arrested, the U.S. Army’s Seventh Cavalry massacred 150 to 200 ghost dancers at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. -
resilience
Three years after Wounded Knee, Professor Frederick Jackson Turner announced at a small gathering of historians in Chicago that the “frontier had closed,” with his famous thesis arguing for American exceptionalism. James Earle Fraser’s famed sculpture “End of the Trail,” which debuted in 1915 at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, exemplified the idea of a broken, vanishing race.