The Native American timeline during the formative years of the new United States (1775-1850) marks a period of profound transformation and immense challenges for indigenous peoples. This crucial era saw the nascent American nation grappling with its identity while simultaneously expanding westward, directly impacting the lives and sovereignty of countless Native American tribes. From post-Revolutionary War policies to the tragic era of forced removals, understanding this period is essential for comprehending the enduring legacy of federal Indian policy and the resilience of Native American cultures.
A Nation’s Birth and Shifting Frontiers (1775-1795)
As the American Revolution unfolded, the newly forming United States began to define its relationship with the diverse Native American nations within and bordering its expanding territories. This period was characterized by both conflict and attempts at establishing formal relations, often marked by broken promises and violent clashes.
In 1775, Indigenous peoples in San Diego, California, who were subjected to forced labor and religious indoctrination by Spanish missionaries, rebelled fiercely. They burned mission buildings and killed inhabitants, including the head priest, before Spanish forces reasserted control. The following year, the Continental Congress, seeking allies in the Revolution, authorized the recruitment of 2,000 paid Native American auxiliaries, a program that largely failed as most tribes refused to fight for the colonists. Meanwhile, conflicts flared on the frontier, with Cherokee Indians attacking a North Carolina settlement in July 1776, prompting retaliatory destruction of a nearby Cherokee village.
The late 18th century brought widespread devastation through disease. Between 1772 and 1780, an estimated eighty percent of the Arikara population perished from smallpox and measles. Similarly, smallpox decimated more than half of the Piegan Blackfeet in 1781, highlighting the immense vulnerability of Native communities to Old World diseases.
The Chickamauga Wars, a protracted series of conflicts from 1776 to 1794, exemplified the ongoing struggle against white encroachment. Led by Dragging Canoe, these Cherokee warriors, known as the Chickamauga, fought settlers across vast territories including Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
Tragically, March 8, 1782, witnessed the Gnadenhutten Massacre in Ohio, where Captain David Williamson and approximately 90 militiamen brutally slaughtered 96 neutral, pacifist, and Christian Delaware people in retaliation for raids by other tribes. In California, the Spanish erected the Presidio overlooking San Francisco on April 21, 1782, to suppress Indians interfering with mail transmissions along El Camino Real.
The Old Northwest War (1785-1795) saw intense fighting in Ohio and Indiana. After initial American defeats, General “Mad Anthony” Wayne secured a decisive victory at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, a pivotal moment in the conflict over the Ohio Territory.
The United States government began to formalize its policies, though often contradictory. The Northwest Ordinance, enacted on July 13, 1786, declared that “the utmost good faith shall always be observed toward the Indians… in their property, rights, and liberty they shall never be disturbed.” The first federal treaty with the Delaware Indians followed in 1787. In 1789, the Indian Commerce Clause was added to the Constitution, granting Congress broad power over Indian affairs, and Indian agents were appointed under the War Department to negotiate treaties.
The Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1790 placed nearly all interactions between Indians and non-Indians under federal control, protecting Indian lands and making injuries against Indians a federal crime. However, this same year saw a significant military defeat for the U.S. Army against the Shawnee in what is now western Ohio, suffering 900 casualties. Notably, the first U.S. Census on March 1, 1790, excluded Indians.
By 1792, President George Washington expressed dissatisfaction with ongoing “Indian hostilities” north of the Ohio River. Despite conflicts, trading between Native Americans and French and Spanish merchants from St. Louis, Missouri, was well established before 1795. The Treaty of Greenville in 1795 marked the end of the multi-tribal war in the Ohio Valley, where Indian delegates ceded two-thirds of present-day Ohio, parts of Indiana, and sites of modern cities like Detroit and Chicago in exchange for a promised permanent boundary, a promise that would prove fleeting.
Westward Expansion and Evolving Policies (1800-1820)
The early 19th century was defined by aggressive American expansion, most notably through the Louisiana Purchase, which dramatically increased U.S. territory and intensified pressure on indigenous lands. Policies continued to evolve, often favoring settler interests over Native American sovereignty.
In 1802, a federal law was enacted prohibiting the sale of liquor to Indians. The pivotal year of 1803 brought the Louisiana Purchase, adding vast French territory from the Gulf of Mexico to the Northwest. This acquisition immediately spurred exploration, with the Lewis and Clark expedition beginning its charting of the West, famously guided by Sacagawea, a Shoshone woman, from 1804 to 1806. During their journey in 1804, the Sioux met the expedition, and trading posts began to be established, integrating fur trading into the Oglala Lakota way of life. This period also saw the Oglala and other Lakota tribes expand their influence across the Dakotas, Wyoming, and Nebraska.
A significant policy shift occurred on March 26, 1804, when the U.S. government issued its first official notice for Indians to move west of the Mississippi River, foreshadowing future removal policies. In 1808, the Osage, a Sioux tribe, signed the Osage Treaty, ceding their lands in Missouri and Arkansas to the U.S.
From 1808 to 1812, Shawnee Chief Tecumseh, alongside his brother The Prophet, sought to unify various Native American tribes. They founded Prophetstown as a settlement for those who resisted signing treaties and organized a defensive confederacy with the goal of establishing the Ohio River as a permanent boundary between U.S. and Indian lands. In 1809, Hoh Indians on the Olympic Peninsula captured Russian blockhouse builders, holding them captive for two years.
The Treaty of Fort Wayne in 1810 saw the Delaware, Potawatomi, Miami, and Eel River Miami nations cede three million acres along the Wabash River to the United States. During this time, early ethnographic observations were made, such as Nicholas Biddle of the Lewis and Clark expedition noting among the Minitaree Indians, the practice of effeminate boys being raised as females and later married to older men, referred to as Birdashes by the French.
In 1811, Fort Okanogan was established, and the Astorians met with local Indians who offered friendship and beaver pelts. However, Tecumseh’s pan-Indian confederation suffered a major blow on November 7, 1811, when his brother Tenskwatawa’s attack against Indiana Territory militia forces was defeated at the Battle of Tippecanoe.
The Creek War (1813-1814), instigated by General Andrew Jackson, sought to crush Creek resistance to land cessions. The Creek Nation was decisively defeated at the Treaty of Fort Jackson, losing 14 million acres, or two-thirds, of their tribal lands. In 1815, Fort Blount, Florida, was captured by a coalition of Blacks and Creek Indians from the Seminole, serving as a haven for escaped slaves and a base for attacks against slave owners until an American detachment recaptured it. The Seminole Wars officially began on July 27, 1815.
In 1817, Congress passed the Indian Country Crimes Act, which provided federal jurisdiction over crimes between non-Indians and Indians, while maintaining exclusive tribal jurisdiction for crimes committed by Indians among themselves.
The Era of Forced Removal (1820-1850)
The period from 1820 to 1850 is indelibly marked by the U.S. government’s increasingly aggressive policy of forced removal, culminating in the tragic displacement of entire nations and immense suffering for Native Americans.
By 1820, over 20,000 Indians were living in virtual slavery within the California missions. In 1821, South Carolina settlers and their Cherokee allies defeated the Yamassee. More significantly, the U.S. government initiated the process of moving the “Five Civilized Tribes” of the Southeast (Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw) to lands west of the Mississippi River, a precursor to the devastating events to come.
The 1823 Supreme Court decision in Johnson v. McIntosh significantly undermined Native American land rights, ruling that Indian tribes had no power to grant lands to anyone other than the federal government. In 1824, the Indian Office federal agency was established under the War Department, which would later become the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in 1849.
Conflicts over land continued. In 1825, Creek Chief William McIntosh signed a treaty ceding Creek lands to the U.S. and agreeing to vacate by 1826. However, other Creek leaders repudiated the treaty and executed McIntosh. A second treaty in 1827 saw Creek Indians cede more lands in western Georgia.
The 1828 discovery of gold on Cherokee lands in Georgia exacerbated tensions. The Cherokee Nation, attempting to assert its sovereignty, launched the bilingual Cherokee Phoenix newspaper that same year, but the election of Andrew Jackson to the presidency signaled a shift towards more aggressive removal policies. The gold rush intensified in 1829, fueling settler demand for Cherokee territory.
The landmark Indian Removal Act was passed in 1830, authorizing the President to negotiate treaties for the removal of all Native Americans from their ancestral lands in the southeastern United States to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi. This act sparked legal battles, including Cherokee Nation v. Georgia in 1831, where the Supreme Court ruled the Cherokee a “domestic dependent nation” but denied them standing to sue as a foreign state. However, Worcester v. Georgia in 1832 affirmed the Cherokee Nation’s sovereignty and Georgia’s lack of jurisdiction over its territory, a ruling notoriously defied by President Jackson. The same year, the Black Hawk War erupted, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs was officially established.
The Indian Intercourse Act of 1834 further defined Indian Country and regulated trade and relations. Despite legal victories, the Treaty of New Echota in 1835, signed by a minority faction of the Cherokee without the consent of the tribal government, paved the way for forced removal. The Second Seminole War also began in 1835, a fierce resistance to removal that would last for years.
The culmination of these policies was the tragic Trail of Tears in 1838, where thousands of Cherokee men, women, and children were forcibly marched westward, resulting in immense suffering and death. The Second Seminole War finally ended around 1840, though the U.S. continued to acquire Seminole lands through the 1840s. The Mexican-American War (1846-1848) further expanded U.S. territory, bringing new indigenous populations under American jurisdiction. In 1849, the BIA was transferred from the War Department to the newly created Department of the Interior, signifying a shift in focus from military control to administrative oversight. By 1850, the forced labor and effective enslavement of California Indians continued under the guise of state laws and practices.
Conclusion: A Legacy of Displacement and Resilience
This period from 1775 to 1850 represents a pivotal and often tragic chapter in the Native American timeline. The aspirations of a new nation for expansion directly clashed with the established sovereignty and traditional lands of indigenous peoples. Policies shifted from initial, albeit often broken, treaty negotiations to outright removal, culminating in devastating events like the Trail of Tears. The legacy of these decades shaped not only the geography of the United States but also the enduring struggles and incredible resilience of Native American communities, whose fight for self-determination and cultural preservation continued long after this era. The foundational decisions made during this time laid the groundwork for future federal Indian policy and continue to influence indigenous relations today.
