Invisible Disaster: Fall Migration over the Gulf

Billions of birds will migrate this fall to a Gulf Coast filled with insidious threats. As green herons, yellowlegs and flocks of others land in oily marshes to feed on contaminated fish, these birds may suffer from the most grueling migration of their lives -- with tragic but unseen consequences. Read the article.

Major Pre-Revolutionary Conflicts Among Native People

While wars between the Indian people and settlers prior to the Revolution are certainly noteworthy and some even played an important role in setting the stage for the American Revolution, these wars were very different than the conflicts that would take place after the Revolution. Reading the Wikipedia summary of wars with the American Indians should help clarify this. See the question at the end of this article.

Bacon's Rebellion began as a conflict between settlers of the Jamestown area and the native people of the region. During its course it deteriorated even further to a broader conflict between the classes, with the Indian people ancillary to the conflict.
Wikipedia Narrative

Beaver (Iroquois) Wars I (1535-1650) Indian against Indian
The history of this war chronicles the phenomenal rise of the Iroquois Confederacy during the "Beaver Wars" of the 17th century. In what were perhaps the greatest series of military victories in Native American history, the Five Nations of the Iroquois (the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas) defeated, destroyed, and absorbed enemy tribes stretching over a vast area from eastern Canada to Virginia to Illinois--forever changing the cultural map of eastern North America. During this period, the Iroquois emerged as a dominant force that was both respected and dreaded by neighboring tribes and the European colonial powers alike. While the end result of these Iroquois wars was the famed Iroquois confederacy, the Beaver wars were actually waged over hunting grounds vital to a growing fur trade with Europeans. Most of the primary sources of information from this war come from Jesuit Priests who were living with the Iroquois.
Chronology
Ohio History
The Beaver Trade (from an Oneida Website)
Wikipedia

The Pequot War (1634-1638)
Often said to be the first real war between settlers and the Indian people, this characterization is more ethnocentrism than fact. (-ed)

(Source: Wikipedia) The Pequot war was an armed conflict in 1634-1638 between an alliance of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth colonies with Native American allies (the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes) against the Pequot tribe. The result was the elimination of the Pequot as a viable polity in what is present-day Southern New England.
Most of the Pequot people, warriors or otherwise, were killed by the colonists and their allies, or captured and sold into slavery in Bermuda. Other survivors were dispersed. It would take the Pequot more than three and a half centuries to regain political and economic power in their traditional homeland region along the Pequot (present-day Thames) and Mystic rivers in what is now southeastern Connecticut.
Chronology
Roots of the conflict
Society of Colonial Wars

Beaver (Iroquois) Wars II (aka French and Indian Wars) (1650-1675)
Involved both Indian and French Settlers
The Beaver wars continue to foster the rise of the Iroquois Confederacy beginning with a series of victories won by the Iroquois over neighboring tribes following the defeat and collapse of their Huron enemies in 1650. Iroquois war parties fought wide-ranging campaigns against enemy tribes and Europeans alike in practically every state east of the Mississippi. In doing so, they destroyed or displaced dozens of tribes, many of which are known to history by their names alone.
Chronology
Hicksville Ohio Website History
From the Patriot Files

King Phillips War <1675-1677> This bitter conflict, pitting the New England colonies against the Narraganset and Wampanoag tribes, was fought from 1675-1677. The colonial militias suffered severe reverses before finally conquering Philip with the help of the Mohegans and other Indian allies.

The French & Indian Wars <175(4)6-1763> (In Canada The Seven Years War) was actually a series of wars between the colonial powers battling over portions of the American and Canadian frontiers. Native peoples were recruited as combatants by both sides. Note the important role that this war played in fostering a climate for the American Revolution. [The Quebec History Encyclopedia] [Wikipedia]

A Summary of Conflicts between Native Indian People and European settlers/American Government. Wikipedia

Dramatic Declines in Indian Populations After Colonization

Genocide or Democide?

Debate still rages about the specific reasons for a dramatic decline in the population of American Indian people, particularly those in the Northeast, following the establishment of European Colonial settlements.

Estimates of the decline in a period of only about 20-40 years in the early 1500's amount to as much as a 90%+ decline. Given the small number of settlements and the lack of conflict over territory at this earlier period, it is probably safe to assume that little of this decline can be attributed to outright conflict, and most historians concur with this.

The decline was precipitated by rapidly spreading diseases introduced purposefully or by virtue of simple accidental exposure among the tribes. Diseases like smallpox, influenza, bubonic plague and pneumonic plagues, spread like wildfire among Indian populations. There is evidence that such plagues were purposeful among Indians in the western US during the period of westward expansion of the American population, but it seems likely that most of the original decline of Northeast tribes were naturally occurring as a result of exposure of the Indian people to diseases that they had no natural immunities to.

Bi-directional infections: There is also evidence that some venereal diseases originated in the US and were carried back to Europe by explorers but this seems to be the only health related diseases carried from the American colonies to Western Europe.

Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas

American Indian Eastern Tribes of Colonial Period

Below is a map of the tribes and their geographic reach in the Colonial era. Click on the map to enlarge the image.

Constitutional Authority of the US Congress with Respect to Indian Peoples

Dr. Robert MIller lays out a brief description of the Constitutional authority for congress as the arbiter and authority on Indian Affairs. View

Pre-columbian indigenous languages-

Other maps:

USGS Map of Native languages

Descriptions of Indigenous languages

Models of Migration - First Peoples

While the debate still rages over where America's first peoples came from, significant progress has been made in narrowing down the possibilities. The integration of archeology, physical anthropology, DNA analysis and linguistics all play an important role in current understanding.

Click here for an overview of these models.

Just for Fun - Pre-columbian Legends of Bigfoot

A startlingly comprehensive look at some of the legends of Big-foot like creatures from tribes across the American continent. When studying native peoples, with young people especially, this information is interesting reading but also a useful tool for conveying the importance of story-telling to native cultures that had no written language.

Pre-Columbian and Early American Legends of Bigfoot-like Beings

Horses and the Native American People

Many American's associate the horse with Native American Indian people, yet the horse did not play a role in Indian culture until the early 1800's. Dr. William Robbins in this short piece traces that history. View clip.

The Trail of Tears

The Trail of Tears is the path and the Indian conceptual description of the removal and relocation of certain Native Americans, including many members of the Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, and Choctaw nations among others in the United States, from their homelands to Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) in the Western United States. The phrase originated from a description of the removal of the Choctaw Nation in 1831.[1] Many Native Americans suffered from exposure, disease, and starvation while en route to their destinations, and many died, including 4,000 of the 15,000 relocated Cherokee.

Wikipedia Description

Trail of Tears Historical Overview from the Sequoia Institute

Black Indians - Cultural Mixing

The experience of a modern day Pow Wow will reveal an often ignored melding of Indian and African cultures particularly among the Tribes of the south where escaped and freed slaves sought refuge and protection.

Black - Indian History - The Sequoia Institute

Jefferson Defines a Vision for Indian Integration

Thomas Jefferson was the first American president to lay out a coherent policy with respect to the Indian nations of America. Jefferson's optimism about the assimilation of Indian people however, did not recognize the clash of cultures that would continue for nearly 100 years beyond.

Counting Coup

Among the Plains Indians the greatest sign of bravery was not to kill your enemy but to ride up to your enemy in the heat of battle and to touch him with your hand or a coup stick.

Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest

While no Indian nation escaped the efforts of white settles to uproot or exterminate them, the Indians of the Northwestern US emerged from the periods of the Indian Wars less traumatized than most. It may have been purely a geographic phenemenon, as they were the last to fall under the control of the country.

University of Washington Collection - Indians of the Northwest