Indian Wars Collections – Access Genealogy

Indian Wars, Conflicts and Disturbances 1614-1893

For almost 200 years the population of North America or the colonial or federal government have been at war with the Indian Nations of this country. Early English settlers enjoyed peaceful relations with nearby tribes, but the colonists were taking sides in military rivalries between Indian Nations in order to open further land for settlement. All the wars and conflicts generally resulted in the opening of Indian lands to further colonization, the conquest of the American Indians and their forced relocation to Indian reservations.

Black Hawk War

In the spring of 1831, when Black Hawk and his people returned from their winter hunt, they found the few white settlers whom they had left the fall before increased by many new comers. They found the Indian homes occupied by these settlers, and among their corn hills they found the white man’s wagon. But more aggravating yet, they found the bones of their ancestors disturbed and laid bare upon the ground by the white man’s plow. Black Hawk and his people had borne much the past few years but this seemed too much. He protested, and was told the white man had bought the land from his white father in Washington. He could not understand this. What happened next, has lived on in legends, and displays some of the worse treatment of Native Americans by the white man.