An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States

With Britain’s loss to the new United States, Indigenous people became more vulnerable, especially those resistant to settlers’ war for independence, as the Treaty of Paris did not protect or consider them in any way. The United States Constitution only mentioned Indigenous nations in the context of granting the federal government power to deal with Indigenous nations as opposed to the states. Dunbar-Ortiz also notes that the 2nd Amendment also helped ensure the continued use of irregular forces of colonial militias used to attack Indigenous communities.

Wars continued against Indigenous nations under the goal of accomplishing manifest destiny as settlers on the frontiers pushed onward for more land. Indigenous people nevertheless resisted the new country and created a culture of resistance to survive. Settlers with plantations worked by enslaved people sought more land while small farmers wanted cheap land since they couldn’t compete with plantation owners. Given these interests, the fledgling U.S. government and army prioritized further expansion into Indigenous lands as displayed through counterinsurgency warfare in efforts to colonize Ohio Country during the Washington administration via total war. Washington’s Secretary of War Henry Knox had an army composed of settler fighters from militias plan an attack, but the Miamis and Shawnees ambushed them. In response, Knox recruited more rangers to burn and loot Miami towns and used women and children as hostages for surrender, demonstrating the same pattern of irregular warfare again. Even though Washington pushed for the U.S. to form a professional army to avoid having to use settler militias, irregular forces were still used when regular forces failed to overcome Indigenous resistance. New land that was taken was sold to settlers, serving as a key source of revenue for the U.S. government early on.

Dunbar-Ortiz illuminates the life of Shawnee resistance leader Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa in the early 19th century resistance against settlers. They advocated against Anglo culture, especially the effect alcohol had on Indigenous communities. Tecumseh wanted Indigenous people to unite across other regions beyond Ohio Country. Indiana territory governor William Henry Harrison, his forces of rangers who were “seasoned Indian killers” (86), and U.S. Army regular troops attacked Prophet’s Town, the base of Indigenous resistance, while Tecumseh was traveling South. Harrison’s forces defeated the unprepared alliance, burning, looting, and mutilating corpses from graves in the process. This event catapulted Harrison into the ranks of frontier heroes among U.S. Americans. In response, Tecumseh gained support from the British in 1812, and with that support a stronger Indigenous alliance attacked forts and destroyed squatter settlements. After further back and forth, the war ended when Tecumseh was killed in 1813 at the Battle of the Thames, and the Indigenous alliance became severely weakened as a result.

Meanwhile in the Old Southwest, the Cherokee Nation, particularly the Chickamaugas, continued their resistance against squatter settlers in present-day Tennessee. Settlers refused to follow such prior treaties prohibiting settlements, and the federal government didn’t do anything to stop their continued intrusion. Chickamaugas were forced to protect their lands via a war during which settler-rangers led by John Sevier invaded towns with “a mission of total destruction” using scorched-earth policies, such as starving them out, before the Chickamaugas finally surrendered (89). Dunbar-Ortiz argues that Sevier was among leaders “who were not the exception but the rule” in their approach toward Indigenous communities, and they continue to be honored as heroes in U.S. culture today, noting that there is a statue of Sevier in the U.S. Capitol (90).

The Muskogee also resisted Anglo-American settlers, especially in Georgia, and allied with Spanish Florida against squatters. Here too settlers ignored treaties. Additionally, a small group of elite Indigenous individuals, who depended on colonialists to gain personal wealth and acquired enslaved people, created divisions among Muskogee, as they made compromises with settlers and made decisions that harmed the larger community.

This counterinsurgency warfare, forced removal, and ethnic cleansing against Indigenous communities continued throughout the 19th century. Dunbar-Ortiz concludes that this way of war in the colonial period continued after the United States was founded and eventually influenced US military interventions overseas and serves as the crux of U.S. American identity.

The United States under the Jefferson administration doubled its size in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase from France. The territory was home to multiple Indigenous nations, yet none were consulted in the process prior to the purchase. Dunbar-Ortiz characterizes Jefferson as the “architect” of the colonization of North America and genocide of Indigenous people, and Andrew Jackson as the “implementer” (96). She focuses on Andrew Jackson and his role in the ethnic cleansing of Indigenous peoples east of the Mississippi. She begins with his military career leading the Tennessee militia in wars against Indigenous people, particularly the Muskogee and the Seminoles. His experience as a “veteran Indian killer” helped him rise in the ranks to become the president, and by the end of his presidency “the policy of genocide was embedded in the highest office of the US government” (97). Jackson’s “final solution” for Indigenous communities east of the Mississippi was forced removal. This policy of genocide is summarized in U.S. General Thomas S. Jesup, who stated that the “country can be rid of [the Seminoles] only by exterminating them” (97).

In the Southeast, the Choctaws and Chickasaws lost most of their land as a result of being dependent on US traders with no other options. Jefferson encouraged the process by which these Indigenous communities became indebted to the creditors who were agents of the federal government. The communities eventually had to sell their land for repayment. Meanwhile, Muskogees (Creeks) were divided among themselves after the U.S. independence war. The Lower Creeks became economically dependent on settlers and assimilated by taking on their values and practices, such as slavery, the privatization of property, and accumulation of wealth by a few. The Upper Creeks saw what happened to the Lower Creeks and a formed a group of resistance fighters called the Red Sticks to attack. Jackson led a counteroffensive attack with Lower Creek and Cherokee allies with the goal of extermination while the Red Sticks had Shawnee and Africans who had escaped slavery as allies. Jackson’s forces took women and children hostage, and after defeating the Red Sticks at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, they created souvenirs from the skin of Red Sticks’ dead bodies. The Muskogee were forced to accept terms of total surrender in the 1814 Treaty of Fort Jackson, including terms for elite Muskogees who thought their landholdings might be spared for supporting Jackson’s forces. The Muskogee were driven out west, leaving regions of Alabama and Mississippi open for settlers and plantation slavery. 

Red Sticks continued to resist by joining the Seminole Nation in the Florida region. The Seminole Nation was made up of remnants of various Indigenous communities and escapees from slavery. There were three wars between the U.S. and the Seminole Nation between 1817 to 1858 in which the U.S. used counterinsurgent warfare as its military grew and developed further in that period. As seen in the past, the U.S. targeted civilians and destroyed food supplies as the U.S. tried to destroy the Seminoles. In 1819, U.S. settlers began settling Florida after the U.S. annexed it, but the Seminole resistance were never defeated, as they never signed a treaty or were conquered.

Many parts of present-day Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Mississippi, Kentucky, and North Carolina became private property of white settlers between 1814 and 1824. In 1824 the Office of Indian Affairs was created within the U.S. Department of War. The Jacksonian period was also when the U.S. origin myth took on its permanent form. Dunbar-Ortiz discusses the role of writers, particularly James Fenimore Cooper and his key role in developing the U.S. origin narrative through his fictional books like The Last of the Mohicans. His series of books include hero-type characters who captured the view settlers had of themselves and a “positive twist on genocidal colonialism” (107). Historians and writers have carried forward this idea of U.S. citizens viewing themselves as an exceptional and unique race, an identity formed as part of fighting against Indigenous people. Dunbar-Ortiz concludes by noting that a key aspect of the U.S. origin myth is denial of past atrocities and an assertion that the U.S. was not a colonial power.

Jackson orchestrated the forced removal of Indigenous people east of the Mississippi River to “Indian Territory” in present-day Oklahoma. Dunbar-Ortiz characterizes Andrew Jackson’s actions against Indigenous people over his career as a template for future U.S. presidents in figuring out “how to reconcile democracy and genocide and characterize it as freedom for the people” (108). Once Jackson became president, Georgia put a target on the territory of the Cherokee Nation by claiming Cherokee land as public. In 1830, the U.S. passed the Indian Removal Act, and through it made treaties, such as with the Cherokee Nation that involved negotiations with a few Cherokees they picked who would be more willing to get the signatures they needed to give Cherokee land to the U.S. in exchange for land in “Indian Territory.” Several tribal nations and about 70,000 people were forcibly removed from their homelands east of the Mississippi and relocated after the U.S. made treaties under Jackson. All of this culminated in the infamous Trail of Tears when the U.S. Army marched the resistant Cherokee to “Indian Territory” in 1838 and half of those marched perished in the journey. Similar forced marches were done against the Muskogees, Seminoles, Chickasaws, and Choctaws.