Over time, different names have been used to refer to the Indigenous people of North America, such as Indian, Indigenous, Native American, Native, etc. The specific names of tribes or groups, such as Cherokee, Navajo, or Shawnee, are preferable. For the sake of clarity in this article, the name Native or Native American will be used, unless from a direct quote.
Native Americans of multiple tribes fought on both sides of the French and Indian War. This war was all about tensions on each side of the border and the conflict that ensued. Some major tribes that fought during this war were the Iroquis and the Cherokee.[1] These Native Americans were not trained in the European form of combat, yet they still found a way to defeat their enemies, such as the Battle of the Monongahela. The battle was a victory for the French and Native allies, and Hale C. Scipe states that "this was the most crushing defeat ever administered to a British Army on American Soil."[2]:189 The Native Americans vanquished trained soldiers.[2]:189 Some other Native American tactics in this war were to hide in the trees and bushes, then wait for the enemy to come so they could ambush them.[2]:185 After a battle, these people would also go and scalp the enemy, and sometimes steal whatever was found on the bodies.[2]:189 Though many of these Native Americans were fighting for the correct cause, many individuals were very hostile towards them, such as the Schupps Mill Massacre. This hostile massacre took place when Native Americans were helping refugees look after their livestock. Many were killed, and the rest of the Natives retreated.[2]:263 The war ended with the Treaty of Paris and greatly influenced the Revolutionary War because of the continuous dispute about borders after the treaty was signed.[citation needed]
Revolutionary War
During the Revolutionary War, both the early American colonists and the British wanted Natives on their side.[3]:188 Some, like the Abenakis, were persuaded not by a "cause that was not their own",[3]:190 but by whichever side could provide them with "provisions".[3]:189 In the south, along the Mississippi River in the area of Natchez, the Choctaws and Chickasaws became allies of the British. Those tribes agreed to pressure the colonists to stay loyal to Britain, in return for goods given to them by the British. Later in the war, the agreement fell apart as Britain reneged on their end of the deal and the tribes began pillaging settlers for their own interests.[4]
The Iroquois confederacy, an alliance of six Native American nations in New York that had existed in peace for hundreds of years, was divided by the Revolutionary War.[5][3]:194Joseph Brant, part of the Mohawk tribe, attempted to convince other tribes to join the cause against the colonists. There was a differing of opinions amongst the Iroquois, with some supporting Brant and some not.[6] While four of the tribes sided with the British, largely because of promises from the Crown that tribal land would be preserved, the Oneidas and the Tuscaroras sided with the colonists.[7][8]
War of 1812
The origins of the War of 1812 are complex in nature, mostly revolving around trade issues and tensions between America and Britain.[9] American colonists and Natives disputed over land, particularly in the great lakes and northern midwestern area.[10]:27
The British Native's support on their side, such as the Tecumseh confederacy.[11]:23Tecumseh was a prominent leader in the Shawnee tribe.[12] He is known for working on creating an alliance between multiple Native American tribes "west of the Appalachian Mountains".[12] His goal was to oppose the American colonists and white expansion. However, many tribes were not thrilled to join the confederacy and Tecumseh was killed at the 1813 Battle of the Thames; so, his quest turned out unsuccessful.[12] Another alliance included the Menominee tribe.[13]:265
Throughout the war, the Native Americans were a major player on the side of the British, with quite literally much of the "British dependence" resting on their shoulders.[10]:167 American officials strongly opposed the way Native people waged war—in their mind it seemed barbaric.[10]:167 This ended up being controversial on both the American and British sides, with the British also trying to limit the amount of brutal killing and America producing "propaganda about it".[10]:189,208,436 Native Americans struck fear into many hearts, both because of the way they painted themselves and dressed, and because of the reputation that followed them.[10]:165 However, because of all of this, Natives had both subtle and obvious power over both sides because of British dependence and American fear.
Americans also allied with Natives, although not as successfully as the British.[10]:249 Indians fought using their own methods, such as "ambushing".[10]:225 At the end of the war, in part because of the Treaty of Ghent, Indians did not get the promised lands and received little protection.[10] Those tribes who supported the British "paid dearly" because of the later loss of their lands.[13]:265 Indians were very involved throughout the whole war, however, "it was also the last time that Indians played a major role in determining the future of the continent."[11]:3
Civil War
During the Civil War, many Native Americans enlisted in the Confederate Army, such as Thomas Sanderson.[14] Sanderson enlisted in 1862 and participated in the bloody Battle of Antietam, a battle that killed thousands on both sides.[14] Native Americans also were able to advance in rank, such as in Sanderson's case, where he was promoted to corporal, then full sergeant.[14] Native Americans in the west also had ties to the Confederacy, though not through soldiers. Slave owners in the West were few, but the Confederacy found that these few slave owners had enough wealth to help them in their cause.[14]
Towards the end of the Civil War, tensions between the Native Americans, the Union, and the Confederacy began escalating.[14] The treaty that was signed between the Americans and the Natives promising 60 million acres to the Natives was compromised by the Americans because of the black gold that was found in those lands. Americans came in and took the land, violating any trust the Natives had gained with them during the time of the Civil War.[14]
Native Americans had a massive impact on World War I, especially in forms of communication across enemy lines and territory.[15] Using Native Americans to help send messages first began when leaders in the American army came upon the knowledge of how quickly and complicated Natives would speak to each other.[16] Previously, the German forces were able to interpret almost every message sent by America, yet when Native American languages were used, they were so unknown by the enemy that they could not decipher them.[15] Many soldiers from different tribes were responsible for being code talkers.[15] Below is a chart that will help the understanding of which tribe helped with code talking in which infantry.[15]
There were many different types of Native American Code Talking, yet all helped to accomplish sending messages that could not be deciphered by the German forces.[15] This was the fastest form of communication, Philip Johnston, a WWI veteran stated that "Navajos could encode, transmit, and decode a three-line message in 30 seconds" and that Code Talking was over 98 percent faster than the current encryption machines."[16] Native American code talkers were beneficial both during WWI and after because the positive view of Native Americans and their languages after the war was greatly increased.[15]
World War II
About 44,000 Native men and 800 women joined the military during World War II.[17] There are many reasons that Natives joined the United States military, such as a way to advance their education or opportunities to earn money and receive life experience outside of their hometown.[17] However, an important motive was "the warrior tradition—the tradition of protecting their people".[17][18]
During World War II, the military sent coded messages by way of Code talkers.[17] These were Native Americans who encoded messages into their Native language. This was used in World War I and then grew more significant during World War II. Natives from tribes such as the Comanche, Meskwaki, Chippewa, Oneida, Hopi, and Navajo worked as code talkers, with varying representation from each tribe. There was even a school set up to train code-talkers, who were both enlisted and drafted.[18]
The raising of the flag on Mount Suribachi in Iwo Jima. Ira Hayes is the soldier on the far left.
Ira Hayes was a Native American that became very well known because of WWII. He trained as a Marine paratrooper and saw combat in Bougainville and Iwo Jima. It was at Iwo Jima that he was documented with four other soldiers raising an American flag, which then became a very famous picture. He suffered after the war from what could have been PTSD.[13]:221–222 He is represented in the Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia.[19]
In the famous picture of six American soldiers raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi, Ira Hayes is the soldier on the left, raising his hands up towards the flag.[20]:ix,235
Vietnam War
Like many of the soldiers that fought in the Vietnam War, Native American soldiers experienced and saw terrible atrocities. About "one of four eligible Native people compared to about one of twelve non-Natives served," which in all numbered about 42,000. Of those who were not drafted, which turned out to be quite a few, their motivation stemmed essentially from the "family and tribal traditions of service."[21]
Both Native men and women fought in Vietnam War.[21] One Native woman Donna Lorring, was a communications specialist. She was between the age of 18–21 when she served and her post was the Long Binh Post.
Because of the atrocities they experienced, Native Americans came back home to their tribes with emotional trauma and were more likely to suffer from PTSD. However, many have been welcomed home with ceremonies meant to honor them for service. This has helped some veterans feel like they have a place in their communities and help transition back to civilian life.[22][21][18] It helps veterans feel like they have a place because it connects them with the role of a warrior, which has a deep interconnected "relationship with the community."[22] However, many female veterans don't experience the same inclusion in these veteran communities as their male counterparts.[18]
Some Native Vietnam soldiers saw similarities between the war "fought by whites against their ancestors". It was similar to how the American soldiers "relocat[ed] entire Vietnamese village populations".[22]
Post-Vietnam to present day
As of November 2021, the total number of men and women who serve in the military on active duty numbered more than 24,000. This includes both "American Indian and Alaskan Native." Additionally "more than 183,000 veterans identify as American Indian or Alaskan Native."[23]
Lori Piestewa: Member of the 507th Maintenance Company
Native Americans have participated in the armed forces throughout conflicts in the Middle East. During one mission, Operation Enduring Freedom, which took place in Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014, "some 30 American Indians and Alaska Natives were killed and 188 wounded." Also, "43 American Indians died while 344 were wounded in Operation Iraqi Freedom which lasted from 2003–2010.[24]
Some specific units had some of the "highest proportion of American Indians," such as the 120th Engineer Combat Battalion at 20 percent.[24]
Lori Piestewa, who was a member of the 507th Maintenance Company, was killed in combat in Iraq in 2003. She was also part of the Hopi Tribe. She became a beacon of "peace and unity" to her people and others. Squaw Peak in Arizona was renamed Piestewa Peak after her. There is also an annual event which is named in memory of her: Lori Piestewa National Native American Games.[18]
In September 2004, the 120th Engineer Combat Battalion received permission to help organize an official powwow. This occurred in Iraq. soldiers, both Native and non-Native participated in traditional Native American games. They even made a drum from an old oil drum. This powwow was the "first one ever known to be a full-blown powwow in a combat zone."[18][24]
Code talkers were given honors by the United States, as well as France. The Navajo tribe received acknowledgement first as their activities were more well-known, but when previous code talkers from other tribes and conflicts were made known, they also received recognition. On November 15, 2008, The Code Talkers Recognition Act of 2008 (Public Law 110-420), was signed into law by President George W. Bush, which recognizes every Native American code talker who served in the United States military during World War I or World War II, with the exception of the already-awarded Navajo, with a Congressional Gold Medal for his tribe, to be retained by the Smithsonian Institution, and a silver medal duplicate to each code talker.[25]
A code talker was a person employed by the military during wartime to use a little-known language as a means of secret communication. The term is most often used for United States service members during the World Wars who used their knowledge of Native American languages as a basis to transmit coded messages. In particular, there were approximately 400 to 500 Native Americans in the United States Marine Corps whose primary job was to transmit secret tactical messages. Code talkers transmitted messages over military telephone or radio communications nets using formally or informally developed codes built upon their Indigenous languages. The code talkers improved the speed of encryption and decryption of communications in front line operations during World War II and are credited with a number of decisive victories. Their code was never broken.
The Battle of Tippecanoe was fought on November 7, 1811, in Battle Ground, Indiana, between American forces led by then Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory and tribal forces associated with Shawnee leader Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, leaders of a confederacy of various tribes who opposed European-American settlement of the American frontier. As tensions and violence increased, Governor Harrison marched with an army of about 1,000 men to attack the confederacy's headquarters at Prophetstown, near the confluence of the Tippecanoe River and the Wabash River.
Tecumseh was a Shawnee chief and warrior who promoted resistance to the expansion of the United States onto Native American lands. A persuasive orator, Tecumseh traveled widely, forming a Native American confederacy and promoting intertribal unity. Even though his efforts to unite Native Americans ended with his death in the War of 1812, he became an iconic folk hero in American, Indigenous, and Canadian popular history.
Lori Ann Piestewa was a United States Army soldier killed during the Iraq War. A member of the Quartermaster Corps, she died in the same Iraqi attack in which fellow soldiers Shoshana Johnson and Piestewa's friend Jessica Lynch were injured. A Hopi, Piestewa was the first Native American woman to die in combat while serving in the U.S. military and the first woman in the U.S. military killed in the Iraq War. Arizona's Piestewa Peak is named in her honor.
The American Indian Wars, also known as the American Frontier Wars, and the Indian Wars, were initially fought by European governments and also by the colonists in North America, and then later on by the United States government and American settlers, against various American Indian tribes. These conflicts occurred in the United States from the time of the earliest colonial settlements in the 17th century until the end of the 19th century. The various wars resulted from a wide variety of factors, the most common being the desire of settlers and governments for Indian tribes' lands. The European powers and their colonies also enlisted allied Indian tribes to help them conduct warfare against each other's colonial settlements. After the American Revolution, many conflicts were local to specific states or regions and frequently involved disputes over land use; some entailed cycles of violent reprisal.
Tecumseh's War or Tecumseh's Rebellion was a conflict between the United States and Tecumseh's Confederacy, led by the Shawnee leader Tecumseh in the Indiana Territory. Although the war is often considered to have climaxed with William Henry Harrison's victory at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, Tecumseh's War essentially continued into the War of 1812 and is frequently considered a part of that larger struggle. The war lasted for two more years, until 1813, when Tecumseh and his second-in-command, Roundhead, died fighting Harrison's Army of the Northwest at the Battle of the Thames in Upper Canada, near present-day Chatham, Ontario, and his confederacy disintegrated. Tecumseh's War is viewed by some academic historians as the final conflict of a longer-term military struggle for control of the Great Lakes region of North America, encompassing a number of wars over several generations, referred to as the Sixty Years' War.
The Shawnee are an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language.
Chalahgawtha was the name of one of the five divisions of the Shawnee, a Native American people, during the 18th century. It was also the name of the principal village of the division. The other four divisions were the Mekoche, Kispoko, Pekowi, and Hathawekela. Together these divisions formed the loose confederacy that was the Shawnee tribe.
The Northwest Indian War (1785–1795), also known by other names, was an armed conflict for control of the Northwest Territory fought between the United States and a united group of Native American nations known today as the Northwestern Confederacy. The United States Army considers it the first of the American Indian Wars.
Praying Indian is a 17th-century term referring to Native Americans of New England, New York, Ontario, and Quebec who converted to Christianity either voluntarily or involuntarily. Many groups are referred to by the term, but it is more commonly used for tribes that were organized into villages. The villages were known as praying towns and were established by missionaries such as the Puritan leader John Eliot and Jesuit missionaries who established the St. Regis and Kahnawake and the missions among the Huron in western Ontario.
The Sixty Years' War was a military struggle for control of the North American Great Lakes region, including Lake Champlain and Lake George, encompassing a number of wars over multiple generations. The conflicts involved the British Empire, the French colonial empire, the United States, the Spanish Empire, and the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. The term Sixty Years' War is used by academic historians to provide a framework for viewing this era as a whole, rather than as isolated events.
The Navajo are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
As many as 25,000 Native Americans in World War II fought actively: 21,767 in the Army, 1,910 in the Navy, 874 in the Marines, 121 in the Coast Guard, and several hundred Native American women as nurses. These figures included over one-third of all able-bodied Native American men aged 18 to 50, and even included as high as seventy percent of the population of some tribes. The first Native American to be killed in WWII was Henry E. Nolatubby from Oklahoma. He was part of the Marine Detachment serving on the USS Arizona and went down with the ship on December 7, 1941. Unlike African Americans or Asian Americans, Native Americans did not serve in segregated units and served alongside white Americans.
Native Americans have made up an integral part of U.S. military conflicts since America's beginning. Colonists recruited Indian allies during such instances as the Pequot War from 1634–1638, the Revolutionary War, as well as in War of 1812. Native Americans also fought on both sides during the American Civil War, as well as military missions abroad including the most notable, the Codetalkers who served in World War II. The Scouts were active in the American West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Including those who accompanied General John J. Pershing in 1916 on his expedition to Mexico in pursuit of Pancho Villa. Indian Scouts were officially deactivated in 1947 when their last member retired from the Army at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. For many Indians it was an important form of interaction with European-American culture and their first major encounter with the Whites' way of thinking and doing things.
The Northwestern Confederacy, or Northwestern Indian Confederacy, was a loose confederacy of Native Americans in the Great Lakes region of the United States created after the American Revolutionary War. Formally, the confederacy referred to itself as the United Indian Nations, at their Confederate Council. It was known infrequently as the Miami Confederacy since many contemporaneous federal officials overestimated the influence and numerical strength of the Miami tribes based on the size of their principal city, Kekionga.
Tecumseh's confederacy was a confederation of indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes region of North America that began to form in the early 19th century around the teaching of Tenskwatawa, called The Prophet by his followers. The confederation grew over several years and came to include several thousand warriors. Shawnee leader Tecumseh, the brother of The Prophet, developed into the leader of the group as early as 1808. Together, they worked to unite the various tribes against the European settlers who had been crossing the Appalachian Mountains and settling on their land.
The Cherokee people of the southeastern United States, and later Oklahoma and surrounding areas, have a long military history. Since European contact, Cherokee military activity has been documented in European records. Cherokee tribes and bands had a number of conflicts during the 18th century with Europeans, primarily British colonists from the Southern Colonies. The Eastern Band and Cherokees from the Indian Territory fought in the American Civil War, with bands allying with the Union or the Confederacy. Because many Cherokees allied with the Confederacy, the United States government required a new treaty with the nation after the war. Cherokees have also served in the United States military during the 20th and 21st centuries.
The Choctaw code talkers were a group of Choctaw Indians from Oklahoma who pioneered the use of Native American languages as military code during World War I.
The history of New Mexico during World War II is characterized by dramatic and lasting changes to its economy, society, and politics. The state played a central role in the American war effort, contributing a disproportionately high number of servicemen and natural resources; most famously, it hosted the sites where the world's first nuclear weapon was designed, developed, and tested.
Dr. Carl Nelson Gorman, also known as Kin-Ya-Onny-Beyeh (1907–1998) was a Navajo code talker, visual artist, painter, illustrator, and professor. He was faculty at the University of California, Davis, from 1950 until 1973. During World War II, Gorman served as a code talker with the United States Marine Corps in the Pacific.
1 2 3 4 5 Sipe, C. Hale (1999). The Indian Wars of Pennsylvania (2nded.). Lewisburg, PA: Wennawoods Publishing.
1 2 3 4 Ray, Raphael (2001). A People's History of the American Revolution. New York: New Press.
↑ Layton, Brandon (February 2016). "Indian Country to Slave Country: The Transformation of Natchez during the American Revolution". The Journal of Southern History. 82 (1): 27–58. doi:10.1353/soh.2016.0002. JSTOR43918205. S2CID159456733.
↑ Ferling, John (2007). Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence. New York: Oxford University Press. pp.199–203. ISBN978-0-19-518121-0.
↑ Kennedy, Frances H., ed. (2014). The American Revolution: A Historical Guidebook. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN978-0-19-932422-4.
↑ Hickey, Donald R. (October 2012). "1812: Remembering a Forgotten War". Journal of Military History. Society for Military History. 76 (4): 969–972.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Taylor, Alan (2011). The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, & Indian Allies. New York: Vintage Books.
1 2 Hickey, Donald R. (2012). The War Of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict, Bicentennial Edition. University of Illinois Press. ISBN978-0-252-07837-8.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Britten, Thomas A (October 22, 2021). "The First Code Talkers: Native American Communicators in World War I. By William C. Meadows". Western Historical Quarterly. 53 (1): 81–82. doi:10.1093/whq/whab119. ISSN0043-3810.
1 2 Marshall, Suzanne. "A Hidden Story: American Indian Code Talkers." DttP: Documents to the People 40, no. 4 (2012): 27–30. Accessed October 14, 2022.
↑ Robertson, Breanne, ed. (2019). Investigating Iwo:The Flag Raisings in Myth, Memory, & Esprit de Corps. Quantico, VA: Quantico, VA: Marine Corps History Division. ISBN9781732003071.
1 2 3 "Vietnam". americanindian.si.edu. Retrieved November 27, 2022.
1 2 3 Holm, Tom (Fall 1995). "PTSD in Native American Vietnam Veterans: A Reassessment". Wíčazo Ša Review. University of Minnesota Press. 11 (2): 83–86. doi:10.2307/1409105. JSTOR1409105.
Images of gold medals awarded to the tribes of the Code Talkers by the US Government.
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