Published on 8 Sep 2016
The white man came in search of wealth and power. Two million Indians would endure four centuries of struggle before the sun finally set upon their free dominion. These European settlers came in wave upon wave to occupy Native American lands. In the bellies of their ships the Europeans carried horses, guns and disease and in their hearts they carried a belief in their destiny to rule the Americas from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
As the whites pressed ever-westward they finally waged an absolute war on the Indians that would close the frontier and usher in the white man's era of railroads, telegraphs and mining. Yet the history of America is in many ways the history of the American Indians, for they gave the Europeans the skills and knowledge needed to survive in the new world. These are the stories of the mightiest Indian nations.
The Iroquois of upstate New York were a unique confederation of six Indian nations. Their great law of peace attracted the attention of American colonists who were forging their own new country. The Seminoles of Florida who gathered together free Indians and black slaves fleeing the northern lands. Together they built a patchwork nation of peoples mirroring the melting pot of America.
The Navajo whose powerful spiritual link to their land inspired a courageous defense of their territory in the great south-west. The fiercely independent Cheyenne, the beautiful people of the plains, whose families were massacred by US Army soldiers. And their brothers, Lakota, the defiant warriors of the west who united with the Cheyenne to hold back the tide of western expansion for 50 years.
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favour of fair use.
As the whites pressed ever-westward they finally waged an absolute war on the Indians that would close the frontier and usher in the white man's era of railroads, telegraphs and mining. Yet the history of America is in many ways the history of the American Indians, for they gave the Europeans the skills and knowledge needed to survive in the new world. These are the stories of the mightiest Indian nations.
The Iroquois of upstate New York were a unique confederation of six Indian nations. Their great law of peace attracted the attention of American colonists who were forging their own new country. The Seminoles of Florida who gathered together free Indians and black slaves fleeing the northern lands. Together they built a patchwork nation of peoples mirroring the melting pot of America.
The Navajo whose powerful spiritual link to their land inspired a courageous defense of their territory in the great south-west. The fiercely independent Cheyenne, the beautiful people of the plains, whose families were massacred by US Army soldiers. And their brothers, Lakota, the defiant warriors of the west who united with the Cheyenne to hold back the tide of western expansion for 50 years.
Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favour of fair use.
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