1622-1924
Indian Wars and Frontier Conflicts
Three centuries of conflict between the US government and Indigenous nations, from the Powhatan Wars through the final Plains conflicts.
2,967 engagements recorded
Featured engagements
Notable Indian Wars and Frontier Conflicts battles
1829 · GA
Cherokee Gold Fields Seizure — Dahlonega (1829)
Gold discovery at Dahlonega greatly accelerated pressure for Cherokee removal; enriched Georgia sett...
1830 · MS
Choctaw Removal — Dancing Rabbit Creek Treaty (1830)
The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed on September 27, 1830, and proclaimed on February 24, ...
1831 · MS
Choctaw Removal Winter March (1831–1832)
de Tocqueville's eyewitness account helped define the term "Trail of Tears"; Choctaw called it "the ...
1832 · MS
Chickasaw Treaty of Pontotoc Creek (1832)
The Chickasaw, an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands whose traditional territory encomp...
1833 · NM
Bonneville Expedition into Navajo Country
The Long Walk of the Navajo was a forced deportation and relocation of the Navajo people by the Unit...
1833 · IL
Treaty of Chicago — Potawatomi Land Cession (1833)
The 1833 Treaty of Chicago was negotiated approximately three years after the United States governme...
1835 · GA
Treaty of New Echota Signing — Cherokee Nation (December 29, 1835)
By the late 1820s, the Cherokee Nation's territory lay almost entirely in northwestern Georgia, with...
1836 · AL
Creek War of 1836 — Roanoke Steamboat Attack (May 1836)
The Creek War of 1836, also known as the Second Creek War, occurred within the broader context of In...
1836 · AL
Hitchiti Raids — Lower Creek Resistance (1836)
Part of the Second Creek War; Lower Creek resistance to removal continued even as Upper Creek were b...
1836 · GA
Etowah Massacre — Georgia Militia vs Cherokee (1836)
Representative of the widespread violence against Cherokee during the removal period before the Trai...
1836 · FL
Jumper's Town Destroyed — Withlacoochee Cove (1836)
During the Second Seminole War in 1836, U.S. Army forces penetrated the Withlacoochee Cove and destr...
1836 · AL
Battle of Pea Creek — Creek Removal (1836)
The Creek War of 1836, also known as the Second Creek War, arose from the systematic dispossession o...
1829
Cherokee Gold Fields Seizure — Dahlonega (1829)
Gold discovery at Dahlonega greatly accelerated pressure for Cherokee removal; enriched Georgia settlers at Cherokee expense
GA
1830
Choctaw Removal — Dancing Rabbit Creek Treaty (1830)
The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed on September 27, 1830, and proclaimed on February 24, 1831, as the first removal treaty to be carried into effect ...
MS
1831
Choctaw Removal Winter March (1831–1832)
de Tocqueville's eyewitness account helped define the term "Trail of Tears"; Choctaw called it "the trail of tears and death"
MS
1832
Chickasaw Treaty of Pontotoc Creek (1832)
The Chickasaw, an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands whose traditional territory encompassed northern Mississippi, northwestern and northern Alabam...
MS
1833
Bonneville Expedition into Navajo Country
The Long Walk of the Navajo was a forced deportation and relocation of the Navajo people by the United States federal government and army, occurring between Aug...
NM
1833
Treaty of Chicago — Potawatomi Land Cession (1833)
The 1833 Treaty of Chicago was negotiated approximately three years after the United States government ratified the Indian Removal Act. This treaty represented ...
IL
1835
Treaty of New Echota Signing — Cherokee Nation (December 29, 1835)
By the late 1820s, the Cherokee Nation's territory lay almost entirely in northwestern Georgia, with smaller portions in Tennessee, Alabama, and North Carolina,...
GA
1836
Creek War of 1836 — Roanoke Steamboat Attack (May 1836)
The Creek War of 1836, also known as the Second Creek War, occurred within the broader context of Indian removal policies affecting the Muscogee Creek people in...
AL
1836
Hitchiti Raids — Lower Creek Resistance (1836)
Part of the Second Creek War; Lower Creek resistance to removal continued even as Upper Creek were being marched west
AL
1836
Etowah Massacre — Georgia Militia vs Cherokee (1836)
Representative of the widespread violence against Cherokee during the removal period before the Trail of Tears
GA
1836
Jumper's Town Destroyed — Withlacoochee Cove (1836)
During the Second Seminole War in 1836, U.S. Army forces penetrated the Withlacoochee Cove and destroyed Jumper's Village, a Seminole settlement in Citrus Count...
FL
1836
Battle of Pea Creek — Creek Removal (1836)
The Creek War of 1836, also known as the Second Creek War, arose from the systematic dispossession of the Muscogee Creek people in Alabama during the era of Ind...
AL
1836
Battle of Peliklakaha — Abraham's Town (March 1836)
Black Seminole leader Abraham was one of the key advisors to Osceola; his people's fate intertwined with Seminole resistance
FL
1836
Battle of Lake Apopka — Alligator's Town (1836)
By the early 19th century, some Seminole had settled on the south shore of Lake Apopka in the Winter Garden area. This settlement possibly produced the signific...
FL
1836
Creek Removal — Alabama (1836)
The Creek War of 1836, also known as the Second Creek War, occurred in Alabama during the period of Indian removal and represented a conflict between the Muscog...
AL
1836
Battle of Hatchechubbee Creek (1836)
In 1836, U.S. Army and state militia forces defeated Creek resistance fighters at Hatchechubbee Creek in Russell County, Alabama, as part of suppressing the Sec...
AL
1837
Battle of Etowah — Cherokee Resistance to Removal (1837)
In 1837, Cherokee families resisting forced removal from their Georgia farmsteads clashed with Georgia Guard troops attempting to remove them from Floyd County....
GA
1838
Cherokee Trail of Tears — Tennessee Internment (1838)
The summer internment in stockades caused the first wave of Trail of Tears deaths before the march even began
TN
1838
Tsali's Resistance — North Carolina Cherokee (1838)
Tsali's sacrifice allowed the Eastern Band of Cherokee to remain in North Carolina; Tsali became a hero of Cherokee tradition
NC
1838
Potawatomi Trail of Death — Indiana Removal (1838)
Known as the "Potawatomi Trail of Death"; priest Father Petit documented the deaths; similar to the Cherokee Trail of Tears
IN
1838
Fort Buffington — Cherokee Removal Internment (1838)
Assembly point for the Trail of Tears; conditions in the stockades caused many Cherokee deaths before the march began
GA
1838
Menominee Village Removal — Indiana (1838)
Chief Menominee led Potawatomi resistance to forced removal from their Indiana reservation lands in the late 1830s. Although Menominee had signed several early ...
IN
1838
Battle of the Loxahatchee River (January 1838)
The Battles of the Loxahatchee occurred west of Jupiter Inlet in South Florida in January 1838 between the United States Military and the Seminole Indians led b...
FL
1838
Oconaluftee Cherokee Resistance — Thomas's Legion (1838)
Foundation of the Eastern Band of Cherokee; Thomas used their legal citizenship status to protect them from removal
NC
1838
Battle of Locha-Hatchee (January 24, 1838)
The Battles of the Loxahatchee occurred west of Jupiter Inlet in South Florida in January 1838 between the United States Military and the Seminole Indians led b...
FL
1838
Cherokee Removal — Blythe Ferry Crossing (1838)
The Cherokee removal (May 25, 1838 – 1839) was part of the broader Indian removal policy and involved the forced displacement of an estimated 15,500 Cherokees a...
TN
1838
Trail of Tears — Georgia Roundup Phase (May–June 1838)
The Trail of Tears was the forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of about 60,000 Native Americans of the 'Five Civilized Tribes', including their black slave...
GA
1839
Battle of Caloosahatchee — Second Seminole War (1839)
The Battle of the Caloosahatchee, also called the Caloosahatchee Massacre, was a battle that took place during the Second Seminole War on July 23, 1839. A large...
FL
1840
Regulator-Moderator War Shelby County
East Texas 5-year civil war between armed factions; 40+ killed; President Lamar of Texas Republic sent militia to stop it
TX
1840
Walkara's Horse-Raiding Operations — Spanish California (1839–1850)
Walkara's horse operations made his band the most mobile and powerful on the Great Basin; created lasting inter-tribal conflict
CA
1840
Chakaika Killed — Everglades Expedition (August 7, 1840)
Spanish Indians was the name Americans gave to Native Americans living in southwest and southernmost Florida during the first half of the 19th century. The term...
FL
1841
Chief Junaluska's Return — Cherokee Removal Aftermath (1841)
Poignant aftermath of removal; the man who saved Jackson's life was rewarded with forced exile; eventually granted North Carolina citizenship
NC
1842
Lake Superior Chippewa — Treaty of La Pointe (1842)
The 1842 treaty's retained usufructuary rights became the basis for modern Chippewa fishing rights cases in the 1980s-90s
WI
1844
Regulator-Moderator War Finale — Shelby County
The most prolonged range war in Texas history ended only when Republic of Texas sent its entire available military force to impose peace.
TX
1847
Cayuse War — Whitman Mission Massacre (November 29, 1847)
In 1836, missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman founded the Whitman Mission among the Cayuse Native Americans at Waiilatpu, six miles west of present-day Wall...
WA
1848
Cayuse War — Battle of Sand Hollow (February 24, 1848)
The Cayuse War (1847–1855) was an armed conflict between the Cayuse people of the Northwestern United States and settlers backed by the U.S. government. The con...
OR
1849
Spanish Indian Raids — Third Seminole War Prelude (1849)
The Indian Ocean raid the Third Mobile Operation in the Indian Ocean and the Battle of Ceylon in Japanese, was a sortie of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) from...
FL
1850
Sandy Lake Tragedy — Ojibwe Removal (1850)
The Battle of the Brule was an important battle in the Dakota-Ojibwe War. It took place in October 1842 battle between the La Pointe Band of Ojibwe and a war pa...
MN
1850
Pomo Resistance — Tule Lake Engagements (1850)
Context for Bloody Island Massacre; the Stone-Kelsey killings were direct response to brutal enslavement of Pomo people on their ranch
CA
1850
Chief Buffalo's Petition to Washington (1850)
One of the few successful Indian diplomatic missions; the Lake Superior Chippewa were not removed and remain in Wisconsin today
WI
1850
Snelling Affair — Stanislaus River (1850)
The Snelling Affair in 1850 marked an early engagement of what became known as the Mariposa War period. The Mariposa Battalion attacked a Yokuts village near Sn...
CA
1850
Battle of Table Mountain
Part of the Gold Rush-era conflicts in the Mother Lode region of the Sierra Nevada foothills. Southern Miwok peoples in Tuolumne County repeatedly clashed with ...
CA
1850
Battle of Russian River
The Battle of the Kalka River was fought between the Mongol Empire, whose armies were led by Jebe and Subutai, and a coalition of several Rus' principalities, i...
CA
1850
Battle of Fort Utah (Provo)
The Provo River Massacre was a violent attack and massacre in 1850 in which 90 Mormon militiamen surrounded an encampment of Timpanogos families on the Provo Ri...
UT
1850
Russian River Massacre — Pomo (May 1850)
The Bloody Island Massacre occurred in the context of indigenous enslavement and abuse by American settlers. A number of Pomo people had been enslaved by two se...
CA
1850
Table Rock — Harassment of Miners 1850–1851
The decade before the Rogue River Wars was characterized by escalating tensions as miners flooded into southern Oregon. Takelma and Tututni people clashed repea...
OR
1850
Grouse Creek Massacre
One of dozens of documented massacres in the Sierra Nevada foothills during the Gold Rush. Miners routinely attacked Nisenan Maidu and other Foothill peoples wh...
NV
1850
Pit River Wars 1850–1867
The Pit River peoples (Achomawi) fought a prolonged resistance spanning nearly two decades as settlers, miners, and ranchers invaded their territory in the nort...
CA
1850
Battle of Fort Yuma — Quechan Siege (1851)
In 1850-1851, Quechan warriors attacked Fort Yuma at the Colorado River crossing, briefly forcing the Army garrison to abandon the post. The fort was subsequent...
AZ
1850
Bloody Island Massacre — Lake County (May 15, 1850)
The Bloody Island Massacre occurred in the context of indigenous enslavement and abuse in California. A number of Pomo people had been enslaved by two settlers,...
CA
1850
Bloody Island Massacre
Lyon's cavalry surrounded a Pomo island encampment in retaliation for the killing of two settlers (who had enslaved and murdered Pomo). Soldiers killed an estim...
CA
1850
Provo River Fight
The Provo River Massacre was a violent attack and massacre in 1850 in which 90 Mormon militiamen surrounded an encampment of Timpanogos families on the Provo Ri...
UT
1850
Battle of Fort Utah
The Provo River Massacre was a violent attack and massacre in 1850 in which 90 Mormon militiamen surrounded an encampment of Timpanogos families on the Provo Ri...
UT
1850
Pit River War — Battle at Canby's Creek (1850)
The skirmish at Canby's Creek in 1850 was an early engagement of the Pit River War between California miners and Achumawi bands. The conflict escalated from min...
CA
1850
Sandy Lake Tragedy — Ojibwe Removal (1850)
The Battle of the Brule was an important battle in the Dakota-Ojibwe War. It took place in October 1842 battle between the La Pointe Band of Ojibwe and a war pa...
MN
1850
Bloody Island Massacre Lake County
Army massacred 100+ Pomo people at Clear Lake island; retaliation for killing of two enslaving ranchers
CA
1850
Yuma War (Quechan Uprising)
The Quechan (Yuma) destroyed the first US military post and ferry crossing at the confluence of the Gila and Colorado rivers in 1850, killing ~18 soldiers and s...
AZ
1851
Mariposa War — Battle of Fresno River (March 1851)
The Mariposa War (December 1850 – June 1851), also known as the Yosemite Indian War, was a conflict between the United States and the indigenous people of Calif...
CA
1851
Mariposa War — Battle of Cascade Creek
The Mariposa War (December 1850 – June 1851), also known as the Yosemite Indian War, was sparked by the discovery of gold in California's Sierra Nevada region. ...
CA
1851
Ahwahnee Valley Pursuit
Following the first non-Native entry into Yosemite Valley, the Mariposa Battalion pursued Chief Tenaya's Ahwahnechee people into the high Sierra. Tenaya's son w...
CA
1851
Battle of Lizard Rock
One of the specific engagements of the Mariposa War, fought as the Mariposa Battalion pursued Southern Miwok and Ahwahnechee bands resisting Gold Rush intrusion...
CA
1851
Battle of Warner's Ranch
Antonio Garra, a Cupeño leader, organized a multi-tribal resistance to taxation and American occupation of Southern California. The uprising included attacks on...
CA
1851
Battle of Mariposa
The Mariposa War was a series of punitive expeditions into the Sierra Nevada foothills against tribes resisting the Gold Rush invasion of their territory. The M...
CA
1851
Pembina Métis-Sioux Conflict (1851)
Battle of Grand Coteau: decisive Métis victory over much larger Sioux force; secured Métis access to the buffalo range
ND
1851
Verify existence in primary historical sources
In 1851, California state militia attacked a Wintu village on Bald Hill in Shasta County, resulting in significant casualties as part of systematic campaigns to...
CA
1851
Scott River Fight
Miners in the Scott Valley repeatedly clashed with the Shasta people who resisted displacement from their territory. The Scott River area was one of the richest...
CA
1851
Treaty of Mendota (August 5, 1851)
The Treaty of Mendota was signed on August 5, 1851, in Mendota, Minnesota, as part of a broader effort by the United States federal government to open southern ...
MN
1851
Treaty of Traverse des Sioux (July 23, 1851)
The Treaty of Traverse des Sioux, signed on July 23, 1851, at Traverse des Sioux in Minnesota Territory, resulted from the United States government's desire to ...
MN
1851
Verify against Mariposa War campaign records
Following major engagements in the Mariposa War, state militia conducted sweep operations in 1851 that forced remaining Miwok bands to surrender to the Fresno R...
CA
1852
Cocopah Conflict — Colorado River Delta (1852)
In 1852, the U.S. Army survey expedition conducting the boundary survey between the United States and Mexico encountered hostile Cocopah people near the Colorad...
AZ
1852
Trinity River Massacre
The Bridge Gulch massacre occurred on April 23, 1852, during the California gold rush in northern California. The massacre was triggered by accusations that the...
CA
1852
Salmon River Massacres — Trinity County (1852)
The Salmon River Massacres of 1852 involved coordinated militia raids against Karuk and Hupa villages along the Salmon and Trinity Rivers in northern California...
CA
1852
Haida Raids on Alaska Coast
The Haida conducted extensive slave-raiding expeditions throughout the Pacific Northwest coast. After 1867, the US Navy began to suppress these raids more aggre...
AK
1852
Yurok and Karuk Resistance 1852–1864
The lower Klamath River was one of the densest Native populations in North America at the time of contact. The Yurok, Karuk, and Shasta peoples resisted the min...
CA
1852
Scott River Massacre — Shasta County (1852)
The Scott River Massacre in 1852 exemplified the violence and brutality of the California gold rush period. Organized miners killed dozens of Shasta and Karuk v...
CA
1852
Applegate Trail – Tule Lake Massacre Site
Tule Lake Massacre 1852 on Applegate Trail set stage for decades of Modoc-settler conflict culminating in Modoc War 1872-1873
CA
1853
Battle of South Umpqua River 1853
The 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn, commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, and known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy...
OR
1853
Walker War — Utah (1853)
First major conflict between Ute and Mormon settlers; ended with Walker War Peace and Walkara's conversion to Mormonism
UT
1853
Achulet Massacre
In the Spring of 1853, a group of prospectors led by a man known as "California Jack" departed from Crescent City on a prospecting journey toward the Smith Rive...
CA
1853
Gunnison Massacre (October 26, 1853)
The Provo River Massacre was a violent attack and massacre in 1850 in which 90 Mormon militiamen surrounded an encampment of Timpanogos families on the Provo Ri...
UT
1853
Battle of Evans Creek
The Battle of Evans Creek occurred in the context of escalating violence in Southwest Oregon during 1853. Nomadic bands of Rogue River Indians had been conducti...
OR
1853
Battle of Manti (Walker War)
The Black Hawk War (1865–1872) was a prolonged conflict between Mormon settlers in central and southern Utah and members of 16 Ute, Southern Paiute, Apache, and...
UT
1853
Battle of Klamath River — Smith River Massacre 1853
The Battle of Lost River in November 1872 was the first battle in the Modoc War in the northwestern United States. The skirmish, which was fought near the Lost ...
CA
1853
Table Rock Confrontation
Following the Evans Creek fight, Army negotiators under Gen. Joseph Lane negotiated the Table Rock Treaty of 1853, confining the Takelma to a small reservation....
OR
1853
Table Rock Treaty — Rogue River (September 1853)
First Rogue River treaty; confinement on Table Rock Reservation led to tensions that exploded in 1855
OR
1853
Battle of Evans Creek — Rogue River War (August 24, 1853)
The Battle of Evans Creek occurred in Southwest Oregon in 1853 during a period of escalating conflict between settlers and Rogue River Indians. Nomadic bands of...
OR
1853
Yontoket Massacre
One of the deadliest single-event massacres in California Indian history. A settler militia attacked the Tolowa village of Yontoket (near present-day Smith Rive...
CA
1853
Battle at Nephi (Walker War)
The Nephi massacre occurred in 1853 as part of a broader conflict known as Wakara's War, a series of skirmishes between Native Americans and Mormon settlers in ...
UT
1853
Squaw Creek Massacre
The Provo River Massacre, also known as the Battle at Fort Utah, occurred in 1850 as a violent confrontation between Mormon militiamen and the Timpanogos people...
CA
1853
Table Rock Treaty – Rogue River Skirmish
The Battle of Evans Creek took place in Southwest Oregon in 1853. victory brought about a short-lived peace in the Rogue River Valley.
OR
1853
Battle at American Fork Canyon
The Battle of Blanco Canyon was the decisive battle of Col. Mackenzie's initial campaign against the Comanche in West Texas and marked the first time the Comanc...
UT
1853
Rogue River Massacre of 1853
Ben Wright invited a group of ~41 Shasta and Rogue River people to a peace council, then poisoned their food and attacked them with guns and knives, killing nea...
OR
1854
Jicarilla Apache Fight 1854
The Battle of Cieneguilla was an engagement of the Jicarilla War involving a group of Jicarilla Apaches, possibly their Ute allies, and the American 1st Cavalry...
NM
1854
Battle of Ojo Caliente (Jicarilla)
The Battle of Ojo Caliente Canyon, or simply the Battle of Ojo Caliente was an engagement of the Jicarilla War on April 8, 1854. Combatants were Jicarilla Apach...
NM
1854
Battle of Cieneguilla (April 8, 1854)
The Battle of Cieneguilla was an engagement of the Jicarilla War involving a group of Jicarilla Apaches, possibly their Ute allies, and the American 1st Cavalry...
NM
1854
Massacre at Ward Farm
The Lidice massacre was the complete destruction of the village of Lidice in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (now part of the Czech Republic) in June 19...
ID
1854
Battle of Cieneguilla — Jicarilla Destroy Dragon Patrol (March 30, 1854)
The Battle of Cieneguilla was an engagement of the Jicarilla War involving a group of Jicarilla Apaches, possibly their Ute allies, and the American 1st Cavalry...
NM
1854
Battle of Wild Rose Pass TX
Mescalero Apache warriors fought U.S. troops near Wild Rose Pass in the Davis Mountains as the Army established control of the El Paso Road.
TX
1854
Battle of Fisher's Peak — Kit Carson Campaign (April 1854)
Part of Carson's 1854 campaign that ended the immediate Jicarilla threat but did not bring lasting peace.
CO
1854
Battle of Cienega Creek — Jicarilla Ambush (March 30, 1854)
Shock of the defeat drove Gen. Garland to send a major punitive expedition under Kit Carson. Led to Kit Carson's 1854 Jicarilla campaign.
NM
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