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Native Americans in the United States

indigenous peoples of the United States in North America, including Alaska Natives and American Indians, excluding other geographic areas.

30 dated entries naming Native Americans in the United States, drawn from 27 separate years between 1567 CE and 1960 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

Also written as Indigenous peoples in the United States, Native American (U.S.) in the source articles; Wikipedia redirects those to the same subject, so their entries are on this page.

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16th century

  • 1567January – A Spanish force under the command of Captain Juan Pardo establishes Fort San Juan, in the Native American settlement of Joara. The fort is the first European settlement in modern-day North Carolina.source

17th century

  • 1616The New England Indian smallpox or leptospirosis epidemic of 1616–19 begins to depopulate the region, killing an estimated 90% of the coastal native peoples.source
  • 1616June 12 – Pocahontas (now Rebecca) arrives in England, with her husband, John Rolfe, their one-year-old son, Thomas Rolfe, her half-sister Matachanna (alias Cleopatra) and brother-in-law Tomocomo, the shaman also known as Uttamatomakkin (having set out in May). Ten Powhatan Indians are brought by Sir Thomas Dale, the colonial governor, at the request of the Virginia Company, as a fund-raising device. Dale, having been recalled under criticism, writes A True Relation of the State of Virginia, Left by Sir Thomas Dale, Knight, in May last, 1616, in a successful effort to redeem his leadership. Neither Pocahontas or Dale see Virginia again.source
  • 1626May 24 – Peter Minuit buys Manhattan from a Native American tribe (Lenape or Shinnecock) for trade goods, valued at 60 guilders ($1,143 U.S. dollars as of 2020).source
  • 1630February 22 – Native American Quadequine introduces popcorn to English colonists.source
  • 1635October 9 – Rhode Island founder Roger Williams is banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony as a religious dissident, after speaking out against punishments for religious offenses, and giving away Native American land.source
  • 1636December 23 (December 13 Old Style) – The Massachusetts Bay Colony organizes three militia regiments to defend the colony against the Pequot Indians. This organization is recognized today as the founding of the United States National Guard.source
  • 1675January 29 – John Sassamon, an English-educated Native American Christian, dies at Assawampsett Pond, an event which will trigger a year-long war between the English American colonists of New England, and the Algonquian Native American tribes.source
  • 1677May 29 – The Treaty of Middle Plantation establishes peace between the Virginia colonists and the local Indians.source

18th century

  • 1702October 18 – Queen Anne's War: Battle of Flint River – Spanish and Apalachee Indian forces fail in their attack against Creek Indians, supported by English traders, in the modern-day U.S. state of Georgia.source
  • 1704February 29 – Raid on Deerfield (Queen Anne's War): French Canadians and Native Americans sack Deerfield, Massachusetts, killing over 50 English colonists.source
  • 1711September 10 (also dated September 12) – John Lawson, Christoph von Graffenried, two African American slaves and two Native Americans leave on an exploration expedition from New Bern, North Carolina, and travel north by canoe up the Neuse River.source
  • 1725February 20 – The first reported case of white men scalping Native Americans takes place in New Hampshire colony.source
  • 1773October 10 – Daniel Boone leads the first attempt by British colonists to establish a settlement in Kentucky, but is turned back in an attack by Native Americans, in which his son is killed.source
  • 1778September 17 – The Treaty of Fort Pitt is signed, the first formal treaty between the United States and a Native American tribe (the Lenape or Delaware).source
  • 1782March 8 – Gnadenhutten massacre: In Ohio, 29 Native American men, 27 women, and 34 children are killed by colonial militiamen in retaliation for raids carried out by another Native American group.source
  • 1782March 8 – American Revolutionary War: In Ohio, the Gnadenhutten massacre of Native Americans takes place in which 29 men, 27 women and 34 children are killed by white militiamen in retaliation for raids carried out by another Native American group.source

19th century

  • 1811November 7 – Battle of Tippecanoe: American troops led by William Henry Harrison defeat the Native American spiritual leader Tenskwatawa, also known as The Prophet (Chief Tecumseh's brother).source
  • 1811November 7 – Battle of Tippecanoe: American troops led by William Henry Harrison defeat the Native American chief Tecumseh.source
  • 1812August 5 – War of 1812: Tecumseh's Indian force ambushes Thomas Van Horne's 200 Americans at Brownstone Creek, causing them to flee and retreat.source
  • 1828February 21 – The Cherokee Phœnix, the earliest newspaper published by Native Americans in the United States and in one of their indigenous languages, Cherokee, is first issued in New Echota.source
  • 1830May 28 – The Indian Removal Act is signed into law by U.S. President Andrew Jackson, beginning the "Trail of Tears" with the forced relocation of more than 60,000 Indigenous Americans from the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations from the southeastern United States to what is now the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The relocation is accomplished by the end of 1838. In addition to the five tribes, thousands of Indian-owned black slaves are moved as well, and the move has the effect of beginning mass destruction of bison in North America.source
  • 1836May 19 – Fort Parker massacre: Among those captured by Native Americans is 9-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker. She later gives birth to a son named Quanah, who becomes the last chief of the Comanche.source
  • 1847Ongoing – Great Famine. This summer's potato crop is free from blight, but inadequate due to small area sown. The British Relief Association is founded and raises money throughout England, the United States and Australia, with the help of the "Queen's Letters", two letters from Queen Victoria appealing for money to relieve the distress in Ireland. A group of Native American Choctaw is among those contributing to the relief effort. The Central Relief Committee of the Society of Friends (Quakers) also assists, but there are claims of "Souperism" (the provision of food in combination with proselytization) by other Protestant sectarian groups.source
  • 1867October 21 – 'Manifest destiny': Medicine Lodge Treaty – Near Medicine Lodge Creek, Kansas, a landmark treaty is signed by southern Great Plains Indian leaders, requiring Native American Plains tribes to relocate to a reservation in western Oklahoma.source
  • 1889The Indian Religious Code is created, which forbids Native Americans to practice their religions.source

20th century

  • 1911August 29 – Ishi, the last unassimilated Native American in the U.S. using stone tools, emerges from hiding near Oroville, California.source
  • 1915October 25 – Lyda Conley, the first American Indian woman to appear before the Supreme Court of the United States as a lawyer, is admitted to practice there.source
  • 1924June 2 – U.S. President Calvin Coolidge signs the Indian Citizenship Act into law, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born within the territorial limits of the United States.source
  • 1960April 1 – The 1960 United States census begins. There are 179,323,175 U.S. residents on this day. All people from Latin America are listed as white, including blacks from the Dominican Republic, European whites from Argentina and Mexicans who resemble Native Americans.source

Named in the same entries