During the century following George Washington's presidency, the
United States fought at least forty wars with various Indian
tribes, averaging one conflict every two and a half years. "Warrior
Nations "is Roger L. Nichols's response to the question, "Why did
so much fighting take place?" Examining eight of the wars between
the 1780s and 1877, Nichols explains what started each conflict and
what the eight had in common as well as how they differed. He
writes about the fights between the United States and the Shawnee,
Miami, and Delaware tribes in the Ohio Valley, the Creek in
Alabama, the Arikara in South Dakota, the Sauk and Fox in Illinois
and Wisconsin, the Dakota Sioux in Minnesota, the Cheyenne and
Arapaho in Colorado, the Apache in New Mexico and Arizona, and the
Nez Perce in Oregon and Idaho.
Virtually all of these wars, Nichols shows, grew out of
small-scale local conflicts, suggesting that interracial violence
preceded any formal declaration of war. American pioneers hated and
feared Indians and wanted their land. Indian villages were armed
camps, and their young men sought recognition for bravery and
prowess in hunting and fighting. Neither the U.S. government nor
tribal leaders could prevent raids, thievery, and violence when the
two groups met.
In addition to U.S. territorial expansion and the belligerence of
racist pioneers, Nichols cites a variety of factors that led to
individual wars: cultural differences, border disputes, conflicts
between and within tribes, the actions of white traders and local
politicians, the government's failure to prevent or punish
anti-Indian violence, and Native determination to retain their
lands, traditional culture, and tribal independence.
The conflicts examined here, Nichols argues, need to be considered
as wars of U.S. aggression, a central feature of that nation's
expansion across the continent that brought newcomers into areas
occupied by highly militarized Native communities ready and able to
defend themselves and attack their enemies.
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