Native Americans

Should the seventh president be revered or reviled? The question of how to grapple with Andrew Jackson’s tarnished reputation has existed since Old Hickory’s contested lifetime. Known as strong-willed, argumentative and combative in his day, Jackson’s critics point to his harsh ...read more

It’s among the most famous and controversial battles ever fought on American soil. At Custer’s Last Stand, in June 1876, the U.S. Army was outnumbered and overwhelmed by Native American warriors, along the banks of the Little Bighorn River. By the end of the battle, some 268 ...read more

The Erie Canal is a 363-mile waterway that connects the Great Lakes with the Atlantic Ocean via the Hudson River in upstate New York. The channel, which traverses New York state from Albany to Buffalo on Lake Erie, was considered an engineering marvel when it first opened in ...read more

On a cool May day in 1758, a 10-year girl with red hair and freckles was caring for her neighbor’s children in rural western Pennsylvania. In a few moments, Mary Campbell’s life changed forever when Delaware Indians kidnapped her and absorbed her into their community for the next ...read more

On a riverbank in Texas, a master of disguise waited patiently with his accomplice, hoping that his target, an infamous horse thief, would show himself on the trail. After four days, the hunch paid off, when the bandit unwittingly walked towards the man who haunted the outlaws of ...read more

Montezuma Castle is an ancient abode structure located in the Verde Valley in central Arizona. Thanks to its colorful name, the five-story, 20-room building sheltered high in a limestone cliff is sometimes thought to be the former home of the Aztec emperor, Montezuma. Scholars ...read more

James Marshall didn’t come to California to find gold. But then he noticed a glinting rock in the dirt while constructing a new mill for local landowner John Sutter. It was 1848, and Marshall’s fate—and that of California—had just changed forever. The Gold Rush that followed ...read more

DNA analysis of a six-week-old baby girl, buried some 11,500 years ago in what is now Alaska, has identified her as a member of a previously unknown Native American population. The discovery strongly supports the theory that the Americas were settled by people from Siberia, and ...read more

The California missions began in the late 18th century as an effort to convert Native Americans to Catholicism and expand European territory. There were 21 missions in all, lasting from 1769 until about 1833. The California missions began in the late 18th century as an effort to ...read more

The Indian reservation system established tracts of land called reservations for Native Americans to live on as white settlers took over their land. The main goals of Indian reservations were to bring Native Americans under U.S. government control, minimize conflict between ...read more

Buffalo soldiers were African American soldiers who mainly served on the Western frontier following the American Civil War. In 1866, six all-black cavalry and infantry regiments were created after Congress passed the Army Organization Act. Their main tasks were to help control ...read more

Philadelphia theatergoers met the character of Pocahontas on stage for the first time in 1808. Many knew her already from poems and romantic sketches of the famous young woman that circulated in newspapers. But theater had a different kind of power. The play, titled The Indian ...read more

Al Capone. Whitey Bulger. The list of Alcatraz prisoners reads like a litany of gangsters and hardened criminals. But in the 19th century, the infamous island was also home to 19 prisoners rarely found in maximum security cells: Hopi men.Their crime? Rebelling against plans to ...read more

“Gold! Gold from the American River!” Samuel Brannan walked up and down the streets of San Francisco, holding up a bottle of pure gold dust. His triumphantannouncement, and the discovery of gold at nearby Sutter’s Mill in 1848, ushered in a new era for California—one in which ...read more

In 2003, Carletta Tilousi, a member of northern Arizona’s tiny Havasupai Tribe, listened to a student’s doctoral presentation. She was there to hear the results of a diabetes study conducted, in part, with her DNA.Or so she thought. As the student spoke, Tilousi realized that her ...read more

As Buffalo Bill Cody debarked at New York harbor on November 24, 1890, he received a telegram from General Nelson A. Miles, commander of the U.S. Army troops in South Dakota. Miles asked Cody to proceed immediately to Standing Rock, a reservation in Dakota Territory, where a ...read more

Since 1991, dozens of cities, several universities, and a few states have adopted Indigenous Peoples’ Day, a holiday that celebrates the history and contributions of Native Americans. Not by coincidence, the occasion usually falls on Columbus Day, the second Monday in October, or ...read more