Early in the morning on this day in 1868, a large band of Cheyenne and Sioux stage a surprise attack on Major George A. Forsyth and a volunteer force of 50 frontiersmen in Colorado. Retreating to a small sandbar in the Arikaree River that thereafter became known as Beecher’s ...read more
On this day in 1778, Patriot Colonel Ichabod Alden refuses to believe intelligence about an approaching hostile force. As a result, a combined force of Loyalists and Native Americans, attacking in the snow, killed more than 40 Patriots, including Alden, and took at least an ...read more
Samuel Mason, a Patriot captain in command of Fort Henry on the Ohio frontier, survives a devastating Indian attack on this day in 1777. The son of a distinguished Virginia family, Samuel Mason became a militia officer and was assigned to the western frontier post of Fort Henry ...read more
Oglala Sioux chief Crazy Horse is fatally bayoneted by a U.S. soldier after resisting confinement in a guardhouse at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. A year earlier, Crazy Horse was among the Sioux leaders who defeated George Armstrong Custer’s Seventh Cavalry at the Battle of Little ...read more
When photographer Edward S. Curtis moved out west to Washington state in 1887, he used his camera to capture the experiences of Native Americans. Over the span of 30 years, Curtis documented over 80 tribes west of the Mississippi, from the Mexican border to northern Alaska. ...read more
Years before Christopher Columbus stepped foot on what would come to be known as the Americas, the expansive territory was inhabited by Native Americans. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, as more explorers sought to colonize their land, Native Americans responded in various ...read more
As families around the country prepare to gather with family, eat turkey and perhaps partake in some Black Friday shopping, they might be surprised to learn how much we don’t know about the origins of the Thanksgiving. What we do know is most of the adult colonists in attendance ...read more
North American colonists’ warfare against Native Americans often was horrifyingly brutal. But one method they appear to have used shocks even more than all the bloody slaughter: The gifting of blankets and linens contaminated with smallpox. The virus causes a disease that can ...read more
Scientists discovered the ancient human skeleton known as the “Spirit Cave Mummy” back in 1940, hidden in a small rocky cave in the Great Basin Desert in northwest Nevada. But it wouldn’t be until the 1990s that radiocarbon dating techniques revealed the skeleton was some 10,600 ...read more
Do U.S. citizenship and voting rights go hand and hand? For most of the country’s history, the answer has been no—just look at the example of Native voting rights, which weren’t secured in all states until the 1960s. Native Americans couldn’t be U.S. citizens when the country ...read more
The first settlers at the English settlement in Jamestown, Virginia hoped to forge new lives away from England―but life in the early 1600s at Jamestown consisted mainly of danger, hardship, disease and death. All of the early settlers in 1607 were men and boys, including ...read more
When Caroline Weldon arrived at the Standing Rock Reservation in 1889, she attracted attention. The Sioux people who lived there hadn’t invited her. The white settlers who lived nearby didn’t understand why she wanted to go there. She herself was on the run from life as a social ...read more
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 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 ...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
