In the wake of the Land Rush, greater numbers of settlers were living in the Indian-Oklahoma Territories than ever before. Calls from these settlers soon followed for the territory to be admitted into the Unites States, relying on the inclusion of Kansas in 1861 and Arkansas earlier in 1836 as precedence. At the same time Oklahoma Territory vied for inclusion, …
By the late-19th century, more settlers than ever flooded into the Indian and Oklahoma Territories. With the first of the land runs occurring in 1889, greater numbers of settlers were staking a claim to “Unoccupied Lands” west of Indian Territory. Amid the increase in white settlement, Congress began discussions about establishing a new territory to encompass the rising population of …
Until the mid-1800’s, the region later known as “Oklahoma” was called home by the Quapaw, Caddo, Osage, Waco, Apache, Kiowa, and Comanche peoples, among others. As the United States’ border shifted further west, greater numbers of settlers sought out more “unoccupied” lands in these region beyond America’s eastern boundary. Settlement by non-Indians was later stimulated through Abraham Lincoln’s 1862 Homestead …
Intent on protecting the bustling creole commerce of the Louisiana Territory from Osage incursions, Spanish officials exploited the traditional Osage/Potawatomi blood feud and enlisted feared Muskodan warriors Main Poc, Nuscotomek and Segnak, among others, to purge all militant Osage from New Spain.
Understanding that the French and Indian War was more than provincial disputes between European nations, but a cultural battle between Native people and eventual Anglo assimilation, a Great Lakes Native confederacy led by Odawa leader and warrior Pontiac assembled and continued to fight to preserve their way of life. After the Treaty of Paris, the war continued between Great Lakes …
In February of 1996, Citizen Potawatomi members from across the United States cast their vote during a special secretarial election to officially change the tribe’s name from “The Citizen Band Potawatomi Tribe of Oklahoma” to “The Citizen Potawatomi Nation” to reflect its status as a sovereign nation. The U.S. Secretary of the Interior authorized the special election, which differed from …
The Siege of Fort Detroit, led by famed Odawa leader Bondiyak [Pontiac], was a five-month long siege in the summer and fall of 1763 of the former French settlement Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit or Fort Detroit. After the fort’s transition to British control at the end of the French and Indian War (1754-1763), Pontiac, like many Native peoples in the …
The Siege of Fort Pitt was an extension of the conflict known as “Pontiac’s War” and began amid the Siege of Fort Detroit earlier in May, 1763. Lasting roughly two months, the rising tensions between Native communities and the British gripping the region erupted in a short-lived siege of Fort Pitt in what is present day Pittsburgh. As Native communities …
The siege of Fort William Henry was led by French General Louis-Joseph de Montcalm. The fort was located on the southern end of Lake George, between the British Province of New York and the French Province of Canada. The fort was stationed by 2,800 poorly supported British troops and provincial militiamen led by Lieutenant Colonel George Monro. On July 30th …
Humiliated by the defeat of Josiah Harmar, the U.S. commissioned another major expedition against the Northwest tribes under the command of General Arthur St. Clair. Near present Fort Recovery, Ohio, Mshikenikwe, Shawnee leader Weyapiersenwah and a force of over one thousand inflicted greater losses than the previous year. Due to the military disaster, the United States ordered the first internal …