Native American intertribal warfare

The following piece of dialog from the movie Fort Apache intrigues me.

Did the Sioux & Apache ever mix it up, or was this just a movie invention?

I’m curious about any & all conflicts between the various Indian tribes.

Not a scholarly answer, but I would doubt it: the Sioux and the Apaches were separated by many other Indian tribes.

The Sioux and the Cheyenne mixed it up in territorial disputes, and the Apache and the Commanches (and for a while the Navajo) mixed it up for the same reason, but the Sioux and the Apache would have relatively little to fight about. Apaches were southwest and Sioux were mostly midwest, far to the east and to the north of the Apache. (Map- uses the terms Dakota and Lakota rather than Sioux)

In 1870, the Cree and the Blackfoot Confederacy (made up of the Blackfoot, Blood, and Peigan tribes) fought each other in the Battle of the Belly River, within walking distance of where I am posting from. The Battle site is commemorated by a plaque, in a park named “Indian Battle Park.”

Incidentally, the Belly River that runs through town has been renamed to the “Oldman River.” There is still a Belly River in the area, but I believe it is a tributary of the Oldman. Given the name change of the river and the name of the park, the Battle is rarely referred to by its proper name; but simply as “the Indian Battle.” I understand that there have been a few attempts to change the name of the park, but so far, those advocating change have not been successful.

As for the larger question, Native American tribes fought each other all the time. Usually over territory or game. What’s a movie invention is the idea that Native Americans were peaceful proto-hippies.

Also as for the larger question, Andrew Jackson’s military involvements against the Creek and Seminole nations (essentially the same peoples- Seminoles were Creeks who had moved south from Georgia and Alabama into Florida) are often seen as an arm of the War of 1812 but they were far more a Creek civil war. One of the major contentions was assimilation: the Creeks had many chiefs who were of mixed ancestry (usually Scottish and Creek) whose policies not only favored the whites (sale of lands or lands opened to settlement, increased trade, etc.) but usually greatly enriched said chiefs. Many, like William McIntosh in Georgia, tried to keep feet in both worlds, trying to simultaneously be rich white Christian planters with slaves and money and nice houses while simultaneously ruling over their Creek fiefdoms and often more heavy handedly than traditional Creek chiefs had ever done in peacetime. (McIntosh and his cousin Alexander McGillivray were both cafeteria Christians and cafeteria Creeks: they lived in mansions [by the standard of the time and place], joined the Masons, imported wines and fine furniture, read and wrote, etc., but they also practiced polygamy, participated in tribal rituals, and when pushed they were far more likely to side with Creeks militarily more than whites.
By the early 19th century many Creeks felt betrayed by their leaders and had grown extremely resentful of whites settling in their lands and took matters into their own hands. William Weatherford, aka Red Eagle (who was McGillivray’s sister’s son and successor and McIntosh’s cousin) was one of the biggest advocates for peace and also one of the wealthiest (in white private property terms) of the Creek chiefs and one who it was assumed would take the white side in the coming conflicts. Instead, and it is still a mystery why, he took the Creek side and was present at the Fort Mims massacre where several of his own relatives were killed and which set off the civil war.
When Jackson annihilated Red Eagle’s army at Horseshoe Bend (Red Eagle himself was not there- he was with his wife who was dying in childbirth) many of his- Jackson’s- allies were Creek and Cherokee. Red Eagle had half brothers on both sides of the battle, and in fact the reason for the overwhelming U.S. victory in the battle was the early actions of the Native American allies who swam across the river to fire the Creek village.
When Red Eagle and the other chiefs surrendered it was assumed that those who had been Jackson’s allies would be exempt from any indemnities or repercussions of the war. Those making the assumption were wrong; Jackson nationalized 23 million acres of Creek lands- roughly 1/3 to 1/2 of the Creek nation- into the U.S.A. and it did not matter a whit which villages (some of which were centuries old) had sided with the U.S.; if your territory was in the ceded dominions, then get thee out, too bad so sad, move along to what we’ve graciously left you for now.

Going back to Jamestown, the Powhatan Confederacy could have at any time completely wiped the new colony off the map- they had them outnumbered hundreds to one- so many have asked “why didn’t they?” Intertribal warfare was actually the reason. King Powhatan (technically his name was Wahunsunacawh or something like it but he became known by the name of his tribal confederacy) was basically an Algonquin forerunner of Napoleon who had started out with a few villages under his command and through conquest, marital alliances, and more conquest extended his empire throughout what’s now Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina and with influence as far as New Jersey and South Carolina. (This isn’t to say that every native village in what’s now those states trembled at his name- far from in fact- but he had staunchly-under-his-control territories in all of those states.)
Powhatan knew about white people- there had been an abortive attempt to establish a colony in Virginia by the Spanish when he was a youth- the Indians wiped it out- and the Lost Colony at Manteo may well have been within his territories (and was or wasn’t he’d have known about it). The reason he allowed them to settle without giving the order to destroy them was because he wanted them as allies- specifically he wanted their steel weapons, guns/powder, and boats to subjugate other tribes he was battling with- some of them free villages and tribes who wanted to remain so, others tribes he had previously subjugated who were in rebellion.
Powhatan’s brother and heir apparent Opechancanough (power passed from sibling to younger sibling among their people until that generation was dead, then moved to the next generation and started over) hated whites the moment they landed. He may have actually been to Europe as a young man- this is debated (there were some Indians from the Virginia region taken to Europe by the Spanish, some of whom returned and who basically said “We’ve seen where they’re from- kill them” as soon as they got back home). In any case he saw the handwriting on the wall and nearly came into civil war with his brother over the issue. It was avoided by several marital alliances and Powhatan increasing his brother’s territory, but once Opechancanough came to power he immediately prepared to wipe out the whites. He gave the order in March 1622 and it was an amazingly well orchestrated simultaneous attack in many locations that would likely have worked had not one Indian boy, Chanco, who had been adopted by a white family, tipped them off and, like Paul Revere 153 years later, they went warning the countryside. Even so the death count was harsh- about 1/3 of the colony’s inhabitants. (It’s interesting to debate whether Chanco should be seen as a hero or a traitor.)

Just remembered, as I read Diceman’s response …

Some years ago, I was an extra in a miniseries filmed locally. (Steven Spielberg’s Into the West, if you’re interested.) The extras consisted of 100 white guys and 50 First Nations guys. There was plenty of standing around and waiting on the set–unless they were filming the principals, at which point, we were sitting in the extras area, waiting; all of us together.

Anyway, at such times, everybody got to talking. I well remember the day in the extras tent, when most of us just wanted some coffee and a seat, when two First Nations guys nearly got into it. One was a Blood and the other was a Stoney (Nakoda), and the subject of contention was who got the best land as the result of a treaty. As things turned out, nothing happened; but it took a few of each guy’s respective tribe members to keep them from going too far. I don’t recall that any of the film crew knew about this, and we all (both whites and First Nations) kept quiet about it. But it does demonstrate that there are still some hot buttons between tribes. “Peaceful proto-hippies” definitely did not apply, and possibly still doesn’t.

To this day (kinda, sorta), the Powhatan Renape Nation, an American Indian Nation located at the Rankokus Indian Reservation in Westampton Township, Burlington County, New Jersey.

CMC fnord!

Good stuff so far, thanks for the info.

I’ve read that the Sioux (or is it more proper to say Lakota?) were relative newcomers to the plains & that the Black Hills belonged to the Cheyenne before the Sioux pushed them out. Also, that the Cheyenne had displaced yet another another tribe (Shoshone?) from that area.

In reading about the Lewis & Clark Expedition, it said that L&C had received all sorts of warnings about the Sioux from the various tribes they met along the way. To put it bluntly, it seemed that all of their neighbors hated their guts because the Sioux were constantly raiding their villages. It’s curious that the Sioux have become the archetype of the “Noble Indian” when they appear to have been viewed quite differently by those who had to live near them.

If the person in question is Lakota. AIUI all Lakota are Sioux, but not all Sioux are Lakota.

Here’s a page on the “Great Sioux Nation”.

The Sioux are divided into three ethnic groups, the larger of which are divided into sub-groups, and further branched into bands.

Lakota or Teton:
Oglala (bands of the Oglala)
Sicangu or Brule
Hunkpapa
Miniconjou
Sihasapaor or Blackfeet (not the more commonly known Blackfeet/Blackfoot Tribe)
Itazipacola or Sans Arcs (also known as Oohenupa/Two Boilings or Two Kettles)

Dakota or Santee:
Mdeakantonwon:
Wahpeton
Wahpekute
Sisseton
**
Nakota** or Yankton:
Yankton
Upper Yankton
Lower Yankton

This often correlates with the reservation system I.E. Oglala = Pine Ridge Reservation, Sicangu = Rosebud Reservation.

I have heard people specifically refer to themselves as; Lakota/Dakota/Nakota/Oglala/Sicangu/Brule/Hunkpapa/Minniconjou etc. sometimes followed by Sioux.

It’s basically the equivalent of not just calling yourself an American but a Californian/Texan/New Yorker (state and/or city)/Chicagoan/New Orleanian/East Sider/Up-Towner etc.

CMC fnord!

Thanks for that.

The Cherokee displaced the Creeks from northwest Georgia in the battle of Tali’wa (1755). (Of course, the Cherokee themselves got displaced from the area 83 years later.)

And actually, the Cherokee were in a more or less constant state of warfare with various other Indian nations throughout the 18th century, including clashes with the Creek, Tuscarora, Shawano, Catawba, Chickasaw and Iroquois nations. Cite.

Yeah, I remember many moons ago reading the fluff that the Indians did not really commit war against each other - that the bravest action was “counting coup”, running up and touching an opponent in battle. (Hey, if all they did was touch, why was that brave?)

In the mid-1600’s, the trade of beaver pelts between the various native tribes and the French grew to the point where the tribes were going to war with one another for beaver-rich territories and trade routes.

Wikipedia Beaver Wars

It was almost something of a “world war” between tribes, extending from the Atlantic to modern day Illinois.

Exactly. I’ve been tempted often to bring that up whenever somebody equates what happened in Avatar to what Europeans did to the Indians. I doubt there is a country anywhere on the face of the planet that isn’t the result of someone taking something from someone else at some point in the past, and the Indians were just as likely to attack one another for land or food as anyone else.

I recall – no, NOT from personal memory :mad:, but rather from reading about it while living in the Southwest – the Navajo and the Hopi were mortal enemies. And there was a reason why the smaller groups welcomed the Spanish, as it was thought they could help overthrow the oppressive Aztecs.

The point was that the enemy had to be genuinely trying to kill you while you did it. That makes it somewhat brave, at the very least.

The notion that the Indians weren’t really “committing” war is just hippy nonsense. The skeletons tell a very different story.

From the Creek Indian perspective, spoke- and Sampiro nailed the answer with excellent detail. It is dangerous to make absolute statements regarding so diverse a population, but it is generally true that friction arose at boundaries. That friction did result in war at times. At others the issue was decided by agreement or the results of a ball game (yes, really!). Chun-Kee, a game similar to lacrosse fielded hundreds of participants, both men and women, and was frequently very brutal, resulting in broken bones, lacerations, etc.

This is true. And with due respect to the Cherokee (they did get screwed out of their land) it’s interesting to note that they had taken the land by force themselves only a few decades earlier. It was hardly their ancestral homeland. My own cracker ancestors have lived in north Georgia longer than the Cherokee ever did.

IIRC, the name “Navajo” is actually the Hopi word for “enemy.” Obviously no love lost there.

I dare to stray a little from GQ territory into some of my own opinions (that I cannot substantiate). I suspect the most of the inter-tribal conflicts that we are most familiar with were a result of the social and political upheaval that must resulted from the wave of smallpox that swept the continent. That had to have shifted the balance of power between tribes. Not that there weren’t conflicts prior to that, but the arrival of European diseases had to have stirred things up quite a bit.

I’m currently reading Washington Irving’s Astoria, and it discusses the conflicts that resulted when the Sioux tribes moved onto the plains after being displaced from the mid-west by white settlers.

Some years back, I visited Mesa Verde. We visited some of the sites on top of the Mesa before visiting the cliff houses. The mesa-top sites were obviously much older. I mused to myself about what would make me pack up and move to a much more inconvenient home where the only adantage was that it was well hidden. I asked the park’s tour guide if it was possible that other people moved in from the north and raided, making life on the mesa top more dangerous. Her reply was to the effect: No, we have no evidence that the mesa people were violent and any way. There are no weapon artifacts. These were a peaceful people. It’s a mystery what happened to them.

She later firmly stated that it was incorrect to call them Anasazi because that was a Navajo word for “ancient enemy” and “we don’t think they were anyone’s enemy.”

I refrained from rebutting the “peaceful proto-hippies” myth. But, I wanted to say, “Of course they had no weapons. Their enemies did. That’s why they lost and had to move”.

The next day, I met a park guide who was Hopi. He had been raised by his grandmother. I asked him what was her version of the story. He said they got tired of the droughts and moved south and inter-married with the Hopi. He was a pretty neat guy that I enjoyed visiting with.