Something that perplexes me still.
When was the last armed conflict with native Americans? And why don’t we have them anymore?
Such armed conflicts were common even in the 19th Century apparently. Custer’s last stand. Little Big Horn. History is rife with such stories. Now they have just stopped. Why?
Not that I am complaining. Although native Americans are still getting screwed over by the US government. I am just saying.
Well?
Are you asking why Native Americans aren’t currently attacking the US military? How do you think that would turn out for them?
In the late 1800’s Native Americans realized that they could not win the war regardless of how many battles they might be able to win and gave up. It would have been suicide otherwise. They were driven off their lands and put into reservations where they could be “managed”. Unfortunately the deck was very much stacked against them.
Yes, it reached the point where further resistance would have been tantamount to racial suicide.
I guess the actual question is when was the last time an Indian tribe was able to raise something that looked like an independent military force?
Native American forces never looked like western armies, admittedly. But by the 20th century an Native American army would just be some guy and his buddy (and in fact, that is what they were)
According to Wikipedia, 1923.
(ETA: it was triggered by an incident involving two Utes. Too bad Vinnie wasn’t there to clear things up.)
Armed conflicts had mostly ended by the end of the 1800s, but there were still a few armed conflicts in the early 1900s, up until about 1920-ish.
Or, to put it in perspective, we were still fighting Native Americans while we were fighting World War I.
The Apache Wars originally started between Mexico and the Apaches, and became a series of wars between the U.S. and the Apaches after Mexico ceded their territory to us after the Mexican-American war in the mid 1800s. While the bulk of the fighting ended in the 1800s, the last of the Apache conflicts didn’t end until the mid 1920s. That was probably the last “war” between the U.S. and any Native American nations.
I’ve done a bit of reading about the “Indian Wars” (tho my retention is limited).
My recollection is that there were really very few “battles” between the military and Native Americans. Though the military harassed them, they inflicted few casualties with firearms. Instead, we interfered with their traditional lifestyle.
If you check the Wikipedia entry on the last Indian wars you will see that what was happening was that what conflicts that occurred involved fewer and fewer Native Americans until it came down to a handful of “renegades” here and there.
It just became progressively harder to mass any significant force together to fight against the rapidly increasing pioneer population and the well armed and organized Federal troops.
The Modoc War of 1873 is a good example of what it took to merely hold out for a while against the US Army. After the usual bloody preliminaries, a small band held out for a short while in the lava beds of Central Oregon. Lots of natural rock “trenches”, etc. But even that couldn’t last long.
Fun fact: if the US had just bought the land the Modoc’s wanted and given it to them it would have been cheaper than to have fought the war.
“If he’d pay me what he’s spending to make me stop robbing him, I’d stop robbing him.”
Not a war, but there was the occupation of Alcatraz Island in 1969 - 71, and in 1973, the 10 week stand-off at Wounded Knee with shooting and casualties on both sides.
The Wiki article mentions sniping from helicopters, ‘intense fire fights’ and APCs with .50 calibre machine guns so I’d say it was definitely an armed conflict as per the OP.
But the land was actually the Modoc’s to begin with. They were the ones originally robbed. It was prime agricultural land and therefore “too good” for the Modocs.
That’s very unlikely. I don’t know the particular history of the Modoc but I doubt very much that the land they were living on in 1800 had been uninhabited when they arrived. They presumably did to some other Native group what the Europeans would later do to them; show up somewhere with superior force and kick out the people who lived there.
I think this is the primary answer. At some point, the imbalance between the force the Native Americans had with the force the government had became so great that there was no longer a need to treat uprisings as military threats. Instead the government would treat it like a riot and send in police rather than soldiers.
not exactly what was asked, but the Oka crisis in Canada stated as a standoff over land with the Quebec police (and their fine reputation for handling things) and ended up with the Canadian army called in - Oka Crisis - Wikipedia in 1990.
My emphasis; I can’t tell if this is sarcasm or…?
“Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute.”
The US virtually killing off the buffalo destroyed the food source of the Apache’s, Commance’s, etc. All one has to do to subjugate a semi nomadic population is kill off the food supply. that and measles did the rest.