GO rD hIllCherokee into concentration camps, from which they were forced westward
on the Trail of Tears. In the midst of winter, one out of every four Cherokees
died from cold, hunger, or diseases. Many other nations were forcibly relocat-
ed: the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, Shawnees, Miamis, Ottawas, Wendats
and Delawares. The ‘Permanent Indian Frontier’ was a militarized line of U.S.
garrisons, similar to that in Argentina and Chile during the same period.
But the ‘Indian Frontier’ was not to hold. Like the British Royal Proc-
lamation of 1763, the restrictions on Europeans settling or trading in these
regions were routinely ignored. With the U.S. annexation of northern Mexico
in 1848, the U.S. acquired the territories of Texas, California, New Mexico, Ar-
izona, Utah and Colorado. The same year, gold was discovered in California.
With these two events, the large-scale invasion of the ‘Indian Territory’ was
underway. Under the ideology of Manifest Destiny, the U.S. was to launch a re-
newed period of genocidal war against those regions and First Nations which
remained unsubjugated. The theatre of war extended from the Great Lakes
region around Minnesota, south of the Rio Grande, and west to California,
extending north to Washington state. It was a period of war which involved
many First Nations: the Lakota, Cheyenne, Commanche, Kiowa, Yakima, Nez
Perce, Walla Walla, Cayuse, Arapaho, Apache, Navajo, Shoshone, Kickapoos,
and many others. It was also a war from which many Native leaders would
leave a legacy of struggle that, like those struggles in South and Mesoamerica,
would remain as symbols of resistance to the European colonization: Crazy
Horse, Tatanka Yotanka (Sitting Bull), Ten Bears, Victorio, Geronimo, Quanah
Parker, Wovoka, Black Kettle, Red Cloud, Chief Joseph, and so many others.
Although the ‘Indian Wars’ of this period were by no means one-sided—
the U.S. forces suffered many defeats—the U.S. colonial forces succeeded in
gradually and ruthlessly gaining dominance. Various factors contributed to
this, following the patterns of previous campaigns against Native peoples:
the continuing spread of diseases such as measles, smallpox, and cholera
(between 1837–70, at least four major smallpox epidemics swept through
the western plains, and between 1850–60 a cholera epidemic hit the Great
Basin and southern plains); the use of informers and traitors; and the over-
whelming strength of U.S. forces in both weaponry and numbers of soldiers.
Combined with outright treachery and policies of extermination, these fac-
tors continued to erode the strength of once-powerful First Nations.
One of the major turning points in this period can be seen as
the U.S. Civil War.