The Indigenous Nations

This modern map of the United States in 1840 makes it clear that the Americans who crossed the Frontier were not moving into an uninhabited land; indeed, they knew that Indigenous Nations lived there because they had been trading with them for many years.

It would be a mistake to think that all Indigenous People were like the Sioux Nations who are the focus of your specification.  Examples of other, very diverse Nations include:

• The Six Nations (called the ‘Iroquois’ by the French) of the north-east were a farmer-gatherer community who lived in longhouses made of bark stretched over wooden poles.  In their society, women were the head of the family and succession was matrilinear.  Their government was a participatory democracy – one of the oldest democracies on earth.  Driven out of the US, they were given in 1784 a large grant of land in Canada by the British government. 

• The five so-called ‘Civilised Tribes’ of the south-east (Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles) – so-called by the American government because they had adopted American practices such as Christianity, laws, literacy and slavery – were farmers and lived in log cabins; by 1829 the Cherokee had their own capital city, law courts and newspapers in their own language. 

• The Nations of the north-west coast fished and hunted otters, seals and whales; one of the aspects of their religion was the totem pole. 

• In the dry south, the Pueblo were an ancient farming society who lived in cities built of adobe clay bricks.  Women played an equal role in society, and decisions were taken democratically.  In 1844 explorer Josiah Gregg found them “a remarkably sober and industrious race, conspicuous for morality and honesty, and very little given to quarrelling”. 

The Indigenous Nations of the Plains

Indigenous Nations of the Plains included: Apache, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Crow and Sioux. 

What is amazing about them is how recent and how fleeting their way of life was.  The first Indigenous Nation to develop a horse-based culture, the Comanches, did so only in the years after 1680; by 1840 they had built up an extensive area of influence called ‘Comancheria’ (see map).  They were copied by other Indigenous Nations who, spectacularly quickly, developed a lifestyle perfectly suited to the Plains.  And then, equally quickly, they were attacked and destroyed by the white man. 

The so-called ‘Plains Indians’ way of life from start to end did not last more than 150 years. 

The next three webpages are about that way of life: