Chronology

A Chronology

c. 985-1014 - Norsemen, including Eric the Red and Leif Ericson, set up outposts in North America and encounter Eskimos, Beothuks, and Micmacs.
1119 - Chinese invent the magnetic navigational needle leading to the development of a reliable compass.
c. 1200-1400 - Ancestral Apache and Navajo bands separate from northern Athabascans and migrate to Southwest.
c. 1275 - Drought and Athabascan raids lead to abandonment of Anasazi settlements in Southwest.
1325 - The Capital of the Aztec Empire, Tenochtitlan, is founded.
1492 - Christopher Columbus, backed by Spain, reaches San Salvador (Guanahani to the natives), encountering Arawak and Taino people. Thinking he is in India, he calls them Indians.
1497-98 - John and Sebastion Cabot explore east coast of North America for England. They kidnap three Micmac men.
c. 1500 - European diseases begin killing native North Americans, who have no immunity to them.
1501 - Amerigo Vespucci - disputing the idea that Columbus had found the back door to Asia, this Italian navigator was the first to call the Americas a "New World." European mapmakers thus came to know both continents as "the land of Americgo," or America.
1512 - Spanish law gives Spanish land grantees the right to make slaves of Indians under the encomienda system.
1513 - V. Nunez de Balboa - Climbing a mountain crest on the Isthmus of Panama this Spaniard became the first European to see the Pacific Ocean and first to realize the vast distance between the New World and Asia.
1513-21 - Juan Ponce de Leon of Spain reaches Florida and has extensive contact with Indians before Calusa war canoes drive his ships away. On an expedition in 1521, he is wounded by a Calusa arrow and later dies in Havana.
1519-1521 - Ferdinand Magellan spurned by his king, this Portuguese captain turned to Spain for support of the first circumnavigation of the globe. Blessed with unusually peaceful weather across the new ocean, he named it the Pacific. He was killed in the Philippines while fighting in a local war, and only 18 members of his crew returned home.
1523-24 - Giovanni da Verrazano, sailing for France, explores the Atlantic coast, encountering Wampanoag, Narragansett, and Delaware Indians.
1528-36 - A. Nunez Cabeza de Vaca surviving one disaster after another during an eight-year odyssey from Florida to the Gulf of California, he and three others became, by accident, the first Europeans to cross the North American continent.
1532 - Francisco Pizarro of Spain proved the power of European weaponry in the New World, this conquistador subdued an Inca army of perhaps 80,000 with a force of fewer than 200. Over the next few decades the Spanish sent enough gold back to Spain to cause severe inflation in Europe.
1534-41 - Jacques Cartier of France explores the St. Lawrence River area in three voyages, making contact with Algonquian and Iroquoian speaking tribes. On one trip he reaches the Huron towns of Stadaconna and Hochelaga (now Quebec City and Montreal).
1539-43 - Hernando de Soto claims Florida for Spain and explores the Southeast, encountering and alienating numerous tribes; he and his Spanish expedition became in 1841 the first Europeans to see the Mississippi River as they explored westward from Florida.
1540-42 - Francisco Vasques de Coronado of Spain explores the Southwest in search of Seven Cities of Cibola.
1542 - Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo and Bartolome Ferrelo explore the California and Oregon coasts.
1564-65 - Rene de Laudonniere heads French colony on St. Johns River in Florida until expelled by Spanish. French artist Jacques le Moyne paints first known European depiction of Indians.
1565 - Spanish under Pedro Menendez de Aviles found St. Augustine in Florida, the first permanent European settlement in North America.
1576-78 - Martin Frobisher of England, seeking a Northwest Passage to the Pacific, encounters various Eskimo groups.
1581 - Francis Drake - Like Balboa 60 years earlier, he first glimpsed the Pacific in Panama, then vowed to "sail once an English ship in that sea." His voyage around the world as a privateer was instrumental in breaking Spain's control of the high seas. When Queen Elizabeth knighted this royal pirate it helped goad Spain into war.
1585 - Sir Walter Raleigh founds colony on Roanoke Island in what will become Virginia. In 1591 Gov. John White returns from a trip to England to find that the colonists have vanished.
1598 - John de Onate establishes first Spanish colony in New Mexico.
1598-99 - Natives of Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico attack Spanish troops; a retaliatory force under Onate kills as many as 800 Acomans.
1600 - East India Company founded in London. Dutch and French follow soon, as other Europeans come to rival Iberians in world trade.
1603-15 - Samuel de Champlain's voyages in the Northeast lead to contacts with many Algonquian and Iroquoian tribes. In 1615 Champlain attacks Onondaga villages with the help of a Huron war party, this turning the Iroquois League against the French.

1607 - English colonists found Jamestown, Virginia under John Smith, leading to extensive contact with the tribes of the Powhatan Confederacy.
1608 - Samuel de Champlain and French colonists found Quebec; later he pushed west to Lake Huron, establishing alliances with Indians and opening what became a vital fur-trading route through the wilderness - Telescope invented
1610 - Henry Hudson, in service of the Netherlands, explores the river named for him - Mahattan Indians attack his ship; Mahican people make peaceful contact, and a lucrative fur trade begins.
1613 - In response to gunfire aimed at them, the Beothuk of Newfoundland kill 37 French fisherman. The French retaliate by arming the Micmac, traditional enemies of the Beothuk, and offering bounties for scalps. The Beothuk are soon virtually exterminated.
1616-20 - Smallpox epidemic strikes New England tribes between Narragansett Bay and the Penobscot River.
1620 - Pilgrims from England arrive in Plymouth.
1624 - Dutch settlers found Fort Orange (Albany, New York) in New Netherland.
1626 - Canarsie Indians sell Manhattan Island to Peter Minuet, governor of New Netherland, for 60 guilders in trade goods. Dutch later have to pay Manhattan Indians, actual occupants of the island.
1629-33 - Spanish found Catholic missions for Acoma, Hopi, and Zuni pueblos.
1633-35 - New smallpox outbreaks among Indians of New England, New France, and New Netherland.
1636-37 - Pequot War in New England: White colonists kill more than 600 people in surprise attack on main Pequot village.
1638 - Sweden lays claim to land around Delaware Bay, maintaining trade outpost until 1655.
c. 1640 - Beavers and otters nearly exterminated in Iroquois country. To expand territory, Iroquois launch decades-long "Beaver Wars" against Huron and other tribes. In 1650, 300 Huron survivors settle at Lorette under French protection.
1644 - Second Powhatan Confederacy uprising against Jamestown; its leader, Opechancanough, dies in captivity.
1661 - Spanish in Southwest raid sacred kivas of Pueblo towns and destroy hundreds of kachina masks in an effort to suppress native religion.
1664 - England gains control of New Netherland from the Dutch and become ally and trade partners with the Iroquois.
1668-69 - Pierre Esprit Radisson and Medard Chouart, sieur de Groseilliers, explore west of the St. Lawrence River as far as Lake Superior, plus the Hudson Bay region, for England.
1670 - Hudson's Bay Company chartered in London by King Charles II.
1672 - Colonial postal officials employ Indian couriers to carry mail between New York City and Albany; winter weather is too severe for white couriers.
1673 - French explorers explore Mississippi River, reach mouth of Missouri River
1675-76 - King Philip's War pits the Wampanoag, Narragansett, and Nipmuc against the New England Confederation of colonies. Metacom (King Philip) is killed in 1676.
1678-79 - Daniel Greysolon Duluth of France explores Great Lakes and negotiates treaties between the warring Ojibwa and Sioux.
1680 - Pueblo Indians rise up in rebellion against Spanish rule; the revolt, led by Pope, a Tewa medicine man, expels the occupiers. In 1689 the Spanish begin reconquest of the Pueblos.
1682 - Robert Cavelier de la Salle claims the entire Mississippi Valley for France, name the area Louisiana - William Penn's treaty with the Delaware begins a period of friendly relations between the Quakers and Indians.
1689 - Nicolas Perrot formally claims upper Mississippi region for France.
1689-97 - King William's War is the first in a series of colonial wars between England and France and their Indian allies, continuing to 1763 During these wars, the Iroquois League generally sides with the English, and the Algonquian tribes with the French.
1695 - First Pima uprising against Spanish authorities in the Southwest; second uprising occurs in 1751.
1710 - Three Mohawk chiefs and one Mahican are received in Queen Anne's court in England as the Four Kings of the New World.
1711-13 - Tuscarora War on North Carolina frontier fought between British settlers and Tuscarora Indians. Remnants of this Iroquoian tribe migrate north; in 1722 the Tuscarora become the sixth tribe of the Iroquois Confederacy.
1712-34 - Fox resistance against the French in the Great Lakes area.
1720-60 - The Chickasaw fight the French and the Choctaw in the Southeast.
1729 - French governor of Louisiana, wanting the site for a plantation, orders the Natchez to vacate their capital. The furious Natchez kill 200 Frenchmen at Fort Rosalie in response; the French answer by annihilating the Natchez.
1730 - Mirror sextant invented - Seven Cherokee chiefs visit London and form an alliance, The Articles of Agreement, with King George II.
1738 - Smallpox strikes the Cherokee in the Southeast, killing almost half the population. Smallpox also reaches tribes in western Canada
1741 - Vitus Bering, in service of Russia, reaches Alaska; Russians soon trade with natives for sea otter pelts.
1746 - Typhoid fever epidemic breaks out among the Micmac of Nova Scotia.
1750 - Moor's Indian Charity School is founded in Connecticut. It moves to New Hampshire in 1769; as Dartmouth College, it encourages enrollment of Indians.
1751 - Benjamin Franklin cites Iroquois League as model for his Albany Plan of Union, later an influence on the U.S. Constitution.
1752 - Benjamin Franklin flies kite in electrical storm
1754 - Anthony Henday travels west from Hudson Bay onto Plains, meets natives on horseback and sees Rocky Mountains
1754-63 - French and Indian War (the colonial phase of Europe's Seven Years War).
1763 - Treaty of Paris officially ends French and Indian Wars and gives Great Britain control of Canada; France cedes New France to England and Louisiana to Spain.
1755-75 - William Johnson, British superintendent of Indian affairs in the northern colonies, persuades the Iroquois League to break its neutrality and side with England against France.
1760-61 - Cherokee War on Carolina frontier flares up over continuing treaty violations by colonists.
1761-66 - Aleut people revolt against Russian abuses in Alaska
1763 - Proclamation by King George III bans settlements west of the Appalachians and establishes a protected Indian Country there. White settlers ignore the boundary line - Indian raids in Pennsylvania lead to the Paxton Riots - Peaceful Conestoga Mission Indians are massacred by settlers.
1763-64 - Pontiac's Rebellion threatens British control of the Great Lakes region before being put down. Pontiac, an Ottawa chief, is killed in 1769 by a Kaskaskia Indian in Illinois
1765 - Reserve system in Canada begins with the provision of a tract of land for the Maliseet tribe.
1769 - Gaspar de Portola claims California for Spain and establishes mission system under Junipero Serra, a Franciscan priest.
1770 - David Thompson born in London - William Wordsworth born in Cockermouth, England
1771 - Captain James Cook completes his first voyage around the world
1772 - Samuel Hearne explores Coppermine River to Arctic Ocean
1774 - Lord Dunmore's War fought in Virginia between settlers and Shawnees.
1775 - Daniel Boone leads party of settlers into Kentucky
1776 - American Revolution begins - Spanish establish mission at San Francisco
1776-77 - Capt. James Cook of England explores the Pacific Northwest
1777 - David Thompson enters Grey Coat School
1778 - Spinning mule invented to spin multiple strands of yarn - James Cook trades for sea otter pelts in Nootka Sound - First treaty between the United States and an Indian nation is negotiated with the Delaware; they are offered the prospect of statehood - British and Iroquois forces attack and massacre American settlers in western New York and Pennsylvania. In 1779 a retaliatory U.S. campaign destroys Indian towns and crops, breaking the Iroquois League's power.
1779 - James Cook killed by Hawaiian natives, cutting short his search for Northwest Passage
1780-1800 - Smallpox and measles decimate Indians in Texas and New Mexico. In 1782-83 a small pox epidemic hits the Sanpoil of Washington
1781-89 - The Articles of Confederation establish the principle that the central government, not the states, should regulate Indian affairs and trade
1782 - Christian Delaware Indians are massacred by Americans at Gnadenhutten in Ohio
1783 - Treaty of Paris ends American Revolution - North West Fur Company established in Montreal - Continental Congress proclamation bars white squatters on Indian lands
1784 - David Thompson begins apprenticeship on Hudson Bay - Dr. Samuel Johnson dies in London - James Cook's journal of his last voyage published in London - North West Company is chartered in Montreal to compete in fur trade with the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1821 the two companies merge.
1785 - Introduction of Power loom in England for weaving cloth
1787 - David Thompson winters with Piegans near Rocky Mountains - Northwest Ordinance calls for Indian rights, establishment of reservations, and sanctity of tribal lands; but it also sets guidelines for development of the Old Northwest that lead to increased white settlement
1787-89 - The new U.S. Constitution gives the federal government sole power to regulate commerce with Indian tribes
1789 - French Revolution begins - David Thompson learns surveying from Philip Turnor
1789-93 - Alexander Mackenzie of Canada, seeking northern river route to the Pacific, travels to the Arctic Ocean; on second journey he crosses continent by land, making contact with many tribes.
1790 - Benjamin Franklin dies in Philadelphia - British Captain George Vancouver begins his three-year survey of northwest coast of North America - Spain signs the Nootka Convention, ceding the Pacific Northwest to England and the United States.
1791-91 - Little Turtle's War: Shawnee, Miami, and other tribes win major battles against Americans in Ohio Valley, including defeat of Gen. Arthur St. Clair
1792 - American Captain Robert Gray discovers mouth of Columbia River - George Vancouver's Lieutenant William Broughton explores Columbia 100 miles upriver
1793 - Alexander Mackenzie reaches Pacific Ocean at Bella Coola - David Thompson surveys Muskrat Country west of Hudson Bay
1794 - Jay Treaty establishes neutral commission to settle border disputes between United States and Canada; restores trade between the United States and British colonies of Canada; also guarantees Indians free movement across the border
1796 - Scottish explorer Mungo Park reaches headwaters of Niger River in what is now Mali, West Africa
1797 - David Thompson leaves Hudson's Bay Company to join North West Company
1798 - David Thompson travels to Mandan villages and charts headwaters of Mississippi River - Napoleon invades Egypt - Horatio Nelson and British Navy defeat French at Battle of the Nile
1799 - David Thompson marries Charlotte Small - Alexander Mackenzie resigns from North West Company - George Vancouver's Journeys to the North Pacific Ocean published in London - Handsome Lake, a Seneca chief, founds the Longhouse religion - Russian-American Fur Company chartered; launches aggressive policy in Aleutians and on Northwest Coast
1800 - Alexander Mackenzie joins XY Fur Company
1801 - David Thompson attempts to cross Rocky Mountains - Alexander Mackenzie's Voyages to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans published in London - Mackenzie knighted in honor of his explorations - Thomas Jefferson takes the Oath of Office as President on March 4th.
1802 - Federal law prohibits the sale of liquor to Indians
1802-20 - The Tlingit resist Russian incursions into their territory
1803 - Thomas Jefferson completes Louisiana Purchase extending U.S. control west of the Mississippi River; federal plans to resettle Eastern tribes beyond the Mississippi soon begin - John Colter becomes the fourth man selected by William Clark to join the Lewis & Clark Expedition
1804 - David Thompson works in Peace River country - Lewis and Clark start up Missouri River - Merger of the Northwest and XY Fur Companies
1805 - Admiral Nelson defeats French at Battle of Trafalgar - Lewis and Clark Reach Pacific Ocean
1806 - Russian-American Fur Company collects otter pelts from Alaska to Spanish California - Mungo Park killed by natives on Niger River - On return trip John Colter is released from Lewis & Clark Expedition to join Forrest Hancock and Joseph Dickson (Dixon) to trap the Yellowstone River - U.S. Office of Superintendent of Indian Trade is established to administer federal Indian trading houses.
1807 - David Thompson crosses Rockies and builds trading post at headwaters of Columbia River - In the spring John Colter joins Manuel Lisa at the Platte River who winters on Yellowstone River at the mouth of the Bighorn River - Zebulon Pike explores Southwest into Colorado - Great Britain abolishes institution of slavery - Thomas Jefferson signs bill banning all foreign trade following British attacks on American shipping - Lisa sends John Colter to find the Crow Indians and during this time he becomes the first explorer to enter the present boundary of Yellowstone Park
1808 - David Thompson explores Kootenai River - Simon Fraser follows Fraser River to the Pacific - Napoleon invades Spain - Colter with Flathead Indians are attacked by Blackfeet near the Three Forks - On a return trip to the Three Forks John Colter & John Potts are captured by Blackfeet, Potts is killed and Colter is stripped and told to run for his life (Colter's Run) - American Fur Company is chartered by John Jacob Astor to compete with Canadian fur trade
1809 - President James Madison reinstates embargo on British trade - Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's theory of evolution based on acquired characteristics published in Paris - Charles Darwin born - Treaty of Fort Wayne obtains 2.5 million acres from Indians for white settlers in Ohio and Indiana
1809-11 - Tecumseh, Shawnee chief, and the Prophet campaign to unite tribes of the Great Lakes, Ohio Valley, and Southeast against the United States. His brother Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee Prophet, is defeated at Tippecanoe in 1811
1809-23 - Sequoyah single-handedly creates a Cherokee syllabic alphabet so that his people's language can be written
1810 - David Thompson builds trade houses on Pend Oreille Lake and Flathead River - Sir Walter Scott publishes The Lady of the Lake - Colter guides Colonel Menard to Three Forks to build a fort. Colter returns to St. Louis leaving May 1st and arriving on May 31st.
1811 - John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company establishes post at mouth of Columbia River - David Thompson follows Columbia to Pacific and finishes charting entire length of the river - William Price Hunt, leading Astor's overland party, explores Snake River Valley and much of future Oregon Trail
1812 - David Thompson retires to Montreal - Napoleon retreats from Russia after burning Moscow - Baron Cuvier publishes first volume of his Researches on the Bones of Fossil Vertebrates - John Colter dies on May 7th.
1812-15 - War of 1812: Tecumseh, allied with the British, dies in 1813 at the Battle of the Thames in Canada
1813 - Jane Austen publishes Pride and Prejudice anonymously in London
1813-14 - Creek War (also called Red Stick War) ends in treaty that strips Creeks of their land in Southeast
1814 - David Thompson delivers his map of western North America to partners of North West Company - Treaty of Ghent ends War of 1812
1815 - Wellington defeats Napoleon at Waterloo
1817 - David Thompson takes post as chief surveyor for International Boundary Commission
1817-18 - First Seminole War: Gen. Andrew Jackson invades Florida in punitive expedition against the Seminole
1820-24 - Kickapoo resistance to removal from Illinois Territory; Winnebago uprising in Wisconsin follows in 1827
1821 - Amalgamation of North West and Hudson's Bay Companies
1823 - James Fenimore Cooper's The Pioneer, first volume of his Leatherstocking series, published in United States
1824 - U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) is created as part of the War Department
1825 - Spokane House closed - Fort Colville built at Kettle Falls - A separate Indian Country west of the Mississippi is first denied - Britain introduces the steam train, a revolution in land transportation.
1827 - The Cherokee adopt a constitution patterned on U.S. Constitution; it is nullified by the Georgia legislature
1828-35 - The Cherokee Phoenix, a bilingual weekly newspaper, is published, printing stories in cherokee and English
1830 - John Mullan born July 31 in Norfolk, Virginia - Indian Removal Act passed by U.S. Congress, calling for relocation of Eastern tribes to an Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. Acherokee legal challenge produces an 1832 Supreme Court ruling in their favor, but President Andrew Jackson ignores it. From 1831 to 1839 the so-called Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole) are forcibly moved from the Southeast to Indian Territory - Influenza epidemic strikes tribes of British Columbia. In 1830-33 there are multiple outbreaks of European diseases in California and Oregon
1832 - Black Hawk War in Illinois and Wisconsin waged by Sauk and Fox tribes under Black Hawk against U.S. forces
1833-34 - Missouri River expedition of German explorer Prince Maximilian and Swiss artist Karl Bodmer
1835-42 - Second Seminole War: Osceola, leader of resistance, dies in prison in 1838
1836 - Washington Irving's Astoria published
1837 - Smallpox epidemic devastates the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara of the upper Missouri. By 1870 four major smallpox epidemics strike Western tribes
1839 - American Elkanah Walker builds mission for Spokane Indians north of Spokane House
1843 - David Thompson sends a set of refined maps to London - The first of 300,000 American settlers follow Oregon Trail west - Russian Orthodox Church founds first mission school for Eskimos in Alaska
1846 - David Thompson begins compiling a book about his travels - Great Britain and United States settle long-disputed boundary of Oregon Territory
1846-48 - U.S.- Mexican War begun by U.S. annexation of Texas (1845). The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) cedes the Spanish Southwest, home of many Indian tribes, to the United States
1847 - U.S. Trade and Intercourse Act regulates commerce with Indian tribes and maintains peace on the frontier - Outbreak of measles among the Cayuse of the Pacific Northwest
1847-50 - Cayuse War in Oregon
1848 - First white whalers reach Alaska
1848-49 - Gold discovered in California, starting the Gold Rush and escalating the pressures on California, Great Basin, and Plains Indians
1849 - Alexander Ross's Adventures of the First Settlers on the Columbia River published in United States - Courthouse Rebellion in Canada launched by the Red River Metis
1850-51 - Mariposa War in California pits white miners against the Miwok and the Yokut; uprising by Yuma and Mariposa in California and Arizona
1850-60 - Cholera epidemic sweeps the Great Basin and southern Plains
1851 - Gabriel Franchere's Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America published in Montreal - Treaty of Fort Laramie marks turning point in U.S.-Indian relations on the northern Plains
1853 - Isaac Stevens surveys route for railroad across northern Rockies; accompanied by John Mullan - Gadsden Purchase transfers Mexican lands in New Mexico, Arizona, and California to U.S. ownership
1853-56 - The United States acquires 174 million acres of Indian lands in a series of 52 treaties, all of which are subsequently broken by whites
1854 - U.S. Indian Affairs commissioner calls for end of Indian removal policy
1855 - Stevens persuades tribes of Columbia Plateau to sign treaty ceding their lands and to move to reservations - Flatheads, Kootenais, and Pend Oreilles sign treaty ceding 25,000 square miles of territory - Gold discovered on Pend Oreille River
1855-56 - Yakima War in Washington involves the Yakima, Walla Walla, Umatilla, and Cayuse tribes
1855-58 - Third Seminole War in Florida
1856 - Bessemer furnace used to make steel in England
1857 - David Thompson dies in Montreal
1858 - John Mullan begins construction of the "Mullan Road" between Fort Benton and Walla Walla - Coeur d'Alene War (or Spokan War) waged in Washington by Coeur d'Alene, Spokan, Palouse, Yakima, and Northern Paiute coalition - Battle of Four Lakes (August 31-September 1)
1861-63 - Apache uprisings in Southwest led by Mangas Coloradas and Cochise
1861-65 - U.S. Civil War: Most Indian tribes remain neutral, but the Cherokee and others of the Five Civilized Tribes are induced to aid the South with promises to return tribal lands. After the war, the Five Tribes are forced to cede half of Indian Territory as punishment
1862 - John Mullan promoted to Captain and completes the "Mullan Road" - Smallpox sweeps through Fort Victoria area and down the length of the Northwest Coast, killing an estimated 200,000 Indian people - William Duncan, an Anglican missionary on Northwest Coast, establishes village of Metlakatla with 50 Tsimshian followers, who adopt Christian faith and European life-styles. By 1880 more than 1,000 converts live there
1862-63 - Santee Sioux uprising in Minnesota under Chief Little Crow ends with the hanging of 38 Santees on Dec. 26, 1863, the largest mass execution in U.S. history
1863-66 - Navajo War in New Mexico and Arizona. In 1864, 8,000 Navajo prisoners are forced on the Long Walk to Bosque Redondo. War chief Manuelito surrenders in 1866
1864 - Indians are declared competent witnesses under a new federal law and allowed to testify in trials against whites
1864-65 - Cheyenne-Arapaho War in Colorado and Kansas. On Nov. 29, 1864, Col. John M. Chivington's hastily assembled volunteers massacre more than 300 Indians camped at Sand Creek
1866 - U.S. Congress appropriates Indian lands as right-of-way for construction of transcontinental railroad
1866-68 - War for the Bozeman Trail in Wyoming and Montana pits Cheyenne, Sioux, and Arapaho forces led by Chief Red Cloud against the U.S. Army. It will remain the only full-scale "Indian War" won by the Indians, a victory formalized in the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty
1867 - U.S. purchase of Alaska from Russia adds Eskimo, Aleut, and Athabascan groups to the U.S. population - Hancock Campaign against the Cheyenne and Arapaho on the Plains - British North America Act creates the Dominion of Canada, which takes responsibility for native affairs - U.S. Peace Commission surveys Indian affairs and recommends that the existing treaty process be abolished; in 1871 Congress formally does so. Between 1778 and 1871 the U.S. Senate approves 372 treaties with Indian tribes
1868 - Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution gives blacks the vote but specifically excludes Indians - U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs estimates that Indian Wars in the West are costing the government $1 million per Indian killed
1868-69 - Southern Plains War involves Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapaho, Kiowa, and Comanche forces
1869 - President Grant's Peace Policy is inaugurated and lasts until 1874. In 1870 Grant transfers control of Indian agencies from army officers to Christian missionary groups of various denominations - Brig. Gen. Ely Parker, a Seneca, becomes first Native American to head Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA); he serves until 1871 - First Riel Rebellion in Canada Launched by Red River Metis - Transcontinental railroad completed: the Union Pacific and Central Pacific join up at Promontory Point, Utah
1869-70 - Smallpox epidemic strikes Canadian Plains tribes, including Blackfeet, Piegan, and Blood.
1871 - Congress ratifies last of 372 treaties made with Indian tribes since 1778; later accords will not have treaty status, which recognizes tribes as sovereign nations - General Sheridan issues orders forbidding western Indians to leave reservations without permission - White hunters in Unites States begin wholesale killing of buffalo
1872-73 - Modoc War in California and Oregon. Modoc leader Kintpuash (Captain Jack) is hanged in 1873
1874 - Gold discovered in Black Hills of South Dakota, sacred to the Sioux. Treaties protecting them ignored by whites
1874-75 - Read River War on the southern Plains, involving the Comanche, Kiowa, and Cheyenne, is led by Quanah Parker, Satanta, and others
1876 - Canadian Indian Act gives individual natives the right to seek Canadian citizenship by renouncing their rights and privileges as Indians
1876-77 - Sioux War for the Black Hills waged by Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho forces under Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. On June 25, 1876, Custer's 7th Cavalry is crushed at Battle of the Little Bighorn. Sitting Bull and followers seek refuge in Canada; in 1877 Crazy Horse is killed while in custody
1877 - Nez Perce War - Blackfoot tribes cedes land to the Dominion of Canada
1877-80 - Apache resistance in the Southwest under Victorio
1878 - Fort Coeur d'Alene, Later Fort Sherman established - The Bannock War in Idaho and Oregon involves the Bannock, Northern Paiute, and Cayuse - Congress votes funds for Indian police and in 1883 empowers tribal units to administer justice in all but major crimes. In 1885, federal courts are given jurisdiction over Indian cases involving major crimes on reservations
1878-79 - Flight of Northern Cheyenne under Dull Knife from Oklahoma to homeland in Dakota Territory
1879 - The Sheepeater Troubles - Carlisle Indian School founded in Pennsylvania, with the goal of assimilating Indians into white culture - In ruling on lawsuit filed by Ponca chief Standing Bear, U.S. federal court in Nebraska upholds right of Indians to sue
1880 - Camp Spokane, later Fort Spokane, established at the mouth of Spokane River on the Columbia River
1881 - Sitting Bull and 187 followers surrender to U.S. officials at Fort Buford, North Dakota - John Slocum, a Coast Salish laborer and Catholic convert, begins to preach a gospel of clean living and spiritual renewal. So is born Tschadam, the Indian Shaker religion
1881-86 - Apache resistance continues under Geronimo in the Southwest until Geronimo's surrender in 1886, which marks the end of the Indian Wars
1884 - Canadian Parliament passes the Indian Advancement Act, encouraging democratic elections of chiefs. Mohawks at St. Regis, Ontario, resist the provision, preferring their traditional method of choosing leaders - Congress acknowledges the rights of Eskimos to Alaskan territorial lands
1885 - The last great herd of buffalo in the United States is exterminated - Canada outlaws the potlatch ceremony among Northwest Coast tribes. The law, often ignored, is repealed in 1951 - Second Riel Rebellion is launched in Metis along the Saskatchewan River in Canada
1886 - Mohawk men of the Caughnawaga Reserve in Quebec are trained to help build a bridge across the St. Lawrence River. so begins a tradition of high steel construction work among the Iroguois
1887 - Congress passes the General Allotment Act (the Dawes Act), which ends communal ownership of reservation lands, distributing 160-acre "allotments" to individual Indians and disposing of the surplus. Tribes lose millions of acres
1889 - Two million acres of Indian Territory (later Oklahoma) are bought from Indians for distribution to white settlers; the first Land Run quickly follows
1890 - Ghost Dance movement led by the Paiute prophet Wovoka gains influence among Plains Indians. On Dec. 15, 1890, Sitting Bull is killed at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, increasing tensions there. On Dec. 28, U.S. troops massacre more than 200 Sioux preparing for a Ghost Dance at Wounded Knee
1890-1910 - U.S. Indian population reaches low point: less than 250,000
1891 - Congress authorizes the leasing by whites of allotted Indian lands
1896-98 - Klondike Gold Rush to the Yukon Territory and Alaska
1898 - Curtis Act seeks to extend allotment policy to "Five Civilized Tribes" by dissolving tribal governments, requiring abolished Indian nations to submit to allotment, and instituting civil government in Indian Territory
1899 - Fort Spokane becomes a school for Indian children
1901 - Snake uprising in Oklahoma Territory; Creek Indians under Chitto Harjo resist allotment
1902 - Entire Eskimo population of Southampton Island in Hudson Bay is wiped out by typhus - U.S. government offers first oil and gas leases on Indian Lands in Oklahoma - Reclamation Act encourages settlements of the West by whites through subsidies for water development
1903-1906 - Roald Amundsen becomes the first to navigate the Northwest Passage, and in 1911 first to reach the South Pole, this Norwegian explorer also sailed the Northwest Passage from Norway to Alaska and crossed the North Pole by dirigible.
1906 - Federal Government seizes 50,000 acres of wilderness land, including Blue Lake in New Mexico, sacred to Taos Pueblo Indians, as part of a national park
1907 - Seventy high-steel works of the Iroquois Caughnawaga Band killed while working on the Quebec Bridge
1908 - Supreme Court defines rights of the federal government to reserve water for the use of Indian tribes
1909 - Captain John Mullan dies December 28 - Theodore Roosevelt, two days before leaving the presidency, issues eight executive orders transferring 2.5 million acres of timbered Indian reservation lands to national forests
1910 - Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) starts first regular Indian medical service - Federal government forbids the Sun Dance among the Plains Indians, giving the use of self-torture as the reason
1911 - Society of American Indians, committed to Pan-Indianism and citizenship for Indians, is founded
1912 - Anti-allotment Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws from the Four Mothers Society go to Washington to argue their case before Congress - Jim Thorpe, Sauk and Fox athlete of the Carlisle School, wins pentathlon and decathlon at Stockholm Olympic Games. In 1913 he is stripped of medals because he previously played semiprofessional baseball; they are reinstated in 1984
1913 - Federal government issues Indian Head nickel with composite portrait of three Indian chiefs--Cheyenne, Seneca, and Sioux--on one side and a buffalo on the reverse side
1914 - Fort Spokane becomes an Indian hospital and tuberculosis sanatorium
1915 - Congress authorizes Bureau of Indian Affairs to buy land for landless natives in California
1916 - Thompson's Narrative of Travels in Western North America, 1784-1812 published by Champlain Society in Toronto
1917 - Papago (Tohono O'odham) Indian Reservation in Arizona is the last to be established by executive order
1918 - Native American Church, with rites that include the scramental use of peyote, is incorporated in Oklahoma by members of the Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, Apache, Ponca, and Oto tribes
1928 - Charles Curtis, a Kansa Indian and U.S. senator, is elected vice-president under Herbert Hoover
1934 - U.S. Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) reverses U.S. policy of allotment, providing for tribal self-government and landholding and launching an Indian credit program. In 1936 Congress extends provisions of the IRA to Alaska natives
1939 - The Seneca of Tonawanda, New York, issue a Declaration of Independence from the state of New York
1953 - Congress repeals special Indian alcohol prohibition laws
1964 - U.S. Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination for reasons of color, race, religion, or national origin
1965 - Voting Rights Act ensures equal voting rights
1969 - Red Power activists occupy Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay to call attention to the plight of contemporary Indians. The occupation lasts until 1971.
1972 - White vigilantes beat Raymond Yellow Thunder to death in Gorden, Neb. A ruling of death by suicide causes protests by more than 1,000 Sioux from Pine Ridge Reservation. Officials, forced to perform an autopsy, change their finding to manslaughter; two of the killers are subsequently tried and convicted - Yakima tribe is returned 21,000 acres in the state of Washington
1973 - Members of AIM and about 200 armed Oglala Sioux occupy site of the Wounded Knew Massacre on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota for 71 days. A siege results, with outbreaks of gunfire and the killing of two Indians
1974 - In Minnesota, the first trial steming from the occupation of Wounded Knew takes place. In 1975 AIM leaders Dennis Banks and Russell Means are convicted on assault and riot charges. In 1978 Gov. Jerry Brown gives Banks sanctuary in California
1975 - Shoot-out on Pine Ridge Reservation between AIM members and FBI agents results in the death of two agents. Leonard Peltier is later convicted, a verdict that remains controversial
1983 - Dennis Banks, the AIM leader, still under indictment in South Dakota for 1973 Wounded Knee occupation, takes refuge on the Onondaga Reservation in New York State. In 1984 Banks surrenders to officials in South Dakota; he is sentenced to three years in prision
1985 - Wilma Mankiller becomes Princpal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, the first woman in modern times to lead a major tribe
1994 - President Clinton invites leaders of all 547 federally recognized American Indian and Alaska native tribes to the White House, the first-ever meeting of its kind. Tribal leaders and U.S. officials identify issues for follow-up conferences.