Year 1000 approximately
Scandinavian Vikings discover "Vinland", probably todays Labrador- and Nova Scotia-coast. The Natives are called "skrällingar" by the Vikings.
Year 1200-1300 approx.
The golden age of the Anazasi culture which becomes a forerunner to the Pueblo people.
THE PUEBLO PEOPLE - THE FARMERS OF THE DESERT
Year 1492
Columbus rediscovers America, and the white colonisation begins. The people in America didīnt call themselves indians. It was after that Christopher Columbus "discovered" them, they got their name. Columbus sailed from Spain westward, to find a way to India. As he came to the Caribbean Islands he thought he was in Asia, and called the people he met "indios", which is Spanish and means Indian. But the Italian discoverer Amerigo Vespucci suspected that it in fact was a whole "new" world, a continent the europeans not earlier had known, that Columbus know had found. It was after his name, Amerigo, as the new continent got its name America.
Approx. year 1500
Navaho or Dinéh (The people) as they call themselves, live today in a large reservation reaching northeast of Arizona and through parts of New Mexico and Utah. They are nearly related with the Apache people and in the beginning they lived far north. Probably they settled in the south west of USA approximately in the year of 1500.
THE NAVAHO PEOPLE
Year 1535
The French discoverer Jacques Cartier discovers the St.Lawrence river, and visits Native people, probably Huron people.
Year 1539
The Spaniard Hernando de Soto discovers the Mississippi river where he dies in 1542.
Year 1540
The French settlements begins in eastern Canada.
Year 1607
The Englishman John Smith founds Jamestown in Virginia. The assaults of the Englishmen irritates the Natives. John Smith is taken as prisoner and ordered to die by chief Powhatan. The chiefs daughter Pocahontas persuades her father to free John Smith. Peace is restored through the marriage between Pocahontas and John Rolfe.
JAMESTOWN AND POCAHONTAS
Year 1608
Samuel de Champlain founds the colony Canada (New France).
THE JOURNEYS OF SAMUEL DE CHAMPLAIN
Year 1609
Henry Hudson discovers the Hudson river as he is searching for the north west passage to the Orient.
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HENRY HUDSON INVESTIGATOR OF THE HUDSON RIVER
Year 1609
The first fights between the French and the Iroquois people.
THE IROQUOIS SOCIETY AND THE NATIVE PEOPLE IN THE NORTHEAST REGION
Year 1611
The first Jesuit missionaries arrive.
Year 1626
The island of Manhattan in present New York City was bought by the Dutchman Peter Minuit from the Delaware people, for goods corrersponding to a worth of 24 US dollars.
Year 1632-1672
French Jesuit missionaries are active among the Huron people and many of them dies as martyrs.
THE JESUITS ARE DOING THERE MISSION AMONG THE HURON PEOPLE
Year 1638
A Swedish colony - New Sweden - is constructed on the Delaware River. The area reaching 10 swedish miles along the Delaware River was sold to Swedish people by the Delaware people. The colony capitulated to the Dutch in the year 1655.
NEW SWEDEN
Year 1670
The Hudson Bay company was founded by the Englishmen to effectively make use of the furtrade in the area around Hudson Bay in the northeast of Canada.
TRAPPERS MOUNTAINMEN and THE FURTRADE
Year 1682
Robert Cavelier a French pioneer founds the Fort St.Louis in Illinois and occupies for France, the whole Louisiana area of the Mississippi river.
Year 1727
The Amish people settles in Pennsylvania as a part of William Penn's "holy experiment" for religious tolerance. The first ship who came with Amish people was "The Adventure" who came from Rotterdam and arrived to Philadelphia the 2 of October 1727. The Amish people first settled in Pennsylvania, but later even in Ohio, Indiana and Iowa. Today Amish parishes are located in twenty US states and in the province of Ontario in Canada. 80% of the Amish people live in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana.
Year 1729-1763
England and France are both fighting for control over the lower Mississippi area and the Great lakes area up in the north. France surrender in 1760 and Canada becomes a British colony.
SUMMARY OF THE SO CALLED INDIAN WARS
(Painting by my favourite artist Frank McCarthy who died november 2002)
Year 1763-1764
Pontiacīs war. The Ottawa chief Pontiac gathers 18 native tribes to drive away the Englishmen from Native land. He besieges Detroit and 8 Forts are burned.
PONTIACīS WAR
Year 1775-1783
The American revolutionary war broke out in 1775. In several places in Pennsylvania their are terrible massacres.The British are however defetead and in the negotiations for peace in 1783 England acknowledge the earlier colonies as independent.
PLAINS INDIANS
(Painting by my favourit artist Frank McCarthy who died November 2002)
Year 1790
The Kiowa tribe settles in Texas and New Mexico and in 1790 they are allied with the Comanches.
KIOWAS AND SATANTA
Year 1802-1803
In 1802 President Thomas Jefferson decided to try to buy all the land between the Mississippi valley and the Rocky Mountains and the land between Canada and the Mexican Golf from France. Jefferson didīnt like the idea that Napoleon could control this area. France who needed the money in the war against England decided to sell the land to an amount of $15,000,000. This doubled the landarea of the United States.
Year 1804-1806
By order of President Jefferson, Lewis and Clark starts an expedition through the unexplored country west of the Mississippi river all the way to the Pacific Ocean. The expeditionen who consists of 45 men starts in May in 1804 from St.Louis. They travell up the Mississippi river and then further on the Missouri river through South and North Dakota. In an indian village the expedition meets the Frenchcanadian furtrader Toussaint Charbonneau and his shoshone indian wife Sacagawea, who joins the expedition. As the expedition many times meet different native tribes, it shows that Sacagawea is invaluable as an interpreter and link between red people and white people. Through Montana and Idaho the expedition reaches the Columbia river and in October 1805 they can see the Pacific Ocean. The next year the expedition returns to St.Louis after experiencing many hardship on the journey. The road to the west opens for white settlers.
Missouri River
THE LEWIS&CLARK EXPEDITION
Year 1813
The Shawnee chief Tecumsehs attempt to found a united coalition between the native tribes to prevent further white colonisation fails, and he falls in a battle against the americans.
TECUMSEH THE SHAWNEE CHIEF
Year 1821
The Cherokee Sequoyah(George Gist) presents his own design of a native alphabet, the first of itīs kind, made for the cherokee language and composed of 85 characters. In a year almost the whole tribe learns to read and write.
THE CHEROKEE PEOPLE, SEQUOYAH AND THE WRITTEN CHEROKEE LANGUAGE
Year 1824
Parts of the Bible was printed in the Cherokee language, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs was founded and directed in the beginning from the war departement.
Year 1828
The first Native newspaper the Cherokee Phoenix is published, written in English and Cherokee.
Year 1830
Joseph Smith the founder of the Mormons, is publishing his book "the Book of Mormon".
Year 1830
The Congress decides that all Native land will be bought and "the indians" shall be moved westward (Indian Removal Act). The area alotted to the Native people (The Indian territory) is located between The Platte River in the north to the Red River in the South without any particular border to the west.
THE SEMINOLE PEOPLE ARE PROTESTING
AGAINST THE FORCED MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE
Year 1831-1840
The Trail of Tears - Forced movements of Native people are carried out.
THE TRAIL OF TEARS
Year 1835
Texas Rangers are founded with 3 companies with 56 men each.
TEXAS RANGERS
Year 1836
Cynthia Ann Parker is taken as prisoner only eleven years old in 1836 when Comanches and Kiowas attacks Fort Parker in Texas. After 24 years in 1860 she is "rescued" by white men, but she canīt manage to adapt to a life as a white human being again.
THE COMANCHE PEOPLE AND QUANAH PARKER
Year 1837
Smallpox comes to the Native people on the upper Missouri River. The tribes who suffer most are the Mandans, Assiniboine and the Blackfeet. The Blackfeet looses 6000 people of their tribe(2/3) and the Mandans are nearly obliterated(150 of 1500 survives). The infection is spread from the white traders boats.
Year 1841
The Emigrant trains begin to move west, and the s.c. Oregon-trail is established. The trail begins in Independence, Missouri and continues over the northern plains and Rocky Mountains to the Williamette valley in Oregon.
WAGONTRAINS WESTWARDS
Year 1848
In Januari James Marshall finds gold at Sutters Mill near the Sacramento River in California. Despite many attempts to keep this secret, the news are leaking out, and an unparallel goldrush in the history of the West breaks out. In four years the white population in California is more than ten doubled, and from now on the West is wide open for settlers, adventuroes people and armed forces. The plains indians are from now on going to be surrounded.
Year 1849
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is now under command of the Department for Domestic Affairs instead of the War Department.
Year 1851
The Larami treaty.
The 6:th of September at Horse Creek east of Fort Laramie, Wyoming approximately 9000 indians from among others Sioux, Cheyenne, Crow, Shoshone, Hidatsa, Arapaho and the Assiniboin tribes gather after an invitation from the authorities. The intention was to achieve a treaty that would give all the white emigrants a safe conduct on the Oregon trail and allowing white people to build new roads and Forts, and at the same time let the indians live in peace with each other. The authorities also appointed the BruleīSioux Brave Bear to be the highest chief for all the Sioux tribes living on the prairies, something that the indians them selves disliked and never accepted. The Laramie treaty was never accepted by the Congress and became totally ineffective.
THE ARAPAHO PEOPLE
Year 1854
The origin of the big indian wars came up with the so called Grattan massacre and kept on for approx. 25 years.
ON THE WARPATH 1854-1890
(Painting by my favourit artist Frank McCarthy who died November 2002)
Year 1860
The Pony express founded in the spring of 1860, was used to transport express deliveries from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California, a route of 2000 miles. The station buildings where riders and horses could be changed were appr. located 15 to 25 miles between each other. The riders were changed in general every third station. Several express riders were killed by robbers or indians but only one postbag was lost. As the telegraph lines over the continent are completed in October 1861 the Pony express becomes unnecessary and the activity stops the same year.
Year 1861-1865
The Civil War, where many indians are active and fights both for the North and the South.
THE CIVIL WAR 1861-1865
Year 1863
The Ute chief Ouray (Arrow) was born in Taos, New Mexico 1820. His father came from the Ute tribe but his mother was Apache. He was well educated and speaked both Spanish and English. When his father died in 1860, Ouray became chief for the Tabeguache tribe, and as he was a good friend of Kit Carson, Ouray signed a peace treaty with the United States on the 7:th of October 1863.
THE UTE AND THE PAIUTE PEOPLE
Year 1864
The Cheyenne chief Black Kettles camp is attacked in the dawn at Sand Creek. Women and children were killed or disabled.
THE MASSACRE OF THE CHEYENNE PEOPLE
(Painting by my favourit artist Frank McCarthy who died November 2002)
Year 1867
The 30:th of March, United States buys Alaska from Russia for an amount of 7,2 miljon dollar.
Year 1867
The Pawnee indians are helping railroad workers at the Union Pacific Railway to defend them selves against the Cheyenne.
THE PAWNEE PEOPLE
Year 1868
The so called Laramie treaty is signed with the Sioux tribes. The Bozeman trail is closed and the Forts are evacuated, and all land between the Missouri River and the Big Horn Mountains up in the north with a border along the Yellowstone River and in the south of the North Platte River, becomes indian hunting grounds, where no white people should live without the agreement of the indians. Four years later the authorities breaks the treaty, by building a railroad straight through the area without permission.
The Oglala chief Man-Afraid-Of-His-Horses smoking a ceremony pipe at the 1868 years negotiations at Fort Laramie
THE WHOLE LARAMIE TREATY OF 1868
