The development was in the beginning different in the areas where the English settled and the areas where the French operated. Most of the English settlers didīnt care much about the Native people living in the areas. The French were more interested in the fur trade. This assumed cooperation with the indians. French "voyageurs" came in canoes on the rivers down from Canada, and so France came to control the inland. The Voyageurs had good relations with their suppliers and often got married to an indian woman.

The Catholic Church also made their mission among the indians. During the colonial contest between the English and the French in the 1700s, the indians often supported the French. The seven years of war between 1756-63 is often called "the war against the French and the indians". The Frenchmens defeat opened the way westward to the Englishmen, and from that time the real Indian wars started.

The Indians who lived in the woods up in the northeast died as much from new contagious diseases and from loosing their land, as from wars. Among them who made great resistance were the Iroquois. Some attempts were made to create larger tribe associations in the fights against the white settlers, for ex. the Ottawa chief Pontiac (dead 1769), the Shawnee chief Tecumseh (dead 1813) and the Sioux leader Sitting Bull (dead 1890), but without lasting success.

From the woods the settlers pushed their way out on the plains. One of several important military Forts was Fort Laramie, founded in 1834. The Indians desperat attempts to stop the movements ended in among others "the Minnesota massacre" in 1862, a massacre on white settlers.

Only between 1869-76 there were more than 200 conflicts between indians and the United states army. The Plains Indians who had horses were bold and could win isolated victories, as when Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse massacred General Custers troops totally in the battle of Little Big Horn 1876.
But every victory lead to a more intense warfare from the whites. The Apache chief Geronimos capitulation in 1886, the murder of Sitting Bull in 1890 and the Massacre at Wounded Knee in the same year marks the indians final defeate. They who survived were put on Reservations, areas that the whites found worthless.

In the background, there has been wars with the indians also in Latin America, mostly in the 1800s, but even in modern times for example in Guatemala. More or less privat wars are lead against indians in the Amazonas and no governement seems to intervene. The intentional and consistent extermination of indians in Argentina in the 1800s stands as one of the most brutal genocide in the world.