Indian Territory

(noun)

Also known as "Indian Territories" or "Indian Country"; an evolving land area set aside by the U.S. government for the relocation of the indigenous peoples of the Americas who held aboriginal title to their land.

Related Terms

Examples of Indian Territory in the following topics:

  • The Northwest Territory

    • The Northwest Indian War (1785–1795) led to further expansion of the United States into American Indian territory.
    • In the Treaty of Paris (1783), Great Britain nominally ceded control of the Northwest Territory (which was primarily occupied by various American Indian tribes) to the United States.
    • In reality, however, the British kept forts and enacted policies there that supported the American Indians living in those territories until Jay's Treaty in 1794.
    • The Northwest Indian War, or Little Turtle's War, resulted from conflict between the United States and the Western Confederacy over occupation of the Northwest Territory.
    • Wayne's legion continued to advance deeper into the territory of the Wabash Confederacy, and defeated the last of the American Indian forces at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in August 1794.

  • American Indians and the Revolution

    • The British made peace with the Americans in the Treaty of Paris (1783), through which they ceded vast American Indian territories to the United States without informing or consulting with the American Indians.
    • The Northwest Indian War was led by American Indian tribes trying to repulse American colonists.
    • Although most members of the Iroquois tribes went to Canada with the Loyalists, others tried to stay in New York and western territories to maintain their lands.
    • The state of New York made a separate treaty with Iroquois nations and put up for sale 5 million acres (20 thousand km2) of land that had previously been their territories.
    • The Treaty of Penn with the Indians by Benjamin West, painted in 1771

  • Madison's American Indian Policy

    • James Madison's presidency saw the continuation of the American Indian Wars as the United States expanded into and invaded indigenous territory.
    • He encouraged American Indian men to give up hunting and become farmers and supported the conversion of American Indians to a European way of life.
    • As European settlers moved west, encroaching on large tracts of Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, and Chickasaw territory, Madison ordered the U.S.
    • Army to protect some of the American Indian lands from intrusion.
    • In the Northwest Territory after the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, American Indians were pushed off of their tribal lands and replaced entirely by white settlers.

  • The Western Lands

    • Following the French and Indian War, the colonial desire to expand westward was met with resistance from American Indians.
    • Conflict with American Indians quickly arose as the British expanded further into their territory.
    • In the aftermath of the French and Indian War, the frontier of Pennsylvania remained unsettled.
    • A new wave of Scots-Irish immigrants encroached on American Indian land in the back country.
    • Although Great Britain won control of the territory east of the Mississippi, the Proclamation Line of 1763 prohibited British colonists from settling west of the Appalachian Mountains.

  • The War in the West

    • Most battles in the west involved conflict between American Indians and civilian settlers.
    • Though some Native Americans were on friendly terms with settlers, many opposed the United States as a threat to their territory.
    • Land disputes were common as territorial boundaries established by treaty were frequently not honored by both settlers and American Indian tribes.
    • In the war's final years, settlements were destroyed on both sides, but territory could not be held once claimed.
    • For the American Indians, the hostilities would continue under a different name: the Northwest Indian War.

  • American Indians and the New Nation

    • In this treaty, the Iroquois Confederacy ceded all claims to the Ohio territory, a strip of land along the Niagara River, and all land west of the mouth of Buffalo Creek.
    • The general American Indian confederacy also disavowed the treaty, as most members of the Six Nations did not live in the Ohio territory.
    • The cultural assimilation of American Indians was an assimilation effort by the United States to transform American Indian culture to European-American culture between the years of 1790 and 1920.
    • It established American Indian boarding schools that children were required to attend.
    • These societies encouraged the assimilation and Christianization of American Indians.

  • Indian Resistance and Survival

    • Indian tribes fought over 40 wars for survival, killing at least 19,000 white settlers and soldiers and at least 30,000 American Indians.
    • As American expansion continued, Native Americans resisted settlers' encroachment in several regions of the new nation (and in unorganized territories), from the Northwest to the Southeast, and then in the West, as settlers encountered the tribes of the Great Plains.
    • Indian Wars continued into the early 20th century.
    • Bureau of the Census (1894), The Indian Wars under the government of the United States have been more than 40 in number.
    • Census Bureau estimated that about 0.8% of the U.S. population was of American Indian or Alaska Native descent.

  • The Lewis and Clark Expedition

    • After the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to lead an expedition called the "Corps of Discovery."
    • The corps set about making friends with American Indian tribes while simultaneously attempting to assert American power over the territory.
    • Upon their return, Meriwether Lewis was named governor of the Louisiana Territory.
    • Delegates of several American Indian tribes went to Washington to meet the president.
    • With the territory now more accurately mapped, the United States felt more internal justification for its illegal claim over the western lands of the American Indians.

  • Changes in American Indian Life

    • The invasion of North America by European powers had widespread effects on American Indian life.
    • Smallpox proved particularly fatal to American Indian populations.
    • By 1832, the federal government established a smallpox vaccination program for American Indians, known as the Indian Vaccination Act.
    • The people fully incorporated the use of horses into their societies and expanded their territories.
    • The Indian Wars of the early 18th century, combined with the increasing importation of African slaves, effectively ended the American Indian slave trade by 1750.

  • Pontiac's Uprising

    • British expansion into American Indian land after the French and Indian War led to resistance in the form of Pontiac's Rebellion in 1763.
    • Even before the war officially ended, the British Crown began to implement changes in order to administer its vastly expanded North American territory.
    • While the French had long cultivated alliances among certain of the American Indian tribes, the British post-war approach was to subordinate the tribes, and tensions quickly rose between the American Indians and the British.
    • One of his policies was to prohibit gift exchange between the American Indians and the British.
    • Relations between British colonists and American Indians deteriorated further during Pontiac's Rebellion, and the British government concluded that colonists and American Indians must be kept apart.