American Indian Wars in the context of Republic of Texas

Population figures for the Indigenous peoples of the Americas before European colonization have been difficult to establish. Estimates have varied widely from as low as 8 million to as many as 100 million, though by the end of the 20th Century, many scholars gravitated toward an estimate of around 50 million people.

The monarchs of the nascent Spanish Empire decided to fund Christopher Columbus' voyage in 1492, leading to the establishment of colonies and marking the beginning of the migration of millions of Europeans and Africans to the Americas. While the population of European settlers, primarily from Spain, Portugal, France, England, and the Netherlands, along with African slaves, grew steadily, the Indigenous population plummeted. There are numerous reasons for the population decline, including exposure to Eurasian diseases such as influenza, pneumonic plagues, and smallpox; direct violence by settlers and their allies through war and forced removal; and the general disruption of societies. Scholarly disputes remain over the degree to which each factor contributed or should be emphasized; some modern scholars have categorized it as a genocide, claiming that deliberate, systematic actions by Europeans were the primary cause. Traditional interpretation of the decline by scholars have disputed this characterization, maintaining that incidental disease exposure was the primary cause. This is supported by evidence where 50-80 percent of the population died from waves of diseases caused by Europeans in places such as Mexico in the 16th century.

Native Americans (also called American Indians, First Americans, or Indigenous Americans) are the Indigenous peoples of the United States, particularly of the lower 48 states and Alaska. They may also include any Americans whose origins lie in any of the indigenous peoples of North or South America. The United States Census Bureau publishes data about "American Indians and Alaska Natives", whom it defines as anyone "having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America ... and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment". The census does not, however, enumerate "Native Americans" as such, noting that the latter term can encompass a broader set of groups, e.g. Native Hawaiians, which it tabulates separately.

The European colonization of the Americas from 1492 resulted in a precipitous decline in the size of the Native American population because of newly introduced diseases, including weaponized diseases and biological warfare by colonizers, wars, ethnic cleansing, and enslavement. Numerous scholars have classified elements of the colonization process as comprising genocide against Native Americans. As part of a policy of settler colonialism, European settlers continued to wage war and perpetrated massacres against Native American peoples, removed them from their ancestral lands, and subjected them to one-sided government treaties and discriminatory government policies. Into the 20th century, these policies focused on forced assimilation.

Florida (/ˈflɒrɪdə/ FLORR-ih-də; Spanish: [floˈɾiða] ) is a state in the Southeastern and South Atlanticregions of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, the Straits of Florida to the south, and The Bahamas to the southeast. About two-thirds of Florida occupies a peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. It has the longest coastline in the contiguous United States, spanning approximately 1,350 miles (2,170 km), not including its many barrier islands. It is the only state that borders both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of over 23 million, it is the third-most populous state in the United States and ranks seventh in population density as of 2020. Florida spans 65,758 square miles (170,310 km), ranking 22nd in area among the states. The Miami metropolitan area, anchored by the cities of Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach, is the state's largest metropolitan area, with a population of 6.138 million; the most populous city is Jacksonville. Florida's other major population centers include Tampa Bay, Orlando, Cape Coral, and the state capital of Tallahassee.

Various Native American groups have inhabited Florida for at least 14,000 years. In 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León became the first documented European to make landfall in the region and named it La Florida (Spanish for "land of flowers"; [la floˈɾiða]), giving the territory its present name. Spain subsequently incorporated Florida into the Spanish Empire in the early 16th century. In 1565, it founded St. Augustine, the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in the continental United States. The region was frequently coveted and attacked by Great Britain throughout the 18th century. Britain briefly gained control of Florida in 1763, but Spain recovered it in 1783 following the British defeat in the American Revolutionary War. Florida remained under Spanish rule until it was ceded to the United States in 1821, in exchange for U.S. recognition of Spanish sovereignty in Texas and the resolution of the border dispute along the Sabine River. Florida was admitted as the 27th state on March 3, 1845, and was the principal location of the Seminole Wars (1816–1858), the longest and most extensive of the American Indian Wars. The state seceded from the Union on January 10, 1861, becoming one of the seven original Confederate States, and was readmitted to the Union after the Civil War on June 25, 1868.

The 7th Cavalry Regiment is a United States Army cavalry regiment formed in 1866. Its official nickname is "Garryowen", after the Irish air "Garryowen" that was adopted as its march tune. The regiment participated in some of the largest battles of the American Indian Wars, including its famous defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where its commander Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer was killed. The regiment also committed the Wounded Knee Massacre, where more than 250 men, women and children of the Lakota were killed.

The 7th Cavalry became part of the 1st Cavalry Division in the 1920s, it went on to fight in the Pacific Theater of World War II and took part in the Admiralty Islands, Leyte and Luzon campaigns. It later participated several key battles of the Korean War. During the Korean War the unit committed the No Gun Ri massacre, in which between 250 and 300 South Korean refugees were killed, mostly women and children. The unit later participated in the Vietnam War. It distinguished itself in the Gulf War; the Iraq War (US phase, 2003–2011); and in the War in Afghanistan (2001-2021). Its squadrons and battalions served as Combined Arms Battalions or as reconnaissance squadrons for Brigade Combat Teams in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Black Kettle (Cheyenne: Mo'ohtavetoo'o) (c. 1803 – November 27, 1868) was a leader of the Southern Cheyenne during the American Indian Wars. Born to the Northern Só'taeo'o / Só'taétaneo'o band of the Northern Cheyenne in the Black Hills of present-day South Dakota, he later married into the Wotápio / Wutapai band (one mixed Cheyenne-Kiowa band with Lakota Sioux origin) of the Southern Cheyenne.

Black Kettle is often remembered as a peacemaker who accepted treaties with the U.S. government to protect his people. On November 27, 1868, while attempting to escape the Battle of Washita River with his wife, he was shot and killed by soldiers of the U.S. 7th Cavalry.

South Dakota (/dəˈkoʊtə/ ; Siouan languages: Dakȟóta itókaga, pronounced [daˈkˣota iˈtokaga]) is a landlocked state in the North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Dakota Sioux tribe, which comprises a large portion of the population—with nine reservations in the state—and has historically dominated the territory. South Dakota is the 17th-largest by area, the fifth-least populous, and the fifth-least densely populated of the 50 United States. Pierre is the state capital, and Sioux Falls, with a population of about 213,900, is South Dakota's most populous city. The state is bisected by the Missouri River, dividing it into two geographically and socially distinct halves known as "East River" and "West River". South Dakota is bordered by North Dakota to the north, Minnesota to the east, Iowa to the southeast, Nebraska to the south, Wyoming to the west, and Montana to the northwest.

Humans have inhabited the area for several millennia, with the Sioux becoming dominant by the early 19th century. In the late 19th century, European-American settlement intensified after a gold rush in the Black Hills and the construction of railroads from the east. Encroaching miners and settlers triggered a number of Indian wars, ending with the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. As the southern part of the former Dakota Territory, South Dakota became a state on November 2, 1889, simultaneously with North Dakota. They are the 39th and 40th states admitted to the union; President Benjamin Harrison shuffled the statehood papers before signing them so that no one could tell which became a state first.

Plymouth Colony (sometimes spelled Plimouth) was the first permanent English colony in New England, founded in 1620, and the third permanent English colony in America, after Newfoundland and the Jamestown Colony. It was settled by the passengers on the Mayflower at a location that had previously been surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement served as the capital of the colony and developed as the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. At its height, Plymouth Colony occupied most of what is now the southeastern portion of Massachusetts. Many of the people and events surrounding Plymouth Colony have become part of American folklore, including the American tradition of Thanksgiving and the monument of Plymouth Rock.

Plymouth Colony was founded by a group of Protestant Separatists initially known as the Brownist Emigration, who came to be known as the Pilgrims. The colony established a treaty with Wampanoag chief Massasoit which helped to ensure its success; in this, they were aided by Squanto, a member of the Patuxet tribe. Plymouth played a central role in King Philip's War (1675–1678), one of several Indian Wars. The colony was ultimately merged with the Massachusetts Bay Colony and other territories in 1691 to form the Province of Massachusetts Bay.

A series of efforts were made by the United States to assimilate Native Americans into mainstream European–American culture between the years of 1790 and the 1960s. George Washington and Henry Knox were first to propose, in the American context, the cultural assimilation of Native Americans. They formulated a policy to encourage the so-called "civilizing process". With increased waves of immigration from Europe, there was growing public support for education to encourage a standard set of cultural values and practices to be held in common by the majority of citizens. Education was viewed as the primary method in the acculturation process for minorities.

Americanization policies were based on the idea that when Indigenous people learned customs and values of the United States, they would be able to merge tribal traditions with American culture and peacefully join the majority of the society. After the end of the Indian Wars, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the federal government outlawed the practice of traditional religious ceremonies. It established Native American boarding schools which children were required to attend. In these schools they were forced to speak English, study standard subjects, attend church, and leave tribal traditions behind.

The Second Seminole War, also known as the Florida War, was a conflict from 1835 to 1842 in Florida between the United States and groups of people collectively known as Seminoles, consisting of Creek and Black Seminoles as well as other allied tribes (see below). It was part of a series of conflicts called the Seminole Wars. The Second Seminole War, often referred to as the Seminole War, is regarded as "the longest and most costly of the Indian conflicts of the United States". After the Treaty of Payne's Landing in 1832 that called for the Seminoles' removal from Florida, tensions rose until fierce hostilities occurred in Dade's massacre in 1835. This engagement officially started the war although there were a series of incidents leading up to the Dade battle. The Seminoles and the U.S. forces engaged in mostly small engagements for more than six years. By 1842, only a few hundred native peoples remained in Florida. Although no peace treaty was ever signed, the war was declared over on August 14, 1842, by Colonel William Jenkins Worth.

The Northwest Indian War was an armed conflict for control of the Northwest Territory between the United States and a loose confederation of Native American peoples who called themselves the United Indian Nations but are better known today as the Northwestern Confederacy. The United States Army considers the conflict to be the first of the American Indian Wars.

Following centuries of conflict involving Native Americans and Europeans for control of the region, the lands comprising the Northwest Territory were ceded by Great Britain to the newly formed United States in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. The treaty used the Great Lakes as a border between British North America and the US, and led to the Americans assuming control over the Ohio Country and Illinois Country, which had previously been prohibited to American settlement. As US settlers moved into the Northwest Territory, they were resisted by local Native Americans, and a Huron-led confederacy was formed in 1785 to resist American expansion onto their lands.

George Armstrong Custer (December 5, 1839 – June 25, 1876) was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the American Indian Wars.

Custer graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, last in his graduating class of 1861 (34th out of a starting class of 108 candidates, 68 passing the entrance exam, of whom 34 graduated). Nonetheless, Custer achieved a higher military rank than any other U.S. Army officer in his class. Following graduation, he worked closely with future Union Army Generals George B. McClellan and Alfred Pleasonton, both of whom recognized his abilities as a cavalry leader. He was promoted in the early American Civil War (1861–1865), to brevet brigadier general of volunteers when only aged 23. Only a few days afterwards, he fought at the pivotal Battle of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania in early July 1863, where he commanded the Michigan Brigade. Despite being outnumbered, the new General Custer defeated Confederate States Army cavalry of General J. E. B. Stuart's attack at East Cavalry Field on the crucial third day of the Gettysburg clash.

A repeating rifle is a single-barreled rifle capable of repeated discharges between each ammunition reload. This is typically achieved by having multiple cartridges stored in a magazine (within or attached to the rifle) and then fed individually into the chamber by a reciprocating bolt, via either a manual or automatic action mechanism, while the act of chambering the round typically also recocks the hammer/striker for the following shot. In common usage, the term "repeating rifle" most often refers specifically to manual repeating rifles (e.g. lever-action, pump-action, bolt-action, etc.), as opposed to self-loading rifles, which use the recoil, gas, or blowback of the previous shot to cycle the action and load the next round, even though all self-loading firearms are technically a subcategory of repeating firearms.

Repeating rifles were a significant advance over the preceding single-shot, breechloading rifles when used for military combat, as they allowed a much greater rate of fire. The repeating Henry rifle was used by the infantry and Spencer rifle was used by the cavalry during the American Civil War and the subsequent American Indian Wars, and the first repeating air rifle to see military service was the Windbüchse rifle.

The military history of the United States spans over four centuries, dating back to 1607 and pre-dating by nearly two centuries the founding of the nation following the American Revolutionary War. During this moment, the United States evolved from a colonial territory to newly formed nation following its independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain (1775–1783) to ultimately becoming a world superpower in the aftermath of World War II and through the present. As of 2024, the United States Armed Forces consists of the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force and Space Force, all under the command of the Department of Defense, and the Coast Guard, which is controlled by the Department of Homeland Security.

In 1775, the Continental Congress, convening in present-day Independence Hall in Philadelphia, established the Continental Army, the Continental Navy, and the Continental Marines, formally joining and escalating its war for independence in the Revolutionary War. This newly formed military, fighting alongside the Kingdom of France, triumphed over the British in the war, leading to its independence following the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. In 1789, the new Constitution made the U.S. president the commander-in-chief, and gave Congress the authority to declare war. Major conflicts involving the U.S. military include the American Revolutionary War, American Indian Wars, War of 1812, Mexican–American War, American Civil War, Spanish–American War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam War, Gulf War, War in Afghanistan, Iraq War, and the war against the Islamic State.

The history of the United States Army began in 1775. The Army's main responsibility has been in fighting land battles and military occupation. The Corps of Engineers also has a major role in controlling rivers inside the United States. The Continental Army was founded in response to a need for professional soldiers in the American Revolutionary War to fight the invading British Army. Until the 1940s, the Army was relatively small in peacetime. In 1947, the Air Force became completely independent of the Army Air Forces. The Army was under the control of the War Department until 1947, and since then the Defense Department. The U.S. Army fought the Indian Wars of the 1790s, the War of 1812 (1812–15), Mexican–American War (1846–48), American Civil War (1861–65), American Indian Wars (ended 1890), Spanish–American War (1898), World War I (1917–18), World War II (1941–45), Korean War (1950–53) and Vietnam War (1965–71). Following the Cold War's end in 1991, Army has focused primarily on Western Asia, and also took part in the 1991 Gulf War and war in Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan.

When the American Revolutionary War began in April 1775, the colonial revolutionaries did not have an army. Previously, each colony had relied upon the militia, made up of part-time civilian-soldiers. The initial orders from Congress authorized ten companies of riflemen and one field artillery battery. The first full regiment of Regular Army infantry, the 3rd Infantry Regiment, was not formed until June 1784. After the war, the Continental Army was quickly disbanded because of the American distrust of standing armies, and irregular state militias became the new nation's sole ground army, with the exception of a regiment to guard the Western Frontier and one battery of artillery guarding West Point's arsenal.