Pan-Indian Movement

The appearance of European settlers in North America altered the fate of indigenous peoples permanently. It is fair to characterize the white incursion into Indian territories as a species of internal colonialism. However, the internal dynamics of the indigenous peoples can also be implicated in the success of the Europeans in dispossessing the Indians of their lands and socially marginalizing them. Evidence for how that came about can be seen in the recurrence of mostly failed efforts at constructing pan-Indian unity movements.

Pan-Indian unity was a dynamic of reaction and response to the Indian experience of encounters with whites. It seems to have become very clear very quickly that whites intended to displace Indians rather than attempt to coexist with them or fully integrate their cultures. Martin cites missionary accounts of sentiment among the Delaware people as early as 1751 of resentment toward whites and a sense that they were being pushed aside. The pattern of white behavior was to use ru

. . .
ote among all Indians cooperation and anticolonial militancy." Bellinger characterizes Tenskwatawa as the visionary and Tecumseh as the political and military organizer who was able to attract indigenous peoples "stretching from the Great Lakes to Alabama." Edmunds says that Tecumseh was secondary to Tenskwatawa, the real visionary, but that Tecumseh gradually became the more visible symbol of pan-Indian unity because his focus was political and military, not religious. He also was a vocal critic of "older chiefs who signed away tribal territory," labeling their actions a "whiskey treaty." Tecumseh did not shrink from military engagements even after William Harrison's army successfully attacked his village at Tippecanoe in 1811 while he was in the South. There was, however, some loss of prestige for Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh. According to Calloway, Tecumseh sought to reclaim Indian options by siding with the British against the Americans in the War of 1812, but the British were "distracted by [] involvement in European resistance to Napoleon." Being on the losing side of the War of 1812 does not seem to have discouraged Tecumseh, who fell in battle in 1813 at the Battle of the Thames in Ontario. With him died "the last hope of
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Some common words found in the essay are:
North America, Civil War, Knee Briefly, Indian Affairs, Seven War, Handsome Lake, Ghost Dance, Increasingly American, Edmunds Tecumseh, Dawes Act, indigenous peoples, pan-indian unity, indian peoples, north america, war 1812, white settlement, civil war, indian history 2nd, 2nd ed, boston beford/st, history 2nd, american indian history, history 2nd ed, documentary survey american, beford/st martin's 2004,
Approximate Word count = 2002
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)

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