American Indian Tribes in the Civil War

INVOLVEMENT OF AMERICAN INDIANS IN THE CIVIL WAR

This research paper discusses various aspects of the involvement of American Indian tribes in the Civil War, including their reasons for becoming enmeshed in that conflict, their experiences and treatment during the war and the significance of their involvement on their subsequent history. Indians did not play an important role in the outcome of the war; however, the war served to further weaken their position and hastened their virtual extermination and decline. Thousands of Indians became engulfed in the war as combatants and many thousands more as innocent targets and refugees, especially in the conflict which raged west of the Mississippi in and around the Indian Territory now known as the State of Oklahoma. The War intensified internecine struggles within and among a number of Indian tribes. Indians were involved on both sides, but, regardless of which side they supported or how well or poorly they behaved, they ended up being losers. The victory of the industrialized North undoubtedly accelerated the conquest, colonization and settlement of the West which completed their subjugation and humiliation.

By the time the Civil War erupted in the spring of 1861, only relatively small remnants of the once large Indian tribes which had populated the United States east of the Mississippi remained. The Indians lacked foreign allies after the defeat of the French by the British in the French and Indian War, the colonis

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says, "flourished" in the 1840s and 1850s in the Indian Territories. In fact, the Cherokees had little choice, Abel says, being "between the upper and nether mill-stones, . . . [from which] there was no escape." The treaties were largely the handiwork of Confederate agent and soldier, Brig. General Albert Pike, and a Georgia-born Cherokee and slaveholder Stand Watie, then a Colonel, who rose to become a Brig. General in the Confederate Army. Watie led mixed Indian cavalry and other forces throughout the war in the Trans-Mississippi. Watie's 2,000 man Indian Brigade fought effectively at the Battle of Pea Ridge or Elkhorn Tavern in March 7-9, 1862 near the Arkansas-Missouri border, which the Confederates lost. The Indians mutilated white northern corpses during that battle, --i.e. took scalps, which led to outcries about their use in the North. As to their overall military effectiveness, Foote says they were better on the attack than in fixed defensive positions because of their fear of Yankee artillery. Thereafter, Indian troops were used largely as scouts and as guerrillas harassing Union supply lines. In 1864, Watie pulled off a coup by capturing intact a Union supply boat on the Arkansas River. The Confederate effort in th

Category: History - A