Talk:American Indian Wars/Archive 2

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Requested move 14 May 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: no consensus to move the page at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 12:56, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

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American Indian Wars → Indian Wars – Per WP:CommonName and WP:Concise. Indian Wars already redirects here. Rreagan007 (talk) 05:53, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose Indian means India. No one outside US would understand if this title was obscured. In ictu oculi (talk) 06:51, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

That's a factually incorrect statement on both counts. "Indian" has more than one meaning, and most English speakers are well aware of its centuries-old usage to refer to the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Rreagan007 (talk) 07:04, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose good faith nom per In ictu oculi. Indian directs to the disambig page which includes India as a top primary. A bit tangential, but per Indian food, which would probably be most often thought of as the cuisine of India, not the food of the Native Americans, and Indian culture, which redirects to Culture of India. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:01, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose The commonly accepted term is American Indian Wars, not simply Indian Wars. The use of the word Indian in this context is already controversial enough for its political incorrectness; it is used simply because that is what the wars have been called historically, and it's the historical use that we want to maintain. American Indian Wars is what it should remain. —Dilidor (talk) 13:34, 14 May 2018 (UTC)
• Support. Absolutely the common name and does already redirect here as stated, so I see little point in the extra word. I'm English, incidentally, so the comment "No one outside US would understand" is certainly incorrect. How many of us in the English-speaking world haven't grown up watching westerns? -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:52, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Population - disease.

I'm not sure that I understand what this sentence is supposed to mean:

"It was popularly believed and widely claimed for many years that the main cause was infectious diseases carried by European explorers and traders".

As far as I know (and I've investigated a lot) the unfortunate Indians simply suffered from wave after wave of infectious diseases such as smallpox, measles, polio, cholera etc etc to which they had far less resistance than Europeans who had first inadvertently carried those diseases to the New World.

Such epidemics spread quite naturally from person to person, and simply eroded the native population over an extended period of time.

Lots of colonists died during these epidemics of disease too, just far fewer of them.

Indian deaths in the Indian Wars were on average just 300 a year. The Indian birth rate by contrast would have been many, many times that number. These war deaths alone would not, could not, have had any measureable impact on population.

Suggestions of genocide appear to be no more than a modern liberal myth to explain a tragic, but almost wholly natural, population crash.

Although it often claimed that colonists intentionally infected Indians with disease there would appear to be only one single recorded, and thus verifiable, instance of such an attempt.

Cassandra. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.210.210.18 (talk) 14:45, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

agreed so I changed it. The citation footnote 56 states: Smallpox was particularly successful in virgin populations. The Spanish inadvertently owe much of their success in conquering the Aztecs and Incas in Mexico in the 16th century to smallpox. Unlike the Spanish, the native Indians had no immunity to the disease, having never encountered it before. It wiped out huge numbers of them. A century later the North American Indians suffered a similar devastation. In the 18th century smallpox decimated the aborigines when it reached Australia, the last corner of the world to have escaped its ravages. Rjensen (talk) 19:20, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

"Suggestions of genocide appear to be no more than a modern liberal myth to explain a tragic, but almost wholly natural, population crash." - The existence of disease-related deaths doesn't wash away the topic of genocide from the discussion - it's not a dichotomy. The two can and often do exist in tandem. That said - explain the aptly-named "California Genocide" (wonder if you'll edit this page, as well) to me - or is that a "Liberal myth" as well? I suppose ANYTHING can be labeled a 'Liberal myth' if you use such broad explanations for a range of extremely contextual events, over a rather broad timeline. You explaining the entire history of the "Indian Wars" and the interactions between the white settlers and the Native Americans, and the resultant population drop, SOLELY up to disease is a little hard to swallow. You mean to tell me in the entirety of this vast history no attempts to wipe out an entire population from a geographic area were undertaken? THAT seems almost mythical to me.

"Although it often claimed that colonists intentionally infected Indians with disease there would appear to be only one single recorded, and thus verifiable, instance of such an attempt." - If there's one verifiable incident, then the sentence "colonists intentionally infected Indians with disease" is technically true, isn't it? Though of course it's contextual. Even so, I don't see how what "is often claimed" factors into a discussion on a wiki page in THIS context. I can't help but feel that you're here to cause trouble, and to force your views on the wiki page in order to be misleading - I can't help but feel that way, because I'm likely correct in my assumption given your proclivity for using the term "liberal myth". However, I don't edit these pages, I don't have the experience editing in an impartial and standardized manner in keeping with Wikipedia's guidelines so I wont, instead I know that eventually cooler, more academically-viable heads will prevail and reverse whatever information you've erroneously altered, if my assumptions are correct. 2601:87:4400:AF2:84D7:679C:1DA0:C7F6 (talk) 11:27, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

The causes of the decline in Native American populations are complicated. There were incidents such as the Apalachee massacre, but much of the cause of that was the desire of the English in the Province of Carolina to drive the Spanish out of Florida, rather than a desire to exterminate Native Americans. Despite such incidents, however, disease was the primary cause of population decline among Native Americans. Well before the English and their Indian allies began raiding the Spanish missions in Florida, the populations of the various chiefdoms were declining, hit every few years by epidemics, not just of smallpox, but of measles, typhus and other diseases that were deadly to Native Americans. In one telling episode, in the early 18th century, 270 Native Americans were evacuated from southern Florida to Cuba. More than 200 of them died of various diseases within a few months. = Donald Albury 18:01, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

What Canadian Indian Wars?

I noticed that this article has a lead section that starts off by mentioning "Canadian Indian Wars" and Canada several times, but then fails to provide any examples of Canadian Indian Wars in the body.

The sole battle mentioned as an aside in the article is the Fraser Canyon War which was an incident between the Nlaka'pamux people and American and European gold miners in the Colony of British Columbia in 1858. It came to a sudden halt when the BC governor and British troops showed up and enforced British law on the miners. Other than that, I can find a limited number of conflicts in the literature.

In Canada, the experience of the First Nations (as we like to call them) was quite different than in the United States. The main divergence came with the Royal Proclamation of 1763 by King George III, also known as the Indian Magna Carta. It forbade the taking of First Nations land without without negotiating a treaty with them and paying compensation for it. It was one of the causes of the American Revolution, since residents of the Thirteen Colonies wanted to take over Indian land without negotiation or compensation.

In the United States the Royal Proclamation of 1763 ended with the American Revolutionary War, and American colonists proceeded to seize Indian land without payment, but this continued to be illegal in the rest of British North America (now Canada). The result was much more conflict between settlers and Indians on the American side of the borders.

There were the Red River Rebellion of 1869 and the North-West Rebellion of 1885, but these were between the Métis in Canada and the newly created Canadian government. The Métis were mixed race European/Native Indian people who had the problem that they had no historical land rights and were just squatting on public land. They were generally French-speaking and Catholic. The First Nations generally did not support them and all except a few tribes stayed out of the conflicts.

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 is now entrenched in the Constitution of Canada so it is not something a Canadian government can override with a simple legal statute. The BC government largely ignored the Royal Proclamation at the time it joined Canada, but that is going to cost them billions of dollars since the Supreme Court has ruled that they now have to sign treaties with all the First Nations they didn't sign treaties with 100 years ago, and pay them current market value for their land.

After its creation in 1867, the Government of Canada followed a policy of signing treaties with all the First Nations tribes in the lands it was opening up for development (excluding most of BC). These were the Numbered Treaties of 1871 to 1921 (Treaties 1 through 11). These covered much of Canada and eliminated the prospect of Indian Wars in their areas, since the First Nations hold them sacred and celebrate the signing of them.

The First Nations tribes in Western Canada used to call the 49th parallel north the "Medicine line" because during the numerous American Indian Wars, the US Cavalry would not follow them across it and thus they were safe from US laws and prosecution. The term is still used in Western North America, especially by people who cross the border frequently.

But basically, I think we need to remove these references to "Canadian Indian wars" from the lead to the article, either that or add a section detailing why there were so few Indian Wars in Canada.

If the "Canadian Indian Wars" include the Indigenous people who fought that were inside present-day Canada, then the Canadian Indian wars would include numerous wars that happened in the Maritimes such as King William's War, Queen Anne's War, Father Rale's War, King George's War, Father Le Loutre's War and the French and Indian War - all of which are mentioned in the article.--Hantsheroes (talk) 01:13, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Those weren't fights between the Canadian side and the Indian side, all those wars were fights between England and France for control of Canada and Acadia, with various Indian tribes lining up on one side or the other. The Iroquois, Catawba, and Cherokee lined up on the English side, and the Mi'kmaq, Algonquin, Lenape, Ojibwa, Ottawa, Shawnee, and Wyandot lined up on the French side. After the English Conquest of Canada in 1760, and the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which preserved their land rights, those Indians who had fought on the French side mostly went over to the English side in the American Revolution of 1776. In the War of 1812 it was the American side versus the English side, with almost all the Indians fighting on the English side. RockyMtnGuy (talk) 21:34, 27 January 2018 (UTC)

In the case of the Mi'kmaq, some historians are now considering the Mi'kmaq to be more than simply mercenaries for the French. The Mi'kmaq never signed their homeland over to the French through treaties. Instead, according to this view, the Mi'kmaq fought in tandem with the French to protect their homeland Mi'kma'ki and way of life from British/ protestant invasion. The Mi'kmaq fought for themselves, albeit with French ammunition. Presumably, the wars before the Halifax Treaties (1760) could be considered both imperial wars as well as Indian Wars. From this perspective, I'm not sure how the Mi'kmaq aligning themselves with the British after the Halifax Treaties of 1760 means the earlier conflicts were not Indian Wars.--Hantsheroes (talk) 09:43, 28 January 2018 (UTC)

the coverage of Canada remains minimal. Rjensen (talk) 17:00, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

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Needed Update

I want to avoid an edit war and not seem like a jerk. The terminology needs to be updated as to my prior edits to help improve the article. Using the term Indian or American Indian is offensive, and outdated. It's fine when those terms are used in a quotation or in a citation. Indian Wars is fine b/c that is the term for the wars that does not greenlight the use of calling tribes Indian tribes when the terms Native or Native American is the accepted terms used now. It helps sustain ignorance and again using the words Indian or American Indian when they are not used in an old quotation is not respectful in any regard. It's a reason the main article is called Native Americans in the United States.Mcelite (talk) 19:47, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Per these discussions: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America#Use of the term "Indian" and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America#Terminology, I do not believe that there is any consensus to avoid the term "American Indian" in all contexts, and especially in historic contexts. - Donald Albury 21:28, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

See also WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS.--Moxy (talk) 21:38, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Again I have no issue with Indian Wars or American Indian Wars. That's what they were called it is what it is. However, is casual context updated terminology should be applied not historic context so if we're taking a quote from Fredrick Douglas or Abraham Lincoln fine of course we shouldn't change that. However this issues is no different then if someone wanted to back track, and change all the terminology in African American to Negro I promise you all of it would be reversed, and considered offensive. American Indian/Indian used outside of historical context is the same as using Negro outside a historical context.Mcelite (talk) 00:46, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

As a Kanien'kehá:ka I have to say that is a bit of a streach to compare the two. There are no Negro reserves or Nero treaties or a history of self use.--Moxy (talk) 01:37, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

I don't think most American Indians in the U.S. find the term "Indian" to be offensive. I don't. All in all, I prefer the terms "Indian" or "American Indian" to the made-up (by the U.S. government) term "Native American."

It is confusing for a non-American, say someone from Kenya, reading a wikipedia article about "Native Americans' who suddenly encounters the word "Indian" and is confused: "Who are the Indians,?" he might ask. How do they relate to Native Americans? My solution in several articles has been to use both terms in the introductory paragraph, with a formulation such as "The ----- are a Native American (American Indian) people" and to use the terms "Native American" and "Indian" in the article as the context seems to dictate.

My preference would be to abandon the term "Native American." However, Wikipedia prefers "Native American". The last holdout for those of us who prefer the term "Indian," seems to be the article "Plains Indians" which has been proposed many times to be given the execrable title of "Native Americans of the Great Plains" or something similar. "Indian" has some romantic and literary associations. "Native American" is a moist towelette of a term.Smallchief (talk) 02:04, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Don't forget "Paleo-Indians". "Paleo-Native Americans" has the problem that they really predated the introduction of the name "America". - Donald Albury 03:05, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

@Moxy It's not a bit of a stretch if roles were reversed, and Africans were here and experienced the same thing being forced onto reservations those reservations would have been called Negro reservations. It's not different.

@Smallchief Indian and American Indian was made up by the government as well. If you're concern is confusion well then ignorance is cured by introduction and learning not continuing ignorance because the term is "old" or "preferred" and yes I am very aware of how "Indian" has some romantic associations that still doesn't make it okay for casual use. I'm not talking about the entire' removal of Indian or American Indian especially if we are quoting someone, or if that is the title of documentation. However, change needs to occur for the better and not the continuation of ignorance especially by using a terminology that is outdated, and yes it is considered offensive and insensitive especially by younger educated generations that know better.Mcelite (talk) 03:48, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

I would suggest that it is not persuasive to use the word "ignorant" (multiple times) out of pique at what is supposed to be polite discourse. I disagree with you. Get over it. Smallchief (talk) 08:39, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, and note that the standard scholarly multivolume history is the Handbook of North American Indians published by the Smithsonian. Everyone uses it and scores of scholars wrote chapters. in its tables of content (chapter titles), "Indian" is about 20x more frequent than "Native American." Rjensen (talk) 09:54, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

• It is not my experience that US Native Americas are offended by the term "American Indian" Some even prefer it (for example Russell Means), and it is very frequently used in academic publications.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:18, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

The term Indian was not "invented by the government". It is not a racial epithet, not some word intended to oppress or "keep people down" et cetera ad nauseum. It is simply the word that has been used for hundreds of years to describe the various tribes who inhabited the continent prior to European colonization. Within one generation, nearly everyone living on the continent was a native American simply because they were born in America. This article is about the American Indian Wars, and the simplest and clearest approach to its discussion is to use the historical term Indians to discuss one of the belligerents in those wars. It is always best to use words with precision; "native American" is imprecise. —Dilidor (talk) 11:38, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

@·maunus It can be interpreted as generational the old generation has basically been used to it or have no opinion on it.

@Smallchief That's fine I disagree with you also, but I'll apologize if I can across as harsh.

Yes Indians is a historical term like I said I'm not looking for quotes from people or literature to be changed at all. I am very familiar with Russell Means' viewpoint. A change still needs to be made to be aware of the reality that Indian is a historical term that shouldn't be used casually unless necessary. I feel a minor compromise to use American Indian sometimes in this article, and removing Indian that is used casually completely i.e. "Indian tribes that lived in the great plains" to "American Indian tribes that lived in the great plains". I really want to help improve this and that can be done.Mcelite (talk) 02:31, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

No, it really can't be interpreted as generational - as exemplified for example by the title of this recent book by a youg Chickasaw scholar.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 09:57, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

I believe a compromise can be made. I'm not looking for the phrase American Indian Wars to be removed at all. However, I believe Indian alone should be replaced with American Indian and Native American interchangeably to improve the article. I believe that at least can be done.Mcelite (talk) 23:24, 13 December 2018 (UTC)

Please just go with consistency. It's used throughout the article consistently and with as much accuracy as the term will permit. Switching to and fro among numerous phrases will only bring confusion into what is reasonably clear and straightforward at present. —Dilidor (talk) 13:48, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

I think it is a serious mistake to believe that "Indian" is only a historical term, the way "Negro" is. "Indian" is used in a favorable sense in 21st century by government officials, scholars, reference books, the general public, and the designated people use it too. Rjensen (talk) 13:58, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

Section Belligerents on the top of the article

Is this part neutral, serious and complete? Where the french colonial people never making allies with the natives? Where the english canadian colonialist never making allies with the natives against other group of interestin the 16, 17 and 18 cth? Where to we find answers about this question? F.e.g. in the SEVEN YEARS WAR of 1754-63, the USA-REVOLUTION of 1763-83, or the Creek War of 1813-14, for sure in the USA-GB+Canada War of 1812-15 or look the book of Brian Delay, War of thousand deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.-mexican War. Yale University Press 2008. --178.197.225.206 (talk) 12:35, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it is complicated, going back to the 16th century; the Spanish supporting the Utina against the Potano, or the French stirring up the Guale against the Spanish, for example, but, even those cases in which natives were allied with white governments at some point rarely turned out well for the natives. Individual cases are covered in articles such as Westo and Creek War. The overwhelming trend was white-dominated governments fighting native entities, a very lopsided conflict. - Donald Albury 18:47, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

French and English Canadian colonials did not form alliances, that was done by officials of the French or English crowns. From 1755 to 1867, this was carried out by the British Indian Department. TFD (talk) 20:29, 14 December 2018 (UTC)

"American Indian" vs. "Indian"

The article originally used the term "Indian" throughout, introducing and defining it in the introduction as referring to the various American tribes. One editor has gone through and changed it to "American Indian" every single time the tribes are referred to. This becomes exceedingly clunky and repetitive and tiresome. My contention is that it was better before for simplicity and smooth reading. It only needs to be clarified once in the intro. —Dilidor (talk) 17:15, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you, and we have gone through arguments on the proper terms to use in this article before. Unless a consensus developes in discussion here to change the terminology, keep it as is. - Donald Albury 18:27, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

I only changed to be consistent as others have been doing and fixing in the other articles. It may seem repetitive but I was only trying to be consistent, and to also remove double plurals when Indians was not necessary. I am only trying to be constructive and consistent.Mcelite (talk) 18:31, 28 January 2019 (UTC)

No one is impugning your motives in any way. We are only trying to resolve a disagreement and reach a consensus. —Dilidor (talk) 16:19, 29 January 2019 (UTC)

The double plurals is at least one thing I see no reason as to why that can't be fixed. It seems like editors are being quiet now :/ not constructive at all.Mcelite (talk) 17:09, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

I am just thankful that the title of the article is not "Native American Wars." Smallchief (talk) 17:45, 13 October 2019 (UTC), a card-carrying Indian.

Changes to the Military Conflict Infobox

I would recommend that we list a few examples nested (indented) below the "American Indians" belligerent column, as well as using the Flag template to show a small icon of the flags of those tribes.

I would do this myself, but I am unfamiliar with how the template works. Mapmaker345 (talk) 18:50, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

California Republic?

Why is the so-called “California Republic” listed as a belligerent? It only lasted 25 days, and has only control over Sonoma, so not sure if they really had a chance to fight the Indians.

I agree with you. The "Osos" fought only one battle (a skirmish really) and that was against Mexican troops. The "Osos" themselves engaged in no hostilities toward Indians during those 25 days. Jeff in CA (talk) 19:51, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Indigenous viewpoint

This article is written from the point of view of the US settler/immigrant population. It would be good to include viewpoints of Indigenous Americans to conform to NPOV. I've added an warning to the top but it would be good to discuss it here. There are plenty of reliable sources for Indigenous viewpoints, they should be included. - Francis Tyers · 02:33, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

One example: Using the word "patriot" to refer to settlers. This is a POV term, perhaps it is widely used in US scholarship, but there are alternative terms that are used, e.g. "white settlers" or "colonists". - Francis Tyers · 02:41, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

By American patriots they mean patriots of the USA during the American Revolutionary war. The US is commonly called America hence the name. Referring to them as colonists or white settlers wouldn't make a differentiation between them and British loyalists. 2001:1970:564B:4700:C434:D3E7:4D55:4838 (talk) 03:22, 9 October 2020 (UTC)

The word 'patriot' is frequently misused in American history. When used in relation to the American Revolution it refers to a political group known as 'The Patriots'. As such it always needs a capital letter. The Patriots were not of course patriots in the normal sense but were at that time technically rebels and traitors advocating treason against their lawful government. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.12.217.179 (talk) 13:03, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Phrasing

"The federal policy of removal was eventually refined in the West, as American settlers kept expanding their territories, to relocate Indian tribes to specially designated and federally protected and subsidized reservations." sure is a strange way of putting the fact that indigenous peoples were massacred and pushed via the barrel of a gun (and extermination of food sources like bison) onto reservations of the least valuable/hospitable land they were forbidden to leave at penalty of death. I strongly insist that phrases like that be changed to reflect a more accurate, less whitewashed explanation of the situation.--PlanespotterA320 (talk) 00:55, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

I agree that the current wording is very sanitized and strange. And I am a stickler for neutral wording. That wording is troublesome.Jeff in CA (talk) 02:04, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

PlanespotterA320, receiving one comment that didn't like the neutrality of the earlier version is most certainly not consensus to add your even less neutral version that you haven't even mentioned in the conversation, and I think we both know you know that. I removed your addition without putting back in the version you objected to. Without explicit consensus for your new version, over a longer time period than the 12 hours you waited for a "discussion" to develop, I trust you'll stop trying to POV push it back in, yes? Egsan Bacon (talk) 20:41, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

"...the fact that indigenous peoples were massacred and pushed via the barrel of a gun (and extermination of food sources like bison) onto reservations of the least valuable/hospitable land they were forbidden to leave at penalty of death.." That sort of language is even more emotive and less NPOV than that which it criticises. Even if it were entirely true. Or even mostly true. But it isn't. The truth is very mixed. Over the 100 years from the 1790s to the 1890s the Indians killed around 200 Europeans per year on average and the Europeans killed around 300 Indians per year. Many treaties and relocations were excellent; for example the Cherokee got given six million dollars to relocate to a fine location further west. And I'm not sure that anyone ever got killed simply for the act of being 'off reservation'. Best to stick strictly to confirmed facts and NPOV language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.12.217.179 (talk) 13:26, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Effects on Indian Population Section Needs Major Changes

Reliance on census statistics from 1894 to hypothesize the number of Native people living in the Americas in 1492 is misguided and problematic, as is U.S. army reports from the wars as objective and truthful, especially considering the amount of available secondary scholarship, is problematic. Further, the Virgin soil hypothesis has recently been disproven by much scholarship (example). The Population history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas page has been changed, and this page should be changed as well. Leaving this message here before I make changes to explain them. --Hobomok (talk) 02:53, 12 April 2022 (UTC)

Indians

I really don't like how much this article (and many other articles) refers to Native Americans as Indians; it was used by heartless colonists who thought they were in India, the Native Americans are not Indians, they're an entirely different people. GOLDIEM J (talk) 12:53, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

I'm a card-carrying member of an Indian tribe and I prefer the word "Indian." I'm not at all insulted by the word Indian. I am mildly insulted by the made-up, confusing, and clumsy term "Native American."

The word "India" (of Latin origin) was originally applied to southern Asia from the Indus River east. Thus, the present-day country of India doesn't own the name -- even the Indus River is mostly in Pakistan, not India. If there's the possibility of confusion of the native people of the Americas with the people of India, you call the original inhabitants of the Americas "Amerindians" or "American Indians."Smallchief (talk) 16:59, 25 August 2021 (UTC)

With all due respect to your status and story, I struggled to even find this article because we don't use the word "Indian" the same way. I'd definitely save the title of this article for some fights between the US and the Indian subcontinent, and use the word Indigenous, or more specifically the word Indigene which is the individual unit form. Not much of a shift in word, still retains the "ind" sound. Something beyond using the same word Indian for vastly different populations. Foszae (talk) 01:27, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Indigenous, or “Indigene”, means someone indigenous to a place. Everyone is indigenous to somewhere. “Indigenous” in reference to a specific group of indigenous peoples actually does more harm than good when specificity is necessary. Many people native to what is now referred to as the United States have reclaimed “Indian,” or, as the user above you points out, “Amerindian” and “American Indian” are generally seen as acceptable. This page’s title is also the current historical reference used in secondary literature.—Hobomok (talk) 02:55, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Question on the of scope the article

So like... Is this is a periodization of Native American conflicts (similar in the sense to the Second Hundred Years' War) used in American historiography? Assuming that it is, my question would be, do historical academics in the United States include First Nations conflicts that occurred (exclusively) in Canada in this periodization? Cause as far as I'm aware, Canadian historical academics do not use a term like First Nations Wars in a manner that this article seems to be using it in (and this seems to be reflected through an admittingly cursory search for "First Nations Wars" on Google books, ngrams, scholars, and web search).

I mean, disregard this entire post if they do include exclusively Canadian-First Nations conflicts in that categorization... But if they don't, aren't we sorta erroneously applying terminology used exclusively for the United States to the larger continent (considering that Wikipedia is a reflection of what is written in WP:RS). Cause digging through the article history it sorta seems like the article's scope originally centred around the United States (as I assume that's how the periodization is used in scholarly writing), but an addition to the article made on August 2016 seemed to extend the scope of the article by adding Canada into the infobox, and from there the mentions of Canada and First Nations Wars was added into the lead of the article.

I mean, I'm not opposed to adding a section at the end of the article to discuss similar events that occurred in Canada (or at any point at all if my suspicions are incorect, cause than there is a geographical balance issue on this article), but if my suspicions are correct and this is the case with what I said above, the article sort of needs to be reworked to reflect how historians actually use this periodization. Leventio (talk) 07:26, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

So I just went ahead and removed the addition made in the August 2016 edit, seeing as how no one is responding to this, and no source has been presented that either shows the term is used in Canadian historiography in reference to their conflicts, or a source that shows American historical surveys include Canadian events when discussing "American Indian Wars". As alluded to earlier, the conflation and lumping in of another set of conflicts is amounting to WP:OR. Leventio (talk) 19:30, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Just a comment on this. While it mostly makes sense to separate US and Canadian wars with indigenous people, there are some times and places where things are not quite clear-cut. Like in the Pacific Northwest, where not only were indigenous cultural areas artificially split by the national border in the 1840s (and late 1860s for Alaska becoming US territory), but also where some of the conflicts were largely caused and fought by Americans—the Fraser Canyon War being perhaps the clearest example, already mentioned on this page. The smallpox epidemic (arguably biological warfare) and the Chilcotin War may be more "Canadian" than "US" from the settler perspective, but are closely tied to the Fraser Canyon War, the huge numbers of US prospectors in BC at the time, and had a massive effect on PNW indigenous peoples from Oregon to Alaska. So I just added a blurb about it, well sourced. Just wanted to say that while I get the desire to split things into US and Canada, as many historians do, in these particular cases it was kinda both (and Russian Alaska as well). Dividing the indigenous cultural region with an imposed international boundary risks imposing an outside "settler" perspective on what was, and still is in many ways, especially to indigenous people, a cohesive cultural region. Finally, while some "settler" histories, especially older ones, tend to look at just the US or Canada, many indigenous territories in the PNW, such as those of the Haida and Tlingit, are divided between the US and Canada. PNW indigenous histories often focus on the whole region, even though after about 1860 the US and the Colony of British Columbia imposed themselves on indigenous people in slightly different ways. Indigenous-focused histories of the PNW tend to look at the binational indigenous cultural region as a whole, especially in more recent decades with the growth of historiographical approaches that seek to actually take indigenous perspectives into account. It is, after all, a distinct cultural region that is about equally split between the US and Canada. Thus is it at best tricky to separate into US and Canadian portions, at worst insulting to the indigenous people of the region. Pfly (talk) 05:16, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

That's fine. I understand the overlapping nature of the topic, which was why I said I wasn't opposed to expanding the article to discuss Canadian involvement in US events; as well as creating a section that compared and contrasted the American experience with the Canadian and Mexican experience (with Canadian and Mexican events and moreso policy often being brought up in papers on the American Indian Wars in a comparative manner). There exist sources that look into the contrasting American/Canadian/Mexican experiences as well as the execution of policies, so that is something I wouldn't be opposed to including (as it is a reflection of existing discussions in WP:RS).

My key issue was really just removing the WP:OR in relation to topic scope, and ensuring the overall definition of the term remains accurate to how it is actually used in the scholarship. This was the case in this article, until said 2016 edit led to the conflation of the term to mean an umbrella term for all North American Indigenous conflicts (which is not at all how the term is used). Leventio (talk) 06:38, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Cool, and thanks for your work on this page. I had forgotten what it used to be like. Pfly (talk) 15:45, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

Should Canada have its own article regarding First Nations conflicts?

Since all edits regarding Canada are removed, should a separate article be created in regards to the Canadian First Nations conflicts? SpinnerLaserzthe2nd (talk) 04:31, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

I certainly would support its creation! There's enough written about the topic to create an article like Indigenous military history in Canada or Indigenous conflicts in Canada Indigenous armed resistances in Canada (said article title may need to be workshopped, not sure if armed needs to be specified, but it is open enough to provide discussion on both historic and contemporary resistances).

That said, WT:MILHIST or WP:CANTALK may be better venues to find additional editors to support its creation. Leventio (talk) 04:57, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Well here you go Draft:Canadian Indigenous conflicts SpinnerLaserzthe2nd (talk) 05:23, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Great start! I can help with expanding the article, unless you prefer to work on the initial draft yourself before submission. Leventio (talk) 05:26, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Flag icons in the infobox

There are currently 59 flag icons in the infobox, which seems quite excessive to me. A few flag icons seem to be tied to Canada only, and should be removed if the focus of this article is to stay only on the U.S. The same may apply to Mexico. I also question why we need the same Spanish flag used 9 times, and the same French flag used 8 times. Six Spanish kings and five French kings are listed as commanders or leaders, each with a flag icon, although none of them ever set foot in the new world. By the logic that seems to justify that, we would have to list every U.S. president through Calvin Coolidge, and every English/British monarch from Elisabeth I through George III. Why do we need the First French Empire, the Kingdom of France, and New France all listed with the same flag icon? Why do we need the Spanish Empire, the Council of the Indies, and the Viceroyalty of New Spain all listed with the same flag icon? Do we need both the Dutch Empire and New Netherland, or the Swedish Empire and New Sweden listed with duplicate flag icons? Are conflicts with natives in the Virgin Islands (the Danish Empire and Christian IX) or Alaska (the Russian Empire, Russian America, and Alexander II) described in reliable sources as part of the American Indian Wars? Donald Albury 14:32, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

I’m not even convinced all the flag usage on the Amerindian side is accurate. Tvx1 20:54, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, some of those files were uploaded by WP users who claimed to have created them, with no indication of any underlying source. Others may be anachronistic, adopted by tribes or Native American organizations after the period covered by this article. Those need to be discussed individually, and are not part of the problem of overuse of flag icons that I am talking about. Donald Albury 13:10, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

Can anyone justify why the Danish Empire is listed in the infobox? Neither the Danish Empire nor Denmark are mentioned in the text of the article. By the time Danes settled in the Virgin Islands, it looks like those islands were unpopulated, so there were no conflicts betweem Danes and Indians there. Greenland is completely out of the scope of this article. - Donald Albury 16:40, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

Same question about Vermont. Vermont is not mentioned in the text of the article. Is there any record of conflict between indigenous peoples and the State of Vermont between 1777, when Vermont declared its independence, and 1791, when Vermont was admitted as a state to the United States? Even during that period, Vermont had no international recognition, and its territory was recognized as part of the United States by the Treaty of Paris (1783), so I would question it being listed - Donald Albury 17:04, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

According to this article, the flag shown as Lakota is actually for the Oglala, one of the seven Lakota sub-tribes. It was first flown in 1961 and officially adopted in 1962. It is a very nice flag but it is anachronistic and does not belong in this article. On the broader issue, I favor a dramatic reduction in the number of flag icons. Cullen328 (talk) 17:21, 31 May 2023 (UTC)

I have now removed all entities from the infobox that are not mentioned in the article text. I also removed the Pine Ridge Flag images, as that flag was created c. 1960, and is not appropriate for representing 19th century leaders. That leaves 11 flag icons in the Infobox, which I feel is reasonable. I strongly feel that we should not have tribes, countries or people listed in the infobox if they are not mentioned at all in the article. If content about an entity is added to the text, then it may be appropriate to add them to the infobox. I am uncertain about listing New France, New Spain, and Mexico as belligerants in the infobox, as I am not clear on the relevance of conflicts between those political units and Native Americans to the topic of this article, which is, as it understand it, about conflicts between Native Americans and the United States, including it predecessors. - Donald Albury 12:24, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

The flags linger on in the List of Indian Wars linked by this article. I'm also still a bit curious about the 1924 end date, which was rejected earlier on this talk page but seems to have reappeared in the article itself. Also, is there a reason Comanche is broken out by a line in the infobox? Content might have accidentally been removed when the flags were taken out, as the list of tribal groups seems sparse to me. Intothatdarkness 14:41, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

That line above Comanche is an artifact of an edit; I didn't change an "hr" to a "br". I removed entities that were not mentioned in the article text, but I did not add any that are covered in the article text but not on the list. For instance, I left Miami people in the list, even though the only mention of that tribe is in parenthesis after the mention of Little Turtle as one of the leaders in the Northwest Indian War (who also is mentioned only that once in the article). On the other hand, there are many tribes mentioned in the text that have not been listed in the infobox. I think it is worth discussing which specific conflicts, tribes, and leaders should be included in the article, and which are significant enough to then be included in the infobox. Covering four centuries of conflicts across all of what is now part of the United States means that many, if not most, will not receive significant coverage in this article. I am also not sure that "military conflict" is the best infobox for this topic, at least, not in the way it has been used, so far. Donald Albury 16:56, 2 June 2023 (UTC)

Thoughts on list of belligerents in infobox

There has been a question (see above) about which Native American tribes/peoples should be listed as belligerants in the infobox. One possible source for beginning to build that list is the U.S. Army's designation of 14 Indian War Campaigns covering the period from 1790 until 1891. The tribes/people for whom campaigns are named include Miamis, Creeks, Seminoles, Comanches, Modocs, Apaches, Nez Perces, Bannocks, Cheyennes, and Utes. Other campaigns are named Tippecanoe, in which Shawnee are mentioned, Black Hawk, in which Sauk and Fox are mentioned, Little Big Horn, in which Souix and Cheyenne are mentioned, and Pine Ridge, in which Lakota are mentioned. These are the belligerants that the Army considers important, but ignores conflicts before the formation of the U.S. Six of these tribes/peoples are currently on the list in the infobox, while two in the infobox are not listed by the Army. What criteria and sources should we use to add or remove tribes/peoples on the list? We need for the list to be representative, but not too long. Donald Albury 19:00, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Re-addition of Swedish flag to infobox

One month ago I removed an excessive number of flag icons from the infobox, per the guidance at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Icons. In particular I removed the flagicon for Sweden because that country is not mentioned in the article. Yesterday, SpinnerLaserzthe2nd added the Swedish flagicon to the article and I reverted that edit. Today, SpinnerLaserzthe2nd reverted my edit, restoring the Swedish flagicon without discussion, even though there is still no mention of Sweden in the article. I think that the Swedish flagicon should be removed from the infobox, but I wiil not edit war over it. Donald Albury 00:56, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

I tried to find any mentions of incidents involving Sweden through sources but the only mention I ever found is that Sweden had good relations with the Native population. SpinnerLaserzthe2nd (talk) 01:26, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

Counting of casualties

The article as is cites a single source for about 1,000 casualties for the United States. The source only includes conflicts from 1817 to 1898, while the scope of the article covers conflicts from the 17th century to early 20th century.

I’m sure there are many casualty lists for the individual conflicts on Wikipedia itself, so perhaps there should be an effort to reach a realistic total that encompasses the entire scope of the article.

This oversight makes the casualties for settler nations appear dubiously low while not listing casualties for any indigenous nations. For now I have merely denoted the range of time available in the source for the U.S.A.’s casualties. CarpinchoCamayuc (talk) 15:21, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

See Second Seminole War#Costs for some figures on the longest and most costly of the "Indian Wars" fought by the United States. Sources for deaths vary, and may or may not count deaths from diseases together with killed-in-action. In general, cumulative numbers were not kept for either "Seminoles" or white civilians killed in that war. Trying to piece together a death count from many sources of varying quantity sounds like original research, which we cannot use in articles. Donald Albury 15:59, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply.

If the sources vary far too much and there is no source that encompasses the casualties of the entire American Indian Wars, then perhaps that casualty count should not be included whatsoever until there is a verifiable source which offers numbers for the entirety of the conflicts. Otherwise it would seem more appropriate to cover them on an individual scale on their respective articles. CarpinchoCamayuc (talk) 18:49, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Yeah, it can be very hard to distill something that is very vague and poorly, if at all, sourced, into a "fact" that fits in a slot in an infobox. Most of what we know about the "Indian Wars" comes to us in accounts by Europeans and Euro-Americans. As has been said elsewhere, history is written by the victors. Even numbers for regular US Army soldiers killed can be problematic, and numbers for White irregulars and for Indigenous people even more so, especially as we go back in history. If we find a reliable source that states an estimate of numbers killed, we can use it, but I suspect we will often find that even reliable sources differ on such estimates. Donald Albury 20:34, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

"then perhaps that casualty count should not be included whatsoever until there is a verifiable source which offers numbers for the entirety of the conflicts. Otherwise it would seem more appropriate to cover them on an individual scale on their respective articles."

I don't think removing verifiable infomation is right, there is rarely ever going to be a perfect accounting of all casualities. And the stats we have so far, gives readers a fair estimate of the scale of the wars. 80.195.3.151 (talk) 06:13, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

And now I found an article in The Annals of Applied Statistics, which looks like it is a reliable source, that estimates the number of casualties in what it calls the "American Indian War", from 1778 to around 1890, at 12,000 for U.S. forces and 60,000 for Native Americans. I think this is worth including in the article, but would welcome discussion of where and how to incorporate it. - Donald Albury 20:37, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

The only quibble I'd have (and since I can't see the article I can't confirm if the author included this or not) is the possible lack of inclusion of civilian casualties (both White and Hispanic when you look at the border regions). The language "forces" as opposed to "Native Americans" suggests he didn't. And the number of soldiers killed can actually be estimated with some precision (at least during the post-Civil War period) for part of the Army based on published sources. If Gillespie's information is included, I'd suggest noting it as a statistical estimate and not a hard number. Intothatdarkness 21:37, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

I was able to download the article with no problem. It presents an argument that the number of deaths in battles in the American Indian Wars follow a power law, and then develops an estimate of combatant deaths using Bayesian statistics. (Note: It has been 50 years since I studied statistics in grad school, and I don't remember learning about Bayesian statistics, so I cannot vouch for the efficacy of the use of that method in this study.) From what I have seen reliable sources for deaths are fairly robust (but not perfect) for US military forces, and poor for Indian combatants and non-combatants, both white and Indian. The author notes that rounding errors are probably higher for reported Indian deaths than for US Forces, which created more uncertainty in the estimate of the number of Indian deaths. Donald Albury 23:52, 2 September 2023 (UTC)

Like I said, I agree it could be added somewhere provided the limitations were noted. Presenting it as a factual number would be in my view problematic. Intothatdarkness 15:21, 3 September 2023 (UTC)

References

Re-adding of flag icons

Korg82Champ74 (talk · contribs) has restored many of the flag icons I removed after the discussion in the section "Flag icons in the infobox" above. I feel that those flagicons are excessive, and violate the guidance at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Icons#Inappropriate use. I have invited Korg82Champ74 to discuss this here. Donald Albury 15:34, 5 August 2023 (UTC)