The Assault on American Indian Life and Culture
Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Describe the methods that the U.S. government used to address the “Indian problem” during the settlement of the West
- Explain the United States policy of Americanization as it applied to Native peoples in the nineteenth century
As American settlers pushed westward, they inevitably came into conflict with Native tribes that had long been living on the land. Although the threat of attacks was quite slim and nowhere proportionate to the number of U.S. Army actions directed against them, the occasional attack—often one of retaliation—was enough to fuel popular fear of Native peoples. The clashes, when they happened, were indeed brutal, although most of the brutality occurred at the hands of the settlers. Ultimately, the settlers, with the support of local militias and, later, with the federal government behind them, sought to eliminate the tribes from the lands they desired. This effort ultimately succeeded despite some Native military victories, and fundamentally changed the American Indian way of life.
