Mapping how the U.S. forcibly took Indigenous lands
Not long after the Great American Experiment began, the newly established nation set its sights west. Here's how a series of conflicts, forged treaties, and forced migration led to the loss of a majority of Indigenous lands.
For the citizens of the newly established United States, the vast territory of North America (and the land of plenty it represented) seemed theirs for the taking. But these lands, some of the richest on Earth, had already been settled and stewarded for thousands of years by Indigenous peoples. Though their numbers had already dwindled due to new diseases and conflict with settlers, in 1776 approximately 250,000 Indigenous people still lived within the territory delimited by the current borders of the U.S. The young nation, however, was intent on expansion—and set its sights on Indigenous land. Over the years, tribal interests and sovereignty would be trampled time and time again. Although land loss is the most visible consequence of dispossession, Indigenous customs, culture, and language (all firmly rooted in the land) were also under attack.
1775-1819 In 1775, most of the United States was still Indigenous land; however, even George Washington acknowledged that it would require a “great wall” to restrain European settlers from encroaching on Indigenous territory. Over 200 years of land transfers (in which lands previously inhabited by Indigenous people became official property of non-Indigenous people), the Indigenous population was gradually confined to small areas within the U.S.
1820-1864 By 1820, settlers had moved well into the Midwest, displacing Indigenous inhabitants through conflict or the simple pressure of their presence. By 1834, the frontier reached as far as Kansas. In one astonishing 14-year period, starting in 1850 and motivated by mid-century gold finds, nearly the entire west coast of the United States transferred from Indigenous to U.S. hands. The only state still almost entirely unscathed was New Mexico.
Armed struggles began well before the American Revolution. The tribes that fought alongside the British lost huge swaths of territory when the 1783 Treaty of Paris ceded land to the U.S., despite the document including no mention of the Indigenous people who would be displaced. As Yale historian and member of the Te-Moak Western Shoshone tribe Ned Blackhawk writes, the Revolution “was not a beginning. Nor was it an end, as its aftermath brought no semblance of peace.” Further battles and violent expropriation were ahead. These conflicts, spanning over 300 years, are now referred to under the umbrella of the American Indian Wars.
Although tribes fought to defend their ancestral lands, they were increasingly forced to sell or cede them, forging treaties that were broken more often than not. After the War of 1812, the British abandoned their Indigenous allies once again, resulting in further expropriation. The 1830 Indian Removal Act enabled the U.S. to trade some of its unsettled western lands for settled Indigenous land east of the Mississippi, forcing tens of thousands of Indigenous people to leave their homes and condemning both those who complied and those who resisted to the forced displacement now known as the Trail of Tears, during which many died of exposure.
1865-1894 At the end of the Civil War, 20,000 soldiers were manning western forts. Between 1865 and 1879, vast areas of land were seized, including the rest of Kansas and most of Texas, North Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, and Nevada. The Department of War struggled against the Apache and Navajo in New Mexico. Cessations and treaties continued to chip away at Indigenous lands, with the exception of Oklahoma, though the 1887 Dawes Act would soon change that.
“Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth?,” Shawnee Chief Tecumseh once mourned. “Did not the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?” As the fatalities of war and the decimation of the bison caused Indigenous numbers to diminish even more, U.S. land accumulation plowed on, inspired by what was seen as a divine mandate (coined as “Manifest Destiny”) to expand the frontier and impose the “American way of life.”
Indigenous people were forced onto ever shrinking reservations. Legislation such as the 1887 Dawes Act laid waste to traditional, community-held land stewardship, while forced cultural assimilation, compulsory English education, and the ban of many Indigenous languages chipped away at nearly every aspect of Indigenous culture. However, Indigenous people did not tolerate their oppression in silence. A push for civil rights during the 20th century helped reinvigorate Indigenous pride, but it was too late to save ancestral lands. Though the true extent of the dispossession is unknown, researchers estimate that nearly 99 percent of Indigenous lands have now been confiscated.
1895-2026 From 1895 to 1988, Indigenous people lost another two-thirds of their lands to non-Indigenous people. The largest of these losses was in Oklahoma, previously known as Indian Territory. A major catalyst was the Dawes Act (aka the General Allotment Act), eventually rescinded in 1934, which broke up commonly held land and parceled out plots to Indigenous individuals—destroying collective social structures—who were often later obliged to sell.
Documents of a proud people
Behold, my brothers, the spring has embraces of the sun and we shall soon see the results of that love! Every seed has awakened and so has all animal life. It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves, to inhabit this land. Yet hear me, my people, we have now to deal with another race—small and feeble when
our fathers first met them, but now great and overbearing. Strangely enough, they have a mind to till the soil and the love of possessions is a disease with them ... They claim this mother of ours, the earth, for their own, and fence their neighbors away; they deface her with their buildings and their refuse. They threaten to take [the land] away from us. My brothers, shall we submit, or shall we say to them: ‘First kill me before you take possession of my Fatherland.’”Sitting Bull, a Lakota chief, leader, and warrior speaking at the Powder River Council in 1877
