Carolina. Another Muskogian people, the Seminole, are remembered
for the long and bloody “Seminole War” in Florida, 1835–45,
in which many atrocities were committed.
Sahaptian.—The Indians of this stock have been generally very friendly to the whites, and the only notable “war” occurred in 1877, when the Nez Percés, under their famous chief, Joseph, resisted being confined to their reservation in Idaho. Joseph displayed wonderful generalship; he defeated the American troops several times, and finally executed a most remarkable retreat, over 1000 m., in an attempt to reach Canadian territory. This was foiled within a short distance of the boundary, and the entire force surrendered to Colonel Miles on October 5, 1877.
Shoshonian.—North of Mexico this great stock has developed several warlike peoples. Trouble with the Bannock occurred in 1877–78, resulting from the encroachment of the whites at the time of the Nez Percés war, the killing of several settlers, scarcity of food, &c. The outbreak was ended by a campaign under General Howard in which many Indians, men, women and children, were killed and some one thousand taken prisoners. The Comanche, through a long period of more than 150 years after the Spanish occupation, kept up a continual series of raids and depredations upon the settlements of the whites in Mexico, &c. Their general friendly attitude towards Americans in later years did not extend to the Texans, with whom for more than thirty years they indulged in savage warfare. They often entered into warlike alliance with the Apache, the Kiowa, &c. After the outbreak of 1874–75 they settled down for good. The leader in this “war” was Quana Parker, a half-blood Comanche, who, after the matter was settled, accepted broadly the new order of things and became “the most prominent and influential figure among the three confederated tribes” (Mooney). The Paiute, Shoshonees (Snakes) and Utes have figured in several more or less temporary outbreaks since 1865.
Siouan.—This great stock has had its celebrated antagonists of the whites as well as its famous combatants of other Indian tribes. The Dakota (or Sioux) were unfriendly to the French for aiding their enemies, the Chippewa, and after the fall of French power in America in 1763, they allied themselves with the English and assisted them in the War of Independence and the war of 1812, with few exceptions. After the treaty of peace in 1815 various minor troubles occurred, but in 1862 the Indians in Minnesota rose under Chief Little Crow and committed terrible barbarities against the settlers, some 800 whites being killed before the revolt was put down. The gold-fever of the whites in Dakota, where the Indians had settled down, precipitated a formidable outbreak in 1876 under the leadership of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Spotted Tail and other chiefs. The most notable event of this “war” was the so-called “massacre” (properly cutting-off) of General Custer and his cavalry at the battle of Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. When the “Ghost Dance” was prevalent among so many Indian tribes of the Plains in 1890–1891 another serious rising of the Sioux took place, which was put down by General Miles. Sitting Bull was killed (December 15, 1890); and resistance to an attempt to disarm a large party of Indians at Wounded Knee Creek, near the Pine Ridge Agency, resulted (December 29) in a deplorable massacre, in which many women and children were killed. The story of these Sioux outbreaks and the guiltiness of the whites with respect to them has been told authoritatively by Mooney (14th Ann. Rep. Bur. Ethnol., 1892–1893). At one time these troubles threatened to involve the Canadian Indians of the region adjacent. The Catawba of South Carolina, in the wars of the 18th century, aided the English against the French, the Tuscaroras (war of 1713–14) and the Lake tribes. They sided with the Americans during the War of Independence. The Osage were friendly with the French early in the 18th century and fought with them against the Sacs and Foxes at Detroit in 1714.
Pueblos.—After the Spanish conquest of the Pueblos Indians of Arizona and New Mexico the most remarkable effort of the natives to throw off the foreign yoke was in the general revolt of 1680 under the leadership of Popé of San Juan. At that time among the Moqui (Shoshonian) the missionaries were killed, the churches laid in ruins, &c., and similar events occurred elsewhere in the Pueblos region. For this the Spaniards subsequently took ample vengeance. The Pueblos Indians in general have never taken too kindly to the whites; and to-day at the Moqui pueblo of Oraibi there exist a “Hostile” and a “Friendly” faction, the first bitterly opposed to the Caucasian and all his ways, the latter more liberal-minded, but Indian none the less. An open rupture nearly took place in 1906.
In Canada, since the organization of the Dominion in 1867, Indian wars have been unknown, and Indian outbreaks of any sort rare. In 1890 an outbreak of the Kootenays was threatened, but it amounted to nothing—the present writer traversed all parts of the Kootenay country in 1891 in perfect safety. Occasional “risings” have been reported from the Canadian North-West and British Columbia, but have amounted to little or nothing. In the matter of war it should be noted that some Indian stocks have been essentially peaceful, and have resorted to force only when driven beyond endurance or treated with outrageous injustice. Again, within the same stock one tribe has shown itself peaceable, another quite warlike (e.g. Klamath and Modoc, both Lutuamian; the Hares and the Apache, both Athabaskan). Probably the amount and extent of wars existing north of Mexico in Pre-Columbian times were not as large as is generally stated. The introduction of fire-arms, European-made weapons, the horse, &c., and the development of ideas of property made possible through these, doubtless stimulated intertribal disputes and increased the actual number of warlike enterprises. Over a large portion of the continent “wars” were nearly always initiated and carried out by a portion only of the tribe, which often had its permanent “peace party.”
The missionary labours of the various Christian churches among the North American aborigines have been ably summarized by Mooney in the Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (pt. i. 1907, pp. 874-909). Besides the famous Relation des Jésuites (ed. Thwaites, 1896–1901) Missions and Education. there are now special mission histories for the Baptists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Mennonites, Methodists, Moravians, Mormons, Presbyterians, Quakers, Roman Catholics (also the various orders, &c.), who have all paid much attention to Christianizing and civilizing the Indians. To-day “practically every tribe officially recognized within the United States is under the missionary influence of some religious denomination, workers of several denominations frequently labouring in the same tribe.” Something of the same sort might be said of the Indians of Canada, whose religion (that of 76,319 out of 110,345 altogether reported, is known) is given as follows in the Report of the Department of Indian Affairs for 1907: Roman Catholics 35,682; Anglicans 15,380; Methodists 11,620; Presbyterians 1527; Baptists 1103; Congregationalists 18; and other denominations 597; besides 10,347 pagans. All the Indians of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, are Catholics; in Quebec there are but 678 Protestants (mostly Methodist); in Ontario there are 6173 Catholics to 1030 Baptists, 4626 Methodists, 5306 Anglicans, 18 Congregationalists and 34 Presbyterians. The Indians of British Columbia number 11,529 Catholics, 4304 Anglicans, 3277 Methodists and 431 Presbyterians; those of Manitoba, 1780 Catholics, 1685 Methodists, 382 Presbyterians and 3103 Anglicans; those of Saskatchewan and Alberta 4249 Catholics, 1527 Methodists, 719 Presbyterians, 2549 Anglicans. In some of the tribes and settlements both in Canada and in the United States missionary activities, the influence of individual white men, &c., have led to a great diversity of religious faith, sometimes within comparatively limited areas. Thus in the Mistawasis band of Cree, belonging to the Carlton Agency, province of Saskatchewan, numbering but 129, there are 6 Anglicans, 86 Presbyterians and 37 Catholics; in the Oak River band of Sioux in Manitoba there are 60 Anglicans, 1 Presbyterian, 13 Methodists, 4 Catholics and 195 pagans out of a total of 273. Among the “Six Nations” and the larger Indian peoples of Oklahoma all the leading Christian sects, besides the Salvation Army, the Christian Scientists, the Mormons and the &ldquoldquo;New Thought” movement are represented. There are also the “Navaho New Faith,” the “Shaker Church” of Washington, &c. The history of missionary labours in North America among the aborigines contains stories of disappointment and disaster as well as chronicles of success. Some peoples, like the Timuquans, the Apalachee, the Pakawan tribes, &c., have been converted only to disappear altogether; other great attempts at colonization or “reduction,” like the missions of Huronia and California, succeeded for the time on a grand scale, but have fallen victims sooner or later to the fortunes of war, the changes of politics, or their own mechanism and its inherent weaknesses and defects. But the thousands of good church-members, including many ministers of the Gospel, in Canada and the United States, coming from scores of different tribes and many distinct stocks, no less than the general good conduct of so many Indian nations, are a remarkable tribute to the work done by Catholic and Protestant missionaries alike all over the broad continent from the Mexican border to the snows of Greenland and the islands of the Arctic. The martyrdom of the Jesuits among the fierce Iroquois, the zeal of Duncan at Metlakahtla, the fate of the Spanish friars in the Pueblos rebellion of 1680 under Popé, the destruction of the Huron missions in 1641–1649 and of those of the Apalachee in 1703, the death of Whitman at the hands of the Cayuse in 1847, are but a few of the notable events of mission history. The following
