History

In spite of broken treaties, dispossession and oppression, men and women of the First Nations continue to serve in the U.S. military at a higher rate than any other ethnic group. Why do we fight? These excerpts from a travelling exhibit sponsored by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians give the reasons and celebrate the heroes of recent wars.

Toward the end of World War II, Joseph Medicine Crow (Apsaalooke [Crow]) performed one of the traditional Plains Indian feats of valor, relieving the enemy of his horses. Here in his words is that famous episode.

In a military irony, a U.S. Army unit recruited from the Iroquois Six Nations of New York was posted to its historical homeland in North Carolina and heroically repulsed an attack led by several of the Confederacy’s most famous officers.

The messengers who traversed the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, often carrying diplomatic dispatches embodied in wampum belts, were forerunners of the champion long-distanceathletes Lewis “Deerfoot” Bennett (1830–1896) and Tom Longboat (1887–1949).

Major David Moniac (1802–1836), the first American Indian to graduate from West Point, died leading a U.S. Army unit during the Second Seminole War. His career illustrates the complexities of Native loyalties during the era of the Removal Act and tribal resistance.

A century ago, the wealthy investor George Gustav Heye chartered a foundation and museum that, through ups and downs, eventually evolved into the National Museum of the American Indian. When federal legislation rescued his extremely valuable but troubled institution, it also introduced the Native viewpoint into museum practice.

Native participants in the War of 1812 included several Haudenosaunee women, who fought another battle years later to get their pensions.

In 1605, Captain George Waymouth sailed to the coast of Maine on a mission to kidnap Natives for their political and geographic intelligence.

One of the most celebrated Indian scouts of the Civil War, he successfully evacuated Union troops from the seceding South in 1861. But it was just one episode in a long, eventful career.

Qhapaq Nan, the Inka road, was an awe-inspiring feat of engineering and construction, and also of political integration. It held together a vast empire of majestic terrain and widely different eco-systems, until the arrival of the Spanish.