Spanish conquistadors recruit regional rivals to wage a multi-year war against the Aztecs, destroying the empire.

Christopher Columbus lands in the Caribbean and enslaves Arawak people to present as proof of wealth to his royal patrons.

The Pilgrims land at Cape Cod and form the Mayflower Compact, establishing a Calvinist covenant central to later American ideology.

Colonial forces burn a fortified Pequot village on Mystic River, killing women, children, and the elderly sheltering inside.

The new United States sends combined military forces into the Ohio Valley to clear Indigenous nations from the land.

President Jefferson purchases vast western territory from France without consulting the Indigenous nations living on those lands.

Congress passes the Indian Removal Act, forcing 26 Indigenous nations to relocate to reservations west of the Mississippi River.

The US Army forcibly marches 16,000 Cherokee to Oklahoma reservations in winter, with only half surviving the journey.

Mexico signs a treaty ceding half its territory to the United States, again without any input from Indigenous peoples.

Civilian volunteers kill and scalp 130 Cheyenne and Arapaho people seeking shelter at Sand Creek, Colorado.

Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull intercept Custer's attack on a Sioux and Cheyenne encampment, killing him and 225 soldiers.

The General Allotment Act breaks up communal reservation land into individual parcels, allowing the US to sell off the surplus.

The Indian Reorganization Act ends land allotment and formally recognizes Indigenous nations' right to self-governance for the first time.

Congress and President Eisenhower terminate federal recognition of over 100 Indigenous tribes, stripping their sovereign rights and federal funding.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's resistance against the Dakota Access Pipeline draws support from 100 nations and worldwide media attention.

This pool traces the most pivotal events in the history of settler colonialism against Indigenous peoples of North America, from the Spanish conquest of the Aztecs through the founding of the United States. It follows the US government's systematic efforts to seize Indigenous lands through legislation, military force, and broken treaties. The Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears represent the most devastating formal policies of this era, displacing dozens of nations at enormous human cost. After the Civil War, genocidal campaigns pushed remaining nations onto reservations while new laws stripped away communal landholdings. The Indian Reorganization Act offered brief hope for sovereignty, but the Termination Era reversed those gains for over a hundred tribes. The arc ends at Standing Rock, where modern water protectors continue the centuries-long fight to protect Indigenous land and sovereignty.

The headline history of Indigenous resistance against European conquest and American expansion.

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy establishes the Great Law of Peace, a democratic constitution that later inspires parts of the US Constitution.

Spain and Portugal work with the pope to formally divide the lands of the Western Hemisphere between themselves.

Sir Humphrey Gilbert brutally suppresses Ireland's Ulster region and becomes the head of England's first North American colony.

After squatters violate the Proclamation Line protecting their territory, the Shawnee choose to ally with the British during the colonial revolt.

General Washington orders the Continental Army to annihilate Haudenosaunee territory across New York and Pennsylvania.

Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa establish Prophet's Town as the center of a pan-Indigenous resistance alliance.

Harrison attacks Prophet's Town while Tecumseh's alliance is unprepared to fight, scattering its members and disrupting the coalition.

The Pueblo unite under religious leader Po'pay and overtake the Spanish capital of Santa Fe, reclaiming freedom for twelve years.

Andrew Jackson's forces kill 800 of 1,000 Red Stick fighters and capture 300 women and children at Horseshoe Bend.

President Lincoln reduces mass death sentences to 38 Dakota men, resulting in the largest public execution in US history.

Custer discovers gold in the Great Sioux Reservation's sacred Black Hills, triggering a treaty-violating rush of miners.

The haole conspire with the US military to overthrow Hawaiian leader Liliuokalani, enabling the annexation of Hawai'i against nonviolent resistance.

Indians of All Tribes stages an 18-month occupation of Alcatraz Island, drawing thousands of activists from across the country.

A caravan of 800 people occupies the Bureau of Indian Affairs building for eight days during the Trail of Broken Treaties.

AIM travels to Pine Ridge and then to Wounded Knee, beginning a two-month armed siege with the FBI.

This pool focuses on significant military, political, and activist events that shaped Indigenous resistance from pre-colonial governance through modern occupation movements. It begins with the founding of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy's Great Law of Peace and traces European imperial expansion across both the Americas and the Pacific. Major battles such as Horseshoe Bend and the massacre at Wounded Knee Creek mark turning points in the US military's campaign against Indigenous nations. The overthrow of Hawai'i's Queen Liliuokalani shows how American imperialism extended far beyond the continent. The occupations of Alcatraz Island and the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the 1960s and 70s mark the rise of a new generation of Indigenous activism. The siege at Wounded Knee in the 1970s demonstrates how that generation carried forward the tradition of direct resistance when other avenues were exhausted.

The alliances, battles, and occupations that shaped the course of Indigenous resistance.

The Aztecs consolidate power and develop a hydraulic agriculture system and trading network stretching to the North American West Coast.

The European concept of limpieza de sangre, prioritizing Christian bloodlines over converts, evolves into the broader ideology of White supremacy.

George Percy's forces burn Powhatan towns and kill a kidnapped leader's family, prompting the Powhatan to kill 350 settlers.

A colonial militia methodically massacres 42 men, 20 women, and 34 children in the peaceful Delaware village of Gnadenhütten.

A Shawnee-led Indigenous alliance defeats the US Army using ambush tactics before ultimately losing at the Battle of Fallen Timbers.

The Cherokee win a Supreme Court ruling protecting their treaty rights, which Andrew Jackson openly refuses to enforce.

Black Hawk leads the Sauk Nation in an attempt to reclaim their Illinois homeland but is forced back into Iowa after four months.

Friar Junipero Serra establishes 21 Franciscan missions along El Camino Real, kidnapping Indigenous people for forced conversion and labor.

Brigadier General Carleton forces the Navajo on a deadly march, but the Navajo later negotiate a return to their homeland.

Sitting Bull is shot and killed by a guard while under house arrest for his role in the nonviolent Ghost Dance movement.

Congress funds boarding schools using practices from POW camps to strip Indigenous children of their language, names, and cultural identity.

The Alaska Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood successfully lobby for voting rights and the removal of segregationist policies from the territory.

National Indian Youth Council members stage a mass fish-in demonstration to assert treaty-protected fishing rights in Washington State.

LaDonna Brave Bull Allard establishes the Sacred Stone Camp to organize opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline's new route.

North Dakota law enforcement uses tear gas, concussive grenades, and high-pressure water hoses against water protectors at Standing Rock.

This pool highlights pivotal turning points that reframe how readers understand Indigenous history, beginning with the Aztecs' advanced civilization and the ideological origins of White supremacy in Europe. It traces specific acts of colonial violence that exposed the settlers' true intentions, from the massacre of peaceful Delaware converts to the betrayal of the Powhatan Confederacy. Major turning points follow, including the Indigenous alliance's military victories in the Ohio Valley and the Cherokee's landmark Supreme Court case that Andrew Jackson simply refused to honor. Later events reveal how assimilation policies, boarding schools, and systematic resource extraction continued the campaign against Indigenous sovereignty into the twentieth century. The pool closes at Standing Rock, where the founding of the Sacred Stone Camp and the violent government crackdown exposed the unbroken continuity of these centuries-old patterns of dispossession.

The key decisions, confrontations, and revelations that permanently altered the course of Indigenous history.