User:JRVU12345/History of Native Americans in the United States

The history of Native Americans in the United States began in ancient times tens of thousands of years ago with the settlement of the Americas by the Paleo-Indians. Anthropologists and archeologists have identified and studied a wide variety of cultures that existed and continued to evolve during this era, including Clovis and Folsom tradition. Their subsequent contact with Europeans had a profound impact on the history of Native American peoples in the United States.

In the 16th Century, European Colonists made first contact with Native American groups in what would become the United States of America. Many explorers such as Hernando de Soto, Juan Ponce de León, and Pánfilo de Narváez. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, Native American groups would be subjected to numerous removals, wars, and treaties. After the American Revolution, the United States was eager to begin growing and expanding into new lands. The search for new lands evolved in the 19th Century when America began Westward expansion. It was in the 19th Century that Native American groups across the United States began frequent resistance efforts.

In the 21st Century, Native American peoples began to increasingly move to city centers and off of reservations. Specifically beyond 2010, Native American tribes and activists have begun to win legal battles against the United States in order to rectify previous injustices of the 16th through 20th centuries.

16th Century
The 16th century saw the first contacts between Native Americans in what was to become the United States and European explorers and settlers. One of the first major contacts, in what would be called the American Deep South, occurred when the conquistador Juan Ponce de León landed in La Florida in April 1513. De León returned in 1521 in an attempt at colonisation, but after fierce resistance from the Calusa people, the attempt was abandoned. He was later followed by other Spanish explorers, such as Pánfilo de Narváez in 1528 and Hernando de Soto in 1539.

17th century
Through the mid 17th century the Beaver Wars were fought over the fur trade between the Iroquois and the Hurons, the northern Algonquians, and their French allies. During the war the Iroquois destroyed several large tribal confederacies—including the Huron, Neutral, Erie, Susquehannock, and Shawnee, and became dominant in the region and enlarged their territory.

King Philip's War
King Philip's War, also called Metacom's War or Metacom's Rebellion, was an armed conflict between Native American inhabitants of present-day southern New England and English colonists and their Native American allies from 1675 to 1676. It continued in northern New England (primarily on the Maine frontier) even after King Philip was killed, until a treaty was signed at Casco Bay in April 1678. According to a combined estimate of loss of life in Schultz and Tougias' King Philip's War, The History and Legacy of America's Forgotten Conflict (based on sources from the Department of Defense, the Bureau of Census, and the work of Colonial historian Francis Jennings), 800 out of 52,000 English colonists of New England (1 out of every 65) and 3,000 out of 20,000 natives (3 out of every 20) lost their lives due to the war, which makes it proportionately one of the bloodiest and costliest in the history of America. More than half of New England's 90 towns were assaulted by Native American warriors. One in ten soldiers on both sides were wounded or killed.

The war is named after the main leader of the Native American side, Metacomet (also known as Metacom or Pometacom) who was known to the English as King Philip. He was the last Massasoit (Great Leader) of the Pokanoket Tribe/Pokanoket Federation and Wampanoag Nation. Upon their loss to the Colonists, many managed to flee to the North to continue their fight against the British (Massachusetts Bay Colony) by joining with the Abenaki Tribes and Wabanaki Federation.