The American Indian Wars, also known as the American Frontier Wars, and the Indian Wars, were initially fought by European colonial empires, the United States, and briefly the Confederate States of America and Republic of Texas against various American Indian tribes in North America. These conflicts occurred from the time of the earliest colonial settlements in the 17th century until the end of the 19th century. The various conflicts resulted from a wide variety of factors, the most common being the desire of settlers and governments for tribal lands. The European powers and their colonies enlisted allied Indian tribes to help them conduct warfare against each other's colonial settlements. After the American Revolution, many conflicts were local to specific states or regions and frequently involved disputes over land use; many involved retaliatory violence.
As American settlement expanded westward after the American Revolution, conflicts between the United States and Native American nations increased in scale and frequency. A major turning point came during the War of 1812, when Native confederacies in the Old Northwest and the Southern United States allied with the British against the United States. Following the war, armed resistance continued in some regions, but relations between the United States and Native nations were increasingly governed through treaties that transferred large areas of Indigenous land to the United States. Historians have noted that the United States frequently failed to uphold treaty obligations, contributing to recurring disputes and further conflict.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized the president to negotiate treaties exchanging Native American lands east of the Mississippi River for lands in the west. Although the act itself provided for negotiated removals, federal and state authorities subsequently used a combination of treaties, political pressure, and coercion to relocate many Native nations from the southeastern United States to Indian Territory. The resulting removals, including the Trail of Tears, transferred millions of acres of Indigenous land to the United States and opened much of the Southeast to American settlement.
As American settlement expanded across the Great Plains and the Western United States, the federal government increasingly confined Native peoples to Indian reservations through treaties, military campaigns, and congressional legislation.
Native American tribes and confederacies often achieved significant military victories against American settlers and soldiers, but generally lacked the population, resources, and logistical capacity to sustain prolonged resistance against the expanding United States.
Some scholars have characterized aspects of United States policies toward Native Americans, including forced removals, warfare, and reservation policies, as constituting genocide against Native Americans. Other scholars dispute the application of the term genocide to the American Indian Wars as a whole, arguing that the conflicts varied significantly across time and place.
The colonization of North America by English, Spanish, French, Russian and Dutch was resisted by some Indian tribes and assisted by other tribes. Wars and other armed conflicts in the 17th and 18th centuries included:
Beaver Wars (1609–1701) between the Iroquois and the French, who allied with the Algonquians
Anglo-Powhatan Wars (1610–1614, 1622–1632, 1644–1646), including the 1622 Jamestown Massacre, between English colonists and the Powhatan Confederacy in the Colony of Virginia
Pequot War of 1636–38 between the Pequot tribe and colonists from the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Connecticut Colony and allied tribes
Kieft's War (1643–1645) in the Dutch territory of New Netherland (New Jersey and New York) between colonists and the Lenape people
Peach War (1655), the large-scale attack by the Munsee on several New Netherland settlements
Esopus Wars (1659–1663), conflicts between the Esopus tribe of Lenape Indians and colonial New Netherlanders in Ulster County, New York
King Philip's War (Metacom's Rebellion) (1675–78) in New England between colonists and the local tribes including, but not limited to, the Nipmuc, Wampanoag, and Narragansett
Chowanoc War (1675–1677) in the Province of Carolina
King William's War (1688–1697) between England and France, and their Indian allies, in New France, New England, and the Province of New York
Tuscarora War (1711–1715) in the Province of North Carolina
Yamasee War (1715–1717) in the Province of South Carolina