American Indians lived on the land known as the United States for thousands of years before European immigrants arrived. The first people that Christopher Columbus encountered in 1492 were the Lucayan-Arawak Indians. From then on, relations between native people and incoming Europeans remained complicated, to say the least.

An ever-growing population in the United States helped prompt politicians to purchase more territory and encourage Americans to push westward. Slowly but surely, American Indians were pushed off their ancestral lands and onto government assigned reservations.

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act. This law lead to conflict, war, and death for many American Indians.

List of American Indian Wars