Written by John Lounsbury
Many of the native Americans who occupied what is now the United States in the 15th through the 18th centuries belonged to a number of large Indian nations. This documentary describes how the civilizations that existed prior to the incursion of the Europeans were changed and ultimately destroyed, falling into complete decay by the end of the 19th century.
Pictured below: Cheyene horsemen riding across the Great Plains.
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From YouTube:
The white man came in search of wealth and power. Two million Indians would endure four centuries of struggle before the sun finally set upon their free dominion. These European settlers came in wave upon wave to occupy Native American lands. In the bellies of their ships the Europeans carried horses, guns and disease and in their hearts they carried a belief in their destiny to rule the Americas from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
As the whites pressed ever-westward they finally waged an absolute war on the Indians that would close the frontier and usher in the white man’s era of railroads, telegraphs and mining. Yet the history of America is in many ways the history of the American Indians, for they gave the Europeans the skills and knowledge needed to survive in the new world. These are the stories of the mightiest Indian nations.
Source: YouTube
