hiefs of the Delaware, Miami and Potawatomi Indian tribes, ceding 5,500 square miles of territory to the Federal Government. Two tribal leaders, Tecumseh and Tensquatawa, refused to sign.
8/3/1782, The Gnadenhutten Massacre in Delaware. 160 volunteers under Colonel David Williamson attacked the Moravian mission town of Gnadenhutten. 90 Christian indigenous American Indian men women and children were slaughtered, and the mission church burnt down. A few survivors managed to flee to Canada.
7/8/1790, Alexander McGillivray, chief of the Muskogian Indians, signed a treaty of peace and friendship with President Washington.
26/11/1789. Thanksgiving was celebrated across America for the first time. In 1621 the indigenous Americans had taught early Plymouth settlers how to tap the maple trees for sap and how to plant the Indian corn. The harvest was very successful and the Pilgrims found they had enough food to see them through the winter. The Pilgrim Governor William Bradford proclaimed a Day of Thanksgiving to be shared by all colonists and invited the Indians to join them for three days. During the American Revolution of the late 1770s, a Day of National Thanksgiving was suggested by the Continental Congress and was celebrated nationwide in 1789. Since then each President has issued a Thanksgiving Day proclamation, usually designating the fourth Thursday in November as the holiday.
20/4/1777, The Cherokee Nation ceded all their land in South Carolina to the US federal government by the De Witts Corner Treaty.
20/4/1769, Pontiac, indigenous American leader, died.
5/11/1768. William Johnson, the Northern Indian Commissioner, signed a treaty with the Iriquois Indians to acquire much of the land between the Tennessee and Ohio rivers for future settlement.
15/2/1764, The city of St Louis, Missouri, was founded as a trading post between Europeans and Indians.
7/5/1763. Four Indian tribes united to lay siege to the British stronghold of Fort Detroit. However the British had forewarning of the plan by the Delaware, Chippawa, Shawnee, and Ottawa tribes and had strengthened their fortifications. The Indians were concerned at the loss of their fur trade to the British, and wanted a return to the old Indian customs. In November 1763 the Indians lifted the siege after failing to gain French support.
28/11/1729, In Louisiana, Natchez Indians massacred over 200 White settlers after the colonists tried to appropriate the Indians traditional burial grounds.
23/6/1683, William Penn signed a treaty of peace and friendship with chiefs of the Lenapi Indian tribe, at Shakamaxon.
1680, Revolt by the Arizona Amerindians against the Spanish.
29/5/1677, The Treaty of Middle Plantation established peace between the Virginia colonists and the local Indians.
12/8/1676, King Philip, American Indian Chief, was killed. The Indian War in New England ended.
1659, Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, was bought from the American Indians by Thomas Macy for £30 and two beaver hats.
13/12/1636, The Massachusetts Bay Colony organised three militia regiments to defend against the Pequot Indians. This was the founding of the United States National Guard.
22/3/1622, The Jamestown Massacre. Algonquin Indians killed 347 English settlers outside Jamestown, Virginia, a third of the colony’s population, and burnt the Henricus settlement.
21/3/1617, Algonquin Indian princess Pocohontas, born ca.1595,died.
5/4/1614. An Indian Princess, Pocahontas, was married to John Rolfe, a Jamestown settler, in an effort to bring peace to the settlement between the Powhatan Indians and the British.
1598, The Spanish led by Don Juan de Onate marched into what is now Arizona from Zapateca in Mexico, bringing thousands of sheep, cattle and goats, They subjugated the local Amerindians into acting as herders, looking after these animals.
1513, The Spanish landed in Florida under Ponce de Leon. They were unable to subjugate the local Amerindians, whom they termed cimarrones, or ‘wild ones’. They are now known as the Seminole.
1397, Physician and mapmaker Paolo Toscanelli was born in Florence, Ital