Jamestown is founded in Virginia by the colonists of the London Company. By the end of the year, starvation and disease reduce the original 105 settlers to just 32 survivors. Captain John Smith is captured by Native American Chief Powhatan and saved from death by the chief's daughter, Pocahontas.

On July 3, Indians brought maize, beans, squash, and fresh and smoked meat to the Jamestown colony. As at Plymouth years later, the colonists and their diseases would eventually exterminate them.

Samuel de Champlain, accompanied by two other Frenchmen and 60 Algonquin and Huron Indians, defeated a band of Iroquois near the future Ticonderoga, beginning a long period of French/Iroquois hostilities.

Former Dutch lawyer Adrian Block explored Manhattan Island in the ship Tiger. He returned to Europe with a cargo of furs and two kidnapped Indians, whom he named Orson and Valentine.

The Viceroy of Mexico found Spanish Explorer Juan de Onate guilty of atrocities against the Indians of New Mexico. As part of his punishment, he was banned from entering New Mexico again.

A smallpox epidemic decimates the Native American population in New England.

Virginia's Deputy Governor George Yeardley and a group of men killed 20 - 40 Chickahominy Indians. It was under Yeardley’s leadership that friendly relations between the Chickahominy and the colony ended.

One of the first treaties between colonists and Native Americans is signed as the Plymouth Pilgrims enact a peace pact with the Wampanoag Tribe, with the aid of Squanto, an English speaking Native American.

1622-44

Powhatan Wars - Following an initial period of peaceful relations in Virginia, a twelve year conflict left many natives and colonists dead. 

Peter Minuit, a Dutch colonist, buys Manhattan island from Native Americans for 60 guilders (about $24) and names the island New Amsterdam.

1636-37

Pequot War - Taking place in Connecticut and Rhode Island, the death of a colonist eventually led to the destruction of 600-700 natives. The remainder were sold into slavery in Bermuda.

Captains John Mason and John Underhill attacked and burned Pequot forts at Mystic, Connecticut, massacring 600 Indians and starting the Pequot War.

English settlers in New England massacred a Pequot Indian village.

Captain William Pierce of Salem, Massachusetts sailed to the West Indies and exchanged Indian slaves for black slaves.

King Philip's War - Sometimes called Metacom's War, was an armed conflict between Native American inhabitants of present-day southern New England and English colonists and their Native American allies.

Bacon's Rebellion - Tobacco planters led by Nathaniel Bacon ask for and are denied permission to attack the Susquehannock Indians, who have been conducting raids on colonists' settlement. Enraged at Governor Berkeley's refusal, the colonists burn Jamestown and kill many Indians before order is restored in October.

The Pueblo Revolt occurs in Arizona and New Mexico, when Pueblo Indians led by Popé, rebelled against the Spanish. They then lived independently for 12 years until the Spanish re-conquered in them in 1692.

1689-1697

King William's War - The first of the French and Indian Wars, this conflict was fought between England, France, and their respective American Indian allies in the colonies of Canada (New France), Acadia, and New England. It was also known as the Second Indian War (the first having been King Philip's War).

The French and Indian War, a conflict between France and Britain for possession of North America, rages for decades. For various motivations, most Algonquian tribes allied with the French; the Iroquois with the British.

French explorer Pierre Liette had a four-year sojourn in the Chicago area during which he noticed that "the sin of sodomy" prevailed among the Miami Indians, and that some men were bred from childhood for this purpose.

Former Governor of South Carolina, James Moore, led a force of 50 British, and 1,000 Creek Indians against Spanish settlements. They attacked a Mission in Northwestern Florida. They took many Indians as slaves and killed Father Manuel de Mendoza.

A slave market was erected at the foot of Wall Street in New York City. Here African-Americans and Indians -- men, women and children were daily declared the property of the highest cash bidder.

Hostilities break out between Native Americans and settlers in North Carolina after the massacre of settlers there. The conflict, known as the Tuscarora War, under the leadership of  Chief Hancock, attacked several settlements, killing settlers and destroying farms for the next two years. In 1713, James Moore and Yamasee warriors defeated the raiders.

The Yamasee War occurs in southern Carolina, which came close to exterminating white settlements in their region.

South Carolina settlers and their Cherokee allies attack and defeat the Yamassee.

Jesuit explorer Pierre Francois Xavier de Charlevoix recorded effeminacy and widespread homosexuality and lesbianism among the "Indian” tribes in what is now Louisiana. The most prominent tribes in the area at the time were the Iroquois and Illinois.

Ten sleeping Indians were scalped by whites in New Hampshire for a bounty.

Upon hearing of an impending French and Indian attack upon the Ulster county frontiers, Europeans massacred several Indian families in their wigwams at Walden in the Hudson River Valley.

French military forces out of Canada, accompanied by 220 Caughnawaga Mohawk and Abenaki Indians, attacked and burned the English settlement at Saratoga. The 101 inhabitants were either killed or taken prisoner.

In the 1752 census, 147 "Indian" slaves -- 87 females and 60 males -- were listed as living in French households in what would later be called Illinois. These people were from different cultural groups than the local Native American population and were often captives of war.

An Indian slave trader sent a letter to South Carolina Governor J. Glenn asking for permission to use one group of Indians to fight another: "We want no pay, only what we can take and plunder, and what slaves we take to be our own."

Governor Robert Morris declared war on the Delaware and Shawnee Indians. Included in his war declaration was "The Scalp Act,” which put a bounty on the scalps of Indian men, women and boys.

The first Indian reservation in North America was established by the New Jersey Colonial Assembly.

Responding to a Comanche attack that destroyed two missions on the San Saba River in central Texas, a Spanish force of 600 marched north to the Red River where they engaged several thousand Comanche and other Plains Indians fighting behind breastworks and armed with French rifles. The Spaniards were routed, losing a cannon in their retreat, and Comanche raids became a constant threat to settlers throughout Texas.

1760-62

Cherokee Uprising - A breakdown in relations between the British and the Cherokee leads to a general uprising in present-day Tennessee, Virginia and the Carolinas.

Governor Thomas Velez Cachupin had a number of Indians living at Albiquiú [La Cañada, New Mexico ] tried for witchcraft sometime after 1762. They were conveniently condemned into servitude.

The Proclamation of 1763, signed by King George III of England, prohibits any English settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains and requires those already settled in those regions to return east in an attempt to ease tensions with Native Americans.

The Ottawa Indians under Chief Pontiac begin all-out warfare against the British west of Niagara, New York, destroying several British forts and conducting a siege against the British at Detroit, Michigan. In August, Pontiac's forces are defeated by the British near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The siege of Detroit ends in November, but hostilities between the British and Chief Pontiac continue for several years.

An organization compensating settlers for losses resulting from Indian raids was created by Indian Commissioner Sir William Johnson.

December 14, 1763

A vigilante group called the Paxton Boys in Pennsylvania kill 20 peaceful Susquehannock in response to Pontiac's Rebellion.

A troop of 50 armed men entered the Workhouse at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and hacked to death the only 14 surviving Conestoga Indians (the rest of the tribe having been similarly dispensed with, 13 days earlier).

Forced to labor in the mission fields and to worship according to the missionaries' teachings, the Indians at San Diego rebelled against the Spanish, burning every building and killing most of the inhabitants, including the mission's head priest. Thanks to a Spanish sharpshooter, the Indians were finally driven off and the Spanish retained control of their outpost.

The Continental Congress resolved that it was "highly expedient to engage Indians in service of the United Colonies," and authorized recruiting 2,000 paid auxiliaries. The program was a dismal failure, as virtually every tribe refused to fight for the colonists.

Cherokee Indians attacked a settlement in western North Carolina. Militia forces retaliated by destroying a nearby Cherokee village.

Eighty percent of the Arikara died of smallpox, measles, etc.

1776-1794

Chickamauga Wars - A series of conflicts that were a continuation of the Cherokee struggle against white encroachment. Led by Dragging Canoe, who was called the Chickamauga by colonials, the Cherokee fought white settlers in Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolinaa, and Georgia.

Smallpox wiped out more than half the Piegan Blackfoot.

Captain David Williamson and about 90 volunteer militiamen slaughtered 62 adults and 34 children of the neutral, pacifist, and Christian Delaware people at Gnadenhutten, Ohio in retaliation for raids by other Indian tribes.

The Presidio, overlooking San Francisco, was erected by the Spanish to subdue Indians interfering with mail transmissions along El Camino Real.

1785-1795

Old Northwest War - Fighting occurred in Ohio and Indiana. Following two humiliating defeats at the hands of native warriors, the Americans won a decisive victory under "Mad Anthony" Wayne at the Battle of Fallen Timbers.

The Northwest Ordinance was enacted, stating "the utmost good faith shall always be observed toward the Indians . . . in their property, rights, and liberty they shall never be disturbed."

First federal treaty enacted with the Delaware Indians.

Indian Commerce Clause of the Constitution is added stating "The Congress shall have Power...to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes." This clause is generally seen as the principal basis for the federal government's broad power over Indians.

Indian affairs assignation. Indian agents, who were appointed as the federal government's liaison with tribes, fell under jurisdiction of the War Department. The Indian agents were empowered to negotiate treaties with the tribes.

The Indian Trade and Intercourse Act is passed, placing nearly all interaction between Indians and non-Indians under federal, rather than state control, established the boundaries of Indian country, protected Indian lands against non-Indian aggression, subjected trading with Indians to federal regulation, and stipulated that injuries against Indians by non-Indians was a federal crime. The conduct of Indians among themselves, while in Indian country, was left entirely to the tribes. These Acts were renewed periodically until 1834.

Military battle between US Army and Shawnee. The army, some 1,500 strong, invaded Shawnee territory, in what is now western Ohio. The Americans were defeated in 1791 after suffering 900 casualties, 600 of whom died.

The first U.S. Census count included slaves and free African-Americans, but Indians were not included.