210 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



Creeks in Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Ten- 

 nessee in 1814, General Andrew Jackson delivered 

 two smashing defeats, the latter of which broke the 

 Creek power forever. Jackson was also hero of the 

 first Seminole war in Florida in 1818. In the sec- 

 ond Seminole war in 1842, one of the tribes held out 

 through the peace-making, and to-day, on the Ever- 

 glades reservation, boasts its unbroken record of 

 undefeat. In the war against Indian allies in 

 1855-6, Lieutenant Phil Sheridan began his na- 

 tional reputation which culminated in the Civil War. 

 From 1855 war was waged almost constantly in 

 the Middle West and West with the Cour d'Alenes, 

 Paloos, Cheyennes, Sioux, Arapahoes, Kiowas, Co- 

 manches, Lipans, Kickapoos, Modocs, Apaches, Nez 

 Perces, Bannocks, Paiutes, Utes, Sheepeaters and 

 Chippewas. Two of these were wars of two years 

 each with the Sioux, in the latter of which, in 1877, 

 occurred the massacre of General Custer. The 

 Chippewa disturbance in 1898 ended a century of 

 Indian wars, closing, as the table shows, the lowest 

 decade of Indian population. Our wars with the In- 

 dians, the table also shows us, very far indeed from 

 decimated them, as has been charged. Low tide of 

 Indian population in 1887 was only twenty-two per 

 cent below that reported by the Secretary of War in 

 1834 which may be said to begin the dependable cen- 

 sus, and thirty-one per cent below that of 1927, the 

 last report available for this writing. Far more 

 than war contributed to the decline to the figures of 



