Clashes between European powers and the indigenous peoples of the Americas began almost immediately upon the arrival of the first Europeans on the shores of the New World. Such conflict seems inevitable in retrospect, and perhaps it should have been expected at the outset as well. The great disparity between the two cultures, particularly their differing concepts of land ownership, made peaceful coexistence virtually impossible.

Although they may have rued the arrival of the Europeans, Indians (the name I have chosen to identify native peoples purely for the sake of simplicity) quickly discovered that these interlopers did not arrive empty-handed. Whiskey and diseases such as smallpox certainly had no redeeming features, but other possessions of the fair-skinned peoples proved more than a little appealing. Iron implements and firearms soon came to be recognized as measures of wealth and power. Tribes who possessed these things, especially firearms, held a decided advantage over traditional enemies. Suddenly the ground rules were changed. The balance of power in many instances shifted dramatically. Equations that had been in place for generations were abruptly altered. White traders, settlers, and government officials wasted little time in exploiting what soon evolved into a dependent condition by forging helpful and protective alliances with neighboring tribes. These pacts not only reinforced a community’s defensive capability but also served as a means to acquire land for the rapidly expanding colonies.

Many of the so-called Indian wars were not really wars per se but simply continuations or extensions of campaigns or battles temporarily ended by weather or lack of necessary resources. In a sense it might be thought of as one war with a great many smaller splinter wars and campaigns that lasted nearly four centuries. This work is intended to fill a niche as a work of general reference, wherein the reader will have quick access to a wide range of basic information pertaining to the four centuries of conflict between Indians and European colonists. The challenge in creating a work such as this is twofold: what topics to include and how much to say about each. My aim was to present a broad coverage of the Indian wars, to provide a more or less complete picture—albeit one that would necessarily be brief in recounting complex events and personalities.