Haden A. Duran, HIST1493.

8:30 AM MW, Fall 2020.

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Native American Participation in American Wars

Native American tribes have always had an unstable relationship with European settlers

or colonists due to the repeated mistreatment of their people. This did not, however, preclude

Native American involvement in the affairs of the soon-to-be United States. When the United

States Government was formed, Native Americans repeatedly attempted to negotiate with the

government, only to find that they were ruthlessly cheated at every turn. Treaties and contracts

were signed over and over, with the final result being that Native American tribes frequently lost

their ancestral lands. The citizens of the United States were unfortunately quite unsympathetic to

this plight. Much of the mistreatment of the American Indians occurred in the aftermath of the

first the Revolutionary War, and later the Civil War. Both of these conflicts put the tribes into

very politically difficult positions, forcing them to choose sides when it was not in their interest.

While some tribes would side with United States forces, this was the exception to the rule. The

majority of Native Americans would choose to fight on the side of first the British in the

Revolutionary War, and later the Confederacy in the Civil War. Many political figures took for

granted at the time that the tribes would fight to protect their ancestral home, even if it meant

fighting alongside those that took it from them. This surprise alteration of loyalty later led to

further unstable relations within the country between the Government and Native Americans.

These series of lost battles over the course of a century of conflict devastated their community,

and forced many of them to give up hope of resisting integration into the United States. In fact,

many Native Americans that had served with the United States or Confederacy may have even

believed that integrating into the United States was the only way for their community to recover.

However harsh the effects of these earlier wars on their community, Native Americans would
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fight bravely for the United States in both WWI and WWII. Participation in these wars forever

changed the future of the Native American community and the country as a whole.

In the Revolutionary War, the majority of American Indians tribes chose to fight with the

British forces in the hope to reclaim their homeland. The tribes that fought against the U.S.

forces were not in the slightest pro-British; The tribes simply wanted the colonists and soon-to-

be Americans gone. The spiritual message behind the support for this war was sovereignty for

the tribes lands and governments, as well as revenge for past injustices. This was much more

understandable when it is taken into consideration the almost constant conflict between the two

communities. The Native American inhabitants of the area were repeatedly cheated out of land,

trade deals, and treated as inferior by the white colonists. While a few tribes chose to side with

the American patriot forces, the majority of them did not. When the war ended in an American

victory, this left the tribes in a very sensitive position. They now had to find a way to move

forward together, in order for the Native Americans to avoid prosecution and potentially even

extinction. In the aftermath of the conflict, even those that fought with the Americans likely lost

portions of their land in order to attain peace. Some individuals, such as then-General Andrew

Jackson, took advantage of the Revolutionary War to attack neutral groups of Native Americans.

According to History.com, this attack resulted in the following: “The Creeks ceded more than 20

million acres of land after their loss.“ (8) The result of this War was that Native Americans had

even less pull with the government than before, and were unfortunately further mistreated within

American society. This may have been a contributing factor to many tribes supporting the

Southern Confederacy in the years that followed.

When the Revolutionary War was devastating for American Indians and their place in

American society, the events of the Civil War threatened to be even darker. Navigating the Civil
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War conflict without choosing sides would prove impossible, as both the Union and Confederacy

pressured Native Americans for their loyalty. Feeling that the Confederacy had treated them

more fairly in its relatively short history compared to the United States, many tribes decided to

align with the confederacy immediately. Others hoped to stay neutral, though neutrality would

not be tolerated by those involved in the conflict. A relatively unique case amongst Native

Americans were the Delaware Tribe, who immediately declared that they would align with the

Union. According to the City of Alexandria, Virginia website: “On October 1, 1861 the

Delaware proclaimed their support for the Union. Seeking favor from Washington, 170 out of

201 Delaware men volunteered in the Union Army.” (1) The Delaware also made up a

significant portion of the 1st and 2nd Indian Home Guard, an armed militia group that served as

the Native American division of the Union Army. Many other tribes also made up the Indian

Home Guard, however.

One interesting story of a tribe’s loyalty during the American Civil War is highlighted by

the Cherokee Tribe. The tribe became engaged in their own internal conflict because of the

events surrounding the war, leading to events that have been called the Cherokee Civil War. The

loyalty of the tribe was caught between two leaders: The elected chief John Ross and his popular

rival, Stand Watie. According to the editors of Indian Country Today, the political conflict

between John Ross and Stand Watie began as follows: “Watie had become the leading figure of

the faction that signed the Treaty of New Echota in 1835, which forced the Cherokee Nation to

move to Indian Territory (modern Oklahoma). Chief John Ross and an overwhelming majority of

the population had opposed this removal. The rivalry was bitter, and there were political murders

on both sides in the 1830s and 1840s.”(2)

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John Ross supported neutrality early in the war, eventually finding himself siding with

the Union after they achieved some level of success on the battlefield. Though very few of his

soldiers would ever truly defect to the Union, John Ross claimed that the Cherokee people were

loyal to the United States government. This statement may have partially been out of

desperation, however, as he himself was a political prisoner of the Union at the time of his

proclamation of loyalty. Stand Watie, however, would stake his claim with the Confederacy and

fought with them until the end of the War. Watie had no legitimate claim to lead the Cherokee

tribe at the time, but was popular due to his education, military history, and his allegiance to the

Confederacy. Despite the majority of Cherokee having been upset by Watie’s agreement to

Indian Removal, they came to support him through a mutual desire to fight for the Confederates.

This was to the extreme detriment of the tribe, however. Stand Watie would continue to fight

long after the Civil War was sure to be won by the Union, even being the last Confederate

General to stand his forces down. Despite Chief John Ross’ best attempt at diplomacy in

Washington, the Cherokee were treated poorly in the aftermath of the War. They were

considered traitors and turncoats, despite having been cheated themselves by the Union many

times. The War was devastating on the Cherokee not only because of their place in politics, but

because of the effect it had on their communities. The loss of life amongst the Native American

tribes during this period was astronomical, as nearly all tribes were forced to fight in some way.

Despite the many stories of Native American involvement in the Civil War, none of them have

happy endings.

In the aftermath of the Civil War, Native American communities were largely left to fend

for themselves. After the devastating effects of the two previous major conflicts, their

communities commonly collapsed. This would lead the members of the community to integrate
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into common American Society, despite the viewing of Native Americans as inferior by white

Americans at the time. The government would also not support the Native Americans in their

desire for civil rights in the years that followed, nor was there any support for the founding of a

singular American Indian tribe. This lack of focus on issues related to the American Indians left

their communities disenfranchised, yet hungry for the ability to enact change within the country.

With little avenues left available to the economically and educationally underprivileged Native

Americans, they were eager to participate when the United States began to participate in the First

World War. The Native Americans hoped to gather support for suffrage or equal payment

opportunities by participating in the War, which would for the first time lead to a partial

fulfilment of their wishes. While some Native Americans were drafted by the United States to

aid in the enormous conflict, the majority of those that served actually joined voluntarily.

According to the Native Words, Native Warriors Smithsonian Project, “More than 12,000

American Indians served in the war, generally as scouts, snipers and code-talkers.” (5)

American Indians were seen as a warlike people by much of white American society at

the time, which may have led to them being frequently assigned to positions as scouts or snipers.

While this may have also come from the idea that Native Americans are skilled hunters, it may

also have a less positive connotation as well. Whatever the intentions behind these front-line and

dangerous assignments, the cost to the soldiers that served within them was high. According to

the Editors of the American Indian Magazine, “about five percent of Native combat soldiers

were killed, compared to one percent of American forces overall.” Despite the high cost to their

community, Native Americans serving on the front lines performed admirably throughout the

“Great War.”
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Code-Talkers were among the more prestigious positions in the military available to

Native Americans, as the position relied upon their language and culture. This is a bit ironic,

given that only a few years before the U.S. Government had taken steps to eliminate tribal

languages. Code-Talkers were employed to communicate secret messages over telegraph, as

Native American languages were largely unknown to enemy forces. While they were not

deployed extensively in WWI, Code-Talkers proved to be incredibly effective and would be

ready to deploy at the onset of WWII. The small number of Code-Talkers that served during

WWI distinguished themselves amongst their peers and improved the overall outlook on their

people by many American veterans. Many Native Americans won medals or commendations for

special acts. For the bravery and ingenuity shown by the American Indians in the military, the

United States granted most of them citizenship in the years that directly followed the war. The

Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 solidified that American Indians had a right to citizenship, but

would allow each state to govern when and how they allowed Native Americans to vote. This

would lead to many states passing laws which made voting difficult or impossible for them. The

public outlook on the American Indian people, however, was quite positive for the first time.

Because of the economic effects of a large number of Native American men returning

home with a full wartime salary, their communities were revitalized in the years that followed

WWI. War stories and the social respect that came with them were soon a crucial part of Native

American society, as well as American society at large. The cultural effects of the war on

American society cannot be undercut; These events forever altered the way that citizens would

treat each other. Many Native Americans that before had struggled to attain even a modicum of

respect now found themselves gaining it from strangers, simply for their military service. This

worked well in the society of the American Indians, as it gave them something to be proud of
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that the wider U.S. society deemed socially appropriate. This newfound outlook on Native

Americans by the public likely influenced their return to the battlefield when the United States

entered World War Two.

The number of Native Americans that volunteered to serve in World War Two was not as

overwhelming a majority as in the previous great war, but it was still incredibly substantial. A

larger percentage of American Indians volunteered for the war than any other ethnicity.

According to the Veterans Affairs Division of the United States government, “Over 44,000

Native Americans served between 1941 and 1945. The entire population of Native Americans in

the United States was less than 350,000 at the time.” (9) While many more Native Americans

served in all branches of the military during this conflict than WWI, this pattern was most

present in the Code-Talkers. Native American Code-Talkers deployment was increased during

WWII, due to the overwhelming need for a comprehensive and unbreakable code. German code

breakers were incredibly effective in both World Wars, making it impossible for many European

Allied forces to communicate without the information being revealed to the enemy. This ended

when the United States began lending Code-Talkers to many of their allied nations, as well as

using them within United States operations.

The most well-known and widespread tribe that worked as Code-Talkers during WWI

and WWII were the Navajo. The Navajo tribe had an almost entirely unwritten language,

meaning that foreign codebreakers had no way of translating any messages that they managed to

intercept. The only conceivable fashion in which the code could be broken would be to capture a

living Navajo to translate the language, which was never documented to have occurred. This

possibility was developed into a film that is quite informative about the Navajo Code-Talkers,

Windtalkers. The effectiveness of the Navajo language as a code was not the only advantage to
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the tribe’s involvement in the war effort. Because of the entire Navajo code being able to be

stored on only a handful of pages, it could be memorized. This meant that it became even more

difficult for enemy troops to obtain a method for breaking the code, as they couldn’t loot it from

defeated forces. Navajo Code-Talkers were frequently assigned into units of two soldiers- One

was supposed to carry the radio and keep watch while the other soldier relayed messages. This

grouping of two also may have led to the grim myth that the Code-Talkers had orders to kill one

another, rather than be captured and give up the code. While there is little evidence of this being

a real standing order, it is curious to imagine how negatively the war could have been affected

had an active Code-Talker been captured by the enemy. The work of the Navajo people was

incredibly crucial to victories in the Pacific Theatre of combat, and the lives that were saved

through their valiant efforts are immeasurable. On the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Iwo

Jima, Peter McDonald stated that “Without the Navajo, marines would never have taken Iwo

Jima. That’s how critical Navajo Code was to the war in the Pacific.” Peter McDonald served as

a Navajo Code-Talker during WWII, former president of the Navajo Nation, and received a

commendation from the president in his later years for his service. This individual, as well as all

Navajo who served to protect Western society during WWII, were instrumental to the eventual

victory of the United States.

The results of World War Two on Native American communities was quite similar to the

aftermath of the previous World War, with their place in American social and economic society

rising. The high performance and unique capabilities that Native Americans had shown in

service to the United States once again improved the public view on their culture and peoples.

Though many of their sacrifices had to be concealed in order to keep programs such as the

Navajo Code-Talkers concealed, the American public still understood the depth of the American
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Indians' sacrifice. Long was the image of the “Savage Indian” that white Americans had

unfortunately held in their hearts, now replaced with the image of a proud and tall American

Indian. Unfortunately, Native Americans would still struggle for the right to vote in many states

until as late as the 1970’s. At the very least, however, contemporary society had deigned to once

again view Native Americans with respect in the aftermath of World War II. The wages earned

by American Indian servicemen during this time period also helped to revitalize the struggling

economy of their home communities. While the losses had been great for all groups of people,

the Native Americans that served in the U.S. military continued to forge a bright new path

forward for their tribes and families.

Native American participation in American Wars has forever altered the course of

American history, particularly for their own community. American Indians struggled after the

onset of the Revolutionary War, the events of the war leading to a long series of misfortunes for

their people. Even as these communities struggled to recover from the harsh punishments

enforced on them for siding with the British in this conflict, the Civil War began to break out

between the Northern and Southern states. Knowing that the United States had long broken any

promises or assurances they had given, the majority of American Indians chose to side with the

Confederacy. The Confederacy’s defeat was perhaps even more harmful to the Native Americans

than it was to Confederate officers, many of whom went on to have prosperous positions within

the United States military or government. After having even more land and trade goods

confiscated for their involvement with the Confederacy, the Native Americans were left to their

own devices to recover economically. This economic recovery would not truly occur until the

end of the first World War. After the War, Native American men brought home a soldier’s wages

and a renewed respect from their peers. The War had not been cheap for the tribes; The numbers
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of dead in their community were uncountable. While this new respect had come at a price of

blood, it made all the difference. American Indians could once again call themselves warriors,

and be proud of their place in society as veterans. This pride likely contributed to the large

numbers that volunteered to participate in World War II. In World War II, the largest

contributions of the American Indians were their efforts as battlefield infantry and as Code-

Talkers. This widespread aid of the Allied cause was crucial to the war effort, and it cannot be

understated how many lives were saved by the actions of these brave servicemen. Having

already earned citizenship and the right to vote in many states, Native American servicemen had

no secondary motivation for their bravery in the second World War. These brave soldiers simply

wanted to defend the nation that was their ancestral home. Though it wasn’t a perfect nation that

they fought to protect, it was the one which they had chosen to call home.

Works Cited:

City of Alexandria, Virginia Website,

https://www.alexandriava.gov/historic/fortward/default.aspx?id=40164#:~:text=Approximately

%2020%2C000%20Native%20Americans%20served,in%20Federal%20assaults%20on

%20Petersburg. Published 2017, Updated 2017, Accessed 2020. (1)

Indian Country Today, https://indiancountrytoday.com/archive/how-the-cherokee-fought-the-

civil-war-qYH_QooMBEmOp2vYa6_AIQ, Published 2012, Accessed 2020. (2)

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Waxman, Oliva, Time Magazine Website, https://time.com/5459439/american-indians-

wwi/#:~:text=More%20than%2012%2C000%20American%20Indians,%2C%20snipers%20and

%20code%2Dtalkers.&text=American%20Indians%20who%20had%20accepted,third%20were

%20not%20yet%20citizens. Published 2018, Accessed 2020. (3)

Greenspan, Jesse, https://www.history.com/news/world-war-is-native-american-code-talkers,

Published 2014, Accessed 2020. (4)

Multiple contributors, Native Words Native Warriors Project,,

https://americanindian.si.edu/education/codetalkers/html/index.html, Published 2007, Accessed

2020. (5)

Author not given, National World War II Museum Website,

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/american-indian-code-talkers, Publishing date

unknown, Accessed 2020. (6)

Editors of the American Indian Magazine, Produced by the Smithsonian,

https://www.americanindianmagazine.org/story/patriot-nations-native-americans-our-nations-

armed-forces, Published 2016, Accessed 2020 (7)

History.com Editors, https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/native-american-

timeline, Published 2018. Updated 2020, Accessed 2020. (8)

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American Indian and Alaska Native Servicemembers and Veterans Report, Veterans Affairs

Division of U.S. Government,

https://www.va.gov/tribalgovernment/docs/aian_report_final_v2_7.pdf, published 2012,

accessed 2020. (9)