From Hiawatha to Geronimo

Spanning three centuries, from Champlain’s first encounter in 1609 with primitive Iroquois warriors to Geronimo’s death in 1909, Hiawatha to Geronimo chronicles the demise of the native peoples of North America to the relentless encroachment of white European settlement.

From the forests of New England to the deserts of the American Southwest, the indigenous peoples of America were driven mercilessly from the lands they had roamed for thousands of years. This is their story, the forgotten tribes and their heroic leaders: King Phillip, Blue Jacket, Tecumseh, Osceola, Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Cochise, and Geronimo. Each of these, along with countless others, rose up to take the torch from his predecessor in a near-continuous cycle of conflict that spanned the continent and all but eradicated a people and a culture.

Taken together with our nation’s terrible history of slavery, the assault by whites on Native America formed the second of the great pillars of the American Tragedy. It was perhaps the most egregious of our nation’s original sins.