The Making of the United States, 1492–2025: Native Nations and Colonial Powers

A Continent of Native Nations

In 1492 North America was held from coast to coast by Native nations: the Haudenosaunee and Wendat around the Great Lakes, the Cherokee, Muscogee and Choctaw in the Southeast, the Pueblo peoples on the Rio Grande, the Mexica-led Triple Alliance in central Mexico, and dozens more. Norse Greenlanders had built a short-lived base at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland around the year 1000, but the animation starts with Columbus's landfall in the Bahamas on 12 October 1492.

Many maps of American expansion show only the claims of the powers. This one shows who really held the ground: a Native nation until its land was settled, conquered or signed away by treaty, and a colonial power only around its towns, forts and missions and on land it had taken. Paper claims are drawn separately, as ribbons. The map has 51 keyframes, 67 Native nation layers, 14 colonial and national layers and 450 markers.

Spanish, French, Dutch, Swedish and English Footholds

Spain came first. Ponce de León reached Florida in 1513, Cortés took Tenochtitlan in 1521, and the expeditions of Hernando de Soto and Coronado crossed the Southeast and Southwest from 1539. St. Augustine, founded in 1565, is the oldest lasting European town in the present United States, and Juan de Oñate founded Spanish New Mexico in 1598.

In the north the footholds came almost together: Jamestown in 1607, Quebec in 1608, Plymouth in 1620 and New Amsterdam on Manhattan by 1626. Sweden founded New Sweden on the Delaware in 1638, until Peter Stuyvesant took it for the Dutch in 1655. The English took New Amsterdam in 1664 and renamed it New York; the Dutch retook it in 1673 and returned it by the Treaty of Westminster in 1674.

Wars and Alliances, 1637–1763

The Pequot War of 1637 broke the Pequot nation. In 1649 the Haudenosaunee destroyed the Wendat (Huron) Confederacy. King Philip's War (1675–76) devastated southern New England, and in 1680 the Pueblo Revolt drove the Spaniards out of New Mexico for twelve years. The Great Peace of Montreal in 1701 ended the Beaver Wars between the French and about 40 Native nations, including the Haudenosaunee.

France claimed the Mississippi basin after La Salle reached the Gulf of Mexico in 1682 and founded New Orleans in 1718, but its settlements stayed few and small. After the British victory on the Plains of Abraham in 1759, France left North America in 1763. The Proclamation Line of that year was meant to keep colonists east of the Appalachians, and Pontiac's War broke out the same year.

Treaties, Removal and the Westward Push

The United States declared independence on 4 July 1776 and was recognised to the Mississippi in 1783. From 1784 the land cessions roll west on the map: the Treaty of Greenville (1795) opened Ohio, and the Treaty of Fort Jackson (1814) took about half of the Muscogee (Creek) lands. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 moved the claimed border west, though Native nations still held almost all of that land.

The Indian Removal Act, signed on 28 May 1830, set out to move the Cherokee, Muscogee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole west of the Mississippi. In 1838 the army collected about 16,000 Cherokee in camps, and about 4,000 died on the Trail of Tears. Texas broke from Mexico in 1836 and was annexed in 1845, Oregon was divided with Britain in 1846, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) and the Gadsden Purchase (1853) took Mexico's north.

The Plains, the Civil War and the Reservations

Eleven states seceded in 1861; the Union was restored in 1865. The same years saw the Dakota War in Minnesota (1862), the Long Walk of the Navajo (1864) and the Sand Creek massacre (1864). The United States bought Alaska in 1867. The Fort Laramie treaty of 1868 set out the Great Sioux Reservation with the Black Hills, which were taken after the Battle of the Little Bighorn (1876). The Comanche plains were lost in 1875, Geronimo surrendered in 1886, the Dawes Act of 1887 began allotment, and the Wounded Knee Massacre of 29 December 1890 ended the Plains Wars. Indian Territory was dissolved when Oklahoma became a state in 1907. The Hawaiian Kingdom was overthrown in 1893 and annexed in 1898.

The Twentieth Century and Today

The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 ended allotment. Alaska and Hawaii became states in 1959, and the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 extinguished aboriginal title in Alaska in exchange for 44 million acres held by Native corporations. In Canada, modern land-claim agreements returned large areas to Inuit, Dene and Cree ownership, and Nunavut was created in 1999. In 2020 the Supreme Court ruled in McGirt v. Oklahoma that the Muscogee reservation had never been disestablished. The map ends with today's 574 federally recognized tribes.

How to Read the Map

Fill colours show who held the ground. Each Native nation, or group of neighbouring peoples, has its own colour. Colonial areas are circles around settlements that widen with age. United States land is split into states (dark blue), territories (lighter blue) and, in 1861–65, the Confederacy (grey). The thin ribbons along inland borders are paper claims, such as New France, New Netherland, Rupert's Land, Russian America and the United States from 1776.

Inside the United States, Native land follows the 718 cessions that Charles Royce mapped in 1899, each with the legal date of its treaty or act, so land often stays Native on the map after settlers had in fact overrun it. Before the treaties, a nation's country is the land nearest to its known villages: an approximation, since borders between nations were zones rather than lines. Reservations and Canadian reserves of about 150 km² and more are drawn. Alaska counts as Native land until 1971 and Hawaiʻi as a Native kingdom until 1893. Canada is drawn by treaty area and Mexico by state.

How the Map Was Made

Native land loss comes from C. C. Royce, Indian Land Cessions in the United States (1899), in the US Forest Service's digital edition. Today's reservations come from the US Census Bureau (2023), and Canada's reserves and settlement lands from Natural Resources Canada. Colonial towns, forts and missions were compiled from reference works, with the main ones re-checked against their articles; borders come from Natural Earth. Many smaller peoples are grouped with their neighbours.

Chronological Timeline

• 1492 — Columbus lands in the Bahamas
• 1565 — St. Augustine founded
• 1607 — Jamestown founded
• 1626 — New Amsterdam on Manhattan
• 1649 — The Haudenosaunee destroy the Wendat Confederacy
• 1664 — New Amsterdam becomes New York
• 1680 — Pueblo Revolt
• 1763 — France leaves North America; the Proclamation Line
• 1776 — Declaration of Independence
• 1803 — Louisiana Purchase
• 1830 — Indian Removal Act
• 1838–1839 — Trail of Tears
• 1848 — Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
• 1861–1865 — Civil War
• 1876 — Battle of the Little Bighorn
• 1890 — Wounded Knee Massacre
• 1893 — Hawaiian Kingdom overthrown
• 1971 — Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act
• 1999 — Nunavut created
• 2020 — McGirt v. Oklahoma