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Nakoma Blackfeather

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Nakoma Blackfeather

February 25, 2026 3:19 pm

The end of the American Indian Wars in 1924 is far more recent than most people imagine. For centuries, these conflicts unfolded across shifting frontiers as Indigenous nations fought to defend their ... View MoreThe end of the American Indian Wars in 1924 is far more recent than most people imagine. For centuries, these conflicts unfolded across shifting frontiers as Indigenous nations fought to defend their homelands against U.S. expansion, forced removals, and broken treaties. By the early 20th century, only a few holdouts remained, including small Apache groups who continued resisting U.S. authority long after the major wars had ended. Their final surrender in August 1924 marked the symbolic close of an era that had shaped the entire North American continent. It wasn’t ancient history, it happened within the lifetime of people’s grandparents. Just weeks before that final Apache conflict ended, the U.S. passed the Indian Citizenship Act of June 1924, but none of that states honored it till the late 60s, granting citizenship to all Indigenous peoples born within the country. But even this milestone came with contradictions: many Native communities had already served in World War I without being recognized as citizens, and full voting rights were still denied in several states for decades afterward. The overlap of these two events, the end of armed resistance and the legal recognition of citizenship, captures a pivotal moment in Indigenous history, where survival, sovereignty, and identity were being renegotiated in the modern era. What often surprises people is how bureaucratic the final years of the conflict were. By the early 1900s, most large‑scale battles were long over, but the U.S. government still classified certain Indigenous groups especially small Apache bands as “hostile” simply because they lived traditionally and refused relocation. Some Apaches who were still being pursued in the 1910s and 1920s had never actually fought the U.S. Army; they were resisting forced settlement. Even more striking, several Native scouts who had served the U.S. military with distinction were still legally considered “prisoners of war” decades after their service. The last of these POW designations wasn’t lifted until 1914, meaning some Indigenous men were held under wartime status for nearly 30 years. Another overlooked fact is how deeply Indigenous people shaped the U.S. military during and after the wars. Many Native men served as scouts, trackers, and interpreters roles so effective that the Army quietly kept Indigenous scouts on payroll into the 1940s. Some tribes, like the Navajo and Hopi, were still negotiating land rights and sovereignty while simultaneously sending soldiers to World War I, despite not being recognized as U.S. citizens. Even after the 1924 Citizenship Act states didn't recognize Native Americans as citizens until 1969, almost all states continued to block Native voting rights until the late 1960s. So while the “wars” officially ended in 1924, the struggle for legal recognition, land, and autonomy continued long after, revealing a far more complicated and human story than most textbooks ever mention.

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