History: American Old West, United States

In June 1877, in the Nez Perce War the Nez Perce under Chief Joseph, unwilling to give up their traditional lands and move to a reservation, undertook a 1,200 mile fighting retreat from Oregon to near the Canadian border in Montana. Numbering only 200 warriors, the Nez Perce "battled some 2,000 American regulars and volunteers of different military units, together with their Indian auxiliaries of many tribes, in a total of eighteen engagements, including four major battles and at least four fiercely contested skirmishes." The Nez Perce were finally surrounded at the Battle of Bear Paw and surrendered.
The Great Sioux War of 1876-77 was conducted by the Lakota under Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. The conflict began after repeated violations of the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) once gold was discovered in the hills. One of its famous battles was the Battle of the Little Bighorn, in which combined Sioux and Cheyenne forces defeated the 7th Cavalry, led by General George Armstrong Custer.
The end of the Sioux Wars came at the Wounded Knee Massacre on December 29, 1890 where Sitting Bull's half-brother, Big Foot, and some 200 Sioux were killed by the 7th Cavalry. Only thirteen days before, Sitting Bull had been killed with his son Crow Foot in a gun battle with a group of Indian police that had been sent by the American government to arrest him.
Other engagements between Americans and native Americans occurred after the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 which is considered the final trial of the American Indian Wars. The period came to an end in 1918 after the skirmish in Arizona locally called the Battle of Bear Valley. In the fight, the 10th Cavalry captured a group of Yaquis and killed their chief. In 1907 two soldiers from Fort Wingate, New Mexico skirmished with Navajo rifleman and in 1911 they quelled an uprising in Chaco Canyon. Also in 1911 the Last Massacre occurred when a family of hostile Shoshones killed three ranchers in Nevada. A posse was formed and after an engagement popularly called the Battle of Kelly Creek, the Shoshone family of twelve was mostly killed with the exception of three children.