Each of these tribal groups can be thought of as something akin to small nations that ultimately made war with each other and with the US. The best short way to describe it is as bad diplomacy that ended in war with the US winning all of the wars.
Many of the battles of these wars could be considered atrocities, but they were on a relatively small scale. Granted most of these tribes were also very small so relatively speaking they could be called massacres. But the full scale and scope of these small, violent conflicts, were not great systematic exercises in force by the US. From my limited research, it cannot be said that the US ever used a fraction of its war making capacity against the various tribes as compared with its wars against itself (Civil War) or with Mexico[1] or Great Britain[2]. Instead, it is better characterized as a series of sporadic incursions.
Consider the largest and most famous of these Indian wars. The Great Sioux War of 1876 included the Battle of the Little Big Horn also known as Custer’s Last Stand. The entire war resulted in less than 600 killed and wounded, total for both sides[3]. The legendary forced removal of Indians from the South known as the Trail of Tears took place over a period of over 15 years. Large numbers are cited but the details[4] show a different picture.
In all of the conflicts with Indians here in North America, there were always political partisans on both sides of the issue, often with the wrong issues at hand. In retrospect it is only if you try to summarize the entire history into a short paragraph that it sounds like a systematic campaign of genocide.
When I look at this history I think it is most important to observe the specific actors and their intentions, capabilities and contexts in order to make proper judgements. Or as young people might say today “It is racist to bundle Chippewas, Seminoles, Creeks, Comanche, Sioux, Apache and hundreds of other ‘Indians’ as if they were all the same.” It’s just as wrong to say they had common interests today as it was during the time of the conflicts. So no single settlement can possibly be reached. Indeed this was certainly the case then, as now. No single chief could speak for all Indians as no President could speak for all Americans.
What each of these peoples got were the deals they negotiated and the wars they engaged. There are therefore hundreds of answers, none of which falls neatly into a bucket of ‘reparations for atrocities’.
Footnotes
[1] Mexican–American War - Wikipedia
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