Showing results for "River" in North America

For thousands of years, the Elwha river flowed north to the sea. The river churned with salmon, which helped feed bears, otters, and eagles. The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, known as the Strong People located in the Pacific Northwest, were grateful for the river's abundance. All that changed in the 1790s when strangers came who did not understand the river's gifts. The strangers built dams, and the environmental consequences were disastrous.

Like Geronimo in the southwest during the same era, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were warriors and leaders of different groups of Lakota (Sioux), who fought in several skirmishes against settlers and U.S. forces across the Plains, during the 1860s and 1870s. Admired by their own people for their kindness and strong leadership, reviled by their enemies for their defiance, when The Great Sioux War of 1876 began, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were two of the most important leaders among all Native American tribes on the Plains.

Throughout his life, Crazy Horse tried to live the life his people had enjoyed for centuries. He never signed a treaty with the US government and was never photographed, largely because he wanted to avoid contact with the settlers encroaching further west upon Native American lands. By staying away from white settlements and military forts, he thus avoided the places where a photographer might be lurking.

With the exception of George Washington, perhaps the most famous general in American history is Robert E. Lee (January 19, 1807-October 12, 1870), despite the fact he led the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia against the Union in the Civil War. Although the Civil War came to define Lee’s legacy, he was involved in some of American history’s other turning points, including the Mexican-American War and the capture of John Brown.

Crockett had the distinction of being a living legend in his own life. Known as a hardscrabble frontiersman who could spin a good yarn but who also took a no-nonsense approach that brought him from the backwoods of Tennessee to the halls of Congress. Though he served during the presidency of another Westerner, Andrew Jackson, Crockett was very much his own man, and he was distrustful of other politicians, a sentiment that has only endured him further to subsequent generations of Americans.

On the night of December 16, 1773, a group of 30-130 men boarded the tea ship Dartmouth and two other ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor over the span of three hours in protest of the Tea Act of 1773. Agreement over what exactly happened ends there, but a number of legends have since popped up and become part of the common narrative. The urban legend that the people who boarded the ship dressed as Mohawks is not entirely true.

The life of Pocahontas fulfills a specific role in American culture and history. Her short life holds a bittersweet tragedy that is part of the mythology of Native America, especially the first encounters between English settlers and the local native tribes. The meaning of her name, "little plaything" or "little wanton", suggests that she was destined to be bandied about by the powers in her life.