Battle of Beecher Island

Beecher Island is a sandbar located along the lower course of the Arikaree River, a tributary of the North Fork of the Republican River near Wray in... Yuma County, Colorado. The site is notable for having been the scene of an 1868 armed conflict between elements of the United States Army and several of the Plains Indian tribes. The island was named for Lt. Fredrick H. Beecher of the 3rd Infantry , one of the heroes of the engagement who was killed during what became known as the Battle of Beecher Island. The "island" and the courses of the river have been modified by several floods since 1868.
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American Indian Wars is the name used in the United States to describe a series of conflicts between American settlers or the federal government and... the native peoples of North America before and after the American Revolutionary War. The wars resulted from the arrival of European colonizers who continuously sought to expand their territory, pushing the indigenous populations westwards. The wars were spurred by ideologies such as Manifest Destiny, which held that the United States was destined to expand from coast to coast on the American continent, and which resulted in the policy of Indian removal, by which indigenous peoples were removed from the areas where Europeans were settling, either forcefully or by means of voluntary exchange of territory through treaties. Today Native Americans make up between 0.9 and 1.5 percent of the U.S. population. No conclusive evidence exists to determine how many native people lived in North America before the arrival of Columbus. David Stannard notes that more conservative demographers cite a figure of about 7 or 8 million inhabitants.
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