The American Indian Wars

153,000

estimated total dead

Each dot below represents 1,000 human lives. Scroll to watch the scale unfold.

Military Dead

103,000 soldiers killed in combat, from wounds, or from disease. Each = 1,000 lives.

United States — 1,000 military dead

Native Nations — 52,000 military dead

Civilian Dead

50,000 civilians killed — from violence, famine, disease, and displacement. Wars are not fought only by soldiers.

Civilian dead — 50,000

Deadliest Engagements

Little Bighorn328

Wounded Knee325

Sand Creek Massacre254

Bear Paw Mountain133

Battle Of Washita124

Fetterman Fight95

Battle Of Rosebud64

Milk Creek50

For Perspective

How Indian Wars's dead compare to other conflicts and events.

Indian Wars — total dead153,000

U.S. military dead (combat only)1,000

Mexican-American War (total)13,283

American Civil War (U.S. deaths)620,000

Milestones of Loss

1,000 dead

U.S. Army combat dead — a fraction of the true human cost

52,000 dead

Estimated Native warrior dead in recorded engagements

103,000 dead

Combined military dead — the visible tip of a much larger catastrophe

All figures are historical estimates and vary across sources. The true human cost of war is impossible to fully quantify — these numbers represent the best scholarly consensus. Each number was a person with a name, a family, and a life unlived.