During the early American period of 1783 to 1815, only white adult men enjoyed the full range of privileges of citizenship that almost all U.S. citizens take for granted in the twenty-first century. Women generally could not vote and lost ownership to their property when they married. However, those with the fewest privileges were black Americans and Native Americans. Black slaves were considered property, not human beings. Native Americans were considered savages, something less than fully human. Neither slaves nor Native Americans would be extended U.S. citizenship until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Racial prejudice was extensive in early U.S. society. Even free blacks (non-slaves) were greatly limited in their rights and freedoms. Native Americans lost their traditional lands and lifestyles to the onslaught of U.S. expansion. U.S.–Native American relations during this...