It honestly might be more accurate to say that most native tribes were conquered "and then" had their land stolen, instead of one or the other. The US government frequently set aside reservations and conceded land to various native nations, but many of those lands were later reclaimed by the government and the natives were forcibly relocated. The most famous of these is the Cherokee "Trail of Tears", but quite a few tribes signed treaties with the US that were broken within a few decades when valuable resources were found inside their borders. Colorado is another good example - treaties with the Ute nation originally ceded most of western Colorado to them, but the modern Ute reservation is a comparatively tiny slice of the Four Corners area. "Having their land stolen" in that context would refer to the forced relocations under the Indian Removal Act and similar policies.

As a side note, I know we don't like to use Wiki as a primary source here, but they do have a handy list of historical Indian reservations that have since been revoked. It may not be a 'reliable' source but it illustrates the situation rather nicely.

I would challenge your assertion that the events are called as such ¨instead¨of being called a conquest. European involvement in the Americas is frequently called a ¨conquest,¨in literature, pop culture, and general knowledge.

Now, I will acknowledge that ¨conquest¨is a much less common term for North America, but there is a distinct strategical difference as well. (This might get rambly.) Typically, ¨conquest¨involves forcefully removing one government to be replaced with another. The conqueror rules over a conquered people, asserting their system of government, laws, etc. Colonization in Latin America didn´t involve the Jamestown/pilgrims concept of colonies as much as it did subjugating local populations. Inversely, while the North American land was forcefully taken, or ¨conquered¨, the people were killed or kicked out, not subjugated. It´s really hard to say native North Americans themselves were conquered. In South America, there was very much the idea that the locals were abosrbed into the Spanish Empire; they then ¨needed¨to be reorganized into proper settlements, taught Spanish religion and language, and, of course, be exploited for their labor. You don´t have British reducciones, where native folks were relocated into what was somewhere between an agricultural village and a labor/indoctrination camp. There was the white, European ¨ordered¨city, and the wild, native frontier, while in the south the two existed together, the Spanish on top and the locals under their feet. Now, later actions by the US are a different story, though not really my area.

To help, compare it with other conquests. When the Romans, Carthaginians, and Umayyads conquered Iberia, there were still Gauls/Visigoths/etc. there over which they enforced their rule. When various groups from the north conquered parts of China in the Six Kingdoms period, there were still Chinese people there. When Rome was conquered by folks from the north, Rome still stood. Generally conquest doesn´t mean killing/kicking out people and taking their land as much as does asserting rule over them. I hope that makes some sense.

"Conquest" is a term applied to the gains of war, by definition "the act of military subjugation of an enemy by force of arms" (definition)

So we can say that the Aztecs or the Incans were conquered (the Spanish word conquistador literally means 'conqueror') however the English and French did not conquer the United States and Canada. Rather they just kind of showed up and started doing their own thing, ignoring the Native inhabitants and setting up colonies on top of Native lands.(contrary to common belief, they did have a concept of land ownership)

Settlers didn't usually pay for the lands or get permission to settle their from the Natives, which is why we might say they stole the lands. Things like the Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears are examples of land being stolen as Natives were forcibly removed from their lands. This was not a subjugation of Native peoples, but rather a removal.

Later wars would not really be conquests by definition because they did not force the subjugation of the natives, rather they forced native tribes off the lands Europeans had settled. Again, not a subjugation but a removal by force. Here is a basic source to back up what I'm saying. There are allegations that the US made it illegal to sell vaccines to Native people, and there are also allegations that the Trail of Tears was intentionally marched through areas infested with smallpox.

In addition to that there were massacres against peaceful Natives, and there may even have been bounties put on the heads of Native peoples. Of course plenty of white people were also killed by Natives.

By the late 1800's, many Native groups were subjugated either through conquest or through assimilation. So there were some Native groups that were conquered, but other groups were killed and had their land stolen.

I know I used a lot of wikipedia here, but I have read a couple of books and many articles on the subject, however the titles/authors escape me right now. "Colonial America" by Allan Taylor is a good one though.

tl;dr: Perspective. Can you conquer something you don't think is there? Europeans largely didn't recognize preexisting land claims- land was claimed without having any European settlement or population- there was no conquest necessary for these claims to be recognized by other European polities.

To begin with you may want to check out [this previous thread about how Europeans "legally" took the land] (https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3cly9y/what_legal_ways_if_any_were_europeans_using_to/cswzozj). To sum up that longer post; how one legally acquired land varied between different European polities to the extent that they didn't always recognize each other's claims, much less recognize the claims of indigenous peoples.

And really- that's the point. Generally Europeans did not recognize pre-existing claims to land, so there was no 'conquest.' Symbolic land claims, through ceremony, letters, acts of navigation, etc. were undertaken not for the sake of indigenous peoples, but for the sake of Europeans. Unlike the example of Rome and Carthage put forward by someone else; Rome and Carthage fought a protracted series of wars against one another- they saw each other as governments with territorial claims. In the Americas, land was claimed without ever having to send the troops inland- again you can't conquer a people if you don't think they have a government or a claim for you to take. Now of course this varies across the two continents and island Caribbean- but generally land was claimed without governmental presence to administer it- so there was not always a direct conquest of indigenous peoples for them 'legally' be residing in territory claimed under the Spanish or British flag.

The differences between 'stolen' and 'conquered' come down to the way history is written by the two parties. Indigenous American populations will largely have a narrative that focuses on the theft of land, while white Americans will have a narrative of conquest.

Why? Conquest is a more noble pursuit than theft. It has connotations of bravery and heroics.

Indigenous Americans have a vastly differing view though, because in many cases there were treaties signed between the United States government and the Indian Nations. These treaties supposedly gave the Indian Nations the rights to stay where they were, unmolested by the United States.

However, things change. Influx of settlers into America from Europe meant that more land was needed. So began the land grabs. Here's another comment I wrote 3 months ago which details Andrew Jackson's role in the land grabs of the early nineteenth century:

The worst perpetrator of the land grabs was most likely Andrew Jackson. While quelling American Indian rebellions in the early nineteenth century Jackson promised those who assisted him rewards of land. He also promised that "...if either party, cherokees, friendly creeks, or whites, takes property of the Red Sticks, the property belongs to those who take it." The Red Sticks were a faction of the Creek Nation who opposed assimilation with white American expansion, preferring to hold onto their land and culture. So we immediately see here an opposition to (a) leaving the land, and (b) abandoning native society and its practices.

But wait, I hear you say, what about the Cherokee and the friendly Creeks who were promised land? Surely that amounts to a promise of land that could eventually become a state for those indigenous Nations members who were loyal to America! Well, yes... in a way. Except for a few factors, including slaves, Jackson, treaties, Jackson, settlers, and Jackson.

Jackson was in charge of making a treaty after the war in 1814 against the Creek Nation, which was won by friendly Cherokee who fought for him. While making the treaty, he managed to come out the other side with "half the land of the Creek nation" for America. His response to protests made by Creeks who had fought with him? "The United States would have been justified by the Great Spirit had they taken all the lands of the nation [...] the great body of the Creek chiefs and warriors did not respect the power of the United States". This was given in response to Creek warriors who had helped Jackson in return for keeping their lands. It essentially set a standard of no promises could be kept.

Slavery was also still in play at this point, and when slaves escaped, they were often offered sanctuary in native villages and settlements. This was used as an excuse by Jackson(who commanded a sizable number of men), to raid into Florida(then a Spanish possession), as the Seminole were harbouring slaves. Jackson had continued making treaties with Indians, moving south as he did, and gradually coming up against Florida. Which he then took by the same methods.

In the words of Jackson, the treaties worked thus: "...we addressed ourselves feelingly to the predominant and governing passion of all Indian tribes, i.e., their avarice or fear." Jackson and those under him encouraged settlers to move onto Indian land, and then when the Indians raised protest, they were told nothing could be done. This led to Indians signing new treaties to cede that land, and moving further away to maintain their autonomy. Then the process repeated. The result was a crawling mass of settlers that gradually inched their way through indigenous nations lands, pushing them further west.

I realise this doesn't fully answer your question about the efforts to make a state, but it does show the mindset of the early white American settlers. Indians weren't respected: they were seen as people easily tricked. They were manipulated, and coerced, into moving. The best chance for Native Americans came early on, when Jefferson was Secretary of State. He said that "where Indians lived within state boundaries they should not be interfered with, and that the government should remove white settlers who tried to encroach on them." So what happened? The number of white settlers increased to a point where this wasn't viable anymore. Land was needed, and white settlers needs came before those of the indigenous peoples.

Is it me or dose not one ever seem to bring up the native Americans involvement in the french Indian war and the u.s revolution. Didn't that play a part in alot of the bad relationship between the people/government and the natives?

Does "conquered" not imply being killed and having one's land stolen? I don't see the difference, aside from "conquered" sounding more like a euphemism. Either term doesn't justify war for the sake of expanding an empire. This sounds more like a question of semantics, in which case I'd have to see the context in which this word is used.