Native Americans, sometimes called American Indians, First Americans, or Indigenous Americans, are the Indigenous peoples of the United States or portions thereof, such as American Indians from the contiguous United States and Alaska Natives. The United States Census Bureau defines Native American as "all people indigenous to the United States and its territories, including Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islanders, whose data are published separately from American Indians and Alaska Natives".[4] The U.S. census tracks data from American Indians and Alaska Native separately from Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders,[4] who include Samoan Americans and Chamorros.
The European colonization of the Americas that began in 1492 resulted in a precipitous decline in Native American population because of newly introduced diseases, including weaponized diseases and biological warfare by European colonizers,[5][6][7][8][9] wars, ethnic cleansing, and enslavement. Numerous historians have called this a genocide. After its formation, the United States, as part of its policy of settler colonialism, continued to wage war and perpetrated massacres against many Native American peoples, removed them from their ancestral lands, and subjected them to one-sided treaties and to discriminatory government policies. These later focused on forced assimilation, into the 20th century.[10][11][12]
When the United States was established, Native American tribes were generally considered semi-independent nations, as they generally lived in communities separate from white settlers. The federal government signed treaties at a government-to-government level until the Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 ended recognition of independent Native nations, and started treating them as "domestic dependent nations" subject to applicable federal laws. This law did preserve the rights and privileges agreed to under the treaties, including a large degree of tribal sovereignty. For this reason, many Native American reservations are still independent of state law and the actions of tribal citizens on these reservations are subject only to tribal courts and federal law, often differently applicable to tribal lands than to U.S. state or territory by exemption, exclusion, treaty, or superseding tribal or federal law.
The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 granted U.S. citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States who had not yet obtained it. This emptied the "Indians not taxed" category established by the United States Constitution, allowed Natives to vote in state and federal elections, and extended the Fourteenth Amendment protections granted to people "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. However, some states continued to deny Native Americans voting rights for several decades. Titles II through VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 comprise the Indian Civil Rights Act, which applies to the Native American tribes of the United States and makes many but not all of the guarantees of the U.S. Bill of Rights applicable within the tribes (that Act appears today in Title 25, sections 1301 to 1303 of the United States Code).[13]
Since the 1960s, Native American self-determination movements have resulted in positive changes to the lives of many Native Americans, though there are still many contemporary issues faced by them. Today, there are over five million Native Americans in the United States, 78% of whom live outside reservations. The states with the highest percentage of Native Americans in the U.S. are Alaska, Oklahoma, New Mexico, South Dakota, Montana, and North Dakota.[14][15]
Background
The cultural areas of Indigenous peoples of North America during the Pre-Columbian era, according to anthropologist Alfred Kroeber
Beginning toward the end of the 15th century, the migration of Europeans to the Americas led to centuries of population, cultural, and agricultural transfer and adjustment between Old and New World societies, a process known as the Columbian exchange. As most Native American groups had previously preserved their histories by means of oral traditions and artwork, the first written accounts of the contact were provided by Europeans.[16]
Ethnographers commonly classify the Indigenous peoples of North America into ten geographical regions with shared cultural traits, called cultural areas.[17] Some scholars combine the Plateau and Great Basin regions into the Intermontane West, some separate Prairie peoples from Great Plains peoples, while some separate Great Lakes tribes from the Northeastern Woodlands. The ten cultural areas are:
Arctic, including Aleut, Inuit, and Yupik peoples
Subarctic
Northeastern Woodlands
Southeastern Woodlands
Great Plains
Great Basin
Northwest Plateau
Northwest Coast
California
Southwest (Oasisamerica)
At the time of the first contact, the Indigenous cultures were quite different from those of the proto-industrial and mostly Christian immigrants. Some Northeastern and Southwestern cultures, in particular, were matrilineal and operated on a more collective basis than that with which Europeans were familiar. The majority of Indigenous American tribes treated their hunting grounds and agricultural lands as being for the use of their entire tribe. At that time, Europeans had cultures that had developed concepts of individual property rights with respect to land that were extremely different. The differences in cultures between the established Native Americans and immigrant Europeans, as well as the shifting alliances among different nations during periods of warfare, caused extensive political tension, ethnic violence, and social disruption.
Native Americans suffered high fatality rates from contact with European diseases that were new to them, and to which they had not yet acquired immunity; the diseases were endemic to the Spanish and other Europeans, and were spread by direct contact — probably primarily contact with domesticated pigs that had been brought over by European expeditions and had then escaped.[18] Smallpox epidemics are thought to have caused the greatest loss of life for Indigenous populations. As William M. Denevan, a noted author and professor emeritus of geography at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in "The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492": "The decline of native American populations was rapid and severe, probably the greatest demographic disaster ever. Old World diseases were the primary killer. In many regions, particularly the tropical lowlands, populations fell by 90 percent or more in the first century after the contact."[19][20]
Estimates of the size of the pre-Columbian population of the area that today is the United States vary considerably. They range from William M. Denevan's estimate of 3.8 million- in his 1992 work, The Native Population of the Americas in 1492-to Henry F. Dobyns's 18 million in his 1983 work,Their Number Become Thinned.[18][19][21][22] Because Henry F. Dobyns' is by far the highest single-point estimate among professional academic researchers, it has been criticized as "politically motivated".[18] Dobyns' most vehement critic is perhaps David Henige, a bibliographer of African literature at the University of Wisconsin, whose Numbers From Nowhere (1998)[23] has been jocularly described as "a landmark in the literature of demographic fulmination".[18] Henige writes of Dobyns' work, "Suspect in 1966, it is no less suspect nowadays … If anything, it is worse."[18]
After the thirteen British colonies revolted against Great Britain and established the United States, President George Washington and Secretary of War Henry Knox conceived the idea of "civilizing" Native Americans in preparation for their assimilation as U.S. citizens.[24][25][26][27][28] Assimilation, whether it was voluntary, as it was with the Choctaw,[29][30] or forced, was consistently maintained as a matter of policy by a number of consecutive American administrations.
During the 19th century, the ideology known as manifest destiny became integral to the American nationalist movement. Westward expansion of European American populations after the American Revolution resulted in increasing pressure on Native Americans and their lands, warfare, and rising tensions. In 1830, the U.S. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the federal government to relocate Native Americans from their homelands within established states to lands west of the Mississippi River, in order to accommodate continued European American expansion. This resulted in what amounted to the ethnic cleansing of many tribes and brutal forced marches that came to be known as the Trail of Tears.
Contemporary Native Americans have a unique relationship with the United States because they may be members of nations, tribes, or bands that have sovereignty and treaty rights upon which federal Indian law and a federal Indian trust relationship are based.[31] Cultural activism since the late 1960s has increased the participation of Indigenous peoples in American politics. It has also led to expanded efforts to teach and preserve Indigenous languages for younger generations, and to establish a more robust cultural infrastructure: Native Americans have founded independent newspapers and online media outlets, including First Nations Experience, the first Native American television channel;[32] established Native American studies programs, tribal schools universities, museums, and language programs. Literature is at the growing forefront of American Indian studies in many genres, with the notable exception of fiction—some traditional American Indians experience fictional narratives as insulting when they conflict with traditional oral tribal narratives.[33]
The terms used to refer to Native Americans have at times been controversial. The ways Native Americans refer to themselves vary by region and generation, with many older[citation needed] Native Americans self-identifying as "Indians" or "American Indians", while younger[citation needed] Native Americans often identify as "Indigenous" or "Aboriginal". The term "Native American" has not traditionally included Native Hawaiians or certain Alaskan Natives,[34] such as Aleut, Yup'ik, or Inuit peoples. By comparison, the Indigenous peoples of Canada are generally known as First Nations, Inuit and Métis (FNIM).[citation needed]
History
Main article: History of Native Americans in the United States
Settlement of the Americas
Main articles: Paleo-Indians and Settlement of the Americas § Evidence for pre-LGM human presence
A map showing the approximate location of the ice-free corridor and Paleo-Indian settlements during the era of Clovis culture
It is not definitively known how or when the Native Americans first emerged from, or settled, in the Americas and present-day United States. The most popular theory is that people migrated from Eurasia across Beringia, a land bridge that connected Siberia to present-day Alaska, and then spread southward throughout the Americas over subsequent generations.[35] The 2021 findings of fossilized human footprints in relict lake sediments near White Sands National Park in present-day New Mexico suggest a human presence there dating back to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), between 18,000 and 26,000 years ago.[36][37][38] This age is based on a well-constrained stratigraphic record and radiocarbon dating of seeds in the sediments. Pre-LGM migration across Beringia has also been proposed to explain purported pre-LGM ages of archaeological sites in the Americas such as Bluefish Caves[39][40] in the Yukon Territory, and Meadowcroft Rock Shelter in Pennsylvania.[41][42]
Genetic evidence has suggested at least three waves of migrants arrived from East Asia, with the first occurring at least 15,000 years ago.[43] These migrations may have begun as early as 30,000 years ago[44] and continued to about 10,000 years ago, when the land bridge became submerged by the rising sea level at the onset of the current interglacial period.[45]
In November 2018, scientists of the University of São Paulo and Harvard University released a study of Luzia Woman, a 11,500-year-old skeleton of a Paleo-Indian woman who was found in a cave in Brazil. While initially believed to be part of the wave of Asian migrants, DNA and other evidence has shown this to be improbable. Using DNA sequencing, the results showed that Luzia was "entirely Amerindian", genetically.[46][47][48]
Pre-Columbian era
Main article: Pre-Columbian era
The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during the early modern period. While technically referring to the era before Christopher Columbus' 1492 arrival on the continent, in practice the term usually includes the history of Indigenous cultures until they were conquered or significantly influenced by Europeans, even if this happened decades, or even centuries, after Columbus' initial landing.
Native American cultures are not normally included in characterizations of advanced Stone Age cultures as "Neolithic", which is a category that more often includes only the cultures in Eurasia, Africa, and other regions. The archaeological periods used are the classifications of archaeological periods and cultures established in Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips' 1958 book Method and Theory in American Archaeology. They divided the archaeological record in the Americas into five phases.[49]
Lithic stage
Main article: Lithic stage
Further information: Clovis culture
A Folsom point used as a spear by Paleo-Indians during the Folsom tradition era between c. 10800 BCE and c. 10200 BCE
Numerous Paleo-Indian cultures occupied North America, with some arrayed around the Great Plains and Great Lakes of the modern United States and Canada, as well as areas to the West and Southwest. According to the oral histories of many of the Indigenous peoples, they have been living on this continent since their genesis, described by a wide range of traditional creation stories. Other tribes have stories that recount migrations across long tracts of land and a great river believed to be the Mississippi River.[50] Genetic and linguistic data connect the Indigenous people of this continent with ancient northeast Asians. Archeological and linguistic data has enabled scholars to discover some of the migrations within the Americas.
Archeological evidence at the Gault site near Austin, Texas, suggests that pre-Clovis peoples settled in present-day Texas some 16,000–20,000 years ago. Evidence of pre-Clovis cultures have also been found in the Paisley Caves in south-central Oregon and butchered mastodon bones in a sinkhole near Tallahassee, Florida. More convincingly but also controversially, another pre-Clovis has been discovered at Monte Verde in Chile.[51]
The Clovis culture, a megafauna hunting culture, is primarily identified by the use of fluted spear points. Artifacts from this culture were first excavated in 1932 near Clovis, New Mexico. The Clovis culture ranged over much of North America and parts of South America. The culture is identified by the distinctive Clovis point, a flaked flint spear-point with a notched flute, by which it was inserted into a shaft. The dating of Clovis materials has been by association with animal bones and by the use of carbon dating methods. Recent reexaminations of Clovis materials using improved carbon-dating methods produced results of 11,050 and 10,800 radiocarbon years B.P. (roughly 9100 to 8850 BCE).[52]
The Folsom tradition was characterized by the use of Folsom points as projectile tips and activities known from kill sites, where slaughter and butchering of bison took place. Folsom tools were left behind between 9000 BCE and 8000 BCE.[53]
Na-Dené-speaking peoples entered North America starting around 8000 BCE, reaching the Pacific Northwest by 5000 BCE,[54] and from there migrating along the Pacific Coast and into the interior. Linguists, anthropologists, and archaeologists believe their ancestors comprised a separate migration into North America, later than the first Paleo-Indians. They migrated into Alaska and northern Canada, south along the Pacific Coast, into the interior of Canada, and south to the Great Plains and the American Southwest. Na-Dené-speaking peoples were the earliest ancestors of the Athabascan-speaking peoples, including the present-day and historical Navajo and Apache. They constructed large multi-family dwellings in their villages, which were used seasonally. People did not live there year-round, but for the summer to hunt and fish, and to gather food supplies for the winter.[55]
Archaic period
Main article: Archaic period in the Americas
Since the 1990s, archaeologists have explored and dated eleven Middle Archaic sites in present-day Louisiana and Florida at which early cultures built complexes with multiple earthwork mounds; they were societies of hunter-gatherers rather than the settled agriculturalists believed necessary according to the theory of Neolithic Revolution to sustain such large villages over long periods. The prime example is Watson Brake in northern Louisiana, whose 11-mound complex is dated to 3500 BCE, making it the oldest, dated site in North America for such complex construction.[56] It is nearly 2,000 years older than the Poverty Point site. Construction of the mounds went on for 500 years until the site was abandoned about 2800 BCE, probably due to changing environmental conditions.[57]
The Oshara tradition people lived from around 5,440 BCE to 460 CE. They were part of the Southwestern Archaic tradition centered in north-central New Mexico, the San Juan Basin, the Rio Grande Valley, southern Colorado, and southeastern Utah.[58][59][60]
Poverty Point culture is a Late Archaic archaeological culture that inhabited the area of the lower Mississippi Valley and surrounding Gulf Coast. The culture thrived from 2200 BCE to 700 BCE, during the Late Archaic period.[61] Evidence of this culture has been found at more than 100 sites, from the major complex at Poverty Point, Louisiana (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) across a 100-mile (160 km) range to the Jaketown Site near Belzoni, Mississippi.
Post-archaic period
Shriver Circle Earthworks and the Mound City Group (on the left), c. 200 BCE to c. 500 CE, depicted in a 2019 portrait
A 2013 illustration of Cahokia, the largest Mississippian culture site, c. 1050 CE to c. 1350 CE
Native Americans from southeast Idaho, in a photo by Benedicte Wrensted, c. 1897
The Formative, Classic, and post-Classic stages are sometimes incorporated together as the Post-archaic period, which runs from 1,000 BCE onward.[62] Sites & cultures include: Adena, Old Copper, Oasisamerica, Woodland, Fort Ancient, Hopewell tradition and Mississippian cultures.
The Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures refers to the time period from roughly 1000 BCE to 1000 CE in the eastern part of North America. The Eastern Woodlands cultural region covers what is now eastern Canada south of the Subarctic region, the Eastern United States, along to the Gulf of Mexico.[63] The Hopewell tradition describes the common aspects of the culture that flourished along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern United States from 100 BCE to 500 CE, in the Middle Woodland period. The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society, but a widely dispersed set of related populations. They were connected by a common network of trade routes.[64][65] This period is considered a developmental stage without any massive changes in a short period, but instead having a continuous development in stone and bone tools, leather working, textile manufacture, tool production, cultivation, and shelter construction.[64]
The Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast were of many nations and tribal affiliations, each with distinctive cultural and political identities, but they shared certain beliefs, traditions, and practices, such as the centrality of salmon as a resource and spiritual symbol. Their gift-giving feast, potlatch, is a highly complex event where people gather in order to commemorate special events. These events include the raising of a Totem pole or the appointment or election of a new chief. The most famous artistic feature of the culture is the Totem pole, with carvings of animals and other characters to commemorate cultural beliefs, legends, and notable events.
The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American civilization archaeologists date from approximately 800 CE to 1600 CE, varying regionally.[66] It was composed of a series of urban settlements and satellite villages (suburbs) linked together by a loose trading network,[67] the largest city being Cahokia, believed to be a major religious center. The civilization flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States.[68][69]
Numerous pre-Columbian societies were sedentary, such as the Pueblo peoples, Mandan, Hidatsa and others, and some established large settlements, even cities, such as Cahokia, in what is now Illinois. The Iroquois League of Nations or "People of the Long House" was a politically advanced, democratic society, which is thought by some historians to have influenced the United States Constitution,[70][71] with the Senate passing a resolution to this effect in 1988.[72] Other historians have contested this interpretation and believe the impact was minimal, or did not exist, pointing to numerous differences between the two systems and the ample precedents for the constitution in European political thought.[73][74][75]
European exploration and colonization
Main articles: Age of Discovery and European colonization of the Americas
A map showing the approximate locations of Native American nations in present-day North America, c. 16th century
Spanish Empire explorer Hernando DeSoto greeting Native Americans on the Mississippi River, c. 1541, depicted in an 1853 portrait by William Henry Powell, which now hangs in the United States Capitol rotunda in Washington, D.C.
After 1492, European exploration and colonization of the Americas revolutionized how the Old and New Worlds perceived themselves. Many of the first major contacts were in Florida and the Gulf coast by Spanish explorers.[76]
The use of the doctrine of discovery
During European exploration and colonization of the Americas, the Europeans adopted the use of the doctrine of discovery, which involves a nation "discovering" land and claiming the rights to that land. There are two significant elements of the Doctrine that directly relate to the claim of Native lands; these elements are Christianity and Civilization. The Doctrine involved non-Christian peoples not having the same rights to lands as Christians. As Indigenous peoples were not Christian, Europeans used that as justification to declare rights to Indigenous lands. Europeans saw Indigenous peoples as "uncivilized savages"; therefore, civilization was a crucial aspect of the Discovery. The Europeans believed God intended them to bring civilization to the Indigenous peoples and their lands.[77]
Impact on native populations
Main article: Population history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas
See also: Native American genocide in the United States
Early Native American tribal territories in a 1967 United States Geological Survey color-coded map
From the 16th through the 19th centuries, the population of Native Americans sharply declined.[78] Most mainstream scholars believe that, among the various contributing factors,[79] epidemic disease (e.g. smallpox) was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the Native Americans because of their lack of immunity to new diseases brought from Europe.[80][81][82][83][84] It is difficult to estimate the number of pre-Columbian Native Americans who were living in what is today the United States of America.[85] Estimates ranged from a low of 720,000 (Kroeber 1939) to a high of 15 million (Dobyns 1983), with a reanalysis estimating 5.65 million (Thornton 1990).[86][21][87] By 1800, the Native population of the present-day United States had declined to approximately 600,000, and only 250,000 Native Americans remained in the 1890s.[88] Chicken pox and measles, endemic but rarely fatal among Europeans (long after being introduced from Asia), often proved deadly to Native Americans.[89][90][91][92] In the 100 years following the arrival of the Spanish to the Americas, large disease epidemics depopulated large parts of the eastern United States in the 16th century.[93]
There are a number of documented cases where diseases were deliberately spread among Native Americans as a form of biological warfare. The most well-known example occurred in 1763, when Henry Bouquet (then serving as commander of Fort Pitt) distributed smallpox blankets to Native Americans besieging the fortification; the effectiveness of the attempt is unclear. In 1837, Mandan Native Americans at Fort Clark fell victim to a smallpox epidemic; some scholars have claimed they were intentionally infected with smallpox blankets.[94][95][96][97][98]
In 1634, Andrew White of the Society of Jesus established a mission in what is now the state of Maryland, and the purpose of the mission, stated through an interpreter to the chief of an Indian tribe there, was "to extend civilization and instruction to his ignorant race, and show them the way to heaven".[99] White's diaries report that by 1640, a community had been founded which they named St. Mary's, and the Indians were sending their children there "to be educated among the English".[100] This included the daughter of the Piscataway Indian chief Tayac, which exemplifies not only a school for Indians, but either a school for girls or an early co-ed school. The same records report that in 1677, "a school for humanities was opened by our Society in the centre of [Maryland], directed by two of the Fathers; and the native youth, applying themselves assiduously to study, made good progress. Maryland and the recently established school sent two boys to St. Omer who yielded in abilities to few Europeans, when competing for the honor of being first in their class. So that not gold, nor silver, nor the other products of the earth alone, but men also are gathered from thence to bring those regions, which foreigners have unjustly called ferocious, to a higher state of virtue and cultivation."[101]
Through the mid-17th century, the Beaver Wars were fought over the fur trade between the Iroquois and the Hurons, the northern Algonquians, and their French allies. During the war the Iroquois destroyed several large tribal confederacies, including the Huron, Neutral, Erie, Susquehannock, and Shawnee, and became dominant in the region and enlarged their territory.
In 1727, the Sisters of the Order of Saint Ursula founded Ursuline Academy in New Orleans, which is currently the oldest continuously operating school for girls and the oldest Catholic school in the United States. From the time of its foundation, it offered the first classes for Native American girls, and would later offer classes for female African American slaves and free women of color.
An 1882 studio portrait of the last three surviving Six Nations warriors who fought with the British in the War of 1812; John Smoke Johnson, a Mohawk leader in Canada, appears on the left.
Between 1754 and 1763, many Native American tribes were involved in the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War. Those involved in the fur trade tended to ally with French forces against British colonial militias. The British had made fewer allies, but it was joined by some tribes that wanted to prove assimilation and loyalty in support of treaties to preserve their territories. They were often disappointed when such treaties were later overturned. The tribes had their own purposes, using their alliances with the European powers to battle traditional Native enemies. Some Iroquois who were loyal to the British and helped them fight in the American Revolution, fled north into Canada.
After European explorers reached the West Coast in the 1770s, smallpox rapidly killed at least 30% of Northwest Coast Native Americans. For the next eighty to one hundred years, smallpox and other diseases devastated native populations in the region.[102] Puget Sound area populations, once estimated as high as 37,000 people, were reduced to only 9,000 survivors by the time settlers arrived en masse in the mid-19th century.[103]
Smallpox epidemics in 1780–1782 and 1837–1838 brought devastation and drastic depopulation among the Plains Indians.[104][105] By 1832, the federal government established a smallpox vaccination program for Native Americans (The Indian Vaccination Act of 1832). It was the first federal program created to address a health problem of Native Americans.[106][107]
Animal introductions
With the meeting of two worlds, animals, insects, and plants were carried from one to the other, both deliberately and by chance, in what is called the Columbian Exchange.[108] In the 16th century, Spaniards and other Europeans brought horses to Mexico. Some of the horses escaped and began to breed and increase their numbers in the wild. As Native Americans adopted use of the animals, they began to change their cultures in substantial ways, especially by extending their nomadic ranges for hunting. The reintroduction of the horse to North America had a profound impact on Native American culture of the Great Plains.
17th century
King Philip's War
Main article: King Philip's War
King Philip's War, also called Metacom's War or Metacom's Rebellion, was the last major armed[109] conflict between Native American inhabitants of present-day southern New England and English colonists and their Native American allies from 1675 to 1676. It continued in northern New England (primarily on the Maine frontier) even after King Philip was killed, until a treaty was signed at Casco Bay in April 1678.[110]
18th century
Natural society
Further information: Great Law of Peace
The Treaty of Penn with the Indians a 1771 portrait by Benjamin West depicting William Penn and Tamanend, a Lenape chief, entering into the Treaty of Shackamaxon in present-day Philadelphia
Some European philosophers considered Native American societies to be truly "natural" and representative of a golden age known to them only in folk history.[111]
American Revolution
Main article: American Revolution
Further information: Western theater of the American Revolutionary War, Northern theater of the American Revolutionary War after Saratoga, Treaty of Fort Pitt, and Iroquois Confederacy
Yamacraw Native Americans meet with the trustee of the colonial-era Province of Georgia in England in July 1734, depicted in a portrait showing a Native American boy (in blue coat) and woman (in red dress) in European clothing; the portrait includes James Oglethorpe, the British founder of the Province of Georgia, and Tomochichi, chief of the Yamacraw tribe.
During the American Revolution, American patriots competed with British colonialists for the allegiance of Native American nations east of the Mississippi River. Most Native Americans who joined the struggle sided with the British, based both on their trading relationships and hopes that a United States defeat would result in a halt to further expansion onto Native American land. The first native community to sign a treaty with the new United States Government was the Lenape.
In 1779, the Sullivan Expedition was carried out during the American Revolutionary War against the British and the four allied nations of the Iroquois. George Washington gave orders that made it clear he wanted the Iroquois threat eliminated:
The Expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the Six Nations of Indians, with their associates and adherents. The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more.[112]
The British made peace with the Americans in the Treaty of Paris (1783), through which they ceded vast Native American territories to the United States without informing or consulting with the Native Americans.
United States
Benjamin Hawkins, a delegate to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, teaches Creek Native Americans near Flint River in Georgia how to use European technology, depicted in an 1805 portrait
Settlers from New England and new immigrants to the United States were eager to expand their settlements, develop farming and hunting grounds in areas new to them, and to satisfy their ever-increasing land hunger. The national government initially sought to purchase Native American land by treaties. Settlers continually violated these treaties.[113]
United States policy toward Native Americans continued to change after the American Revolution. George Washington and Henry Knox believed that Native Americans were equals but that their society was inferior. Washington formulated a policy to encourage the "civilizing" process.[25] Washington had a six-point plan for this, which included:
Impartial justice toward Native Americans
Regulated buying of Native American lands
Promotion of commerce
Promotion of experiments to civilize or improve Native American society
Presidential authority to give presents
Punishing those who violated Native American rights.[27]
In the late 18th century, reformers, starting with Washington and Knox,[114] supported educating Native American children and adults in European ways, in efforts to "civilize" or otherwise assimilate them into the larger society (as opposed to relegating them to reservations). The Civilization Fund Act of 1819 promoted this civilization policy by providing funding to societies (mostly religious) who worked towards what they defined as "Native American improvement".[115]
19th century
A map of Native American-controlled territories in the Western United States as of 1836
The population of California Indians was reduced by 90% during the 19th century—from more than 250,000 to 200,000 in the early 19th century to approximately 15,000 at the end of the century, mostly due to disease.[116][117][118] Epidemics swept through California Indian Country, such as the 1833 malaria epidemic.[119] The population went into decline as a result of the Spanish authorities forcing Native Californians to live in the missions where they contracted diseases from which they had little immunity. Cook estimates that 15,250 or 45% of the population decrease in the Missions was caused by disease.[citation needed] Two epidemics of measles, one in 1806 and the other in 1828, caused many deaths. The mortality rates were so high that the missions were constantly dependent upon new conversions. During the California Gold Rush, many natives were killed by incoming settlers as well as by militia units financed and organized by the California government.[120] Some scholars contend that the state financing of these militias, as well as the US government's role in other massacres in California, such as the Bloody Island and Yontoket Massacres, in which up to 400 or more natives were killed in each massacre, constitutes a campaign of genocide against the Indigenous peoples of California.[121][122]
Westward expansion
Tecumseh, the Shawnee leader of Tecumseh's War who attempted to organize an alliance of Native American tribes throughout North America.[123]
As American expansion continued, Native Americans resisted settlers' encroachment in several regions of the new nation (and in unorganized territories), from the Northwest to the Southeast, and then in the West, as settlers encountered the Native American tribes of the Great Plains. East of the Mississippi River, an intertribal army led by Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief, fought a number of engagements in the Northwest during the period 1811–1812, known as Tecumseh's War. During the War of 1812, Tecumseh's forces allied themselves with the British. After Tecumseh's death, the British ceased to aid the Native Americans south and west of Upper Canada and American expansion proceeded with little resistance. Conflicts in the Southeast include the Creek War and Seminole Wars, both before and after the Indian removals of most members of the Five Civilized Tribes.
In the 1830s, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, a policy of relocating Indians from their homelands to Indian Territory and reservations in surrounding areas to open their lands for non-native settlements.[124] This resulted in the Trail of Tears.
The Rescue sculpture stood outside the U.S. Capitol between 1853 and 1958. A work commissioned by the U.S. government, its sculptor Horatio Greenough wrote that it was "to convey the idea of the triumph of the whites over the savage tribes".[125]
In July 1845, the New York newspaper editor John L. O'Sullivan coined the phrase, "Manifest Destiny", as the "design of Providence" supporting the territorial expansion of the United States.[126] Manifest Destiny had serious consequences for Native Americans, since continental expansion for the U.S. took place at the cost of their occupied land.[127] A justification for the policy of conquest and subjugation of the Indigenous people emanated from the stereotyped perceptions of all Native Americans as "merciless Indian savages" (as described in the United States Declaration of Independence).[128] Sam Wolfson in The Guardian writes, "The declaration's passage has often been cited as an encapsulation of the dehumanizing attitude toward Indigenous Americans that the US was founded on."[129]
The Indian Appropriations Act of 1851 set the precedent for modern-day Native American reservations through allocating funds to move western tribes onto reservations since there were no more lands available for relocation.
Native American nations on the plains in the west continued armed conflicts with the U.S. throughout the 19th century, through what were called generally Indian Wars.[130] Notable conflicts in this period include the Dakota War, Great Sioux War, Snake War, Colorado War, and Texas-Indian Wars. Expressing the frontier anti-Indian sentiment, Theodore Roosevelt believed the Indians were destined to vanish under the pressure of white civilization, stating in an 1886 lecture:
I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.[131]
A mass grave for the dead Lakota after the Wounded Knee Massacre, which took place on December 29, 1890, during the Indian Wars
One of the last and most notable events during the Indian wars was the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890.[132] In the years leading up to it the U.S. government had continued to seize Lakota lands. A Ghost Dance ritual on the Northern Lakota reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, led to the U.S. Army's attempt to subdue the Lakota. The dance was part of a religious movement founded by the Northern Paiute spiritual leader Wovoka that told of the return of the Messiah to relieve the suffering of Native Americans and promised that if they would live righteous lives and perform the Ghost Dance properly, the European American colonists would vanish, the bison would return, and the living and the dead would be reunited in an Edenic world.[132] On December 29 at Wounded Knee, gunfire erupted, and U.S. soldiers killed up to 300 Indians, mostly old men, women, and children.[132]
Days after the massacre, the author L. Frank Baum wrote:
The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth.[133]
American Civil War
Main article: Native Americans in the American Civil War
Ely Parker of the Seneca was a Union Army general during the American Civil War who was asked by then U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant to author the terms of surrender between the United States and the Confederacy.[134]
Native Americans served in both the Union and Confederate military during the American Civil War. At the outbreak of the war, for example, the minority party of the Cherokee gave its allegiance to the Confederacy, while originally the majority party went for the North.[135] Native Americans fought knowing they might jeopardize their independence, unique cultures, and ancestral lands if they ended up on the losing side of the Civil War.[135][136] 28,693 Native Americans served in the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War, participating in battles such as Pea Ridge, Second Manassas, Antietam, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and in federal assaults on Petersburg.[136][137] A few Native American tribes, such as the Creek and the Choctaw, were slaveholders and found a political and economic commonality with the Confederacy.[138] The Choctaw owned over 2,000 slaves.[139]
Removals and reservations
Main article: Cultural assimilation of Native Americans
Further information: Indian colony and Indian reservations
Further information: Native American reservation politics
In the 19th century, the incessant westward expansion of the United States incrementally compelled large numbers of Native Americans to resettle further west, often by force, almost always reluctantly. Native Americans believed this forced relocation illegal, given the Treaty of Hopewell of 1785. Under President Andrew Jackson, United States Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which authorized the President to conduct treaties to exchange Native American land east of the Mississippi River for lands west of the river.
As many as 100,000 Native Americans relocated to the West as a result of this Indian removal policy. In theory, relocation was supposed to be voluntary and many Native Americans did remain in the East. In practice, great pressure was put on Native American leaders to sign removal treaties. The most egregious violation, the Trail of Tears, was the removal of the Cherokee by President Jackson to Indian Territory.[140] In 1864, 9,000 Navajos were forced by the U.S. government to an internment camp in Bosque Redondo,[141] where, under armed guards, up to 3,500 Navajo and Mescalero Apache men, women, and children died from starvation and disease over the next 4 years. The interned Navajo were allowed to return to their ancestral homeland in 1868.[141]
Native Americans and U.S. citizenship
In 1817, the Cherokee became the first Native Americans recognized as U.S. citizens. Under Article 8 of the 1817 Cherokee treaty, "Upwards of 300 Cherokees (Heads of Families) in the honest simplicity of their souls, made an election to become American citizens".[30][142]
Factors establishing citizenship included:
Treaty provision (as with the Cherokee)
Registration and land allotment under the Dawes Act of February 8, 1887
Issuance of patent in fee simple
Adopting habits of civilized life
Minor children
Citizenship by birth
Becoming soldiers and sailors in the U.S. Armed Forces
Marriage to a U.S. citizen
Special act of Congress.
After the American Civil War, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 states, "that all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States".[143]
Indian Appropriations Act of 1871
Main article: Indian Appropriations Act § 1871 Act
In 1871, Congress added a rider to the Indian Appropriations Act, signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant, ending United States recognition of additional Native American tribes or independent nations, and prohibiting additional treaties.[144]
Historical education
Main article: Indian boarding schools
Young girls posed in room
After the Indian wars in the late 19th century, the government established Native American boarding schools, initially run by Christian missionaries, but eventually by other religious organizations, as well.[145] At this time, the majority of non-Native American society thought that Native American children needed to be acculturated to the mainstream society, and assimilated into white culture.[146]
Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and admitted to these boarding schools. They were forced to abandon their cultural traditions, and were taught about American ideas of refinement and civilization.[147] They were given white names, had their hair cut and traditional clothing taken away, were forced to speak English and beaten when they would not comply.[148][149] They were forced to practice Christianity and not allowed to practice their Indigenous religions, and in numerous other ways forced to abandon their Native American identities.[150][151] While their parents were told the schools were for scholastic pursuits, many of them were more like work farms, with "classes" on how to conduct manual labor such as farming and housekeeping. When they were not in class, they were expected to maintain the upkeep of the schools. Unclean and overpopulated living conditions led to the spread of disease and many students did not receive enough food. Bounties were offered for students who tried to run away and many students committed suicide. Students who died were sometimes placed in coffins and buried in the school cemetery by their own classmates.[148] This forced assimilation increased substance abuse and suicides among these students as they suffered mental illnesses such as depression and PTSD. These illnesses also increased the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases.[147]
The sexual abuse of Indigenous children in boarding schools was perpetrated by the administrators of these programs. Teachers, nuns, and priests performed these acts upon their students. Children were touched and molested to be used as pleasure by these mentors who were supposed to educate them. Several mentors considered these students as objects and sexually abused them by forming rotations to switch in and out whenever they were done sexually tormenting the next student. These adults also used sexual abuse as a form of embarrassment towards each other. In tracing the path of violence, several students experienced an assault that, "can only be described as unconscionable, it was a violation not only of a child's body but an assault on their spirit". This act created a majority among the children who were victims in silence. This recurred in boarding schools across the nation in different scenarios. These include boys being sexually assaulted on their 13th birthdays to girls being forcibly taken at night by the priest to be used as objects.[152]
Before the 1930s, schools on the reservations provided no formal schooling beyond what the settlers considered the sixth grade. To obtain more formal education, that would enable them to get jobs among the settlers, the children were often sent to boarding school.[153] Small reservations with a few hundred people usually sent their children to nearby public schools.
The "Indian New Deal" of the 1930s closed many of the boarding schools, and downplayed the assimilationist goals, however some of the schools stayed open well into the 20th Century.[154]
The Indian Division of the Civilian Conservation Corps operated large-scale construction projects on the reservations, building thousands of new schools and community buildings. Under the leadership of John Collier the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) brought in settler teachers to reshape Indian education. The BIA by 1938 taught 30,000 students in 377 boarding and day schools, or 40% of all Indian children in school. The Navajo largely opposed schooling of any sort, but the other tribes accepted the system. There were now high schools on larger reservations, educating not only teenagers but also an adult audience. There were no Indian facilities for higher education.[155][156]
Since the rise of self-determination for Native Americans, and the revealing of the abuse that took place at the boarding schools, Native American communities now have their own schools, many of which additionally include tribal languages and culture, and tribal history in the curriculum. Beginning in the 1970s, tribes have also founded colleges at their reservations, controlled, and operated by Native Americans, to educate youth for jobs as well as to pass on their cultures. Circa 2020, the Bureau of Indian Education operates approximately 183[157] schools, primarily non-boarding, and primarily located on reservations. The schools have 46,000 students.[158] In March 2020 the BIA finalized a rule to create Standards, Assessments and Accountability System (SAAS) for all BIA schools. The motivation behind the rule is to prepare BIA students to be ready for college and careers.[159]
20th century
Republican Charles Curtis, a Kaw with Osage, Potawatomi, French, and British ancestry from Kansas, was 31st vice president of the United States, and the first minority U.S. vice president, serving with Republican Herbert Hoover from 1929 to 1933
On August 29, 1911, Ishi, generally considered to have been the last Native American to live most of his life without contact with European American culture, was discovered near Oroville, California.[160][161][162]
In 1919, the United States under President Woodrow Wilson granted citizenship to all Native Americans who had served in World War I. Nearly 10,000 men had enlisted and served, a high number in relation to their population.[163] Despite this, in many areas Native Americans faced local resistance when they tried to vote and were discriminated against with barriers to voter registration.
On June 2, 1924, U.S. President Republican Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act, which made all Native Americans born in the United States and its territories American citizens. Prior to passage of the act, nearly two-thirds of Native Americans were already U.S. citizens, through marriage, military service or accepting land allotments.[164][165] The Act extended citizenship to "all non-citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States".[163]
Republican Charles Curtis, a Congressman and longtime U.S. Senator from Kansas, was Kaw and of Osage, Potawatomi, and European ancestry. After serving as a United States Representative and being repeatedly re-elected as United States Senator from Kansas, Curtis served as Senate Minority Whip for 10 years and as Senate Majority Leader for five years. He was very influential in the Senate. In 1928, he ran as the vice presidential candidate with Herbert Hoover for president, and served from 1929 to 1933. He was the first Native American person and the first person with acknowledged non-European ancestry to be elected to either of the highest offices in the land.
American Indians today in the United States have all the rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, can vote in elections, and run for political office. Controversies remain over how much the federal government has jurisdiction over tribal affairs, sovereignty, and cultural practices.[166]
Mid-century, the Indian termination policy and the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 marked a new direction for assimilating Native Americans into urban life.[167]
The census counted 332,000 Indians in 1930 and 334,000 in 1940, including those on and off reservations in the 48 states. Total spending on Indians averaged $38 million a year in the late 1920s, dropping to a low of $23 million in 1933, and returning to $38 million in 1940.[168]
World War II
Further information: Native Americans and World War II
General Douglas MacArthur meeting with Navajo, Pima, Pawnee, and other Native American troops in late 1943 during World War II
Some 44,000 Native Americans served in the U.S. military during World War II: at the time, one-third of all able-bodied Indian men from eighteen to fifty years of age.[169] Described as the first large-scale exodus of Indigenous peoples from the reservations since the removals of the 19th century, the men's service with the U.S. military in the international conflict was a turning point in Native American history. The overwhelming majority of Native Americans welcomed the opportunity to serve; they had a voluntary enlistment rate that was 40% higher than those drafted.[170]
Their fellow soldiers often held them in high esteem, in part since the legend of the tough Native American warrior had become a part of the fabric of American historical legend. White servicemen sometimes showed a lighthearted respect toward Native American comrades by calling them "chief". The resulting increase in contact with the world outside of the reservation system brought profound changes to Native American culture. "The war", said the U.S. Indian Commissioner in 1945, "caused the greatest disruption of Native life since the beginning of the reservation era", affecting the habits, views, and economic well-being of tribal members.[171] The most significant of these changes was the opportunity—as a result of wartime labor shortages—to find well-paying work in cities, and many people relocated to urban areas, particularly on the West Coast with the buildup of the defense industry.
There were also losses as a result of the war. For instance, a total of 1,200 Pueblo men served in World War II; only about half came home alive. In addition, many more Navajo served as code talkers for the military in the Pacific. The code they made, although cryptographically very simple, was never cracked by the Japanese.
Self-determination
Main articles: Native American self-determination and Native American civil rights
Military service and urban residency contributed to the rise of American Indian activism, particularly after the 1960s and the occupation of Alcatraz Island (1969–1971) by a student Indian group from San Francisco. In the same period, the American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded in Minneapolis, and chapters were established throughout the country, where American Indians combined spiritual and political activism. Political protests gained national media attention and the sympathy of the American public.
Through the mid-1970s, conflicts between governments and Native Americans occasionally erupted into violence. A notable late 20th-century event was the Wounded Knee incident on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Upset with tribal government and the failures of the federal government to enforce treaty rights, about 300 Oglala Lakota and AIM activists took control of Wounded Knee on February 27, 1973.[172]
Indian activists from around the country joined them at Pine Ridge, and the occupation became a symbol of rising American Indian identity and power. Federal law enforcement officials and the national guard cordoned off the town, and the two sides had a standoff for 71 days. During much gunfire, one United States Marshal was wounded and paralyzed. In late April, a Cherokee and local Lakota man were killed by gunfire; the Lakota elders ended the occupation to ensure no more people died.[172]
In June 1975, two FBI agents seeking to make an armed robbery arrest at Pine Ridge Reservation were wounded in a firefight, and killed at close range. The AIM activist Leonard Peltier was sentenced in 1976 to two consecutive terms of life in prison for the FBI deaths.[173]
In 1968, the government enacted the Indian Civil Rights Act. This gave tribal members most of the protections against abuses by tribal governments that the Bill of Rights accords to all U.S. citizens with respect to the federal government.[174] In 1975, the U.S. government passed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, marking the culmination of fifteen years of policy changes. It resulted from American Indian activism, the Civil Rights Movement, and community development aspects of President Lyndon Johnson's social programs of the 1960s. The Act recognized the right and need of Native Americans for self-determination. It marked the U.S. government's turn away from the 1950s policy of termination of the relationship between tribes and the government. The U.S. government encouraged Native Americans' efforts at self-government and determining their futures. Tribes have developed organizations to administer their own social, welfare and housing programs, for instance. Tribal self-determination has created tension with respect to the federal government's historic trust obligation to care for Indians; however, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has never lived up to that responsibility.[175]
Tribal colleges
Main article: Tribal colleges and universities
A Navajo man on horseback in Monument Valley in Arizona in May 2011
Navajo Community College, now called Diné College, the first tribal college, was founded in Tsaile, Arizona, in 1968 and accredited in 1979. Tensions immediately arose between two philosophies: one that the tribal colleges should have the same criteria, curriculum and procedures for educational quality as mainstream colleges, the other that the faculty and curriculum should be closely adapted to the particular historical culture of the tribe. There was a great deal of turnover, exacerbated by very tight budgets.[176] In 1994, the U.S. Congress passed legislation recognizing the tribal colleges as land-grant colleges, which provided opportunities for large-scale funding. Thirty-two tribal colleges in the United States belong to the American Indian Higher Education Consortium. By the early 21st century, tribal nations had also established numerous language revival programs in their schools.
In addition, Native American activism has led major universities across the country to establish Native American studies programs and departments, increasing awareness of the strengths of Indian cultures, providing opportunities for academics, and deepening research on history and cultures in the United States. Native Americans have entered academia; journalism and media; politics at local, state and federal levels; and public service, for instance, influencing medical research and policy to identify issues related to American Indians.
21st century
Byron Mallott, an Alaskan Native, was Alaska's lieutenant governor from 2014 to 2018.
In 2009, an "apology to Native Peoples of the United States" was included in the Defense Appropriations Act. It stated that the U.S. "apologizes on behalf of the people of the United States to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native Peoples by citizens of the United States".[177]
In 2013, jurisdiction over persons who were not tribal members under the Violence Against Women Act was extended to Indian Country. This closed a gap which prevented arrest or prosecution by tribal police or courts of abusive partners of tribal members who were not native or from another tribe.[178][179]
Migration of Native Americans to urban areas continued to grow up from 8% in 1940 to 45% in 1970 and up to 70% in 2012. Urban areas with significant Native American populations include Phoenix, Tulsa, Minneapolis, Denver, Albuquerque, Tucson, Chicago, Oklahoma City, Houston, New York City, Los Angeles, and Rapid City. Many live in poverty. Racism, unemployment, drugs, and gangs were common problems that Indian social service organizations such as the Little Earth housing complex in Minneapolis attempt to address.[180] Grassroots efforts to support urban Indigenous populations have also taken place, as in the case of Bringing the Circle Together in Los Angeles.
In 2020, Congress passed a law to transition the management of a bison range on over 18,000 acres of undeveloped land in northwest Montana from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.[181] In the 1900s these lands were taken by the U.S. government and the bison were depleted without the consent of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.[181] Secretary Interior Deb Haaland celebrated this transition at the Salish Kootenai College on May 21, 2022, calling it "a return to something pure and sacred."[181]
Demographics
Further information: Modern social statistics of Native Americans
See also: Population history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas
Proportion of Indigenous Americans in each U.S. state, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico as of the 2020 U.S. census
Proportion of Indigenous Americans in each county of the fifty states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico as of the 2020 United States census
The American Indian and Alaskan Native (alone/single race) populations as of 2020
According to the 2020 census, the U.S. population was 331.4 million. Of this, 3.7 million people, or 1.1 percent, reported American Indian or Alaska Native ancestry alone. In addition, 2.2 million people (0.6 percent), reported American Indian or Alaska Native in combination with one or more other races.[182]
The definition of American Indian or Alaska Native used in the 2010 census was as follows:
According to Office of Management and Budget, "American Indian or Alaska Native" refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment.[183]
The 2010 census permitted respondents to self-identify as being of one or more races. Self-identification dates from the census of 1960; prior to that the race of the respondent was determined by the opinion of the census taker. The option to select more than one race was introduced in 2000.[184] If American Indian or Alaska Native was selected, the form requested the individual provide the name of the "enrolled or principal tribe".
Population since 1880
Censuses counted around 345,000 Native Americans in 1880 (including 33,000 in Alaska and 80,000 in Oklahoma, back then known as Indian Territory), around 274,000 in 1890 (including 25,500 in Alaska), 362,500 in 1930 and 366,500 in 1940, including those on and off reservations in the 48 states and Alaska. Native American population rebounded sharply from 1950, when they numbered 377,273; it reached 551,669 in 1960, 827,268 in 1970, with an annual growth rate of 5%, four times the national average.[185] Total spending on Native Americans averaged $38 million a year in the late 1920s, dropping to a low of $23 million in 1933, and returning to $38 million in 1940.[168]
American Indian and Alaska Native as percentage of population by U.S. state and territory (1880–2020)[186][187][188][189][190][191][192][193]
State/Territory 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
Alabama Alabama 0.0% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.2% 0.4% 0.5% 0.6% 0.7%
Alaska Alaska 98.7% 79.1% 46.5% 39.4% 48.3% 50.6% 44.8% 26.3% 19.1% 16.8% 16.0% 15.6% 15.6% 14.8% 21.9%
Arizona Arizona 37.5% 34.0% 21.5% 14.3% 9.9% 10.0% 11.0% 8.8% 6.4% 5.4% 5.6% 5.6% 5.0% 4.6% 6.3%
Arkansas Arkansas 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.4% 0.5% 0.7% 0.8% 0.9%
California California 2.4% 1.4% 1.0% 0.7% 0.5% 0.3% 0.3% 0.2% 0.2% 0.5% 0.9% 0.8% 1.0% 1.0% 1.6%
Colorado Colorado 1.4% 0.3% 0.3% 0.2% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.4% 0.6% 0.8% 1.0% 1.1% 1.3%
Connecticut Connecticut 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.3% 0.3% 0.4%
Delaware Delaware 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.3% 0.3% 0.5% 0.5%
Florida 0.3% 0.0% 0.1% 0.0% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.3% 0.3% 0.4% 0.4%
Georgia (U.S. state) Georgia 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.3% 0.3% 0.5%
Hawaii Hawaii 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.3% 0.5% 0.3% 0.3% 0.3%
Idaho Idaho 10.0% 4.8% 2.6% 1.1% 0.7% 0.8% 0.7% 0.6% 0.8% 0.9% 1.1% 1.4% 1.4% 1.4% 1.4%
Illinois Illinois 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2% 0.3% 0.8%
Indiana Indiana 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.3% 0.3% 0.4%
Iowa Iowa 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.3% 0.3% 0.4% 0.5%
Kansas Kansas 0.2% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.4% 0.7% 0.9% 0.9% 1.0% 1.1%
Kentucky Kentucky 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2% 0.2% 0.3%
Louisiana Louisiana 0.1% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.3% 0.4% 0.6% 0.7% 0.7%
Maine 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2% 0.2% 0.4% 0.5% 0.6% 0.6% 0.6%
Maryland Maryland 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.2% 0.3% 0.3% 0.4% 0.5%
Massachusetts Massachusetts 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2% 0.3% 0.3%
Michigan Michigan 1.1% 0.3% 0.3% 0.3% 0.2% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.4% 0.6% 0.6% 0.6% 0.6%
Minnesota Minnesota 1.1% 0.8% 0.5% 0.4% 0.4% 0.4% 0.4% 0.4% 0.5% 0.6% 0.9% 1.1% 1.1% 1.1% 1.2%
Mississippi Mississippi 0.2% 0.2% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2% 0.3% 0.4% 0.5% 0.6%
Missouri Missouri 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.3% 0.4% 0.4% 0.5% 0.5%
Montana Montana 38.3% 7.8% 4.7% 0.8% 2.0% 2.8% 3.0% 2.8% 3.1% 3.9% 4.7% 6.0% 6.2% 6.3% 9.3%
Nebraska Nebraska 1.0% 0.6% 0.3% 0.3% 0.2% 0.2% 0.3% 0.3% 0.4% 0.4% 0.6% 0.8% 0.9% 1.2% 1.2%
Nevada Nevada 13.9% 10.9% 12.3% 6.4% 6.3% 5.3% 4.3% 3.1% 2.3% 1.6% 1.7% 1.6% 1.3% 1.2% 1.4%
New Hampshire 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2% 0.2% 0.2%
New Jersey New Jersey 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2% 0.3% 0.6%
New Mexico New Mexico 23.2% 9.4% 6.7% 6.3% 5.4% 6.8% 6.5% 6.2% 5.9% 7.2% 8.1% 8.9% 9.5% 9.4% 12.4%
New York (state) New York 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2% 0.3% 0.4% 0.6% 0.7%
North Carolina North Carolina 0.1% 0.1% 0.3% 0.4% 0.5% 0.5% 0.6% 0.1% 0.8% 0.9% 1.1% 1.2% 1.2% 1.3% 1.2%
North Dakota North Dakota 13.0% 4.3% 2.2% 1.1% 1.0% 1.2% 1.6% 1.7% 1.9% 2.3% 3.1% 4.1% 4.9% 5.4% 7.2%
South Dakota South Dakota 20.6% 5.7% 5.0% 3.3% 2.6% 3.2% 3.6% 3.6% 3.8% 4.9% 6.5% 7.3% 8.3% 8.8% 11.1%
Ohio Ohio 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2% 0.2% 0.3%
Oklahoma Oklahoma 100.0% 24.9% 8.2% 4.5% 2.8% 3.9% 2.7% 2.4% 2.8% 3.8% 5.6% 8.0% 7.9% 8.6% 16.0%
Oregon Oregon 3.5% 1.6% 1.2% 0.8% 0.6% 0.5% 0.4% 0.4% 0.5% 0.6% 1.0% 1.4% 1.3% 1.4% 4.4%
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2%
Rhode Island Rhode Island 0.0% 0.1% 0.0% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.3% 0.4% 0.5% 0.6% 0.7%
South Carolina South Carolina 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2% 0.3% 0.4% 0.5%
Tennessee Tennessee 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.3% 0.3% 0.4%
Texas Texas 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.2% 0.3% 0.4% 0.6% 0.7% 1.0%
Utah Utah 0.9% 1.6% 0.9% 0.8% 0.6% 0.6% 0.7% 0.6% 0.8% 1.1% 1.3% 1.4% 1.3% 1.2% 1.3%
Vermont 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.2% 0.3% 0.4% 0.4% 0.4%
Virginia Virginia 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2% 0.3% 0.4% 0.5%
Washington (state) Washington 20.8% 3.1% 1.9% 1.0% 0.7% 0.7% 0.7% 0.6% 0.7% 1.0% 1.5% 1.7% 1.6% 1.5% 4.1%
West Virginia 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2% 0.2%
Wisconsin Wisconsin 0.8% 0.6% 0.4% 0.4% 0.4% 0.4% 0.4% 0.4% 0.4% 0.4% 0.6% 0.8% 0.9% 1.0% 1.0%
Wyoming Wyoming 9.6% 2.9% 1.8% 1.0% 0.7% 0.8% 0.9% 1.1% 1.2% 1.5% 1.5% 2.1% 2.3% 2.4% 4.8%
Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.1% 0.1% 0.2% 0.2% 0.3% 0.3% 0.5%
Puerto Rico 0.4% 0.5% 0.5%
United States 0.7% 0.4% 0.3% 0.3% 0.2% 0.3% 0.3% 0.2% 0.3% 0.4% 0.6% 0.8% 0.9% 0.9% 1.1%
Population distribution
This U.S. Census Bureau map depicts the locations of differing Native American groups, including Indian reservations, as of 2000; present-day Oklahoma in the Southwestern United States, which was once designated as an Indian Territory before Oklahoma's statehood in 1907, is highlighted in blue.
78% of Native Americans live outside a reservation. Full-blood individuals are more likely to live on a reservation than mixed-blood individuals. The Navajo, with 286,000 full-blood individuals, is the largest tribe if only full-blood individuals are counted; the Navajo are the tribe with the highest proportion of full-blood individuals, 86.3%. The Cherokee have a different history; it is the largest tribe, with 819,000 individuals, and it has 284,000 full-blood individuals.[194]
Urban migration
Further information: Urban Indian
As of 2012, 70% of Native Americans live in urban areas, up from 45% in 1970 and 8% in 1940. Urban areas with significant Native American populations include Minneapolis, Denver, Phoenix, Tucson, Chicago, Oklahoma City, Houston, New York City, and Los Angeles. Many live in poverty. Racism, unemployment, drugs and gangs are common problems which Indian social service organizations such as the Little Earth housing complex in Minneapolis attempt to address.[180]
Population by tribal grouping
Below are numbers for U.S. citizens self-identifying to selected tribal groupings, according to the 2010 U.S. census.[195]
2010 Native American distribution by tribal group
Tribal grouping Tribal flag Tribal seal American Indian & Alaska Native Alone one tribal grouping reported American Indian & Alaska Native Alone more than one tribal grouping reported American Indian & Alaska Native Mixed one tribal grouping reported American Indian & Alaska Native Mixed more than one tribal grouping reported American Indian & Alaska Native tribal grouping alone or mixed in any combination
Total 2,879,638 52,610 2,209,267 79,064 5,220,579
Apache 63,193 6,501 33,303 8,813 111,810
Arapaho 8,014 388 2,084 375 10,861
Blackfeet 27,279 4,519 54,109 19,397 105,304
Canadian & French American Indian 6,433 618 6,981 790 14,822
Central American Indian 15,882 572 10,865 525 27,844
Cherokee 284,247 16,216 468,082 50,560 819,105
Cheyenne
(Northern and Southern) 11,375 1,118 5,311 1,247 19,051
Chickasaw 27,973 2,233 19,220 2,852 52,278
Chippewa 112,757 2,645 52,091 3,249 170,742
Choctaw 103,910 6,398 72,101 13,355 195,764
Colville 8,114 200 2,148 87 10,549
Comanche 12,284 1,187 8,131 1,728 23,330
Cree 2,211 739 4,023 1,010 7,983
Creek 48,352 4,596 30,618 4,766 88,332
Crow 10,332 528 3,309 1,034 15,203
Delaware (Lenape) 7,843 372 9,439 610 18,264
Hopi 12,580 2,054 3,013 680 18,327
Houma 8,169 71 2,438 90 10,768
Iroquois 40,570 1,891 34,490 4,051 81,002
Kiowa 9,437 918 2,947 485 13,787
Lumbee 62,306 651 10,039 695 73,691
Menominee 8,374 253 2,330 176 11,133
Mexican American Indian 121,221 2,329 49,670 2,274 175,494
Navajo 286,731 8,285 32,918 4,195 332,129
Osage 8,938 1,125 7,090 1,423 18,576
Ottawa 7,272 776 4,274 711 13,033
Paiute[196] 9,340 865 3,135 427 13,767
Pima 22,040 1,165 3,116 334 26,655
Potawatomi 20,412 462 12,249 648 33,771
Pueblo 49,695 2,331 9,568 946 62,540
Puget Sound Salish 14,320 215 5,540 185 20,260
Seminole 14,080 2,368 12,447 3,076 31,971
Shoshone 7,852 610 3,969 571 13,002
Sioux 112,176 4,301 46,964 6,669 170,110
South American Indian 20,901 479 25,015 838 47,233
Spanish American Indian 13,460 298 6,012 181 19,951
Tohono O'odham 19,522 725 3,033 198 23,478
Ute 7,435 785 2,802 469 11,491
Yakama 8,786 310 2,207 224 11,527
Yaqui 21,679 1,516 8,183 1,217 32,595
Yuman 7,727 551 1,642 169 10,089
All other American Indian tribes 270,141 12,606 135,032 11,850 429,629
American Indian tribes, not specified 131,943 117 102,188 72 234,320
Alaska Native tribes, specified 98,892 4,194 32,992 2,772 138,850
Alaskan Athabaskans 15,623 804 5,531 526 22,484
Aleut 11,920 723 6,108 531 19,282
Inupiat 24,859 877 7,051 573 33,360
Tlingit-Haida 15,256 859 9,331 634 26,080
Tsimshian 2,307 240 1,010 198 3,755
Yup'ik 28,927 691 3,961 310 33,889
Alaska Native tribes, not specified 19,731 173 9,896 133 29,933
American Indian or Alaska Native tribes, not specified 693,709 no data 852,253 1 1,545,963
Tribal sovereignty
Main articles: Tribal sovereignty in the United States, Native American tribe, and Indian reservation
Indian reservations in the continental United States
There are 573 federally recognized tribal governments[197] and 326 Indian reservations[198] in the United States. These tribes possess the right to form their own governments, to enforce laws (both civil and criminal) within their lands, to tax, to establish requirements for membership, to license and regulate activities, to zone, and to exclude persons from tribal territories. Limitations on tribal powers of self-government include the same limitations applicable to states; for example, neither tribes nor states have the power to make war, engage in foreign relations, or coin money (this includes paper currency).[199] In addition, there are a number of tribes that are recognized by individual states, but not by the federal government. The rights and benefits associated with state recognition vary from state to state.
Many Native Americans and advocates of Native American rights point out that the U.S. federal government's claim to recognize the "sovereignty" of Native American peoples falls short, given that the United States wishes to govern Native American peoples and treat them as subject to U.S. law.[200] Such advocates contend that full respect for Native American sovereignty would require the U.S. government to deal with Native American peoples in the same manner as any other sovereign nation, handling matters related to relations with Native Americans through the Secretary of State, rather than the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Bureau of Indian Affairs reports on its website that its "responsibility is the administration and management of 55,700,000 acres (225,000 km2) of land held in trust by the United States for American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives".[201] Many Native Americans and advocates of Native American rights believe that it is condescending for such lands to be considered "held in trust" and regulated in any fashion by any entity other than their own tribes.
Some tribal groups have been unable to document the cultural continuity required for federal recognition. To achieve federal recognition and its benefits, tribes must prove continuous existence since 1900. The federal government has maintained this requirement, in part because through participation on councils and committees, federally recognized tribes have been adamant about groups' satisfying the same requirements as they did.[202] The Muwekma Ohlone of the San Francisco Bay Area are pursuing litigation in the federal court system to establish recognition.[203] Many of the smaller eastern tribes, long considered remnants of extinct peoples, have been trying to gain official recognition of their tribal status. Several tribes in Virginia and North Carolina have gained state recognition. Federal recognition confers some benefits, including the right to label arts and crafts as Native American and permission to apply for grants that are specifically reserved for Native Americans. But gaining federal recognition as a tribe is extremely difficult; to be established as a tribal group, members have to submit extensive genealogical proof of tribal descent and continuity of the tribe as a culture.
Native peoples are concerned about the effects of abandoned uranium mines on or near their lands.
In July 2000, the Washington State Republican Party adopted a resolution recommending that the federal and legislative branches of the U.S. government terminate tribal governments.[204] In 2007, a group of Democratic Party congressmen and congresswomen introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to terminate Federal recognition of the Cherokee Nation.[205] This was related to their voting to exclude Cherokee Freedmen as members of the tribe unless they had a Cherokee ancestor on the Dawes Rolls, although all Cherokee Freedmen and their descendants had been members since 1866.
As of 2004, various Native Americans are wary of attempts by others to gain control of their reservation lands for natural resources, such as coal and uranium in the West.[206][207]
The State of Maine is the only State House Legislature that allows Representatives from Indian Tribes. The three nonvoting members represent the Penobscot Nation, Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, and Passamaquoddy Tribe. These representatives can sponsor any legislation regarding American Indian affairs or co-sponsor any pending State of Maine legislation. Maine is unique regarding Indigenous leadership representation.[208]
In the state of Virginia, Native Americans face a unique problem. Until 2017 Virginia previously had no federally recognized tribes but the state had recognized eight. This is related historically to the greater impact of disease and warfare on the Virginia Indian populations, as well as their intermarriage with Europeans and Africans. Some people confused ancestry with culture, but groups of Virginia Indians maintained their cultural continuity. Most of their early reservations were ended under the pressure of early European settlement.
Some historians also note the problems of Virginia Indians in establishing documented continuity of identity, due to the work of Walter Ashby Plecker (1912–1946). As registrar of the state's Bureau of Vital Statistics, he applied his own interpretation of the one-drop rule, enacted in law in 1924 as the state's Racial Integrity Act. It recognized only two races: "white" and "colored".
Plecker, a segregationist, believed that the state's Native Americans had been "mongrelized" by intermarriage with African Americans; to him, ancestry determined identity, rather than culture. He thought that some people of partial black ancestry were trying to "pass" as Native Americans. Plecker thought that anyone with any African heritage had to be classified as colored, regardless of appearance, amount of European or Native American ancestry, and cultural/community identification. Plecker pressured local governments into reclassifying all Native Americans in the state as "colored" and gave them lists of family surnames to examine for reclassification based on his interpretation of data and the law. This led to the state's destruction of accurate records related to families and communities who identified as Native American (as in church records and daily life). By his actions, sometimes different members of the same family were split by being classified as "white" or "colored". He did not allow people to enter their primary identification as Native American in state records.[202] In 2009, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee endorsed a bill that would grant federal recognition to tribes in Virginia.[209]
As of 2000, the largest groups in the United States by population were Navajo, Cherokee, Choctaw, Sioux, Chippewa, Apache, Blackfeet, Iroquois, and Pueblo. In 2000, eight of ten Americans with Native American ancestry were of mixed ancestry. It is estimated that by 2100 that figure will rise to nine out of ten.[210]
Civil rights movement
Main articles: Civil rights movement, Jim Crow Laws, Martin Luther King Jr., National Congress of American Indians, National Indian Youth Council, Native American Rights Fund, and Brown v. Board of Education
A group of NIYC demonstrators holding signs in front of the BIA office.
National Indian Youth Council demonstrations, March 1970, Bureau of Indian Affairs Office
The civil rights movement was a very significant moment for the rights of Native Americans and other people of color. Native Americans faced racism and prejudice for hundreds of years, and this increased after the American Civil War. Native Americans, like African Americans, were subjected to the Jim Crow Laws and segregation in the Deep South especially after they were made citizens through the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. As a body of law, Jim Crow institutionalized economic, educational, and social disadvantages for Native Americans, and other people of color living in the south.[211][212][213] Native American identity was especially targeted by a system that only wanted to recognize white or colored, and the government began to question the legitimacy of some tribes because they had intermarried with African Americans.[211][212] Native Americans were also discriminated and discouraged from voting in the southern and western states.[213]
In the south segregation was a major problem for Native Americans seeking education, but the NAACP's legal strategy would later change this.[214] Movements such as Brown v. Board of Education was a major victory for the Civil Rights Movement headed by the NAACP, and inspired Native Americans to start participating in the Civil Rights Movement.[215][216] Martin Luther King Jr. began assisting Native Americans in the south in the late 1950s after they reached out to him.[216] At that time the remaining Creek in Alabama were trying to completely desegregate schools in their area. In this case, light-complexioned Native children were allowed to ride school buses to previously all white schools, while dark-skinned Native children from the same band were barred from riding the same buses.[216] Tribal leaders, upon hearing of King's desegregation campaign in Birmingham, Alabama, contacted him for assistance. He promptly responded and, through his intervention, the problem was quickly resolved.[216] King would later make trips to Arizona visiting Native Americans on reservations, and in churches encouraging them to be involved in the Civil Rights Movement.[217] In King's book Why We Can't Wait he writes:
Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shores, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its Indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or to feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it.[218]
Native Americans would then actively participate and support the NAACP, and the civil rights movement.[219] The National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) would soon rise in 1961 to fight for Native American rights during the Civil Rights Movement, and were strong King supporters.[220][221] During the 1963 March on Washington there was a sizable Native American contingent, including many from South Dakota, and many from the Navajo nation.[216][222] Native Americans also participated the Poor People's Campaign in 1968.[220] The NIYC were very active supporters of the Poor People's Campaign unlike the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI); the NIYC and other Native organizations met with King in March 1968 but the NCAI disagreed on how to approach the anti-poverty campaign; the NCAI decided against participating in the march.[221] The NCAI wished to pursue their battles in the courts and with Congress, unlike the NIYC.[220][221] The NAACP also inspired the creation of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) which was patterned after the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund.[216] Furthermore, the NAACP continued to organize to stop mass incarceration and end the criminalization of Native Americans and other communities of people of color.[223] The following is an excerpt from a statement from Mel Thom on May 1, 1968, during a meeting with Secretary of State Dean Rusk:[221] (It was written by members of the Workshop on American Indian Affairs and the NIYC)
We have joined the Poor People's Campaign because most of our families, tribes, and communities number among those suffering most in this country. We are not begging. We are demanding what is rightfully ours. This is no more than the right to have a decent life in our own communities. We need guaranteed jobs, guaranteed income, housing, schools, economic development, but most important- we want them on our own terms. Our chief spokesman in the federal government, the Department of Interior, has failed us. In fact it began failing us from its very beginning. The Interior Department began failing us because it was built upon and operates under a racist, immoral, paternalistic and colonialistic system. There is no way to improve upon racism, immorality and colonialism; it can only be done away with. The system and power structure serving Indian peoples is a sickness which has grown to epidemic proportions. The Indian system is sick. Paternalism is the virus and the secretary of the Interior is the carrier.
Contemporary issues
Main article: Contemporary Native American issues in the United States
See also: Environmental Justice and Social Justice
Native American struggles amid poverty to maintain life on the reservation or in larger society have resulted in a variety of health issues, some related to nutrition and health practices. The community suffers a vulnerability to and disproportionately high rate of alcoholism:[224]
It has long been recognized that Native Americans are dying of diabetes, alcoholism, tuberculosis, suicide, and other health conditions at shocking rates. Beyond disturbingly high mortality rates, Native Americans also suffer a significantly lower health status and disproportionate rates of disease compared with all other Americans.
— U.S. Commission on Civil Rights[225] (September 2004)
Recent studies also point to rising rates of stroke,[226] heart disease,[227] and diabetes[228] in the Native American population.
Societal discrimination and racism
Further information: Stereotypes of Native Americans and Racism against Native Americans in the United States
A discriminatory sign posted above a bar. Birney, Montana, 1941
Chief Plenty Coups and seven Crow prisoners under guard at Crow agency, Montana, 1887
Native Americans have been subjected to discrimination for centuries. In response to being labeled "merciless Indian savages" in the Declaration of Independence, Simon Moya-Smith, culture editor at Indian Country Today, states, "Any holiday that would refer to my people in such a repugnant, racist manner is certainly not worth celebrating. [July Fourth] is a day we celebrate our resiliency, our culture, our languages, our children and we mourn the millions — literally millions — of indigenous people who have died as a consequence of American imperialism."[229]
In a study conducted in 2006–2007, non-Native Americans admitted they rarely encountered Native Americans in their daily lives. While sympathetic toward Native Americans and expressing regret over the past, most people had only a vague understanding of the problems facing Native Americans today. For their part, Native Americans told researchers that they believed they continued to face prejudice, mistreatment, and inequality in the broader society.[230]
Affirmative action issues
Federal contractors and subcontractors, such as businesses and educational institutions, are legally required to adopt equal opportunity employment and affirmative action measures intended to prevent discrimination against employees or applicants for employment on the basis of "color, religion, sex, or national origin".[231][232] For this purpose, a Native American is defined as "A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America), and who maintains a tribal affiliation or community attachment". The passing of the Indian Relocation Act saw a 56% increase in Native American city dwellers over 40 years.[233] The Native American urban poverty rate exceeds that of reservation poverty rates due to discrimination in hiring processes.[233] However, self-reporting is permitted: "Educational institutions and other recipients should allow students and staff to self-identify their race and ethnicity unless self-identification is not practicable or feasible."[234]
Self-reporting opens the door to "box checking" by people who, despite not having a substantial relationship to Native American culture, innocently or fraudulently check the box for Native American.[235]
The difficulties that Native Americans face in the workforce, for example, a lack of promotions and wrongful terminations are attributed to racial stereotypes and implicit biases. Native American business owners are seldom offered auxiliary resources that are crucial for entrepreneurial success.[233]
Native American mascots in sports
Main article: Native American mascot controversy
Further information: NCAA Native American mascot decision
Protest against the name of the Washington Redskins in Minneapolis, November 2014
American Indian activists in the United States and Canada have criticized the use of Native American mascots in sports, as perpetuating stereotypes. This is considered cultural appropriation. There has been a steady decline in the number of secondary school and college teams using such names, images, and mascots. Some tribal team names have been approved by the tribe in question, such as the Seminole Tribe of Florida's approving use of their name for the teams of Florida State University.[236][237]
Among professional teams, the NBA's Golden State Warriors discontinued use of Native American-themed logos in 1971. The NFL's Washington Commanders, formerly the Washington Redskins, changed their name in 2020, as the term is considered to be a racial slur.[238]
MLB's Cleveland Guardians were formerly known as the Cleveland Indians. Their use of a caricature called Chief Wahoo faced protest for decades.[239][240] Starting in 2019, Chief Wahoo ceased to be a logo for Cleveland Indians, though Chief Wahoo merchandise could still be sold in the Cleveland-area.[241][242][243][244] On December 13, 2020, The New York Times reported that Cleveland would be officially changing their name.[245] On November 19, 2021, the team officially became the Cleveland Guardians.[246][247]
Historical depictions in art
Secotan Indians' dance in North Carolina. Watercolor by John White, 1585.
Native Americans have been depicted by American artists in various ways at different periods. A number of 19th- and 20th-century United States and Canadian painters, often motivated by a desire to document and preserve Native culture, specialized in Native American subjects. Among the most prominent of these were Elbridge Ayer Burbank, George Catlin, Seth Eastman, Paul Kane, W. Langdon Kihn, Charles Bird King, Joseph Henry Sharp, and John Mix Stanley.
Eagle Dance of the Sac and Fox Indians, painting by George Catlin, c. 1845
In the 20th century, early portrayals of Native Americans in movies and television roles were first performed by European Americans dressed in mock traditional attire. Examples included The Last of the Mohicans (1920), Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans (1957), and F Troop (1965–67). In later decades, Native American actors such as Jay Silverheels in The Lone Ranger television series (1949–57) came to prominence. The roles of Native Americans were limited and not reflective of Native American culture. By the 1970s some Native American film roles began to show more complexity, such as those in Little Big Man (1970), Billy Jack (1971), and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), which depicted Native Americans in minor supporting roles.
For years, Native people on U.S. television were relegated to secondary, subordinate roles. During the years of the series Bonanza (1959–1973), no major or secondary Native characters appeared on a consistent basis. The series The Lone Ranger (1949–1957), Cheyenne (1955–1963), and Law of the Plainsman (1959–1963) had Native characters who were essentially aides to the central white characters. This continued in such series as How the West Was Won. These programs resembled the "sympathetic" yet contradictory film Dances With Wolves of 1990, in which, according to Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, the narrative choice was to relate the Lakota story as told through a Euro-American voice, for wider impact among a general audience.[248] Like the 1992 remake of The Last of the Mohicans and Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), Dances with Wolves employed a number of Native American actors, and made an effort to portray Indigenous languages. In 1996, Plains Cree actor Michael Greyeyes would play renowned Native American warrior Crazy Horse in the 1996 television film Crazy Horse,[249] and would also later play renowned Sioux chief Sitting Bull in the 2017 movie Woman Walks Ahead.[250]
The 1998 film Smoke Signals, which was set on the Coeur D'Alene Reservation and discussed hardships of present-day American Indian families living on reservations, featured numerous Native American actors as well.[251] The film was the first feature film to be produced and directed by Native Americans, and was also the first feature to include an exclusive Native American cast.[251] At the annual Sundance Film Festival, Smoke Signals would win the Audience Award and its producer Chris Eyre, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, would win the Filmmaker's Trophy.[252] In 2009, We Shall Remain (2009), a television documentary by Ric Burns and part of the American Experience series, presented a five-episode series "from a Native American perspective". It represented "an unprecedented collaboration between Native and non-Native filmmakers and involves Native advisors and scholars at all levels of the project".[253] The five episodes explore the impact of King Philip's War on the northeastern tribes, the "Native American confederacy" of Tecumseh's War, the U.S.-forced relocation of Southeastern tribes known as the Trail of Tears, the pursuit and capture of Geronimo and the Apache Wars, and concludes with the Wounded Knee incident, participation by the American Indian Movement, and the increasing resurgence of modern Native cultures since.
Terminology differences
Further information: Native American name controversy
The most common of the modern terms to refer to Indigenous peoples of the United States are Indians, American Indians, and Native Americans. Up to the early to mid 18th century, the term Americans was not applied to people of European heritage in North America. Instead it was equivalent to the term Indians. As people of European heritage began using the term Americans to refer instead to themselves, the word Indians became historically the most often employed term.[254]
The term Indians, long laden with racist stereotypes, began to be widely replaced in the 1960s with the term Native Americans, which recognized the Indigeneity of the people who first made the Americas home. But as the term Native Americans became popular, the American Indian Movement saw pejorative connotations in the term native and reappropriated the term Indian, seeing it as witness to the history of violence against the many nations that lived in the Americas before European arrival.[255]
The term Native American was introduced in the United States in preference to the older term Indian to distinguish the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the people of India.
The term Amerindian, a portmanteau of "American Indian", was coined in 1902 by the American Anthropological Association. However, it has been controversial since its creation. It was immediately rejected by some leading members of the Association, and, while adopted by many, it was never universally accepted.[256] While never popular in Indigenous communities themselves, it remains a preferred term among some anthropologists, notably in some parts of Canada and the English-speaking Caribbean.[257][258][259][260]
During World War II, draft boards typically classified American Indians from Virginia as Negroes.[261][262]
In 1995, a plurality of Indigenous Americans, however, preferred the term American Indian[263] and many tribes include the word Indian in their formal title.
Criticism of the neologism Native American comes from diverse sources. Russell Means, an Oglala Lakota activist, opposed the term Native American because he believed it was imposed by the government without the consent of Native people.[264]
A 1995 U.S. Census Bureau survey found that more Native Americans in the United States preferred American Indian to Native American.[263] Most American Indians are comfortable with Indian, American Indian, and Native American.[265] That term is reflected in the name chosen for the National Museum of the American Indian, which opened in 2004 on the Mall in Washington, DC.
Other commonly used terms are First Americans, First Nations, and Native Peoples.[266]
Gambling industry
Sandia Casino, owned by the Sandia Pueblo of New Mexico
Main article: Native American gaming
Because Indian reservations have tribal sovereignty, states have limited ability to forbid gambling there, as codified by the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988. Tribes run casinos, bingo halls, and other gambling operations, and as of 2011, there were 460 such operations run by 240 tribes,[267] with a total annual revenue of $27 billion.[268]
Financial services
Numerous tribes around the country have entered the financial services market including the Otoe-Missouria, Tunica-Biloxi, and the Rosebud Sioux. Because of the challenges involved in starting a financial services business from scratch, many tribes hire outside consultants and vendors to help them launch these businesses and manage the regulatory issues involved. Similar to the tribal sovereignty debates that occurred when tribes first entered the gaming industry, the tribes, states, and federal government are currently in disagreement regarding who possesses the authority to regulate these e-commerce business entities.[269]
Crime on reservations
Prosecution of serious crime, historically endemic on reservations,[270][271] was required by the 1885 Major Crimes Act,[272] 18 U.S.C. §§1153, 3242, and court decisions to be investigated by the federal government, usually the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and prosecuted by United States Attorneys of the United States federal judicial district in which the reservation lies.[273][274][275][276][277]
A December 13, 2009 New York Times article about growing gang violence on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation estimated that there were 39 gangs with 5,000 members on that reservation alone.[278] Navajo country recently reported 225 gangs in its territory.[279]
As of 2012, a high incidence of rape continued to impact Native American women and Alaskan native women. According to the Department of Justice, 1 in 3 Native women have suffered rape or attempted rape, more than twice the national rate.[280] About 46 percent of Native American women have been raped, beaten, or stalked by an intimate partner, according to a 2010 study by the Centers for Disease Control.[281] According to Professor N. Bruce Duthu, "More than 80 percent of Indian victims identify their attacker as non-Indian".[282][283]
Barriers to economic development
Today, other than tribes successfully running casinos, many tribes struggle, as they are often located on reservations isolated from the main economic centers of the country. The estimated 2.1 million Native Americans are the most impoverished of all ethnic groups. According to the 2000 Census, an estimated 400,000 Native Americans reside on reservation land. While some tribes have had success with gaming, only 40% of the 562 federally recognized tribes operate casinos.[284] According to a 2007 survey by the U.S. Small Business Administration, only 1% of Native Americans own and operate a business.[285]
The barriers to economic development on Native American reservations have been identified by Joseph Kalt[286] and Stephen Cornell[287] of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at Harvard University, in their report: What Can Tribes Do? Strategies and Institutions in American Indian Economic Development (2008),[288] are summarized as follows:
Lack of access to capital
Lack of human capital (education, skills, technical expertise) and the means to develop it
Reservations lack effective planning
Reservations are poor in natural resources
Reservations have natural resources but lack sufficient control over them
Reservations are disadvantaged by their distance from markets and the high costs of transportation
Teacher with picture cards giving English instruction to Navajo day school students
Tribes cannot persuade investors to locate on reservations because of intense competition from non-Native American communities
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is inept, corrupt or uninterested in reservation development
Tribal politicians and bureaucrats are inept or corrupt
On-reservation factionalism destroys stability in tribal decisions
The instability of tribal government keeps outsiders from investing. The lack of international recognition Native American tribal sovereignty weakens their political-economic legitimacy.[289] (Many tribes adopted constitutions by the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act model, with two-year terms for elected positions of chief and council members deemed too short by the authors for getting things done)
Entrepreneurial skills and experience are scarce
A major barrier to development is the lack of entrepreneurial knowledge and experience within Indian reservations. "A general lack of education and experience about business is a significant challenge to prospective entrepreneurs", was the report on Native American entrepreneurship by the Northwest Area Foundation in 2004. "Native American communities that lack entrepreneurial traditions and recent experiences typically do not provide the support that entrepreneurs need to thrive. Consequently, experiential entrepreneurship education needs to be embedded into school curriculum and after-school and other community activities. This would allow students to learn the essential elements of entrepreneurship from a young age and encourage them to apply these elements throughout life".[290]
Discourse in Native American economic development
Some scholars argue that the existing theories and practices of economic development are not suitable for Native American communities—given the lifestyle, economic, and cultural differences, as well as the unique history of Native American-U.S. relations.[289] Little economic development research has been conducted on Native American communities. The federal government fails to consider place-based issues of American Indian poverty by generalizing the demographic.[289][291] In addition, the concept of economic development threatens to upend the multidimensionality of Native American culture.[289] The dominance of federal government involvement in Indigenous developmental activities perpetuates and exacerbates the salvage paradigm.[289]
Land ownership challenges
A common landownership issue on reservations is checkerboarding, where tribal land is interspersed with land owned by the federal government on behalf of Natives, individually owned plots, and land owned by non-Native individuals. This prevents Tribal governments from securing plots of land large enough for economic development or agricultural uses.[292] Because reservation land is owned "in trust" by the federal government, individuals living on reservations cannot build equity in their homes. This bars Native Americans from getting loans, as there is nothing that a bank can collect if the loan is not paid. Past efforts to encourage land ownership (such as the Dawes Act) resulted in a net loss of Tribal land. After they were familiarized with their smallholder status, Native American landowners were lifted of trust restrictions and their land would get transferred back to them, contingent on a transactional fee to the federal government. The transfer fee discouraged Native American land ownership, with 65% of tribal-owned land being sold to non-Native Americans by the 1920s.[293] Activists against property rights point to historical evidence of communal ownership of land and resources by tribes. They claim that because of this history, property rights are foreign to Natives and have no place in the modern reservation system. Those in favor of property rights cite examples of tribes negotiating with colonial communities or other tribes about fishing and hunting rights in an area.[294] Land ownership was also a challenge because of the different definitions of land that the Natives and the Europeans had.[295] Most Native American tribes thought of property rights more as "borrowing" the land, while those from Europe thought of land as individual property.[296]
Native land owned by individual Native Americans sometimes cannot be developed because of fractionalization. Fractionalization occurs when a landowner dies, and their land is inherited by their children, but not subdivided. This means that one parcel might be owned by 50 different individuals. A majority of those holding interest must agree to any proposal to develop the land, and establishing this consent is time-consuming, cumbersome, and sometimes impossible.[citation needed]
Land ownership and bureaucratic challenges in historical context
State-level efforts such as the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act were attempts to contain tribal land in Native American hands. However, more bureaucratic decisions only expanded the size of the bureaucracy. The knowledge disconnect between the decision-making bureaucracy and Native American stakeholders resulted in ineffective development efforts.[291][293]
Traditional Native American entrepreneurship does not prioritize profit maximization; rather, business transactions must align with Native American social and cultural values.[297] In response to Indigenous business philosophy, the federal government created policies that aimed to formalize their business practices, which undermined the Native American status quo.[293] Additionally, legal disputes interfered with tribal land leasing, which were settled with the verdict against tribal sovereignty.[298]
Often, bureaucratic overseers of development are far removed from Native American communities and lack the knowledge and understanding to develop plans or make resource allocation decisions.[291] The top-down heavy involvement in developmental operations corrupts bureaucrats into further self-serving agenda. Such incidences[spelling?] include fabricated reports that exaggerate results.[291]
Geographic poverty
While Native American urban poverty is attributed to hiring and workplace discrimination in a heterogeneous setting,[233] reservation and trust land poverty rates are endogenous to deserted opportunities in isolated regions.[299]
Trauma
Historical trauma
Historical trauma is described as collective emotional and psychological damage throughout a person's lifetime and across multiple generations.[300] Examples of historical trauma can be seen through the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, where over 200 unarmed Lakota were killed,[301] and the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887, when American Indians lost four-fifths of their land.[302]
Impacts of intergenerational trauma
American Indian youth have higher rates of substance and alcohol use deaths than the general population.[303] Many American Indians can trace the beginning of their substance and alcohol use to a traumatic event related to their offender's own substance use.[304] A person's substance use can be described as a defense mechanism against the user's emotions and trauma.[305] For American Indians alcoholism is a symptom of trauma passed from generation to generation and influenced by oppressive behaviors and policies by the dominant Euro-American society.[306] Boarding schools were made to "Kill the Indian, Save the man".[307] Shame among American Indians can be attributed to the hundreds of years of oppression and annihilation.[305]
Food insecurity
An older Native American woman talks behind a table of beans, grains, and other produce. She is demonstrating the different traditional Native American foods.
A Native American woman talks behind a table of bowls of beans, grains, and other produce at an Indigenous food demonstration.
While research into Native American food security has gone unnoticed and under-researched until recent years,[citation needed] more studies are being conducted which reveal that Native Americans oftentimes experience higher rates of food insecurity than any other racial group in the United States. The studies do not focus on the overall picture of Native American households, however, and tend to focus rather on smaller sample sizes in the available research.[308] In a study that evaluated the level of food insecurity among White, Asian, Black, Hispanic and Indigenous Americans: it was reported that over the 10-year span of 2000–2010, Indigenous people were reported to be one of the highest at-risk groups from a lack of access to adequate food, reporting anywhere from 20% to 30% of households suffering from this type of insecurity. There are many reasons that contribute to the issue, but overall, the biggest lie in high food costs on or near reservations, lack of access to well-paying jobs, and predisposition to health issues relating to obesity and mental health.[309]
Society, language, and culture
Main article: Native American cultures of the United States
Further information: category:Archaeological cultures of North America
Three Native American women in Warm Springs Indian Reservation, Wasco County, Oregon (1902)
The culture of Pre-Columbian North America is usually defined by the concept of the culture area, namely a geographical region where shared cultural traits occur. The northwest culture area, for example, shared common traits such as salmon fishing, woodworking, and large villages or towns and a hierarchical social structure.[310] Ethnographers generally classify the Indigenous peoples of North America into ten cultural areas based on geographical region.
Though cultural features, language, clothing, and customs vary enormously from one tribe to another, there are certain elements which are encountered frequently and shared by many tribes. Early European American scholars described the Native Americans as having a society dominated by clans.[311]
European colonization of the Americas had a major impact on Native American cultures through what is known as the Columbian exchange, also known as the Columbian interchange, which was the widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture, human populations, technology, and ideas between the Americas and Eurasia (the Old World) in the 15th and 16th centuries, following Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage.[312] The Columbian exchange generally had a destructive impact on Native American cultures through disease, and a 'clash of cultures',[313] whereby European values of private land ownership, the family, and division of labor, led to conflict, appropriation of traditional communal lands and changed how the Indigenous tribes practiced slavery.[313]
Geronimo, Chiricahua Apache leader. Photograph by Frank A. Rinehart (1898).
The impact of the Columbian exchange was not entirely negative, however. For example, the re-introduction of the horse to North America allowed the Plains Indian to revolutionize their ways of life by making hunting, trading, and warfare far more effective, and to greatly improve their ability to transport possessions and move their settlements.[314]
The Great Plains tribes were still hunting the bison when they first encountered the Europeans. The Spanish reintroduction of the horse to North America in the 17th century and Native Americans' learning to use them greatly altered the Native Americans' cultures, including changing the way in which they hunted large game. Horses became such a valuable, central element of Native lives that they were counted as a measure of wealth by many tribes.[citation needed]
In the early years, as Native peoples encountered European explorers and settlers and engaged in trade, they exchanged food, crafts, and furs for blankets, iron and steel implements, horses, trinkets, firearms, and alcoholic beverages.
Ethno-linguistic classification
Main article: Indigenous languages of the Americas
See also: American Indian English
Pre-contact: distribution of North American language families, including northern Mexico
The Na-Dené, Algic, and Uto-Aztecan families are the largest in terms of the number of languages. Uto-Aztecan has the most speakers (1.95 million) if the languages in Mexico are considered (mostly due to 1.5 million speakers of Nahuatl); Na-Dené comes in second with approximately 200,000 speakers (nearly 180,000 of these are speakers of Navajo), and Algic in third with about 180,000 speakers (mainly Cree and Ojibwe). Na-Dené and Algic have the widest geographic distributions: Algic currently spans from northeastern Canada across much of the continent down to northeastern Mexico (due to later migrations of the Kickapoo) with two outliers in California (Yurok and Wiyot); Na-Dené spans from Alaska and western Canada through Washington, Oregon, and California to the U.S. Southwest and northern Mexico (with one outlier in the Plains). Several families consist of only 2 or 3 languages. Demonstrating genetic relationships has proved difficult due to the great linguistic diversity present in North America. Two large (super-) family proposals, Penutian and Hokan, look particularly promising. However, even after decades of research, a large number of families remain.[citation needed]
A number of words used in English have been derived from Native American languages.
Language education
See also: Massachusett language § Current status
Oklahoma Cherokee language immersion school student writing in the Cherokee syllabary
The Cherokee language taught to preschoolers as a first language, at New Kituwah Academy
To counteract a shift to English, some Native American tribes have initiated language immersion schools for children, where an Indigenous American language is the medium of instruction. For example, the Cherokee Nation initiated a 10-year language preservation plan that involved raising new fluent speakers of the Cherokee language from childhood on up through school immersion programs as well as a collaborative community effort to continue to use the language at home.[315] This plan was part of an ambitious goal that, in 50 years, will result in 80% or more of the Cherokee people being fluent in the language.[316] The Cherokee Preservation Foundation has invested $3 million in opening schools, training teachers, and developing curricula for language education, as well as initiating community gatherings where the language can be actively used.[316] Formed in 2006, the Kituwah Preservation & Education Program (KPEP) on the Qualla Boundary focuses on language immersion programs for children from birth to fifth grade, developing cultural resources for the general public and community language programs to foster the Cherokee language among adults.[317]
There is also a Cherokee language immersion school in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, that educates students from pre-school through eighth grade.[318] Because Oklahoma's official language is English, Cherokee immersion students are hindered when taking state-mandated tests because they have little competence in English.[319] The Department of Education of Oklahoma said that in 2012 state tests: 11% of the school's sixth-graders showed proficiency in math, and 25% showed proficiency in reading; 31% of the seventh-graders showed proficiency in math, and 87% showed proficiency in reading; 50% of the eighth-graders showed proficiency in math, and 78% showed proficiency in reading.[319] The Oklahoma Department of Education listed the charter school as a Targeted Intervention school, meaning the school was identified as a low-performing school but has not so that it was a Priority School.[319] Ultimately, the school made a C, or a 2.33 grade point average on the state's A-F report card system.[319] The report card shows the school getting an F in mathematics achievement and mathematics growth, a C in social studies achievement, a D in reading achievement, and an A in reading growth and student attendance.[319] "The C we made is tremendous", said school principal Holly Davis, "[t]here is no English instruction in our school's younger grades, and we gave them this test in English."[319] She said she had anticipated the low grade because it was the school's first year as a state-funded charter school, and many students had difficulty with English.[319] Eighth graders who graduate from the Tahlequah immersion school are fluent speakers of the language, and they usually go on to attend Sequoyah High School where classes are taught in both English and Cherokee.
Indigenous foodways
Further information: Native American cuisine, Inuit cuisine, and Eastern Agricultural Complex
Ojibwe baby waits on a cradleboard while parents tend wild rice crops (Minnesota, 1940).
Historical diets of Native Americans differed dramatically from region to region. Different peoples might have relied more heavily on agriculture, horticulture, hunting, fishing, or gathering wild plants and fungi. Tribes developed diets best suited to their environments.
Iñupiat, Yupiit, Unangan, and fellow Alaska Natives fished, hunted, and harvested wild plants, but did not rely on agriculture. Coastal peoples relied more heavily on sea mammals, fish, and fish eggs, while inland peoples hunted caribou and moose.[320] Alaskan Natives prepared and preserved dried and smoked meat and fish.
Frybread, made into an Indian taco
Pacific Northwest tribes crafted seafaring dugout canoes 40–50 feet (12–15 m) long for fishing. In the Eastern Woodlands, early peoples independently invented agricultural and by 1800 BCE developed the crops of the Eastern Agricultural Complex, which include squash (Cucurbita pepo ssp. ovifera), sunflower (Helianthus annuus var. macrocarpus), goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandieri), and marsh elder (Iva annua var. macrocarpa).[321][322]
The Sonoran desert region including parts of Arizona and California, part of a region known as Aridoamerica, relied heavily on the tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolius) as a staple crop. This and other desert crops, mesquite bead pods, tunas (prickly pear fruit), cholla buds, saguaro cactus fruit, and acorns are being actively promoted today by Tohono O'odham Community Action.[323] In the Southwest, some communities developed irrigation techniques while others, such as the Hopi dry-farmed. They filled storehouses with grain as protection against the area's frequent droughts.
Maize grown by Native Americans
Maize or corn, first cultivated in what is now Mexico was traded north into Aridoamerica and Oasisamerica, southwest. From there, maize cultivation spread throughout the Great Plains and Eastern Woodlands by 200 CE. Native farmers practiced polycropping maize, beans, and squash; these crops are known as the Three Sisters. The beans would replace the nitrogen, which the maize leached from the ground, as well as using corn stalks for support for climbing. The deficiencies of a diet heavily dependent on maize were mitigated by the common practice among Native Americans of converting maize kernels into hominy in a process called Nixtamalization.[324]
The agriculture gender roles of the Native Americans varied from region to region. In the Southwest area, men prepared the soil with hoes. The women were in charge of planting, weeding, and harvesting the crops. In most other regions, the women were in charge of most agriculture, including clearing the land. Clearing the land was an immense chore since the Native Americans rotated fields.
Europeans in the eastern part of the continent observed that Native Americans cleared large areas for cropland. Their fields in New England sometimes covered hundreds of acres. Colonists in Virginia noted thousands of acres under cultivation by Native Americans.[325]
Makah Native Americans and a whale, The King of the Seas in the Hands of the Makahs, 1910 photograph by Asahel Curtis
Early farmers commonly used tools such as the hoe, maul, and dibber. The hoe was the main tool used to till the land and prepare it for planting; then it was used for weeding. The first versions were made out of wood and stone. When the settlers brought iron, Native Americans switched to iron hoes and hatchets. The dibber was a digging stick, used to plant the seed. Once the plants were harvested, women prepared the produce for eating. They used the maul to grind the corn into a mash. It was cooked and eaten that way or baked as cornbread.[326]
Religion
Main article: Native American religion
Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, the patron of ecologists, exiles, and orphans, was canonized by the Catholic Church.
Baptism of Pocahontas was painted in 1840 by John Gadsby Chapman, who depicts Pocahontas, wearing white, being baptized Rebecca by Anglican minister Alexander Whiteaker (left) in Jamestown, Virginia. This event is believed to have taken place either in 1613 or 1614.
Native American religious practices, beliefs, and philosophies differ widely across tribes. These spiritualities, practices, beliefs, and philosophies may accompany adherence to another faith or can represent a person's primary religious, faith, spiritual or philosophical identity. Much Native American spirituality exists in a tribal-cultural continuum, and as such cannot be easily separated from tribal identity itself.
Cultural spiritual, philosophical, and faith ways differ from tribe to tribe and person to person. Some tribes include the use of sacred leaves and herbs such as tobacco, sweetgrass or sage. Many Plains tribes have sweatlodge ceremonies, though the specifics of the ceremony vary among tribes. Fasting, singing and prayer in the ancient languages of their people, and sometimes drumming are also common.[327][citation needed]
The Midewiwin Lodge is a medicine society inspired by the oral history and prophesies of the Ojibwa (Chippewa) and related tribes.
Another significant religious body among Native peoples is known as the Native American Church. It is a syncretistic church incorporating elements of Native spiritual practice from a number of different tribes as well as symbolic elements from Christianity. Its main rite is the peyote ceremony. Prior to 1890, traditional religious beliefs included Wakan Tanka. In the American Southwest, especially New Mexico, a syncretism between the Catholicism brought by Spanish missionaries and the native religion is common; the religious drums, chants, and dances of the Pueblo people are regularly part of Masses at Santa Fe's Saint Francis Cathedral.[328] Native American-Catholic syncretism is also found elsewhere in the United States. (e.g., the National Kateri Tekakwitha Shrine in Fonda, New York, and the National Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York). Some Native American tribes who practice Christianity, including the Lumbee, organized denominations, such as the Lumber River Conference of the Holiness Methodist Church.[329]
The eagle feather law (Title 50 Part 22 of the Code of Federal Regulations) stipulates that only individuals of certifiable Native American ancestry enrolled in a federally recognized tribe are legally authorized to obtain eagle feathers for religious or spiritual use. The law does not allow Native Americans to give eagle feathers to non-Native Americans.
Gender roles
Main articles: Gender roles among the indigenous peoples of North America, Clan Mother, Matriarchy, Matrilineality, and Two-Spirit
Susan La Flesche Picotte was the first Native American woman to become a physician in the United States.
Gender roles are differentiated in many Native American tribes. Many Natives have retained traditional expectations of sexuality and gender and continue to do so in contemporary life despite continued and on-going colonial pressures.[330]
Whether a particular tribe is predominantly matrilineal or patrilineal, often both sexes have some degree of decision-making power within the tribe. Many Nations, such as the Haudenosaunee Five Nations and the Southeast Muskogean tribes, have matrilineal or Clan Mother systems, in which property and hereditary leadership are controlled by and passed through the maternal lines.[331] In these Nations, the children are considered to belong to the mother's clan. In Cherokee culture, women own the family property. When traditional young women marry, their husbands may join them in their mother's household.
Matrilineal structures enable young women to have assistance in childbirth and rearing and protect them in case of conflicts between the couple. If a couple separates or the man dies, the woman has her family to assist her. In matrilineal cultures the mother's brothers are usually the leading male figures in her children's lives; fathers have no standing in their wife and children's clan, as they still belong to their own mother's clan. Hereditary clan chief positions pass through the mother's line and chiefs have historically been selected on the recommendations of women elders, who could also disapprove of a chief.[331]
Ball-play of the women, painting by George Catlin, c. 1835
In the patrilineal tribes, such as the Omaha, Osage, Ponca, and Lakota, hereditary leadership passes through the male line, and children are considered to belong to the father and his clan. In patrilineal tribes, if a woman marries a non-Native, she is no longer considered part of the tribe, and her children are considered to share the ethnicity and culture of their father.[332]
In patriarchal tribes, gender roles tend to be rigid. Men have historically hunted, traded and made war while, as life-givers, women have primary responsibility for the survival and welfare of the families (and future of the tribe). Women usually gather and cultivate plants, use plants and herbs to treat illnesses, care for the young and the elderly, make all the clothing and instruments, and process and cure meat and skins from the game. Some mothers use cradleboards to carry an infant while working or traveling.[333] In matriarchal and egalitarian nations, the gender roles are usually not so clear-cut and are even less so in the modern era.[330]
At least several dozen tribes allowed polygyny to sisters, with procedural and economic limits.[311]
Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota girls are encouraged to learn to ride, hunt and fight.[334] Though fighting in war has mostly been left to the boys and men, occasionally women have fought as well – both in battles and in defense of the home – especially if the tribe was severely threatened.[335]
Modern education
As of 2020 90% of Native American school-aged children attend public schools operated by school districts.[336] Tribally-operated schools under contracts/grants with the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) and direct BIE-operated schools take about 8% of Native American students,[337] including students who live in very rural remote areas.[336]
In 1978, 215,000 (78%) of Native Americans attended school district-operated public schools, 47,000 (17%) attended schools directly operated by the BIA, 2,500 (1%) attended tribal or other schools that contracted with the BIA, and the remaining 9,000 (3%) attended missionary schools for Native American children or other private schools.[338]
Sports
Jim Thorpe, gold medalist at the 1912 Olympics, in the pentathlon and decathlon events
Native American leisure time led to competitive individual and team sports. Jim Thorpe, Lewis Tewanima, Joe Hipp, Notah Begay III, Chris Wondolowski, Jacoby Ellsbury, Joba Chamberlain, Kyle Lohse, Sam Bradford, Jack Brisco, Tommy Morrison, Billy Mills, Angel Goodrich, Shoni Schimmel, and Kyrie Irving are well known professional athletes.
Ball players from the Choctaw and Lakota tribe in a 19th-century lithograph by George Catlin
Team sports
Native American ball sports, sometimes referred to as lacrosse, stickball, or baggataway, were often used to settle disputes, rather than going to war, as a civil way to settle potential conflict. The Choctaw called it isitoboli ("Little Brother of War");[339] the Onondaga name was dehuntshigwa'es ("men hit a rounded object"). There are three basic versions, classified as Great Lakes, Iroquoian, and Southern.[340]
The game is played with one or two rackets or sticks and one ball. The object of the game is to land the ball in the opposing team's goal (either a single post or net) to score and to prevent the opposing team from scoring on your goal. The game involves as few as 20 or as many as 300 players with no height or weight restrictions and no protective gear. The goals could be from around 200 feet (61 m) apart to about 2 miles (3.2 km); in lacrosse the field is 110 yards (100 m).
Individual sports
Chunkey was a game that consisted of a stone-shaped disk that was about 1–2 inches in diameter. The disk was thrown down a 200-foot (61 m) corridor so that it could roll past the players at great speed. The disk would roll down the corridor, and players would throw wooden shafts at the moving disk. The object of the game was to strike the disk or prevent your opponents from hitting it.
Billy Mills crosses the finish line at the end of the 10,000-meter race at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.
U.S. Olympics
Jim Thorpe, a Sauk and Fox Native American, was an all-around athlete playing football and baseball in the early 20th century. Future President Dwight Eisenhower injured his knee while trying to tackle the young Thorpe. In a 1961 speech, Eisenhower recalled Thorpe: "Here and there, there are some people who are supremely endowed. My memory goes back to Jim Thorpe. He never practiced in his life, and he could do anything better than any other football player I ever saw."[341]
In the 1912 Olympics, Thorpe could run the 100-yard dash in 10 seconds flat, the 220 in 21.8 seconds, the 440 in 51.8 seconds, the 880 in 1:57, the mile in 4:35, the 120-yard high hurdles in 15 seconds, and the 220-yard low hurdles in 24 seconds.[342] He could long jump 23 ft 6 in and high-jump 6 ft 5 in.[342] He could pole vault 11 feet (3.4 m), put the shot 47 ft 9 in (14.55 m), throw the javelin 163 feet (50 m), and throw the discus 136 feet (41 m).[342] Thorpe entered the U.S. Olympic trials for the pentathlon and the decathlon.
Louis Tewanima, Hopi people, was an American two-time Olympic distance runner and silver medalist in the 10,000-meter run in 1912. He ran for the Carlisle Indian School where he was a teammate of Jim Thorpe. His silver medal in 1912 remained the best U.S. achievement in this event until another Indian, Billy Mills, won the gold medal in 1964. Tewanima also competed at the 1908 Olympics, where he finished in ninth place in the marathon.[1]
Ellison Brown, of the Narragansett people from Rhode Island, better known as "Tarzan" Brown, won two Boston Marathons (1936, 1939) and competed on the United States Olympic team in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany, but did not finish due to injury. He qualified for the 1940 Olympic Games in Helsinki, Finland, but the games were canceled due to the outbreak of World War II.
Billy Mills, a Lakota and USMC officer, won the gold medal in the 10,000-meter run at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He was the only American ever to win the Olympic gold in this event. An unknown before the Olympics, Mills finished second in the U.S. Olympic trials.
Billy Kidd, part Abenaki from Vermont, became the first American male to medal in alpine skiing in the Olympics, taking silver at age 20 in the slalom in the 1964 Winter Olympics at Innsbruck, Austria. Six years later at the 1970 World Championships, Kidd won the gold medal in the combined event and took the bronze medal in the slalom.
Ashton Locklear (Lumbee), an uneven bars specialist was an alternate for the 2016 Summer Olympics U.S. gymnastics team, the Final Five.[343] In 2016, Kyrie Irving (Sioux) also helped Team USA win the gold medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics. With the win, he became just the fourth member of Team USA to capture the NBA championship and an Olympic gold medal in the same year, joining LeBron James, Michael Jordan, and Scottie Pippen.[344]
Literature
Main article: Native American literature
See also: List of writers from peoples Indigenous to the Americas and Postcolonial literature
Native American literature, composed of both oral literature and written literature, has a long history. Relevantly, it is considered a series of literatures reflecting the varied traditions and histories of different tribes. Modern authors cover a wide range of genres and include Tommy Orange, Joy Harjo, Louise Erdrich, Stephen Graham Jones, Rebecca Roanhorse, Tommy Pico, and many more.
Music
Main article: Native American music
See also: Native American hip hop and Indigenous metal music
Fancy Dancer at the Seafair Indian Days Pow-Wow, Daybreak Star Cultural Center, Seattle, Washington
Jake Fragua, Jemez Pueblo from New Mexico
Traditional Native American music is almost entirely monophonic, but there are notable exceptions. Native American music often includes drumming or the playing of rattles or other percussion instruments but little other instrumentation. Flutes and whistles made of wood, cane, or bone are also played, generally by individuals, but in former times also by large ensembles (as noted by Spanish conquistador de Soto). The tuning of modern flutes is typically pentatonic.
Performers with Native American parentage have occasionally appeared in American popular music such as Rita Coolidge, Wayne Newton, Gene Clark, Blackfoot, and Redbone (members are also of Mexican descent). Some, such as John Trudell, have used music to comment on life in Native America. Other musicians such as R. Carlos Nakai, Joanne Shenandoah and Robert "Tree" Cody integrate traditional sounds with modern sounds in instrumental recordings, whereas the music by artist Charles Littleleaf is derived from ancestral heritage as well as nature. A variety of small and medium-sized recording companies offer an abundance of recent music by Native American performers young and old, ranging from pow-wow drum music to hard-driving rock-and-roll and rap. In the International world of ballet dancing Maria Tallchief was considered America's first major prima ballerina,[345] and was the first person of Native American descent to hold the rank.[346] along with her sister Marjorie Tallchief both became star ballerinas.
The most widely practiced public musical form among Native Americans in the United States is that of the pow-wow. At pow-wows, such as the annual Gathering of Nations in Albuquerque, New Mexico, members of drum groups sit in a circle around a large drum. Drum groups play in unison while they sing in a native language and dancers in colorful regalia dance clockwise around the drum groups in the center. Familiar pow-wow songs include honor songs, intertribal songs, crow-hops, sneak-up songs, grass-dances, two-steps, welcome songs, going-home songs, and war songs. Most Indigenous communities in the United States also maintain traditional songs and ceremonies, some of which are shared and practiced exclusively within the community.[347]
Art
Further information: petroglyph, pictogram, petroform, Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous ceramics of the Americas, and Native American jewelry
The Iroquois, living around the Great Lakes and extending east and north, used strings or belts called wampum that served a dual function: the knots and beaded designs mnemonically chronicled tribal stories and legends, and further served as a medium of exchange and a unit of measure. The keepers of the articles were seen as tribal dignitaries.[348]
Pueblo peoples crafted impressive items associated with their religious ceremonies. Kachina dancers wore elaborately painted and decorated masks as they ritually impersonated various ancestral spirits.[349] Pueblo people are particularly noted for their traditional high-quality pottery, often with geometric designs and floral, animal and bird motifs.[350] Sculpture was not highly developed, but carved stone and wood fetishes were made for religious use. Superior weaving, embroidered decorations, and rich dyes characterized the textile arts. Both turquoise and shell jewelry were created, as were formalized pictorial arts.[351]
Navajo spirituality focused on the maintenance of a harmonious relationship with the spirit world, often achieved by ceremonial acts, usually incorporating sandpainting. For the Navajo, the sand painting is not merely a representational object, but a dynamic spiritual entity with a life of its own, which helped the patient at the center of the ceremony re-establish a connection with the life force. These vivid, intricate, and colorful sand creations were erased at the end of the healing ceremony.[352]
The Native American arts and crafts industry brings in more than a billion in gross sales annually.[353]
Native American art comprises a major category in the world art collection. Native American contributions include pottery, paintings, jewellery, weavings, sculpture, basketry, and carvings. Franklin Gritts was a Cherokee artist who taught students from many tribes at Haskell Institute (now Haskell Indian Nations University) in the 1940s, the Golden Age of Native American painters. The integrity of certain Native American artworks is protected by the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, which prohibits the representation of art as Native American when it is not the product of an enrolled Native American artist. Attorney Gail Sheffield and others claim that this law has had "the unintended consequence of sanctioning discrimination against Native Americans whose tribal affiliation was not officially recognized".[354] Native artists such as Jeanne Rorex Bridges (Echota Cherokee) who was not enrolled ran the risk of fines or imprisonment if they continued to sell their art while affirming their Indian heritage.[355][356][357]
Interracial relations
Lillian Gross, described as a "Mixed Blood" by the Smithsonian source, was of Cherokee and European American heritage. She identified with the Cherokee culture in which she was raised.
Interracial relations between Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans is a complex issue that has been mostly neglected with "few in-depth studies on interracial relationships".[358][359]
Assimilation
Further information: Cultural assimilation of Native Americans
European impact was immediate, widespread, and profound already during the early years of colonization and the creation of the countries which currently exist in the Americas. Europeans living among Native Americans were often called "white indians". They "lived in native communities for years, learned native languages fluently, attended native councils, and often fought alongside their native companions".[360]
Early contact was often charged with tension and emotion, but also had moments of friendship, cooperation, and intimacy.[361] Marriages took place in English, Spanish, French, and Russian colonies between Native Americans and Europeans though Native American women were also the victims of rape.[362]
There was fear on both sides, as the different peoples realized how different their societies were.[361] Many whites regarded Native people as "savages" because the Native people were not Protestant or Roman Catholic and therefore the Native people were not considered to be human beings.[361] The Native American author, Andrew J. Blackbird, wrote in his History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan (1897), that white settlers introduced some immoralities into Native American tribes. Many Native Americans suffered because the Europeans introduced alcohol. Many Native people do not break down alcohol in the same way as people of Eurasian background. Many Native people were learning what their body could tolerate of this new substance and died as a result of imbibing too much.[361]
Blackbird wrote:
The Ottawas and Chippewas were quite virtuous in their primitive state, as there were no illegitimate children reported in our old traditions. But very lately this evil came to exist among the Ottawas-so lately that the second case among the Ottawas of 'Arbor Croche' is yet living in 1897. And from that time this evil came to be quite frequent, for immorality has been introduced among these people by evil white persons who bring their vices into the tribes.[361]
The 1725 return of an Osage bride from a trip to Paris, France. The Osage woman was married to a French soldier.
Five Indians and a Captive, painted by Carl Wimar, 1855
The U.S. government had two purposes when making land agreements with Native Americans: to open up more land for white settlement,[361] and to "ease tensions" (in other words assimilate Native people to Eurasian social ways) between whites and Native Americans by forcing the Native Americans to use the land in the same way as did the whites—for subsistence farms.[361] The government used a variety of strategies to achieve these goals; many treaties required Native Americans to become farmers in order to keep their land.[361] Government officials often did not translate the documents which Native Americans were forced to sign, and native chiefs often had little or no idea what they were signing.[361]
Charles Eastman was one of the first Native Americans to become certified as a medical doctor, after he graduated from Boston University.[363][364]
For a Native American man to marry a white woman, he had to get consent of her parents, as long as "he can prove to support her as a white woman in a good home".[365] In the early 19th century, the Shawnee Tecumseh and blonde hair, blue-eyed Rebecca Galloway had an interracial affair. In the late 19th century, three European American middle-class women teachers at Hampton Institute married Native American men whom they had met as students.[366]
As European American women started working independently at missions and Indian schools in the western states, there were more opportunities for their meeting and developing relationships with Native American men. For instance, Charles Eastman, a man of European and Lakota origin whose father sent both his sons to Dartmouth College, got his medical degree at Boston University and returned to the West to practice. He married Elaine Goodale, whom he met in South Dakota. He was the grandson of Seth Eastman, a military officer from Maine, and a chief's daughter. Goodale was a young European American teacher from Massachusetts and a reformer, who was appointed as the U.S. superintendent of Native American education for the reservations in the Dakota Territory. They had six children together.
European enslavement
Main articles: Slavery among Native Americans in the United States and Slavery among Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The majority of Native American tribes did practice some form of slavery before the European introduction of African slavery into North America, but none exploited slave labor on a large scale. Most Native American tribes did not barter captives in the pre-colonial era, although they sometimes exchanged enslaved individuals with other tribes in peace gestures or in exchange for their own members.[367] When Europeans arrived as colonists in North America, Native Americans changed their practice of slavery dramatically. Native Americans began selling war captives to Europeans rather than integrating them into their own societies as they had done before. As the demand for labor in the West Indies grew with the cultivation of sugar cane, Europeans enslaved Native Americans for the Thirteen Colonies, and some were exported to the "sugar islands". The British settlers, especially those in the southern colonies, purchased or captured Native Americans to use as forced labor in cultivating tobacco, rice, and indigo. Accurate records of the numbers enslaved do not exist because vital statistics and census reports were at best infrequent.[368] Scholars estimate tens to hundreds of thousands of Native Americans may have been enslaved by the Europeans, being sold by Native Americans themselves or Europeans.[369][370]
In Colonial America, slavery soon became racialized, with those enslaved by the institution consisting of ethnic groups (non-Christian Native Americans and Africans) who were foreign to the Christian, European colonists. The House of Burgesses define the terms of slavery in Virginia in 1705:
All servants imported and brought into the Country ... who were not Christians in their native Country ... shall be accounted and be slaves. All Negro, mulatto and Indian slaves within this dominion ... shall be held to be real estate. If any slave resists his master ... correcting such slave, and shall happen to be killed in such correction ... the master shall be free of all punishment ... as if such accident never happened.
— Virginia General Assembly declaration, 1705[371]
The slave trade of Native Americans lasted only until around 1750. It gave rise to a series of devastating wars among the tribes, including the Yamasee War. The Indian Wars of the early 18th century, combined with the increasing importation of African slaves, effectively ended the Native American slave trade by 1750. Colonists found that Native American slaves could easily escape, as they knew the country. The wars cost the lives of numerous colonial slave traders and disrupted their early societies. The remaining Native American groups banded together to face the Europeans from a position of strength. Many surviving Native American peoples of the southeast strengthened their loose coalitions of language groups and joined confederacies such as the Choctaw, the Creek, and the Catawba for protection. Even after the Indian Slave Trade ended in 1750, the enslavement of Native Americans continued (mostly through kidnappings) in the west and in the Southern states.[372][373] Both Native American and African enslaved women suffered rape and sexual harassment by male slaveholders and other white men.[362]
Native American and African relations
Further information: Black Indians and Native American slave ownership
African- and Native- Americans have interacted for centuries. The earliest record of Native American and African contact occurred in April 1502, when Spanish colonists transported the first Africans to Hispaniola to serve as slaves.[374]
Buffalo Soldiers, 1890. The nickname was given to the "Black Cavalry" by the Native American tribes they fought.
Sometimes Native Americans resented the presence of African Americans.[375] The "Catawaba tribe in 1752 showed great anger and bitter resentment when an African American came among them as a trader".[375] To gain favor with Europeans, the Cherokee exhibited the strongest color prejudice of all Native Americans.[375] Because of European fears of a unified revolt of Native Americans and African Americans, the colonists tried to encourage hostility between the ethnic groups: "Whites sought to convince Native Americans that African Americans worked against their best interests."[376] In 1751, South Carolina law stated:
The carrying of Negroes among the Indians has all along been thought detrimental, as an intimacy ought to be avoided.[377]
In addition, in 1758 the governor of South Carolina James Glen wrote:
it has always been the policy of this government to create an aversion in them [Indians] to Negroes.[378]
Europeans considered both races inferior and made efforts to make both Native Americans and Africans enemies.[citation needed] Native Americans were rewarded if they returned escaped slaves, and African Americans were rewarded for fighting in the late 19th-century Indian Wars.[379][380][381]
According to the National Park Service, "Native Americans, during the transitional period of Africans becoming the primary race enslaved, were enslaved at the same time and shared a common experience of enslavement. They worked together, lived together in communal quarters, produced collective recipes for food, shared herbal remedies, myths and legends, and in the end they intermarried."[382][383] Because of a shortage of men due to warfare, many tribes encouraged marriage between the two groups, to create stronger, healthier children from the unions.[384]
In the 18th century, many Native American women married freed or runaway African men due to a decrease in the population of men in Native American villages.[379] Records show that many Native American women bought African men but, unknown to the European sellers, the women freed and married the men into their tribe.[379] When African men married or had children by a Native American woman, their children were born free, because the mother was free (according to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, which the colonists incorporated into law).[379]
While numerous tribes used captive enemies as servants and slaves, they also often adopted younger captives into their tribes to replace members who had died. In the Southeast, a few Native American tribes began to adopt a slavery system similar to that of the American colonists, buying African American slaves, especially the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek. Though less than 3% of Native Americans owned slaves, divisions grew among the Native Americans over slavery.[385] Among the Cherokee, records show that slaveholders in the tribe were largely the children of European men who had shown their children the economics of slavery.[380] As European colonists took slaves into frontier areas, there were more opportunities for relationships between African and Native American peoples.[379]
Race, ethnicity, and citizenship
Main article: Native American identity
Sharice Davids became one of the first two Native American women elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Ben Reifel of South Dakota, the only Lakota elected to the U.S. House of Representatives
Deb Haaland became one of the first two Native American women elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Ada E. Brown, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation with mixed-African American heritage, nominated by President Donald Trump in 2019 to be a federal judge in Texas
Mary Peltola became the first Alaska Native elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Native American identity is determined by the tribal community that the individual or group is seeking to identify with.[386][387] While it is common for non-Natives to consider it a racial or ethnic identity, it is considered by Native Americans in the United States to be a political identity, based on citizenship and immediate family relationships.[386][387] As culture can vary widely between the 574 extant federally recognized tribes in the United States, the idea of a single unified "Native American" racial identity is a European construct that does not have an equivalent in tribal thought.[386]
In the 2010 Census, nearly 3 million people indicated that their "race" was Native American (including Alaska Native).[388] Of these, more than 27% specifically indicated "Cherokee" as their ethnic origin.[389][390] Many of the First Families of Virginia claim descent from Pocahontas or some other "Indian princess". This phenomenon has been dubbed the "Cherokee Syndrome".[391] Across the US, numerous individuals cultivate an opportunistic ethnic identity as Native American, sometimes through Cherokee heritage groups or Indian Wedding Blessings.[392]
Some tribes (particularly some in the Eastern United States) are primarily made up of individuals with an unambiguous Native American identity, despite having a large number of mixed-race citizens with prominent non-Native ancestry. More than 75% of those enrolled in the Cherokee Nation have less than one-quarter Cherokee blood,[393] and the former Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, Bill John Baker, is 1/32 Cherokee, amounting to about 3%.
Historically, numerous Native Americans assimilated into colonial and later American society, e.g. through adopting English and converting to Christianity. In many cases, this process occurred through forced assimilation of children sent off to American Indian boarding schools far from their families. Those who could eventually pass for white gained the advantage of white privilege, yet often paid for it with the loss of community connections.[392] With the enforcement of blood quantum laws, Indian blood could be diluted over generations through intermarrying with non-Native populations, as well as intermarrying with members of tribes that also required high blood-quantum, solely from one tribe.[394] "Kill the Indian, save the man" was a mantra of nineteenth-century U.S. assimilation policies.[395]
Native Americans are more likely than any other racial group to practice interracial or intertribal marriage among the different tribes and non-Natives, resulting in an ever-declining proportion of Indigenous blood among those who claim a Native American identity (tribes often count only the Indian blood from their own tribal background in the enrollment process, disregarding intertribal heritages).[396] Some tribes disenroll those with low blood quantum. Disenrollment has become a contentious issue in Native American reservation politics.[397][398]
Tribal enrollment
Further information: List of federally recognized tribes in the United States, State-recognized tribes, Cherokee freedmen controversy, Cherokee descent, and Tribal disenrollment
Requirements for tribal citizenship vary by tribe, but are generally based on who one's parents and grandparents are, as known and documented by community members and tribal records. Among the tribal nations, qualification for enrolling those who were not logged at birth by their parents may be based upon a required percentage of Native American "blood" (or the "blood quantum") of an individual, or upon documented lineal descent from an ancestor on a specific census or register.
Tribal rules regarding the recognition of members who have heritage from multiple tribes also vary, but most do not allow citizenship in multiple tribes at once. For those that do, usually citizens consider one of their citizenships primary, and their other heritage to be "descent". Federally recognized tribes do not accept genetic ethnicity percentages results as appropriate evidence of Native American identity, as they cannot indicate specific tribe, or even whether or not someone is Native American. Unless requested for a paternity test, they do not not advise applicants to submit such things.[395]
To receive tribal services, a Native American must be a citizen of (or enrolled in) a federally recognized tribe. While each tribal government makes its own rules for the eligibility of citizens, the federal government has its own qualifications for federally-funded services. Federal scholarships for Native Americans require the student to be enrolled in a federally recognized tribe and to be of at least one-quarter Native American blood quantum, as attested to by a Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood (CDIB) card issued by the federal government.
Tribal membership conflicts have led to a number of legal disputes, court cases, and the formation of activist groups. One example of this is the Cherokee Freedmen. The Cherokee Nation requires documented direct genealogical descent from a Cherokee person listed in the early 1906 Dawes Rolls. The Freedmen are descendants of African Americans once enslaved by the Cherokees, who were granted, by federal treaty, citizenship in the historic Cherokee Nation as freedmen after the Civil War. The modern Cherokee Nation, in the early 1980s, passed a law to require that all members must prove descent from a Cherokee Native American (not Cherokee Freedmen) listed on the Dawes Rolls, resulting in the exclusion of some individuals and families who had been active in Cherokee culture for years.
Increased self-identification
Since the 2000 United States census, people may identify as being of more than one race.[183] Since the 1960s, the number of people claiming Native American ancestry has grown significantly and, by the 2000 census, the number had more than doubled. Sociologists attribute this dramatic change to "ethnic shifting" or "ethnic shopping"; they believe that it reflects a willingness of people to question their birth identities and adopt new ethnicities which they find more compatible.
The author Jack Hitt writes:
The reaction from lifelong Indians runs the gamut. It is easy to find Native Americans who denounce many of these new Indians as members of the wannabe tribe. But it is also easy to find Indians like Clem Iron Wing, an elder among the Lakota, who sees this flood of new ethnic claims as magnificent, a surge of Indians 'trying to come home.' Those Indians who ridicule Iron Wing's lax sense of tribal membership have retrofitted the old genocidal system of blood quantum—measuring racial purity by blood—into the new standard for real Indianness, a choice rich with paradox.[184]
Journalist Mary Annette Pember (Ojibwe) writes that non-Natives identifying with Native American identity may be a result of a person's increased interest in genealogy, the romanticization of what they believe the cultures to be, and family lore of Native American ancestors in the distant past. However, there are different issues if a person wants to pursue enrollment as a citizen of a tribal nation. Different tribes have different requirements for citizenship. Often those who live as non-Natives, yet claim distant heritage, say they are simply reluctant to enroll, arguing that it is a method of control initiated by the federal government. However, it is the tribes that set their own enrollment criteria, and "the various enrollment requirements are often a hurdle that ethnic shoppers are unable to clear." Says Grayson Noley, (Choctaw), of the University of Oklahoma, "If you have to search for proof of your heritage, it probably isn't there."[399] In other cases, there are some individuals who are 100% Native American but, if all of their recent ancestors are from different tribes, blood quantum laws could result in them not meeting the citizenship criteria for any one of those individual tribes. Pember concludes:
The subjects of genuine American Indian blood, cultural connection and recognition by the community are extremely contentious issues, hotly debated throughout Indian country and beyond. The whole situation, some say, is ripe for misinterpretation, confusion and, ultimately, exploitation.[399]
Admixture and genetics
Members of the Creek (Muscogee) Nation in Oklahoma around 1877; they include men with some European and African ancestry.[400]
Intertribal marriage is historically common among many Native American tribes, both prior to European contact and in the present. Historically, tribal conflicts might result in the eventual adoption of, or marriages with, captives taken in warfare, with former foes becoming full members of the community. Individuals often have ancestry from more than one tribe, and this became increasingly common after so many tribes lost family members to colonial invasions bringing disease, war and massacres.[79] Bands or entire tribes were often reduced to very small numbers, and at times split or merged to form stronger communities in reaction to these pressures.[401]
Tribes with long trading histories with Europeans show a higher rate of European admixture, reflecting admixture events between Native American women and European men.[402][401]
The Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism has also said that haplogroup testing is not a valid means of determining Native American ancestry, and that the concept of using genetic testing to determine who is or is not Native American threatens tribal sovereignty.[403][404] Author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science, Kim TallBear (Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate), agrees, stating that not only is there no DNA test that can indicate a tribe, but "there is no DNA-test to prove you're Native American."[405][406] Tallbear writes in Native American DNA that while a DNA test may bring up some markers associated with some Indigenous or Asian populations, the science in these cases is problematic,[405] as Indigenous identity is not about one distant (and possibly nonexistent) ancestor, but rather political citizenship, culture, kinship, and daily, lived experience as part of an Indigenous community.[406] She adds that a person, "… could have up to two Native American grandparents and show no sign of Native American ancestry. For example, a genetic male could have a maternal grandfather (from whom he did not inherit his Y chromosome) and a paternal grandmother (from whom he did not inherit his mtDNA) who were descended from Native American founders, but mtDNA and Y-chromosome analyses would not detect them."[395]
Given all these factors, DNA testing is not sufficient to qualify a person for specific tribal membership, as the ethnicity admixture tests cannot distinguish among Native American tribes. They cannot even reliably indicate Native American ancestry:[407]
"Native American markers" are not found solely among Native Americans. While they occur more frequently among Native Americans, they are also found in people in other parts of the world.[407]
The only use of DNA testing by legitimate tribes is that some, such as the Meskwaki, may use DNA for paternity tests, or similar confirmation that an applicant who was not enrolled at birth is the biological child of an enrolled tribal member. It is solely about confirming or ruling out biological paternity, and has no relationship to race or ethnicity.[408][409]
African American admixtures
Main article: Black Indians in the United States § Genealogy and genetics
DNA testing and research has provided some data about the extent of Native American ancestry among African Americans, which varies in the general population. Based on the work of geneticists, Harvard University historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr. hosted a popular, and at times controversial, PBS series, African American Lives, in which geneticists said DNA evidence shows that Native American ancestry is far less common among African Americans than previously believed.[410][411] Their conclusions were that while almost all African Americans are racially mixed, and many have family stories of Native heritage, usually these stories turn out to be inaccurate,[410][411] with only 5 percent of African American people showing more than 2 percent Native American ancestry.[410]
Gates summarized these statistics to mean that, "If you have 2 percent Native American ancestry, you had one such ancestor on your family tree five to nine generations back (150 to 270 years ago)."[410] Their findings also concluded that the most common "non-Black" mix among African Americans is English and Scots-Irish. Some critics thought the PBS series did not sufficiently explain the limitations of DNA testing for assessment of heritage.[412] Another study, published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, also indicated that, despite how common these family stories are, relatively few African Americans who have these stories actually turned out to have detectable Native American ancestry.[413] A study reported in the American Journal of Human Genetics stated, "We analyzed the European genetic contribution to 10 populations of African descent in the United States (Maywood, Illinois; Detroit; New York; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Baltimore; Charleston, South Carolina; New Orleans; and Houston) ... mtDNA haplogroups analysis shows no evidence of a significant maternal Amerindian contribution to any of the 10 populations."[414] Despite this, some still insist that most African Americans have at least some Native American heritage.[415]
DNA
Main article: Genetic history of indigenous peoples of the Americas
See also: Y-DNA haplogroups in Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The genetic history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas primarily focuses on human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups and human mitochondrial DNA haplogroups. "Y-DNA" is passed solely along the patrilineal line, from father to son, while "mtDNA" is passed down the matrilineal line, from mother to offspring of both sexes. Neither recombines, and thus Y-DNA and mtDNA change only by chance mutation at each generation with no intermixture between parents' genetic material.[416] Autosomal "atDNA" markers are also used, but differ from mtDNA or Y-DNA in that they overlap significantly.[417] Autosomal DNA is generally used to measure the average continent-of-ancestry genetic admixture in the entire human genome and related isolated populations.[417] Within mtDNA, genetic scientists have found specific nucleotide sequences that they have classified as "Native American markers" because the sequences are understood to have been inherited through the generations of genetic females within populations first found in the "New World". There are five primary Native American mtDNA haplogroups in which there are clusters of closely linked markers inherited together. All five haplogroups have been identified by researchers as "prehistoric Native North American samples", and it is commonly asserted that the majority of living Native Americans possess one of the common five mtDNA haplogroup markers.[395]
The genetic pattern indicates Indigenous Americans experienced two very distinctive genetic episodes; first with the initial-peopling of the Americas, and secondly with European colonization of the Americas.[418][419][420] The former is the determinant factor for the number of gene lineages, zygosity mutations and founding haplotypes present in today's Indigenous American populations.[419]
The most popular theory is that human settlement of the Americas occurred in stages from the Bering sea coast line, with an initial 15,000 to 20,000-year layover on Beringia for the small founding population.[418][421][422] The micro-satellite diversity and distributions of the Y lineage specific to South America indicates that certain Amerindian populations have been isolated since the initial colonization of the region.[423] The Na-Dené, Inuit and Indigenous Alaskan populations exhibit haplogroup Q-M242 (Y-DNA) mutations, however, that are distinct from other Indigenous Amerindians, and that have various mtDNA and atDNA mutations.[424][425][426] This suggests that the paleo-Indian migrants into the northern extremes of North America and Greenland were descended from a later, independent migrant population.[427][428]
Genetic analyses of HLA I and HLA II genes as well as HLA-A, -B, and -DRB1 gene frequencies links the Ainu people of northern Japan and southeastern Russia to some Indigenous peoples of the Americas, especially to populations on the Pacific Northwest Coast such as Tlingit. Scientists suggest that the main ancestor of the Ainu and of some Native American groups can be traced back to Paleolithic groups in Southern Siberia.[429]
See also
Indigenous peoples of the Americas portal
flag United States portal
Alcohol and Native Americans
Indian Actors Association
List of Alaska Native tribal entities
List of historical Indian reservations in the United States
List of Indian reservations in the United States
List of Native American firsts
List of Native Americans of the United States (notable Native Americans)
List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas
Military history of Native Americans
Mythologies of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas
Native American civil rights
Native American Heritage Sites (National Park Service)
Native Americans in popular culture
Native Americans in United States elections
Native American reservation politics
Outline of United States federal Indian law and policy
Racism against Native Americans in the United States
Sexual victimization of Native American women
Suicide among Native Americans in the United States
List of U.S. communities with Native-American majority populations
Indigenous peoples of Arizona
Indigenous peoples of Florida
Indigenous peoples of California
Indigenous peoples of Canada
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the peoples that inhabited the Americas before the arrival of European settlers in the 15th century and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples.[33]
The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are diverse; some Indigenous peoples were historically hunter-gatherers, while others traditionally practice agriculture and aquaculture. In some regions, Indigenous peoples created pre-contact monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, city-states, chiefdoms, states, kingdoms, republics, confederacies and empires.[34] These societies had varying degrees of knowledge of engineering, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, writing, physics, medicine, planting and irrigation, geology, mining, metallurgy, sculpture and gold smithing.
Many parts of the Americas are still populated by Indigenous peoples; some countries have sizeable populations, especially Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and the United States. At least a thousand different Indigenous languages are spoken in the Americas, where there are also 574 federally recognized tribes in the United States alone. Several of these languages are recognized as official by several governments such as those in Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay and Greenland. Some, such as Quechua, Arawak, Aymara, Guaraní, Mayan and Nahuatl, count their speakers in the millions. Whether contemporary Indigenous people live in rural communities or urban ones, many also maintain additional aspects of their cultural practices to varying degrees, including religion, social organization and subsistence practices. Like most cultures, over time, cultures specific to many Indigenous peoples have also evolved, preserving traditional customs but also adjusting to meet modern needs. Some Indigenous peoples still live in relative isolation from Western culture and a few are still counted as uncontacted peoples.[35] Indigenous peoples from the Americas have also formed diaspora communities outside the Western Hemisphere, namely in former colonial centers in Europe. A notable example is the sizable Greenlandic Inuit community in Denmark.[36] In the 20th and 21st centuries, Indigenous peoples from Suriname and French Guiana migrated to the Netherlands and France, respectively.[37][38]
Terminology
The West Indies in relation to the continental Americas
A Navajo boy in the desert in present-day Monument Valley in Arizona with the Three Sisters in the background in 2007
Application of the term "Indian" originated with Christopher Columbus, who, in his search for India, thought that he had arrived in the East Indies.[39][40][41][42][43][44]
The islands came to be known as the "West Indies", a name that is still used to describe the islands. This led to the blanket term "Indies" and "Indians" (Spanish: indios; Portuguese: índios; French: indiens; Dutch: indianen) for the Indigenous inhabitants, which implied some kind of ethnic or cultural unity among the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. This unifying concept, codified in law, religion, and politics, was not originally accepted by the myriad groups of Indigenous peoples themselves but has since been embraced or tolerated by many over the last two centuries.[45] Even though the term "Indian" generally does not include the culturally and linguistically distinct Indigenous peoples of the Arctic regions of the Americas, including the Aleuts, Inuit, or Yupik peoples, who entered the continent as a second, more recent wave of migration several thousand years later and have much more recent genetic and cultural commonalities with the Indigenous peoples of Siberia—these groups are nonetheless considered "Indigenous peoples of the Americas".[46]
The term Amerindian, a portmanteau of "American Indian", was coined in 1902 by the American Anthropological Association. It has been controversial ever since its creation. It was immediately rejected by some leading members of the Association, and, while adopted by many, it was never universally accepted.[47] While never popular in Indigenous communities themselves, it remains a preferred term among some anthropologists, notably in some parts of Canada and the English-speaking Caribbean.[48][49][50][51]
"Indigenous peoples in Canada" is used as the collective name for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis.[52][53] The term Aboriginal peoples as a collective noun (also describing First Nations, Inuit, and Métis) is a specific term of art used in some legal documents, including the Constitution Act, 1982,[54] though in most Indigenous circles Aboriginal has also fallen into disfavor.[55] Over time, as societal perceptions and government–indigenous relationships have shifted, many historical terms have changed definitions or been replaced as they have fallen out of favor.[56] The use of the term "Indian" is frowned upon because it represents the imposition and restriction of Indigenous peoples and cultures by the Canadian Government.[56] The terms "Native" and "Eskimo" are generally regarded as disrespectful, and so are rarely used unless specifically required.[57] While "Indigenous peoples" is the preferred term, many individuals or communities may choose to describe their identity using a different term.[56][57]
The Métis people of Canada can be contrasted, for instance, to the Indigenous-European mixed-race mestizos (or caboclos in Brazil) of Hispanic America who, with their larger population (in most Latin American countries constituting either outright majorities, pluralities, or at the least large minorities), identify largely as a new ethnic group distinct from both Europeans and Indigenous, but still considering themselves a subset of the European-derived Hispanic or Brazilian peoplehood in culture and ethnicity (cf. ladinos).
Among Spanish-speaking countries, indígenas or pueblos indígenas ('Indigenous peoples') is a common term, though nativos or pueblos nativos ('native peoples') may also be heard; moreover, aborigen ('aborigine') is used in Argentina and pueblos originarios ('original peoples') is common in Chile. In Brazil, indígenas and povos originários ('Indigenous peoples') are common formal-sounding designations, while índio ('Indian') is still the more often heard term (the noun for the South-Asian nationality being indiano), but for the past 10 years has been considered offensive and pejorative.[citation needed] Aborígene and nativo are rarely used in Brazil in Indigenous-specific contexts (e.g., aborígene is usually understood as the ethnonym for Indigenous Australians). The Spanish and Portuguese equivalents to Indian, nevertheless, could be used to mean any hunter-gatherer or full-blooded Indigenous person, particularly to continents other than Europe or Africa—for example, indios filipinos.[citation needed]
Indigenous peoples of the United States are commonly known as Native Americans, Indians, as well as Alaska Natives.[clarification needed] The term "Indian" is still used in some communities and remains in use in the official names of many institutions and businesses in Indian Country.[58]
Name controversy
Main article: Native American name controversy
Wayuu women in the Guajira Peninsula, which comprises parts of Colombia and Venezuela
Quechua women in festive dress on Taquile Island on Lake Titicaca, west of Peru
The various nations, tribes, and bands of Indigenous peoples of the Americas have differing preferences in terminology for themselves.[59] While there are regional and generational variations in which umbrella terms are preferred for Indigenous peoples as a whole, in general, most Indigenous peoples prefer to be identified by the name of their specific nation, tribe, or band.[59][60]
Early settlers often adopted terms that some tribes used for each other, not realizing these were derogatory terms used by enemies. When discussing broader subsets of peoples, naming has often been based on shared language, region, or historical relationship.[61] Many English exonyms have been used to refer to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Some of these names were based on foreign language terms used by earlier explorers and colonists, while others resulted from the colonists' attempts to translate or transliterate endonyms from the native languages. Other terms arose during periods of conflict between the colonists and Indigenous peoples.[62]
Since the late 20th century, Indigenous peoples in the Americas have been more vocal about how they want to be addressed, pushing to suppress the use of terms widely considered to be obsolete, inaccurate, or racist. During the latter half of the 20th century and the rise of the Indian rights movement, the United States federal government responded by proposing the use of the term "Native American", to recognize the primacy of Indigenous peoples' tenure in the nation.[63] As may be expected among people of over 400 different cultures in the US alone, not all of the people intended to be described by this term have agreed on its use or adopted it. No single group naming convention has been accepted by all Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Most prefer to be addressed as people of their tribe or nations when not speaking about Native Americans/American Indians as a whole.[64]
Since the 1970s, the word "Indigenous", which is capitalized when referring to people, has gradually emerged as a favored umbrella term. The capitalization is to acknowledge that Indigenous peoples have cultures and societies that are equal to Europeans, Africans, and Asians.[60][65] This has recently been acknowledged in the AP Stylebook.[66] Some consider it improper to refer to Indigenous people as "Indigenous Americans" or to append any colonial nationality to the term because Indigenous cultures existed before European colonization. Indigenous groups have territorial claims that are different from modern national and international borders, and when labeled as part of a country, their traditional lands are not acknowledged. Some who have written guidelines consider it more appropriate to describe an Indigenous person as "living in" or "of" the Americas, rather than calling them "American"; or simply calling them "Indigenous" without any addition of a colonial state.[67][68]
History
Peopling of the Americas
This section is an excerpt from Peopling of the Americas.[edit]
Map of early human migrations based on the Out of Africa theory; figures are in thousands of years ago (kya).[69]
The peopling of the Americas began when Paleolithic hunter-gatherers (Paleo-Indians) entered North America from the North Asian Mammoth steppe via the Beringia land bridge, which had formed between northeastern Siberia and western Alaska due to the lowering of sea level during the Last Glacial Maximum (26,000 to 19,000 years ago).[70] These populations expanded south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet and spread rapidly southward, occupying both North and South America, by 12,000 to 14,000 years ago.[71][72][73][74][75] The earliest populations in the Americas, before roughly 10,000 years ago, are known as Paleo-Indians. Indigenous peoples of the Americas have been linked to Siberian populations by linguistic factors, the distribution of blood types, and in genetic composition as reflected by molecular data, such as DNA.[76][77]
While there is general agreement that the Americas were first settled from Asia, the pattern of migration and the place(s) of origin in Eurasia of the peoples who migrated to the Americas remain unclear.[72] The traditional theory is that Ancient Beringians moved when sea levels were significantly lowered due to the Quaternary glaciation,[78][79] following herds of now-extinct Pleistocene megafauna along ice-free corridors that stretched between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice sheets.[80] Another route proposed is that, either on foot or using primitive boats, they migrated down the Pacific coast to South America as far as Chile.[81] Any archaeological evidence of coastal occupation during the last Ice Age would now have been covered by the sea level rise, up to a hundred metres since then.[82]
The precise date for the peopling of the Americas is a long-standing open question, and while advances in archaeology, Pleistocene geology, physical anthropology, and DNA analysis have progressively shed more light on the subject, significant questions remain unresolved.[83][84] The "Clovis first theory" refers to the hypothesis that the Clovis culture represents the earliest human presence in the Americas about 13,000 years ago.[85] Evidence of pre-Clovis cultures has accumulated and pushed back the possible date of the first peopling of the Americas.[86][87][88][89] Academics generally believe that humans reached North America south of the Laurentide Ice Sheet at some point between 15,000 and 20,000 years ago.[83][86][90][91][92][93] Some new controversial archaeological evidence suggests the possibility that human arrival in the Americas may have occurred prior to the Last Glacial Maximum more than 20,000 years ago.[86][94][95][96][97]
Pre-Columbian era
Main articles: Pre-Columbian era and Archaeology of the Americas
Language families of Indigenous peoples in North America shown across present-day Canada, Greenland, the United States, and northern Mexico
The Kogi, descendants of the Tairona, are a culturally intact, largely pre-Columbian era society.[98]
"The Maiden", one of the discovered Llullaillaco mummies, a preserved Inca human sacrifice from around the year 1500.[99][100]
While technically referring to the era before Christopher Columbus' voyages of 1492 to 1504, in practice the term usually includes the history of Indigenous cultures until Europeans either conquered or significantly influenced them.[101] "Pre-Columbian" is used especially often in the context of discussing the pre-contact Mesoamerican Indigenous societies: Olmec; Toltec; Teotihuacano' Zapotec; Mixtec; Aztec and Maya civilizations; and the complex cultures of the Andes: Inca Empire, Moche culture, Muisca Confederation, and Cañari.
The Pre-Columbian era refers to all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European and African influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original arrival in the Upper Paleolithic to European colonization during the early modern period.[102] The Norte Chico civilization (in present-day Peru) is one of the defining six original civilizations of the world, arising independently around the same time as that of Egypt.[103][104] Many later pre-Columbian civilizations achieved great complexity, with hallmarks that included permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, engineering, astronomy, trade, civic and monumental architecture, and complex societal hierarchies. Some of these civilizations had long faded by the time of the first significant European and African arrivals (ca. late 15th–early 16th centuries), and are known only through oral history and through archaeological investigations. Others were contemporary with the contact and colonization period and were documented in historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Mayan, Olmec, Mixtec, Aztec, and Nahua peoples, had their written languages and records. However, the European colonists of the time worked to eliminate non-Christian beliefs and burned many pre-Columbian written records. Only a few documents remained hidden and survived, leaving contemporary historians with glimpses of ancient culture and knowledge.
According to both Indigenous and European accounts and documents, American civilizations before and at the time of European encounter had achieved great complexity and many accomplishments.[105] For instance, the Aztecs built one of the largest cities in the world, Tenochtitlan (the historical site of what would become Mexico City), with an estimated population of 200,000 for the city proper and a population of close to five million for the extended empire.[106] By comparison, the largest European cities in the 16th century were Constantinople and Paris with 300,000 and 200,000 inhabitants respectively.[107] The population in London, Madrid, and Rome hardly exceeded 50,000 people. In 1523, right around the time of the Spanish conquest, the entire population in the country of England was just under three million people.[108] This fact speaks to the level of sophistication, agriculture, governmental procedure, and rule of law that existed in Tenochtitlan, needed to govern over such a large citizenry. Indigenous civilizations also displayed impressive accomplishments in astronomy and mathematics, including the most accurate calendar in the world.[citation needed] The domestication of maize or corn required thousands of years of selective breeding, and continued cultivation of multiple varieties was done with planning and selection, generally by women.
Inuit, Yupik, Aleut, and Indigenous creation myths tell of a variety of origins of their respective peoples. Some were "always there" or were created by gods or animals, some migrated from a specified compass point, and others came from "across the ocean".[109]
European colonization
Main article: European colonization of the Americas
See also: Population history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Columbian exchange, and Society of the Spanish-Americans in the Spanish Colonial Americas
Areas of Indigenous peoples in North America at time of European colonization
An illustration in Florentine Codex, compiled between 1540 and 1585, depicting the Nahua peoples suffering from smallpox during the conquest-era in central Mexico
Indigenous people at a farm plantation in Minas Gerais in present-day Brazil, c. 1824
Members of an uncontacted tribe encountered in Acre in present-day Brazil in 2009
The European colonization of the Americas fundamentally changed the lives and cultures of the resident Indigenous peoples. Although the exact pre-colonization population count of the Americas is unknown, scholars estimate that Indigenous populations diminished by between 80% and 90% during the first centuries of European colonization. Most scholars estimate a pre-colonization population of around 50 million, with other scholars arguing for an estimate of 100 million. Estimates reach as high as 145 million.[110][111][112]
Epidemics ravaged the Americas with diseases, such as smallpox, measles, and cholera, which the early colonists brought from Europe. The spread of infectious diseases was slow initially, as most Europeans were not actively or visibly infected, due to inherited immunity from generations of exposure to these diseases in Europe. This changed when the Europeans began the human trafficking of massive numbers of enslaved Western and Central African people to the Americas. Like Indigenous peoples, these African people, newly exposed to European diseases, lacked any inherited resistance to the diseases of Europe. In 1520 an African who had been infected with smallpox had arrived in Yucatán. By 1558, the disease had spread throughout South America and had arrived at the Plata basin.[113] Colonist violence towards Indigenous peoples accelerated the loss of lives. European colonists perpetrated massacres on the Indigenous peoples and enslaved them.[114][115][116] According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census (1894), the North American Indian Wars of the 19th century cost the lives of about 19,000 Europeans and 30,000 Native Americans.[117]
The first Indigenous group encountered by Columbus, the 250,000 Taínos of Hispaniola, represented the dominant culture in the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas. Within thirty years about 70% of the Taínos had died.[118] They had no immunity to European diseases, so outbreaks of measles and smallpox ravaged their population.[119] One such outbreak occurred in a camp of enslaved Africans, where smallpox spread to the nearby Taíno population and reduced their numbers by 50%.[113] Increasing punishment of the Taínos for revolting against forced labor, despite measures put in place by the encomienda, which included religious education and protection from warring tribes,[120] eventually led to the last great Taíno rebellion (1511–1529).
Following years of mistreatment, the Taínos began to adopt suicidal behaviors, with women aborting or killing their infants and men jumping from cliffs or ingesting untreated cassava, a violent poison.[118] Eventually, a Taíno Cacique named Enriquillo managed to hold out in the Baoruco Mountain Range for thirteen years, causing serious damage to the Spanish, Carib-held plantations and their Indian auxiliaries.[121][failed verification] Hearing of the seriousness of the revolt, Emperor Charles V (also King of Spain) sent Captain Francisco Barrionuevo to negotiate a peace treaty with the ever-increasing number of rebels. Two months later, after consultation with the Audencia of Santo Domingo, Enriquillo was offered any part of the island to live in peace.
The Laws of Burgos, 1512–1513, were the first codified set of laws governing the behavior of Spanish settlers in America, particularly concerning Indigenous peoples. The laws forbade the maltreatment of them and endorsed their conversion to Catholicism.[122] The Spanish crown found it difficult to enforce these laws in distant colonies.
Epidemic disease was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the Indigenous peoples.[123][124] After initial contact with Europeans and Africans, Old World diseases caused the deaths of 90 to 95% of the native population of the New World in the following 150 years.[125] Smallpox killed from one-third to half of the native population of Hispaniola in 1518.[126][127] By killing the Incan ruler Huayna Capac, smallpox caused the Inca Civil War of 1529–1532. Smallpox was only the first epidemic. Typhus (probably) in 1546, influenza and smallpox together in 1558, smallpox again in 1589, diphtheria in 1614, and measles in 1618—all ravaged the remains of Inca culture.
Smallpox killed millions of native inhabitants of Mexico.[128][129] Unintentionally introduced at Veracruz with the arrival of Pánfilo de Narváez on 23 April 1520, smallpox ravaged Mexico in the 1520s,[130] possibly killing over 150,000 in Tenochtitlán (the heartland of the Aztec Empire) alone, and aiding in the victory of Hernán Cortés over the Aztec Empire at Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City) in 1521.[citation needed][113]
There are many factors as to why Indigenous peoples suffered such immense losses from Afro-Eurasian diseases. Many European diseases, like cow pox, are acquired from domesticated animals that are not indigenous to the Americas. European populations had adapted to these diseases, and built up resistance, over many generations. Many of the European diseases that were brought over to the Americas were diseases, like yellow fever, that were relatively manageable if infected as a child, but were deadly if infected as an adult. Children could often survive the disease, resulting in immunity to the disease for the rest of their lives. But contact with adult populations without this childhood or inherited immunity would result in these diseases proving fatal.[113][131]
Colonization of the Caribbean led to the destruction of the Arawaks of the Lesser Antilles. Their culture was destroyed by 1650. Only 500 had survived by the year 1550, though the bloodlines continued through to the modern populace. In Amazonia, Indigenous societies weathered, and continue to suffer, centuries of colonization and genocide.[132]
Contact with European diseases such as smallpox and measles killed between 50 and 67 percent of the Indigenous population of North America in the first hundred years after the arrival of Europeans.[133] Some 90 percent of the native population near Massachusetts Bay Colony died of smallpox in an epidemic in 1617–1619.[134] In 1633, in Fort Orange (New Netherland), the Native Americans there were exposed to smallpox because of contact with Europeans. As it had done elsewhere, the virus wiped out entire population groups of Native Americans.[135] It reached Lake Ontario in 1636, and the lands of the Iroquois by 1679.[136][137] During the 1770s smallpox killed at least 30% of the West Coast Native Americans.[138] The 1775–82 North American smallpox epidemic and the 1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic brought devastation and drastic population depletion among the Plains Indians.[139][140] In 1832 the federal government of the United States established a smallpox vaccination program for Native Americans (The Indian Vaccination Act of 1832).[141]
The Indigenous peoples in Brazil declined from a pre-Columbian high of an estimated three million[142] to some 300,000 in 1997.[dubious – discuss][failed verification][143]
The Spanish Empire and other Europeans re-introduced horses to the Americas. Some of these animals escaped and began to breed and increase their numbers in the wild.[144] The reintroduction of the horse, extinct in the Americas for over 7500 years, had a profound impact on Indigenous cultures in the Great Plains of North America and in the Gran Chaco and Patagonia in South America. By domesticating horses, some tribes had great success: horses enabled them to expand their territories, exchange more goods with neighboring tribes, and more easily capture game, especially bison.
According to Erin McKenna and Scott L. Pratt, the Indigenous population of the Americas was 145 million in the late 15th and by the late 17th century, had been reduced to 15 million due to epidemics, wars, massacres, mass rapes, starvation, and enslavement.[112]
Indigenous historical trauma
See also: Historical trauma § Indigenous historical trauma
MapWikimedia | © OpenStreetMap
Map of all Indigenous resident schools in Canada, including gravesites. This map can be expanded and interacted with.
Confirmed discoveries of gravesites (24)
Investigations underway as of 30 July 2021 (17)
Investigations that concluded with no discoveries (2)
Resident schools where no investigations have taken place (100)
Data
Indigenous historical trauma (IHT) is the trauma that can accumulate across generations and develop as a result of the historical ramifications of colonization and is linked to mental and physical health hardships and population decline.[145] IHT affects many different people in a multitude of ways because the Indigenous community and their history are diverse.
Many studies (such as Whitbeck et al., 2014;[146] Brockie, 2012; Anastasio et al., 2016;[147] Clark & Winterowd, 2012;[148] Tucker et al., 2016)[149] have evaluated the impact of IHT on health outcomes of Indigenous communities from the United States and Canada. IHT is a difficult term to standardize and measure because of the vast and variable diversity of Indigenous people and their communities. Therefore, it is an arduous task to assign an operational definition and systematically collect data when studying IHT. Many of the studies that incorporate IHT measure it in different ways, making it hard to compile data and review it holistically. This is an important point that provides context for the following studies that attempt to understand the relationship between IHT and potential adverse health impacts.
Some of the methodologies to measure IHT include a "Historical Losses Scale" (HLS), "Historical Losses Associated Symptoms Scale" (HLASS), and residential school ancestry studies.[145]: 23 HLS uses a survey format that includes "12 kinds of historical losses," such as loss of language and loss of land and asks participants how often they think about those losses.[145]: 23 The HLASS includes 12 emotional reactions, and asks participants how they feel when they think about these losses.[145] Lastly, the residential school ancestry studies ask respondents if their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, or "elders from their community" went to a residential school to understand if family or community history in residential schools is associated with negative health outcomes.[145]: 25 In a comprehensive review of the research literature, Joseph Gone and colleagues[145] compiled and compared outcomes for studies using these IHT measures relative to the health outcomes of Indigenous peoples. The study defined negative health outcomes to include such concepts as anxiety, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, polysubstance abuse, PTSD, depression, binge eating, anger, and sexual abuse.[145]
The connection between IHT and health conditions is complicated because of the difficult nature of measuring IHT, the unknown directionality of IHT and health outcomes, and because the term Indigenous people used in the various samples comprises a huge population of individuals with drastically different experiences and histories. That being said some studies such as Bombay, Matheson, and Anisman (2014),[150] Elias et al. (2012),[151] and Pearce et al. (2008)[152] found that Indigenous respondents with a connection to residential schools have more negative health outcomes (e.g., suicide ideation, suicide attempts, and depression) than those who did not have a connection to residential schools. Additionally, Indigenous respondents with higher HLS and HLASS scores had one or more negative health outcomes.[145] While there are many studies[147][153][148][154][149] that found an association between IHT and adverse health outcomes, scholars continue to suggest that it remains difficult to understand the impact of IHT. IHT needs to be systematically measured. Indigenous people also need to be understood in separate categories based on similar experiences, location, and background as opposed to being categorized as one monolithic group.[145]
Agriculture
See also: Agriculture in Mesoamerica, Incan agriculture, Eastern Agricultural Complex, Prehistoric agriculture on the Great Plains, and Prehistoric agriculture in the Southwestern United States
A bison hunt depicted by George Catlin
The domesticated plant species that were cultivated by the Indigenous peoples have influenced the crops that were produced globally.
Plants
The ancient mesoamerican engraving of maize now on display at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico
For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples domesticated, bred, and cultivated a large array of plant species. These species now constitute between 50% and 60% of all crops in cultivation worldwide.[155] In certain cases, the Indigenous peoples developed entirely new species and strains through artificial selection, as with the domestication and breeding of maize from wild teosinte grasses in the valleys of southern Mexico. Numerous such agricultural products retain their native names in the English and Spanish lexicons.
The South American highlands became a center of early agriculture. Genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species suggests that the potato has a single origin in the area of southern Peru,[156] from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex. Over 99% of all modern cultivated potatoes worldwide are descendants of a subspecies Indigenous to south-central Chile,[157] Solanum tuberosum ssp. tuberosum, where it was cultivated as long as 10,000 years ago.[158][159] According to Linda Newson, "It is clear that in pre-Columbian times some groups struggled to survive and often suffered food shortages and famines, while others enjoyed a varied and substantial diet."[160]
Persistent drought around AD 850 coincided with the collapse of the Classic Maya civilization, and the famine of One Rabbit (AD 1454) was a major catastrophe in Mexico.[161]
The bean is native to Mexico and Central America and later began to be cultivated in South America.
Indigenous peoples of North America began practicing farming approximately 4,000 years ago, late in the Archaic period of North American cultures. Technology had advanced to the point where pottery had started to become common and the small-scale felling of trees had become feasible. Concurrently, the Archaic Indigenous peoples began using fire in a controlled manner. They carried out the intentional burning of vegetation to mimic the effects of natural fires that tended to clear forest understories. It made travel easier and facilitated the growth of herbs and berry-producing plants, which were important both for food and for medicines.[162]
In the Mississippi River valley, Europeans noted that Native Americans managed groves of nut and fruit trees not far from villages and towns and their gardens and agricultural fields. They would have used prescribed burning further away, in forest and prairie areas.[163]
The tomato (jitomate, in central Mexico) was later cultivated by the pre-Hispanic civilizations of Mexico.
Many crops first domesticated by Indigenous peoples are now produced and used globally, most notably maize (or "corn") arguably the most important crop in the world.[164] Other significant crops include cassava; chia; squash (pumpkins, zucchini, marrow, acorn squash, butternut squash); the pinto bean, Phaseolus beans including most common beans, tepary beans, and lima beans; tomatoes; potatoes; sweet potatoes; avocados; peanuts; cocoa beans (used to make chocolate); vanilla; strawberries; pineapples; peppers (species and varieties of Capsicum, including bell peppers, jalapeños, paprika, and chili peppers); sunflower seeds; rubber; brazilwood; chicle; tobacco; coca; blueberries, cranberries, and some species of cotton.
Studies of contemporary Indigenous environmental management—including agro-forestry practices among Itza Maya in Guatemala and hunting and fishing among the Menominee of Wisconsin—suggest that longstanding "sacred values" may represent a summary of sustainable millennial traditions.[165]
Animals
Numerous Native American dog breeds have been used by the people of the Americas, such as the Canadian Eskimo dog, the Carolina dog, and the Chihuahua. Some indigenous peoples in the Great Plains used dogs for pulling travois, while others like the Tahltan bear dog were bred to hunt larger game. Some Andean cultures also bred the Chiribaya to herd llamas. The vast majority of dog breeds in the Americas went extinct, due to being replaced by dogs of European origin.[166]
The Fuegian dog was a domesticated variation of the culpeo that was raised by several cultures in Tierra del Fuego, like the Selk'nam and the Yahgan.[167] It was exterminated by Argentine and Chilean settlers, due to supposedly posing as a threat to livestock.[168]
Several bird species, such as turkeys, Muscovy ducks, Puna ibis, and neotropic cormorants were domesticated by various peoples in Mesoamerica and South America to be used for poultry.
In the Andean region, indigenous peoples domesticated llamas and alpacas to produce fiber and meat. The llama was the only beast of burden in the Americas before European colonization.
Guinea pigs were domesticated from wild cavies to be raised for meat consumption in the Andean region. Guinea pigs are now widely raised in Western society as household pets.
Culture
Further information: Classification of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Mythologies of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Category:Archaeological cultures of North America, and Category:Archaeological cultures of South America
Cultural practices in the Americas seem to have been shared mostly within geographical zones where distinct ethnic groups adopt shared cultural traits, similar technologies, and social organizations. An example of such a cultural area is Mesoamerica, where millennia of coexistence and shared development among the peoples of the region produced a fairly homogeneous culture with complex agricultural and social patterns. Another well-known example is the North American plains where until the 19th century several peoples shared the traits of nomadic hunter-gatherers based primarily on buffalo hunting.
Languages
Main article: Indigenous languages of the Americas
The major indigenous language families of much of present-day South America and Panama
The languages of the North American Indians have been classified into 56 groups or stock tongues, in which the spoken languages of the tribes may be said to center. In connection with speech, reference may be made to gesture language which was highly developed in parts of this area. Of equal interest is the picture writing especially well developed among the Chippewas and Delawares.[169]
Writing systems
See also: Syllabics used by Indigenous peoples living in Canada, Cherokee syllabary, and Quipu
Maya glyphs in stucco now on display at Museo de sitio in Palenque, Mexico
Beginning in the 1st millennium BCE, pre-Columbian cultures in Mesoamerica developed several Indigenous writing systems (independent of any influence from the writing systems that existed in other parts of the world). The Cascajal Block is perhaps the earliest-known example in the Americas of what may be an extensive written text. The Olmec hieroglyphs tablet has been indirectly dated (from ceramic shards found in the same context) to approximately 900 BCE which is around the same time that the Olmec occupation of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán began to weaken.[170]
The Maya writing system was logosyllabic (a combination of phonetic syllabic symbols and logograms). It is the only pre-Columbian writing system known to have completely represented the spoken language of its community. It has more than a thousand different glyphs, but a few are variations on the same sign or have the same meaning, many appear only rarely or in particular localities, no more than about five hundred were in use in any given time, and, of those, it seems only about two hundred (including variations) represented a particular phoneme or syllable.[171][172][173]
The Zapotec writing system, one of the earliest in the Americas,[174] was logographic and presumably syllabic.[174] There are remnants of Zapotec writing in inscriptions on some of the monumental architecture of the period, but so few inscriptions are extant that it is difficult to fully describe the writing system. The oldest example of the Zapotec script, dating from around 600 BCE, is on a monument that was discovered in San José Mogote.[175]
Aztec codices (singular codex) are books that were written by pre-Columbian and colonial-era Aztecs. These codices are some of the best primary sources for descriptions of Aztec culture. The pre-Columbian codices are largely pictorial; they do not contain symbols that represent spoken or written language.[176] By contrast, colonial-era codices contain not only Aztec pictograms, but also writing that uses the Latin alphabet in several languages: Classical Nahuatl, Spanish, and occasionally Latin.
Spanish mendicants in the sixteenth century taught Indigenous scribes in their communities to write their languages using Latin letters, and there are a large number of local-level documents in Nahuatl, Zapotec, Mixtec, and Yucatec Maya from the colonial era, many of which were part of lawsuits and other legal matters. Although Spaniards initially taught Indigenous scribes alphabetic writing, the tradition became self-perpetuating at the local level.[177] The Spanish crown gathered such documentation, and contemporary Spanish translations were made for legal cases. Scholars have translated and analyzed these documents in what is called the New Philology to write histories of Indigenous peoples from Indigenous viewpoints.[178]
The Wiigwaasabak, birch bark scrolls on which the Ojibwa (Anishinaabe) people wrote complex geometrical patterns and shapes, can also be considered a form of writing, as can Mi'kmaq hieroglyphics.
Aboriginal syllabic writing, or simply syllabics, is a family of abugidas used to write some Indigenous languages of the Algonquian, Inuit, and Athabaskan language families.
Music and art
Main articles: Visual arts by Indigenous peoples of the Americas and Indigenous music
Indigenous peoples textile art in 1995 by Julia Pingushat, including Inuk, Arviat, Nunavut, Canada, wool, and embroidery floss
Chimu culture feather pectoral, feathers, reed, copper, silver, hide, cordage, c. 1350–1450
An Indigenous man playing a panpipe, antara, or siku
Indigenous music can vary between cultures, however, there are significant commonalities. Traditional music often centers around drumming and singing. Rattles, clapper sticks, and rasps are also popular percussive instruments, both historically and in contemporary cultures. Flutes are made of river cane, cedar, and other woods. The Apache have a type of fiddle, and fiddles are also found many First Nations and Métis cultures.
The music of the Indigenous peoples of Central Mexico and Central America, like that of the North American cultures, tends to be spiritual ceremonies. It traditionally includes a large variety of percussion and wind instruments such as drums, flutes, sea shells (used as trumpets), and "rain" tubes. No remnants of pre-Columbian stringed instruments were found until archaeologists discovered a jar in Guatemala, attributed to the Maya of the Late Classic Era (600–900 CE); this jar was decorated with imagery depicting a stringed musical instrument which has since been reproduced. This instrument is one of the very few stringed instruments known in the Americas before the introduction of European musical instruments; when played, it produces a sound that mimics a jaguar's growl.[179]
Visual arts by Indigenous peoples of the Americas comprise a major category in the world art collection. Contributions include pottery, paintings, jewelry, weavings, sculptures, basketry, carvings, and beadwork.[180] Because too many artists were posing as Native Americans and Alaska Natives[181] to profit from the cachet of Indigenous art in the United States, the U.S. passed the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, requiring artists to prove that they were enrolled in a state or federally recognized tribe. To support the ongoing practice of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian arts and cultures in the United States,[182] the Ford Foundation, arts advocates, and American Indian tribes created an endowment seed fund and established a national Native Arts and Cultures Foundation in 2007.[183][184]
After the entry of the Spaniards, the process of spiritual conquest was favored, among other things, by the liturgical musical service to which the natives, whose musical gifts came to surprise the missionaries, were integrated. The musical gifts of the natives were of such magnitude that they soon learned the rules of counterpoint and polyphony and even the virtuous handling of the instruments. This helped to ensure that it was not necessary to bring more musicians from Spain, which significantly annoyed the clergy.[185]
The solution that was proposed was not to employ but a certain number of indigenous people in the musical service, not to teach them counterpoint, not to allow them to play certain instruments (brass breaths, for example, in Oaxaca, Mexico) and, finally, not to import more instruments so that the indigenous people would not have access to them. The latter was not an obstacle to the musical enjoyment of the natives, who experienced the making of instruments, particularly rubbed strings (violins and double basses) or plucked (third). It is there where we can find the origin of what is now called traditional music whose instruments have their tuning and a typical Western structure.[186]
Demography
Further information: Population history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The following table provides estimates for each country in the Americas of the populations of Indigenous people and those with partial Indigenous ancestry, each expressed as a percentage of the overall population. The total percentage obtained by adding both of these categories is also given.
Note: these categories are inconsistently defined and measured differently from country to country. Some figures are based on the results of population-wide genetic surveys while others are based on self-identification or observational estimation.
Indigenous populations of the Americas
as estimated percentage of total country's population
Country Indigenous Ref. Part Indigenous Ref. Combined total Ref.
North America
Greenland 89% % 89% [187]
Canada 1.8% 3.6% 5.4% [188]
Mexico 7% 83% 90% [189]
United States 1.1% 1.8% 2.9% [190]
Dominican Republic % % %
Grenada ~0.4% ~0% ~0.4% [191]
Haiti % % % [192]
Jamaica % % %
Puerto Rico 0.4% [193] 84% [194][195] 84.4%
Saint Kitts and Nevis % % %
Saint Lucia % % %
Saint Vincent and
the Grenadines 2% % % [196]
Trinidad and Tobago 0.8% 88% 88.8%
Country Indigenous Ref. Part Indigenous Ref. Combined total Ref.
South America
Argentina 2.38% [197] 27% [198][199] 29.38%
Bolivia 20% 68% 88% [200]
Brazil 0.4% 12% 12.4% [201]
Chile 10.9% % % [202]
Colombia 4.4% [203] 49% [204] 53.4%
Ecuador 25% 65% 90% [205]
French Guiana % % %
Guyana 10.5% [206] % %
Paraguay 1.7% 95% 96.7% [207]
Peru 25.8% 60.2% 86% [208]
Suriname 2% [209] % %
Uruguay 0% [210] 2.4% [211] 2.4%
Venezuela 2.7% 51.6% 54.3% [212]
History and status by continent and country
North America
Canada
Main article: Indigenous peoples in Canada
Bill Reid's sculpture The Raven and the First Men now on display at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver; the Raven represents the Trickster figure common to many mythologies.
Some Inuit on a traditional qamutiik dog sled in Kinngait, Nunavut, Canada
Indigenous peoples in Canada comprise the First Nations,[213] Inuit[214] and Métis;[215] the descriptors "Indian" and "Eskimo" are falling into disuse. In Canada, it is quite frowned upon to use the name "Indian" in casual conversation.[216] "Eskimo" is considered derogatory in many other places because it was given by non-Inuit and was said to mean "eater of raw meat".[217] Hundreds of Indigenous nations evolved trade, spiritual, and social hierarchies. The Métis ethnicity developed a culture during the 18th century after generations of First Nations married European settlers.[218] They were small farmers, hunters, and trappers, and usually Catholic and French-speaking.[219] The Inuit had more limited interaction with European settlers during that early period.[220] Various laws, treaties, and legislation have been enacted between European Canadians and First Nations across Canada. Aboriginal Right to Self-Government provides the opportunity for First Nations to manage their own historical, cultural, political, health care, and economic control within their communities.
Although not without conflict, early European interactions in the east with First Nations and Inuit populations were relatively peaceful compared to the later experience of Indigenous peoples in the United States.[221] Combined with a late economic development in many regions,[222] this relatively peaceful history resulted in Indigenous peoples having a fairly strong influence on the early national culture while preserving their identity.[223] From the late 18th century, European Canadians (primarily British Canadians and French Canadians) worked to force Indigenous peoples to assimilate into the mainstream European-influenced culture, which they referred to as Canadian culture.[224] The government attempted violent forced integration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Notable examples here include residential schools.[225]
National Indigenous Peoples Day recognizes the cultures and contributions of Indigenous peoples of Canada.[226] There are currently over 600 recognized First Nations governments or bands encompassing 1,807,250[9] people spread across Canada, with distinctive Indigenous cultures, languages, art, and music.[227][228][229]
Greenland
Main article: Greenlandic Inuit
Tunumiit Inuit couple from Kulusuk, Greenland
The Greenlandic Inuit (Kalaallisut: kalaallit, Tunumiisut: tunumiit, Inuktun: inughuit) are the Indigenous and most populous ethnic group in Greenland.[230] This means that Denmark has one officially recognized Indigenous group. the Inuit – the Greenlandic Inuit of Greenland and the Greenlandic people in Denmark (Inuit residing in Denmark).
Approximately 89 percent of Greenland's population of 57,695 is Greenlandic Inuit, or 51,349 people as of 2012.[231][232] Ethnographically, they consist of three major groups:
the Kalaallit of west Greenland, who speak Kalaallisut
the Tunumiit of Tunu (east Greenland), who speak Tunumiit oraasiat ("East Greenlandic")
the Inughuit of north Greenland, who speak Inuktun ("Polar Inuit")
Mexico
Main article: Indigenous peoples of Mexico
A Huichol woman from Zacatecas, Mexico
A carnival with Tzeltal people in Tenejapa Municipality, Chiapas
The territory of modern-day Mexico was home to numerous Indigenous civilizations before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores: The Olmecs, who flourished from between 1200 BCE to about 400 BCE in the coastal regions of the Gulf of Mexico; the Zapotecs and the Mixtecs, who held sway in the mountains of Oaxaca and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec; the Maya in the Yucatán (and into neighboring areas of contemporary Central America); the Purépecha in present-day Michoacán and surrounding areas, and the Aztecs/Mexica, who, from their central capital at Tenochtitlan, dominated much of the center and south of the country (and the non-Aztec inhabitants of those areas) when Hernán Cortés first landed at Veracruz.
In contrast to what was the general rule in the rest of North America, the history of the colony of New Spain was one of racial intermingling (mestizaje). Mestizos, which in Mexico designate people who do not identify culturally with any Indigenous grouping, quickly came to account for a majority of the colony's population. Today, Mestizos in Mexico of mixed indigenous and European ancestry (with a minor African contribution) are still a majority of the population. Genetic studies vary over whether indigenous or European ancestry predominates in the Mexican Mestizo population.[233][234] In the 2015 census, 20.3% of the Mexican population self-identified as indigenous. The 2020 INEGI (National Institute of Statistics and Geography) census showed that at the national level, there are 11.8 million indigenous people (9.3% of the Mexican population). In 2020 the National Institute of Indigenous Peoples reported that 11.1 million people in Mexico belong to an indigenous ethnicity (8.8% of the Mexican population).[235] The indigenous population is distributed throughout the territory of Mexico but is especially concentrated in the Sierra Madre del Sur, the Yucatán Peninsula, and the most remote and difficult-to-access areas, such as the Sierra Madre Oriental, the Sierra Madre Occidental, and neighboring areas.[236] The CDI identifies 62 Indigenous groups in Mexico, each with a unique language.[237][238]
In the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca and the interior of the Yucatán Peninsula, a large amount of the population is of Indigenous descent with the largest ethnic group being Mayan with a population of 900,000.[239] Large Indigenous minorities, including Aztecs or Nahua, Purépechas, Mazahua, Otomi, and Mixtecs are also present in the central regions of Mexico. In the Northern and Bajio regions of Mexico, Indigenous people are a small minority.
The General Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples grants all Indigenous languages spoken in Mexico, regardless of the number of speakers, the same validity as Spanish in all territories in which they are spoken, and Indigenous peoples are entitled to request some public services and documents in their native languages.[240] Along with Spanish, the law has granted them—more than 60 languages—the status of "national languages". The law includes all Indigenous languages of the Americas regardless of origin; that is, it includes the Indigenous languages of ethnic groups non-native to the territory. The National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples recognizes the language of the Kickapoo, who immigrated from the United States[241] and recognizes the languages of the Indigenous refugees from Guatemala.[242] The Mexican government has promoted and established bilingual primary and secondary education in some Indigenous rural communities. Nonetheless, of the Indigenous peoples in Mexico, 93% are either native speakers or bilingual second-language speakers of Spanish with only about 62.4% of them (or 5.4% of the country's population) speaking an Indigenous language and about a sixth do not speak Spanish (0.7% of the country's population).[243]
The Indigenous peoples in Mexico have the right of free determination under the second article of the constitution. According to this article, the Indigenous peoples are granted:[244]
The Rarámuri marathon in Urique
the right to decide the internal forms of social, economic, political, and cultural organization;
the right to apply their normative systems of regulation as long as human rights and gender equality are respected;
the right to preserve and enrich their languages and cultures;
the right to elect representatives before the municipal council in which their territories are located;
amongst other rights.
United States
Main articles: Native Americans in the United States and Alaska Natives
A Choctaw artist in present-day Oklahoma
A Navajo man on horseback in present-day Monument Valley in Arizona
Indigenous peoples in what is now the contiguous United States, including their descendants, were commonly called American Indians, or simply Indians domestically and since the late 20th century the term Native American came into common use. In Alaska, Indigenous peoples belong to 11 cultures with 11 languages. These include the St. Lawrence Island Yupik, Iñupiat, Athabaskan, Yup'ik, Cup'ik, Unangax, Alutiiq, Eyak, Haida, Tsimshian, and Tlingit,[245] and are collectively called Alaska Natives. They include Native American peoples as well as Inuit, who are distinct but occupy areas of the region.
The United States has authority over Indigenous Polynesian people, which include Hawaiians, Marshallese (Micronesian), and Samoan; politically they are classified as Pacific Islander Americans. They are geographically, genetically, and culturally distinct from Indigenous peoples of the mainland continents of the Americas.
In the United States, 2.9% of the population claims to be solely or partially of Native American descent. In the 2020 census, when answering a question about racial background, 3.7 million people identified as "American Indian or Alaska Native", while another 5.9 million did so in combination with other races.[6] Tribes have established their criteria for membership, which are often based on blood quantum, lineal descent, or residency. A minority of Native Americans live in land units called Indian reservations.
Some California and Southwestern tribes, such as the Kumeyaay, Cocopa, Pascua Yaqui, Tohono O'odham, and Apache, span both sides of the US–Mexican border. By treaty, Haudenosaunee people have the legal right to freely cross the US–Canada border. Athabascan, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Iñupiat, Blackfeet, Nakota, Cree, Anishinaabe, Huron, Lenape, Mi'kmaq, Penobscot, and Haudenosaunee, among others, live in both Canada and the United States, whose international border cut through their common cultural territory.
Central America
Belize
Mestizos (mixed European-Indigenous) number about 34% of the population; unmixed Maya make up another 10.6% (Kekchi, Mopan, and Yucatec). The Garifuna, who came to Belize in the 19th century from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, have mixed African, Carib, and Arawak ancestry and make up another 6% of the population.[246]
Costa Rica
Main article: Indigenous peoples of Costa Rica
There are over 114,000 inhabitants of Native American origins, representing 2.4% of the population. Most of them live in secluded reservations, distributed among eight ethnic groups: Quitirrisí (In the Central Valley), Matambú or Chorotega (Guanacaste), Maleku (Northern Alajuela), Bribri (Southern Atlantic), Cabécar (Cordillera de Talamanca), Boruca (Southern Costa Rica) and Ngäbe (Southern Costa Rica long the Panamá border).
These native groups are characterized by their work in wood, like masks, drums, and other artistic figures, as well as fabrics made of cotton.
Their subsistence is based on agriculture, having corn, beans, and plantains as the main crops.[citation needed]
El Salvador
Main articles: Demographics of El Salvador and La Matanza
Indigenous Pipil women dancing in the traditional Procession of Palms in Panchimalco, El Salvador
Estimates for El Salvador's indigenous population vary. The last time a reported census had an Indigenous ethnic option was in 2007, which estimated that 0.23% of the population identified as Indigenous.[26] Historically, estimates have claimed higher amounts. A 1930 census stated that 5.6% were Indigenous.[247] By the mid-20th century, there may have been as much as 20% (or 400,000) that would qualify as "Indigenous". Another estimate stated that by the late 1980s, 10% of the population was Indigenous, and another 89% was mestizo (or people of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry).[248]
Much of El Salvador was home to the Pipil, the Lenca, Xinca, and Kakawira. The Pipil lived in western El Salvador, spoke Nawat, and had many settlements there, most noticeably Cuzcatlan. The Pipil had no precious mineral resources, but they did have rich and fertile land that was good for farming. The Spaniards were disappointed not to find gold or jewels in El Salvador as they had in other lands like Guatemala or Mexico, but upon learning of the fertile land in El Salvador, they attempted to conquer it. Noted Meso-American Indigenous warriors to rise militarily against the Spanish included Princes Atonal and Atlacatl of the Pipil people in central El Salvador and Princess Antu Silan Ulap of the Lenca people in eastern El Salvador, who saw the Spanish not as gods but as barbaric invaders. After fierce battles, the Pipil successfully fought off the Spanish army led by Pedro de Alvarado along with their Indigenous allies (the Tlaxcalas), sending them back to Guatemala. After many other attacks with an army reinforced with Indigenous allies, the Spanish were able to conquer Cuzcatlan. After further attacks, the Spanish also conquered the Lenca people. Eventually, the Spaniards intermarried with Pipil and Lenca women, resulting in the mestizo population that would make up the vast majority of the Salvadoran people. Today many Pipil and other Indigenous populations live in the many small towns of El Salvador like Izalco, Panchimalco, Sacacoyo, and Nahuizalco.
Guatemala
Main article: Demographics of Guatemala
Maya women from present-day Guatemala
A Mayan woman
Guatemala has one of the largest Indigenous populations in Central America, with approximately 43.6% of the population considering themselves Indigenous.[249] The Indigenous demographic portion of Guatemala's population consists of a majority of Mayan groups and one non-Mayan group. The Mayan language-speaking portion makes up 29.7% of the population and is distributed into 23 groups namely Q'eqchi' 8.3%, K'iche 7.8%, Mam 4.4%, Kaqchikel 3%, Q'anjob'al 1.2%, Poqomchi' 1%, and Other 4%.[249] The Non-Mayan group consists of the Xinca who are another set of Indigenous people making up 1.8% of the population.[249] Other sources indicate that between 50% and 60% of the population could be Indigenous because part of the Mestizo population is predominantly Indigenous.
The Mayan tribes cover a vast geographic area throughout Central America and expand beyond Guatemala into other countries. One could find vast groups of Mayan people in Boca Costa, in the Southern portions of Guatemala, as well as the Western Highlands living together in close communities.[250] Within these communities and outside of them, around 23 Indigenous languages (or Native American Indigenous languages) are spoken as a first language. Of these 23 languages, they only received official recognition by the Government in 2003 under the Law of National Languages.[249] The Law on National Languages recognizes 23 Indigenous languages including Xinca, enforcing that public and government institutions not only translate but also provide services in said languages.[251] It would provide services in Cakchiquel, Garifuna, Kekchi, Mam, Quiche, and Xinca.[252]
The Law of National Languages has been an effort to grant and protect Indigenous people rights not afforded to them previously. Along with the Law of National Languages passed in 2003, in 1996 the Guatemalan Constitutional Court had ratified the ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples.[253] The ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, is also known as Convention 169. Which is the only International Law regarding Indigenous peoples that Independent countries can adopt. The convention establishes that governments like Guatemala must consult with Indigenous groups before any projects occur on tribal lands.[254]
Honduras
About 5 percent of the population is of full-blooded Indigenous descent, but as much as 80 percent of Hondurans are mestizo or part-Indigenous with European admixture, and about 10 percent are of Indigenous or African descent.[255] The largest concentrations of Indigenous communities in Honduras are in the westernmost areas facing Guatemala and along the coast of the Caribbean Sea, as well as on the border with Nicaragua.[255] The majority of Indigenous people are Lencas, Miskitos to the east, Mayans, Pech, Sumos, and Tolupan.[255]
Nicaragua
About 5% of the Nicaraguan population is Indigenous. The largest Indigenous group in Nicaragua is the Miskito people. Their territory extended from Cabo Camarón, Honduras, to La Cruz de Rio Grande, Nicaragua along the Mosquito Coast. There is a native Miskito language, but large numbers speak Miskito Coast Creole, Spanish, Rama, and other languages. Their use of Creole English came about through frequent contact with the British, who colonized the area. Many Miskitos are Christians. Traditional Miskito society was highly structured, politically and otherwise. It had a king, but he did not have total power. Instead, the power was split between himself, a Miskito Governor, a Miskito General, and by the 1750s, a Miskito Admiral. Historical information on Miskito kings is often obscured by the fact that many of the kings were semi-mythical.
Another major Indigenous culture in eastern Nicaragua is the Mayangna (or Sumu) people, counting some 10,000 people.[256] A smaller Indigenous culture in southeastern Nicaragua is the Rama.
Other Indigenous groups in Nicaragua are located in the central, northern, and Pacific areas and they are self-identified as follows: Chorotega, Cacaopera (or Matagalpa), Xiu-Subtiaba, and Nicarao.[257]
Panama
This section is an excerpt from Indigenous peoples of Panama.[edit]
Embera girl, Darién Province, 2006
A Guna woman in Guna Yala
Guna house in Guna Yala, 2007
Indigenous peoples of Panama, or Native Panamanians, are the native peoples of Panama. According to the 2010 census, they make up 12.3% of the overall population of 3.4 million, or just over 418,000 people. The Ngäbe and Buglé comprise half of the indigenous peoples of Panama.[258]
Many of the Indigenous Peoples live on comarca indígenas,[259] which are administrative regions for areas with substantial Indigenous populations. Three comarcas (Comarca Emberá-Wounaan, Guna Yala, Ngäbe-Buglé) exist as equivalent to a province, with two smaller comarcas (Guna de Madugandí and Guna de Wargandí) subordinate to a province and considered equivalent to a corregimiento (municipality).
South America
Main article: Indigenous peoples of South America
Argentina
See also: Demographics of Argentina, Indigenous peoples in Argentina, and List of indigenous languages in Argentina
Owners of a roadside cafe near Cachi, Salta Province, Argentina
In 2005, the Indigenous population living in Argentina (known as pueblos originarios) numbered about 600,329 (1.6% of the total population); this figure includes 457,363 people who self-identified as belonging to an Indigenous ethnic group and 142,966 who identified themselves as first-generation descendants of an Indigenous people.[260] The ten most populous Indigenous peoples are the Mapuche (113,680 people), the Kolla (70,505), the Toba (69,452), the Guaraní (68,454), the Wichi (40,036), the Diaguita–Calchaquí (31,753), the Mocoví (15,837), the Huarpe (14,633), the Comechingón (10,863) and the Tehuelche (10,590). Minor but important peoples are the Quechua (6,739), the Charrúa (4,511), the Pilagá (4,465), the Chané (4,376), and the Chorote (2,613). The Selk'nam (Ona) people are now virtually extinct in its pure form. The languages of the Diaguita, Tehuelche, and Selk'nam nations have become extinct or virtually extinct: the Cacán language (spoken by Diaguitas) in the 18th century and the Selk'nam language in the 20th century; one Tehuelche language (Southern Tehuelche) is still spoken by a handful of elderly people.
Bolivia
This article's factual accuracy may be compromised due to out-of-date information. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (April 2012)
Main articles: Demographics of Bolivia and Indigenous peoples in Bolivia
An Indigenous woman in traditional dress near Cochabamba, Bolivia
In Bolivia, the 2001 census reported that 62% of residents over the age of 15 identify as belonging to Indigenous people. Some 3.7% report growing up with an Indigenous mother tongue but do not identify as Indigenous.[261] When both of these categories are totaled, and children under 15, some 66.4% of Bolivia's population was recorded as Indigenous in the 2001 Census.[262]
The largest Indigenous ethnic groups are Quechua, about 2.5 million people; Aymara, 2 million; Chiquitano, 181,000; Guaraní, 126,000; and Mojeño, 69,000. Some 124,000 belong to smaller Indigenous groups.[263] The Constitution of Bolivia, enacted in 2009, recognizes 36 cultures, each with its language, as part of a pluri-national state. Some groups, including CONAMAQ (the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu), draw ethnic boundaries within the Quechua- and Aymara-speaking population, resulting in a total of 50 Indigenous peoples native to Bolivia.
Large numbers of Bolivian highland peasants retained Indigenous language, culture, customs, and communal organization throughout the Spanish conquest and the post-independence period. They mobilized to resist various attempts at the dissolution of communal landholdings and used legal recognition of "empowered caciques" to further communal organization. Indigenous revolts took place frequently until 1953.[264] While the National Revolutionary Movement government began in 1952 and discouraged people identifying as Indigenous (reclassifying rural people as campesinos, or peasants), renewed ethnic and class militancy re-emerged in the Katarista movement beginning in the 1970s.[265] Many lowland Indigenous peoples, mostly in the east, entered national politics through the 1990 March for Territory and Dignity organized by the CIDOB confederation. That march successfully pressured the national government to sign the ILO Convention 169 and to begin the still-ongoing process of recognizing and giving official titles to Indigenous territories. The 1994 Law of Popular Participation granted "grassroots territorial organizations;" these are recognized by the state and have certain rights to govern local areas.
Some radio and television programs are produced in the Quechua and Aymara languages. The constitutional reform in 1997 recognized Bolivia as a multi-lingual, pluri-ethnic society and introduced education reform. In 2005, for the first time in the country's history, an Indigenous Aymara, Evo Morales, was elected as president.
Morales began work on his "Indigenous autonomy" policy, which he launched in the eastern lowlands department on 3 August 2009. Bolivia was the first nation in the history of South America to affirm the right of Indigenous people to self-government.[266] Speaking in Santa Cruz Department, the President called it "a historic day for the peasant and Indigenous movement", saying that, though he might make errors, he would "never betray the fight started by our ancestors and the fight of the Bolivian people".[266] A vote on further autonomy for jurisdictions took place in December 2009, at the same time as general elections to office. The issue divided the country.[267]
At that time, Indigenous peoples voted overwhelmingly for more autonomy: five departments that had not already done so voted for it;[268][269] as did Gran Chaco Province in Taríja, for regional autonomy;[270] and 11 of 12 municipalities that had referendums on this issue.[268]
Brazil
See also: Indigenous peoples in Brazil
An Indigenous Terena man from present-day Brazil
Indigenous peoples of Brazil make up 0.4% of Brazil's population, or about 817,000 people, but millions of Brazilians are mestizo or have some Indigenous ancestry.[271] Indigenous peoples are found in the entire territory of Brazil, although in the 21st century, the majority of them live in Indigenous territories in the North and Center-Western parts of the country. On 18 January 2007, Fundação Nacional do Índio (FUNAI) reported that it had confirmed the presence of 67 different uncontacted tribes in Brazil, up from 40 in 2005. Brazil is now the nation that has the largest number of uncontacted tribes, and the island of New Guinea is second.[271]
The Washington Post reported in 2007, "As has been proved in the past when uncontacted tribes are introduced to other populations and the microbes they carry, maladies as simple as the common cold can be deadly. In the 1970s, 185 members of the Panara tribe died within two years of discovery after contracting such diseases as flu and chickenpox, leaving only 69 survivors."[272]
Chile
Main article: Indigenous peoples in Chile
A Mapuche man in present-day Chile
A Mapuche man and woman; the Mapuche make up about 85% of Indigenous population that live in Chile.
According to the 2012 Census, 10% of the Chilean population, including the Rapa Nui (a Polynesian people) of Easter Island, was Indigenous, although most show varying degrees of mixed heritage.[273] Many are descendants of the Mapuche and live in Santiago, Araucanía, and Los Lagos Region. The Mapuche successfully fought off defeat in the first 300–350 years of Spanish rule during the Arauco War. Relations with the new Chilean Republic were good until the Chilean state decided to occupy their lands. During the Occupation of Araucanía, the Mapuche surrendered to the country's army in the 1880s. Their land was opened to settlement by Chileans and Europeans. Conflict over Mapuche land rights continues to the present.
Other groups include the Aymara, the majority of whom live in Bolivia and Peru, with smaller numbers in the Arica-Parinacota and Tarapacá regions, and the Atacama people (Atacameños), who reside mainly in El Loa.
Colombia
Main article: Indigenous peoples in Colombia
Guambía people relaxing in Colombia
A minority today within Colombia's mostly Mestizo and White Colombian population, Indigenous peoples living in Colombia, consist of around 85 distinct cultures and around 1,905,617 people, however, it is likely much higher.[274][275] A variety of collective rights for Indigenous peoples are recognized in the 1991 Constitution. One of the influences is the Muisca culture, a subset of the larger Chibcha ethnic group, famous for their use of gold, which led to the legend of El Dorado. At the time of the Spanish conquest, the Muisca were the largest Indigenous civilization geographically between the Inca and the Aztec empires.
Ecuador
Main article: Indigenous peoples in Ecuador
Shaman of the Cofán people from the Amazonian forest in present-day Ecuador
Ecuador was the site of many Indigenous cultures, and civilizations of different proportions. An early sedentary culture, known as the Valdivia culture, developed in the coastal region, while the Caras and the Quitus unified to form an elaborate civilization that ended at the birth of the Capital Quito. The Cañaris near Cuenca were the most advanced, and most feared by the Inca, due to their fierce resistance to the Incan expansion. Their architectural remains were later destroyed by the Spaniards and the Incas.
Between 55% and 65% of Ecuador's population consists of Mestizos of mixed indigenous and European ancestry while indigenous people comprise about 25%.[276] Genetic analysis indicates that Ecuadorian Mestizos are of predominantly indigenous ancestry.[277] Approximately 96.4% of Ecuador's Indigenous population are Highland Quichuas living in the valleys of the Sierra region. Primarily consisting of the descendants of peoples conquered by the Incas, they are Kichwa speakers and include the Caranqui, the Otavalos, the Cayambe, the Quitu-Caras, the Panzaleo, the Chimbuelo, the Salasacan, the Tugua, the Puruhá, the Cañari, and the Saraguro. Linguistic evidence suggests that the Salascan and the Saraguro may have been the descendants of Bolivian ethnic groups transplanted to Ecuador as mitimaes.
Coastal groups, including the Awá, Chachi, and the Tsáchila, make up 0.24% percent of the Indigenous population, while the remaining 3.35 percent live in the Oriente and consist of the Oriente Kichwa (the Canelo and the Quijos), the Shuar, the Huaorani, the Siona-Secoya, the Cofán, and the Achuar.
In 1986, Indigenous peoples formed the first "truly" national political organization. The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) has been the primary political institution of Indigenous peoples since then and is now the second-largest political party in the nation. It has been influential in national politics, contributing to the ouster of presidents Abdalá Bucaram in 1997 and Jamil Mahuad in 2000.
French Guiana
French Guiana is home to approximately 10,000 indigenous peoples, such as the Kalina and Lokono. Over time, the indigenous population has protested against various environmental issues, such as illegal gold mining, pollution, and a drastic decrease in wild game.
Guyana
Main article: Indigenous peoples in Guyana
During the early stages of colonization, the indigenous peoples in Guyana partook in trade relations with Dutch settlers and assisted in militia services such as hunting down escaped slaves for the British, which continued until the 19th century. Indigenous Guyanese people are responsible for the invention of the canoe as well as Guyanese pepperpot and the foundation of the Alleluia church.
Guyana's indigenous peoples have been recognized under the Constitution of 1965 and comprise 9.16% of the overall population.
Paraguay
Main article: Indigenous peoples in Paraguay
The vast majority of indigenous peoples in Paraguay are concentrated in the Gran Chaco region in the northwest of the country, with the Guaraní making up the majority of the indigenous population in Paraguay. The Guaraní language is recognized as an official language alongside Spanish, with approximately 90% of the population speaking Guaraní. The indigenous population in Paraguay suffers from several social issues such as low literacy rates and inaccessibility to safe drinking water and electricity.
Peru
Main article: Indigenous peoples in Peru
A Quechua woman and child in the Sacred Valley in Cuzco Region, Peru
According to the 2017 Census, the Indigenous population in Peru makes up approximately 26%.[4] However, this does not include Mestizos of mixed indigenous and European descent, who make up the majority of the population. Genetic testing indicates that Peruvian Mestizos are of predominantly indigenous ancestry.[278] Indigenous traditions and customs have shaped the way Peruvians live and see themselves today. Cultural citizenship—or what Renato Rosaldo has called, "the right to be different and to belong, in a democratic, participatory sense" (1996:243)—is not yet very well developed in Peru. This is perhaps no more apparent than in the country's Amazonian regions where Indigenous societies continue to struggle against state-sponsored economic abuses, cultural discrimination, and pervasive violence.[279]
Suriname
Main article: Indigenous peoples in Suriname
According to the 2012 census, the indigenous population of Suriname numbers around 20,000, amounting to 3.8% of the population. The most numerous indigenous groups in Suriname primarily comprise the Lokono, Kalina, Tiriyó, and Wayana.
Uruguay
Main article: Indigenous peoples in Uruguay
Unlike most other Spanish-speaking countries, indigenous peoples are not a significant element in Uruguay, as the entire indigenous population is virtually extinct, with a few exceptions such as the Guaraní. Approximately 2.4% of the population in Uruguay is reported to have indigenous ancestry.[211]
Venezuela
Main article: Indigenous peoples in Venezuela
A Warao family traveling in their canoe in Venezuela
Most Venezuelans have some degree of indigenous heritage even if they may not identify as such. The 2011 census estimated that around 52% of the population identified as mestizo. But those who identify as Indigenous, from being raised in those cultures, make up only around 2% of the total population. The Indigenous peoples speak around 29 different languages and many more dialects. As some of the ethnic groups are very small, their native languages are in danger of becoming extinct in the next decades. The most important Indigenous groups are the Ye'kuana, the Wayuu, the Kali'na, the Ya̧nomamö, the Pemon, and the Warao. The most advanced Indigenous peoples to have lived within the boundaries of present-day Venezuela are thought to have been the Timoto-cuicas, who lived in the Venezuelan Andes. Historians estimate that there were between 350 thousand and 500 thousand Indigenous inhabitants at the time of Spanish colonization. The most densely populated area was the Andean region (Timoto-cuicas), thanks to their advanced agricultural techniques and ability to produce a surplus of food.
The 1999 constitution of Venezuela gives indigenous peoples special rights, although the vast majority of them still live in very critical conditions of poverty. The government provides primary education in their languages in public schools to some of the largest groups, in efforts to continue the languages.
Caribbean
Main article: Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean
The indigenous population of the Caribbean islands consisted of the Taíno of the Lucayan Archipelago, the Greater Antilles and the northern Lesser Antilles, the Kalinago of the Lesser Antilles, the Ciguayo and Macorix of parts of Hispaniola, and the Guanahatabey of western Cuba. The overall population suffered the most adverse colonial effects out of all the indigenous populations in the Americas, as the Kalinago have been reduced to a few islands in the Lesser Antilles such as Dominica and the Taíno are culturally extinct, though a large proportion of populations in Greater Antillean islands such as Puerto Rico, and Cuba to a lesser extent,[280] possesses degrees of Taíno ancestry. The Cayman Islands were the only island group in the Caribbean to have remained unsettled by indigenous peoples before the era of colonialism.[281]
Rise of Indigenous movements
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Since the late 20th century, Indigenous peoples in the Americas have become more politically active in asserting their treaty rights and expanding their influence. Some have organized to achieve some sort of self-determination and preservation of their cultures. Organizations such as the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin and the Indian Council of South America are examples of movements that are overcoming national borders to reunite Indigenous populations, for instance, those across the Amazon Basin. Similar movements for Indigenous rights can also be seen in Canada and the United States, with movements like the International Indian Treaty Council and the accession of native Indigenous groups into the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization.
There has been a recognition of Indigenous movements on an international scale. The membership of the United Nations voted to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, despite dissent from some of the stronger countries of the Americas.
In Colombia, various Indigenous groups have protested the denial of their rights. People organized a march in Cali in October 2008 to demand the government live up to promises to protect Indigenous lands, defend the Indigenous against violence, and reconsider the free trade pact with the United States.[282]
Indigenous heads of state
Evo Morales, an Aymara member and former President of Bolivia
The first Indigenous President of the Americas was José María Melo, of Pijao descent, and led Colombia in 1854 starting on April 17, 1854. José was born on October 9, 1800, in Chaparral, Tolima, and before his presidency, he fought alongside Simon Bolivar in the Spanish-American Wars of Independence. José María Melo led the Republic of New Granada during the Colombian Civil War of 1854 but eventually lost and was exiled on December 4, 1854.[283]
The first Indigenous candidate to be democratically elected as head of a country in the Americas was Benito Juárez, a Zapotec Mexican who was elected President of Mexico in 1858 and led the country until 1872 and led the country to victory during the Second French intervention in Mexico.[284]
In 1930 Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro became the first Peruvian President with Indigenous Peruvian ancestry and the first in South America.[285] He came to power in a military coup.
In 2005, Evo Morales of the Aymara people was the first Indigenous candidate elected as president of Bolivia and the first elected in South America.[286]
Genetic research
Main article: Genetic history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas
See also: Y-DNA haplogroups in Indigenous peoples of the Americas
Schematic illustration of maternal geneflow in and out of Beringia. Colours of the arrows correspond to approximate timing of the events and are decoded in the coloured time-bar. The initial peopling of Berinigia (depicted in light yellow) was followed by a standstill after which the ancestors of indigenous Americans spread swiftly throughout the New World while some of the Beringian maternal lineages, such as C1a, spread westwards. More recent genetic exchange (shown in green) is manifested by back-migration of A2a into Siberia and the spread of D2a into the Northeastern United States that post-dates the initial arrival of people in the New World.
A schematic illustration of maternal (mtDNA) gene-flow in and out of Beringia, from 25,000 years ago to present
A map showing the origin of the first wave of humans into the Americas, including the Ancestral Northern Eurasian, which represent a distinct Paleolithic Siberian population, and the Northeast Asians, which are an East Asian-related group. The admixture happened somewhere in Northeast Siberia.[287]
Principal component analysis showing the Native American cluster in other Eurasian populations.[288]
Genetic history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas primarily focuses on Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups and Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroups. "Y-DNA" is passed solely along the patrilineal line, from father to son, while "mtDNA" is passed down the matrilineal line, from mother to offspring of both sexes. Neither recombines and thus Y-DNA and mtDNA change only by chance mutation at each generation with no intermixture between parents' genetic material.[289] Autosomal "atDNA" markers are also used but differ from mtDNA or Y-DNA in that they overlap significantly.[290] AtDNA is generally used to measure the average continent-of-ancestry genetic admixture in the entire human genome and related isolated populations.[290]
Genetic comparisons of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y-chromosome of Native Americans to that of certain Siberian and Central Asian peoples (specifically Paleo-Siberians, Turkic, and historically the Okunev culture) have led Russian researcher I.A. Zakharov to believe that, among all the previously studied Asian peoples, it is "the peoples living between Altai and Lake Baikal along the Sayan mountains that are genetically closest to" Indigenous Americans.[291]
Some scientific evidence links them to North Asian peoples, specifically the Indigenous peoples of Siberia, such as the Ket, Selkup, Chukchi, and Koryak peoples. Indigenous peoples of the Americas have been linked to some extent to North Asian populations by the distribution of blood types, and in genetic composition as reflected by molecular data, and limited DNA studies.[292][293][294]
The common occurrence of the Asian mtDNA haplogroups A, B, C, and D among eastern Asian and Native American populations has been noted.[295] Some subclades of C and D that have been found in the limited populations of Native Americans who have agreed to DNA testing[293][294] bear some resemblance to the C and D subclades in Mongolian, Amur, Japanese, Korean, and Ainu populations.[295][296]
Available genetic patterns lead to two main theories of genetic episodes affecting the Indigenous peoples of the Americas; first with the initial peopling of the Americas, and secondly with European colonization of the Americas.[297][298][299] The former is the determinant factor for the number of gene lineages, zygosity mutations, and founding haplotypes present in today's Indigenous peoples of the Americas populations.[298]
The most popular theory among anthropologists is the Bering Strait theory, of human settlement of the New World occurring in stages from the Bering Sea coastline, with a possible initial layover of 10,000 to 20,000 years in Beringia for the small founding population.[300][301][302] The micro-satellite diversity and distributions of the Y lineage specific to South America indicate that certain Indigenous peoples of the Americas populations have been isolated since the initial colonization of the region.[303] The Na-Dené, Inuit, and Indigenous populations of Alaska exhibit haplogroup Q (Y-DNA) mutations, however are distinct from other Indigenous peoples of the Americas with various mtDNA and atDNA mutations.[304][305][306] This suggests that the earliest migrants into the northern extremes of North America and Greenland derived from later migrant populations.[307][308]
Multiple recent findings on autosomal DNA and full genome revealed more information about the formation, settlement, and external relationships of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas to other populations. Native Americans are very closely related to the Paleosiberian tribes of Siberia, and to the ancient samples of the Mal'ta–Buret' culture (Ancient North Eurasians) as well as to the Ancient Beringians. Native Americans also share a relatively higher genetic affinity with East Asian peoples. Native American genetic ancestry is occasionally dubbed as "Amerindian". This type of ancestry largely overlaps with "Paleosiberian" ancestry but is differentiated from "Neo-Siberian" ancestry which represents historical expansions from Northeast Asia and is today widespread among Siberian populations. The ancestors of Native Americans used a single migration route, most likely through Beringia, and subsequently populated all of the Americas in a time range between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago. Possible contact between Native Americans and Polynesians dates back to 1,400 years ago. Previously hypothesized "Paleo-Indian" groups turned out to be genetically identical to modern Native Americans. The controversial claim that the first peoples came from Europe via the North Atlantic, based on an ostensible similarity in stone-tool technology between the Solutrean culture of Pleistocene Europe and Clovis in North America, was undermined by the genome of the Anzick Clovis child, which sits squarely on the branch of Ancestral Native American peoples. No ancient or present-day genome (or mtDNA or Y chromosome marker) in the Americas has shown any direct affinities to Upper Palaeolithic European populations.[309][310][311][312][313][314][315][316]
The date for the formation of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas gene pool ranges from 36,000 to 25,000 years ago, with their internal diverging being around 21,000 years ago, during the settlement of the Americas.[317] The "Ancestral Native Americans" formed from a lineage that diverged from East Asian people around 36,000 years ago somewhere in Southern China, and subsequently migrated northwards into Siberia and encountered/interacted with a distinct Paleolithic Siberian population known as Ancient North Eurasians, closer related to modern Europeans, giving rise to both Indigenous peoples of Siberia and Native Americans.[318] Based on a 2023 mitochondrial DNA study, a subsequent wave of migration from Northern China, originating near the present-day cities of Beijing and Tianjin, occurred as recently as 9000 BCE, following a previously unknown coastal route from Asia to America.[319]
Native American, member of any of the aboriginal peoples of the Western Hemisphere, although the term often connotes only those groups whose original territories were in present-day Canada and the United States.
Pre-Columbian Americans used technology and material culture that included fire and the fire drill; the domesticated dog; stone implements of many kinds; the spear-thrower (atlatl), harpoon, and bow and arrow; and cordage, netting, basketry, and, in some places, pottery. Many indigenous American groups were hunting-and-gathering cultures, while others were agricultural peoples. American Indians domesticated a variety of plants and animals, including corn (maize), beans, squash, potatoes and other tubers, turkeys, llamas, and alpacas, as well as a variety of semidomesticated species of nut- and seed-bearing plants. These and other resources were used to support communities ranging from small hamlets to cities such as Cahokia, with an estimated population of 10,000 to 20,000 individuals, and Teotihuacán, with some 125,000 to 200,000 residents.
At the dawn of the 16th century CE, as the European conquest of the Americas began, indigenous peoples resided throughout the Western Hemisphere. They were soon decimated by the effects of epidemic disease, military conquest, and enslavement, and, as with other colonized peoples, they were subject to discriminatory political and legal policies well into the 20th, and even the 21st, century. Nonetheless, they have been among the most active and successful native peoples in effecting political change and regaining their autonomy in areas such as education, land ownership, religious freedom, the law, and the revitalization of traditional culture.
Learn about the efforts of the National Museum of the American Indian to preserve Native American culture, traditions, and beliefs
Learn about the efforts of the National Museum of the American Indian to preserve Native American culture, traditions, and beliefs
A discussion of the efforts to preserve Native American culture, from the documentary Native Voice: Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.
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Culturally, the indigenous peoples of the Americas are usually recognized as constituting two broad groupings, American Indians and Arctic peoples. American Indians are often further grouped by area of residence: Northern America (present-day United States and Canada), Middle America (present-day Mexico and Central America; sometimes called Mesoamerica), and South America. This article is a survey of the culture areas, prehistories, histories, and recent developments of the indigenous peoples and cultures of the United States and Canada. Some of the terminology used in reference to indigenous Americans is explained in Sidebar: Tribal Nomenclature: American Indian, Native American, and First Nation; Sidebar: The Difference Between a Tribe and a Band; and Sidebar: Native American Self-Names. An overview of all the indigenous peoples of the Americas is presented in American Indian; discussions of various aspects of indigenous American cultures may also be found in the articles pre-Columbian civilizations; Middle American Indian; South American Indian; Arctic: The people; American Indian languages; Native American religions; and Native American arts.
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Native American culture areas
Culture areas of North American Indians
Culture areas of North American Indians
Comparative studies are an essential component of all scholarly analyses, whether the topic under study is human society, fine art, paleontology, or chemistry; the similarities and differences found in the entities under consideration help to organize and direct research programs and exegeses. The comparative study of cultures falls largely in the domain of anthropology, which often uses a typology known as the culture area approach to organize comparisons across cultures.
The culture area approach was delineated at the turn of the 20th century and continued to frame discussions of peoples and cultures into the 21st century. A culture area is a geographic region where certain cultural traits have generally co-occurred; for instance, in North America between the 16th and 19th centuries, the Northwest Coast culture area was characterized by traits such as salmon fishing, woodworking, large villages or towns, and hierarchical social organization.
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The specific number of culture areas delineated for Native America has been somewhat variable because regions are sometimes subdivided or conjoined. The 10 culture areas discussed below are among the most commonly used—the Arctic, the Subarctic, the Northeast, the Southeast, the Plains, the Southwest, the Great Basin, California, the Northwest Coast, and the Plateau. Notably, some scholars prefer to combine the Northeast and Southeast into one Eastern Woodlands culture area or the Plateau and Great Basin into a single Intermontane culture area. Each section below considers the location, climate, environment, languages, tribes, and common cultural characteristics of the area before it was heavily colonized. Prehistoric and post-Columbian Native American cultures are discussed in subsequent sections of this article. A discussion of the indigenous peoples of the Americas as a whole is found in American Indian.
The Arctic
Distribution of Arctic peoples
Distribution of Arctic peoples
This region lies near and above the Arctic Circle and includes the northernmost parts of present-day Alaska and Canada. The topography is relatively flat, and the climate is characterized by very cold temperatures for most of the year. The region’s extreme northerly location alters the diurnal cycle; on winter days the sun may peek above the horizon for only an hour or two, while the proportion of night to day is reversed during the summer months (see midnight sun).
The indigenous peoples of the North American Arctic include the Eskimo (Inuit and Yupik/Yupiit) and Aleut; their traditional languages are in the Eskimo-Aleut family. Many Alaskan groups prefer to be called Native Alaskans rather than Native Americans; Canada’s Arctic peoples generally prefer the referent Inuit.
The Arctic peoples of North America relied upon hunting and gathering. Winters were harsh, but the long hours of summer sunlight supported an explosion of vegetation that in turn drew large herds of caribou and other animals to the inland North. On the coasts, sea mammals and fish formed the bulk of the diet. Small mobile bands were the predominant form of social organization; band membership was generally based on kinship and marriage (see also Sidebar: The Difference Between a Tribe and a Band). Dome-shaped houses were common; they were sometimes made of snow and other times of timber covered with earth. Fur clothing, dog sleds, and vivid folklore, mythology, and storytelling traditions were also important aspects of Arctic cultures. See also Arctic: The people.
The Subarctic
Distribution of American Subarctic cultures
Distribution of American Subarctic cultures
This region lies south of the Arctic and encompasses most of present-day Alaska and most of Canada, excluding the Maritime Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island), which are part of the Northeast culture area. The topography is relatively flat, the climate is cool, and the ecosystem is characterized by a swampy and coniferous boreal forest (taiga) ecosystem.
Prominent tribes include the Innu (Montagnais and Naskapi), Cree, Ojibwa, Chipewyan, Beaver, Slave, Carrier, Gwich’in, Tanaina, and Deg Xinag (Ingalik). Their traditional languages are in the Athabaskan and Algonquian families.
Small kin-based bands were the predominant form of social organization, although seasonal gatherings of larger groups occurred at favoured fishing locales. Moose, caribou, beavers, waterfowl, and fish were taken, and plant foods such as berries, roots, and sap were gathered. In winter people generally resided in snug semisubterranean houses built to withstand extreme weather; summer allowed for more mobility and the use of tents or lean-tos. Snowshoes, toboggans, and fur clothing were other common forms of material culture. See also American Subarctic peoples.
The Northeast
Distribution of Northeast Indians
Distribution of Northeast Indians
This culture area reaches from the present-day Canadian provinces of Quebec, Ontario, and the Maritimes (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island) south to the Ohio River valley (inland) and to North Carolina (on the Atlantic Coast). The topography is generally rolling, although the Appalachian Mountains include some relatively steep slopes. The climate is temperate, precipitation is moderate, and the predominant ecosystem is the deciduous forest. There is also extensive coastline and an abundance of rivers and lakes.
Prominent tribes include the Algonquin, Iroquois, Huron, Wampanoag, Mohican, Mohegan, Ojibwa, Ho-chunk (Winnebago), Sauk, Fox, and Illinois. The traditional languages of the Northeast are largely of the Iroquoian and Algonquian language families.
Most Northeastern peoples engaged in agriculture, and for them the village of a few dozen to a few hundred persons was the most important social and economic unit in daily life. Groups that had access to reliably plentiful wild foods such as wild rice, salmon, or shellfish generally preferred to live in dispersed hamlets of extended families. Several villages or hamlets formed a tribe, and groups of tribes sometimes organized into powerful confederacies. These alliances were often very complex political organizations and generally took their name from the most powerful member tribe, as with the Iroquois Confederacy.
Cultivated corn (maize), beans, squash, and weedy seed-bearing plants such as Chenopodium formed the economic base for farming groups. All northeastern peoples took animals including deer, elk, moose, waterfowl, turkeys, and fish. Houses were wickiups (wigwams) or longhouses; both house types were constructed of a sapling framework that was covered with rush matting or sheets of bark. Other common aspects of culture included dugouts made of the trunks of whole trees, birchbark canoes, clothing made of pelts and deerskins, and a variety of medicine societies. See also Northeast Indian.
The Southeast
Distribution of Southeast American Indian cultures
Distribution of Southeast American Indian cultures
This region reaches from the southern edge of the Northeast culture area to the Gulf of Mexico; from east to west it stretches from the Atlantic Ocean to somewhat west of the Mississippi valley. The climate is warm temperate in the north and grades to subtropical in the south. The topography includes coastal plains, rolling uplands known as the Piedmont, and a portion of the Appalachian Mountains; of these, the Piedmont was most densely populated. The predominant ecosystems were coastal scrub, wetlands, and deciduous forests.
Perhaps the best-known indigenous peoples originally from this region are the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole, sometimes referred to as the Five Civilized Tribes. Other prominent tribes included the Natchez, Caddo, Apalachee, Timucua, and Guale. Traditionally, most tribes in the Southeast spoke Muskogean languages; there were also some Siouan language speakers and one Iroquoian-speaking group, the Cherokee.
The region’s economy was primarily agricultural and often supported social stratification; as chiefdoms, most cultures were structured around hereditary classes of elites and commoners, although some groups used hierarchical systems that had additional status levels. Most people were commoners and lived in hamlets located along waterways. Each hamlet was home to an extended family and typically included a few houses and auxiliary structures such as granaries and summer kitchens; these were surrounded by agricultural plots or fields. Hamlets were usually associated with a town that served as the area’s ceremonial and market centre. Towns often included large earthen mounds on which religious structures and the homes of the ruling classes or families were placed. Together, each town and its associated hamlets constituted an autonomous political entity. In times of need these could unite into confederacies, such as those of the Creek and Choctaw.
People grew corn, beans, squash, tobacco, and other crops; they also gathered wild plant foods and shellfish, hunted deer and other animals, and fished. House forms varied extensively across the region, including wickiups (wigwams), earth-berm dwellings, and, in the 19th century, chickees (thatched roofs with open walls). The Southeast was also known for its religious iconography, which often included bird themes, and for the use of the “black drink,” an emetic used in ritual contexts. See also Southeast Indian.
The Plains
Distribution of North American Plains Indians
Distribution of North American Plains Indians
The Plains lie in the centre of the continent, spanning the area between the western mountains and the Mississippi River valley and from the southern edge of the Subarctic to the Rio Grande in present-day Texas. The climate is of the continental type, with warm summers and cold winters. Relatively flat short-grass prairies with little precipitation are found west of the Missouri River and rolling tallgrass prairies with more moisture are found to its east. Tree-lined river valleys form a series of linear oases throughout the region.
The indigenous peoples of the Plains include speakers of Siouan, Algonquian, Uto-Aztecan, Caddoan, Athabaskan, Kiowa-Tanoan, and Michif languages. Plains peoples also invented a sign language to represent common objects or concepts such as “buffalo” or “exchange.”
Earth-lodge villages were the only settlements on the Plains until the late 16th century; they were found along major waterways that provided fertile soil for growing corn, beans, squash, sunflowers, and tobacco. The groups who built these communities divided their time between village-based crop production and hunting expeditions, which often lasted for several weeks and involved travel over a considerable area. Plains villagers include the Mandan, Hidatsa, Omaha, Pawnee, and Arikara.
By 1750 horses from the Spanish colonies in present-day New Mexico had become common in the Plains and had revolutionized the hunting of bison. This new economic opportunity caused some local villagers to become dedicated nomads, as with the Crow (who retained close ties with their Hidatsa kin), and also drew agricultural tribes from surrounding areas into a nomadic lifestyle, including the Sioux, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Comanche, Arapaho, and Kiowa.
Groups throughout the region had in common several forms of material culture, including the tepee, tailored leather clothing, a variety of battle regalia (such as feathered headdresses), and large drums used in ritual contexts. The Sun Dance, a ritual that demanded a high degree of piety and self-sacrifice from its participants, was also found throughout most of the Plains.
The Plains is perhaps the culture area in which tribal and band classifications were most conflated. Depictions of indigenous Americans in popular culture have often been loosely based on Plains peoples, encouraging many to view them as the “typical” American Indians. See also Plains Indian.
The Southwest
Distribution of Southwest Indians
Distribution of Southwest Indians
Distribution of Southwest Indians and their reservations and lands.
This culture area lies between the Rocky Mountains and the Mexican Sierra Madre, mostly in present-day Arizona and New Mexico. The topography includes plateaus, basins, and ranges. The climate on the Colorado Plateau is temperate, while it is semitropical in most of the basin and range systems; there is little precipitation and the major ecosystem is desert. The landscape includes several major river systems, notably those of the Colorado and the Rio Grande, that create linear oases in the region.
The Southwest is home to speakers of Hokan, Uto-Aztecan, Tanoan, Keresan, Kiowa-Tanoan, Penutian, and Athabaskan languages. The region was the home of both agricultural and hunting and gathering peoples, although the most common lifeway combined these two economic strategies. Best known among the agriculturists are the Pueblo Indians, including the Zuni and Hopi. The Yumans, Pima, and Tohono O’odham (Papago) engaged in both farming and foraging, relying on each to the extent the environment would allow. The Navajo and the many Apache groups usually engaged in some combination of agriculture, foraging, and the raiding of other groups.
The major agricultural products were corn, beans, squash, and cotton. Wild plant foods, deer, other game, and fish (for those groups living near rivers) were the primary foraged foods. The Pueblo peoples built architecturally remarkable apartment houses of adobe and stone masonry (see pueblo architecture) and were known for their complex kinship structures, kachina (katsina) dances and dolls, and fine pottery, textiles, and kiva and sand paintings. The Navajo built round houses (“hogans”) and were known for their complex clan system, healing rituals, and fine textiles and jewelry. The Apaches, Yumans, Pima, and Tohono O’odham generally built thatched houses or brush shelters and focused their expressive culture on oral traditions. Stone channels and check dams (low walls that slowed the runoff from the sporadic but heavy rains) were common throughout the Southwest, as were basketry and digging sticks. See also Southwest Indian.
The Great Basin
Numic languages and Great Basin area Indians
Numic languages and Great Basin area Indians
Distribution of Numic languages and major groups of Great Basin area Indians.
The Great Basin culture area is centred in the intermontane deserts of present-day Nevada and includes adjacent areas in California, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona. It is so named because the surrounding mountains create a bowl-like landscape that prevented water from flowing out of the region. The most common topographic features are basin and range systems; these gradually transition to high intermontane plateaus in the north. The climate is temperate in the north and becomes subtropical to the south. Higher elevations tend to receive ample moisture but other areas average as little as 2 inches (50 mm) per year. Much of the region’s surface water, such as the Great Salt Lake, is brackish. The predominant ecosystem is desert.
The Great Basin is home to the Washoe, speakers of a Hokan language, and a number of tribes speaking Numic languages (a division of the Uto-Aztecan language family). These include the Mono, Paiute, Bannock, Shoshone, Ute, and Gosiute.
The peoples of this region were hunters and gatherers and generally organized themselves in mobile, kin-based bands. Seeds, piñon nuts, and small game formed the bulk of the diet for most groups, although those occupying northern and eastern locales readily adopted horses and equestrian bison hunting after Spanish mounts became available. Some of these latter groups also replaced wickiups and brush shelters, the common house forms until that time, with Plains-style tepees; peoples in the west and south, however, continued to use traditional house forms well into the 19th century. Other common forms of material culture included digging sticks, nets, basketry, grinding stones for processing seeds, and rock art. See also Great Basin Indian.
California
Distribution of California Indians
Distribution of California Indians
This culture area approximates the present states of California (U.S.) and northern Baja (Mexico). Other than the Pacific coast, the region’s dominant topographic features are the Coast Range and the Sierra Nevada; these north-south ranges are interspersed with high plateaus and basins. An extraordinary diversity of local conditions created microenvironments such as coasts, tidewaters, coastal redwood forests, grasslands, wetlands, high deserts, and mountains.
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California includes representatives of some 20 language families, including Uto-Aztecan, Penutian, Yokutsan, and Athabaskan; American linguist Edward Sapir described California’s languages as being more diverse than those found in all of Europe. Prominent tribes, many with a language named for them, include the Hupa, Yurok, Pomo, Yuki, Wintun, Maidu, and Yana.
Many California peoples eschewed centralized political structures and instead organized themselves into tribelets, groups of a few hundred to a few thousand people that recognized cultural ties with others but maintained their political independence. Some tribelets comprised just one village and others included several villages; in the latter cases, one village was usually recognized as more important than the others. The relatively few groups that lived in areas with sparse natural resources preferred to live in small mobile bands.
Agriculture was practiced only along the Colorado River; elsewhere hunting and gathering provided a relatively easy living. Acorns were the most important of the wild food sources; California peoples devised a method of leaching the toxins from acorn pulp and converting it into flour, thus ensuring abundant and constant food. Fishing, hunting, and gathering shellfish and other wild foods were also highly productive. Housing varied from wood-framed single-family dwellings to communal apartment-style buildings; ceremonial structures were very important and could often hold several hundred people. The California peoples were also known for their fine basketry, ritualized trade fairs, and the Kuksu and Toloache religions. See also California Indian.
The Northwest Coast
Distribution of Northwest Coast Indians
Distribution of Northwest Coast Indians
This culture area is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the east by the Coast Range, the Sierra Nevada, and the Rocky Mountains; it reaches from the area around Yakutat Bay in the north to the Klamath River area in the south. It includes the coasts of present-day Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, much of southern Alaska, and a small area of northern California. The topography is steep and in many places the coastal hills or mountains fall abruptly to a beach or riverbank. There is an abundance of precipitation—in many areas more than 160 inches (406 cm) annually, but rarely less than 30 inches (76 cm). The predominant ecosystems are temperate rainforests, intertidal zones, and the ocean.
This culture area is home to peoples speaking Athabaskan, Tshimshianic, Salishan, and other languages. Prominent tribes include the Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Kwakiutl, Bella Coola, Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka), Coast Salish, and Chinook.
The peoples of the Northwest Coast had abundant and reliable supplies of salmon and other fish, sea mammals, shellfish, birds, and a variety of wild food plants. The resource base was so rich that they are unique among nonagricultural peoples in having created highly stratified societies of hereditary elites, commoners, and slaves. Tribes often organized themselves into corporate “houses”—groups of a few dozen to 100 or more related people that held in common the rights to particular resources. As with the house societies of medieval Japan and Europe, social stratification operated at every level of many Northwest Coast societies; villages, houses, and house members each had their designated rank, which was reflected in nearly every social interaction.
Most groups built villages near waterways or the coast; each village also had rights to an upland territory from which the residents could obtain terrestrial foods. Dwellings were rectilinear structures built of timbers or planks and were usually quite large, as the members of a corporate “house” typically lived together in one building. Northwest Coast cultures are known for their fine wood and stone carvings, large and seaworthy watercraft, memorial or totem poles, and basketry. The potlatch, a feast associated with the bestowal of lavish gifts, was also characteristic of this culture area. See also Northwest Coast Indian.
The Plateau
Distribution of North American Plateau Indians
Distribution of North American Plateau Indians
Lying at the crossroads of five culture areas (the Subarctic, Plains, Great Basin, California, and Northwest Coast), the Plateau is surrounded by mountains and drained by two great river systems, the Fraser and the Columbia. It is located in present-day Montana, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. Topographically, the area is characterized by rolling hills, high flatlands, gorges, and mountain slopes. The climate is temperate, although milder than the adjacent Plains because the surrounding mountain systems provide protection from continental air masses. The mountains also create a substantial rain shadow; most precipitation in this region falls at higher elevations, leaving other areas rather dry. The predominant ecosystems are grassland and high desert, although substantial forested areas are found at altitude.
Most of the languages spoken in this culture area belong to the Salishan, Sahaptin, Kutenai, and Modoc and Klamath families. Tribes include the Salish, Flathead, Nez Percé, Yakama, Kutenai, Modoc and Klamath, Spokan, Kalispel, Pend d’Oreille, Coeur d’Alene, Walla Walla, and Umatilla. “Flathead” is incorrectly used in some early works to denote all Salishan-speaking peoples, only some of whom molded infants’ heads so as to achieve a uniform slope from brow to crown; notably, the people presently referred to as the Flathead did not engage in this practice (see head flattening).
The primary political unit was the village; among some groups a sense of larger tribal and cultural unity led to the creation of representative governments, tribal chieftainships, and confederations of tribes. This was possible in part because the Columbia and Fraser rivers provided enough salmon and other fish to support a relatively dense population; however, this region was never as heavily populated or as rigidly stratified as the Northwest Coast.
Efficient hunters and gatherers, Plateau groups supplemented fish with terrestrial animals and wild plant foods, especially certain varieties of camas (Camassia). Most groups resided in permanent riverside villages and traveled to upland locales during fair-weather foraging excursions; however, horses were readily adopted once available and some groups subsequently shifted to nomadic buffalo hunting. These groups quickly adopted tepees and many other Plains cultural forms; they became particularly respected for their equine breeding programs and fine herds (see Appaloosa). Plateau fishing villages were characterized by their multifamily A-frame dwellings, while smaller conical structures were used in the uplands; both house forms were covered with grass, although canvas became a popular covering once available. In terms of portable culture, the Plateau peoples were most characterized by the wide variety of substances and technologies they used; continuously exposed to new items and ideas through trade with surrounding culture areas, they excelled at material innovation and at adapting others’ technologies to their own purposes. See also Plateau Indian.
Long before Christopher Columbus stepped foot on what would come to be known as the Americas, the expansive territory was inhabited by Native Americans. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, as more explorers sought to colonize their land, Native Americans responded in various stages, from cooperation to indignation to revolt.
After siding with the French in numerous battles during the French and Indian War and eventually being forcibly removed from their homes under Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act, Native American populations were diminished in size and territory by the end of the 19th century.
Below are events that shaped Native Americans’ tumultuous history following the arrival of foreign settlers.
Native American Cultures
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1492: Christopher Columbus lands on a Caribbean Island after three months of traveling. Believing at first that he had reached the East Indies, he describes the natives he meets as “Indians.” On his first day, he orders six natives to be seized as servants.
April 1513: Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon lands on continental North America in Florida and makes contact with Native Americans.
February 1521: Ponce de Leon departs on another voyage to Florida from San Juan to start a colony. Months after landing, Ponce de Leon is attacked by local Native Americans and fatally wounded.
May 1539: Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernando de Soto lands in Florida to conquer the region. He explores the South under the guidance of Native Americans who had been captured along the way.
October 1540: De Soto and the Spaniards plan to rendezvous with ships in Alabama when they’re attacked by Native Americans. Hundreds of Native Americans are killed in the ensuing battle.
C. 1595: Pocahontas is born, daughter of Chief Powhatan.
1607: Pocahontas’ brother kidnaps Captain John Smith from the Jamestown colony. Smith later writes that after being threatened by Chief Powhatan, he was saved by Pocahontas. This scenario is debated by historians.
1613: Pocahontas is captured by Captain Samuel Argall in the first Anglo-Powhatan War. While captive, she learns to speak English, converts to Christianity and is given the name “Rebecca.”
1622: The Powhatan Confederacy nearly wipes out Jamestown colony.
1680: A revolt of Pueblo Native Americans in New Mexico threatens Spanish rule over New Mexico.
1754: The French and Indian War begins, pitting the two groups against English settlements in the North.
French and Indian War
May 15, 1756: The Seven Years’ War between the British and the French begins, with Native American alliances aiding the French.
May 7, 1763: Ottawa Chief Pontiac leads Native American forces into battle against the British in Detroit. The British retaliate by attacking Pontiac’s warriors in Detroit on July 31, in what is known as the Battle of Bloody Run. Pontiac and company successfully fend them off, but there are several casualties on both sides.
1785: The Treaty of Hopewell is signed in Georgia, protecting Cherokee Native Americans in the United States and sectioning off their land.
The Crowning Of PowhatanEngraving shows Christopher Newport (1560 - 1617) as he offers a crown and other gifts to Chief Powhatan (1547 - 1618) in an effort to generate friendship between European settlers and Powhatan's federated group of tribes, Werowocomoco, near Jamestown, Virginia, 1608. The engraving, by F. Hinshewood, is based on an 1835 painting by John G. Chapman.
Chief Powhatan, also known as Wahunsenacawh, was born in the Chesapeake Bay region in the 1540s or 1550s. He became leader of more than 30 tribes and controlled the area where English colonists formed the Jamestown settlement in 1607. The marriage of his daughter Pocohantas to a colonist led to a peace that remained in effect when Powhatan died in April 1618.
Pennsylvania Colony TreatyBritish statesman William Penn (1644 - 1718) (in dark coat) accepts a belt from Tamanend (1628 - 1698), chief of the Lenni-Lenape Indians, as part of treaty in which Penn purchased a section of land for the Pennsylvania Colony, Kensington, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1682. (Photo by Stock Montage/Getty Images)
Chief Tamanend (est. 1628-1700), variously called Tammany, Temane, Taminent, was a Lenni-Lenape leader who welcomed British statesman William Penn upon his arrival in the Americas in 1682. Here, Penn (in dark coat) accepts a belt from Tamanend as part of treaty in which Penn purchased a section of land for the Pennsylvania Colony.
ArtImagesJoseph Brant, Chief of the Mohawks, 1742-1807 (Photo by Art Images via Getty Images)
Mohawk Chief Thayendanegea (1742-1807), also known by his English name, Joseph Brant, convinced four of the Six Nations to fight for the British in 1775, arguing that the British were more likely to uphold their land agreements with the Indians than the Americans. Brant fought with distinction in several major skirmishes in the New York area, rising to the rank of captain.
Tecumseh Native American ManTecumseh, Shawnee Chief. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Tecumseh (1768-1813) was a Shawnee chief from present-day Columbus, Ohio. During the early 1800s, he attempted to organize a confederation of tribes to resist white settlement. During the War of 1812, Tecumseh and his followers joined the British in the fight against the United States. He was killed in the Battle of the Thames in Canada on October 5, 1813.
Lithograph by John Guss After Sequoyah by Charles Bird KingA lithograph by John Guss after an original painting by Charles Bird King. (Photo by Burstein Collection/Corbis/VCG via Getty Images)
Sequoyah (c. 1778–1843) was a silversmith and artist who developed a system of Cherokee syllabary, making reading and writing in Cherokee possible.
Sacagaweacirca 1810: Sacagawea, a Shoshone Native American woman who accompanied American explorers Lewis and Clark on their western expedition as an interpreter and guide. Original Publication: From a drawing by E S Paxson. (Photo by MPI/Getty Images)
Sacagawea (c. 1788-1812) was a Shoshone woman who accompanied American explorers Lewis and Clark on their western expedition as an interpreter and guide. Her skills as a translator were invaluable, as was her intimate knowledge of difficult terrain. She is shown in this drawing by E.S. Paxson in 1810.
Mahpiya Luta (Red Cloud)Mahpiya Luta (Red Cloud), 1880. Artist Charles Milton Bell. (Photo by Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images)
Lakota Chief Red Cloud (1822–1909) was a key leader in 19th-century land battles between Native Americans and the U.S. government. He successfully resisted developments of the Bozeman trail through Montana territory and led the opposition against the development of a road through Wyoming and Montana for two years—a period that came to be known as Red Cloud's War.
Portrait Of Apache Chief Geronimo(Original Caption) Portrait of Geronimo (1829-1900), American Apache chieftain. He is kneeling with a rifle in his hands. Photograph, 1887.
Geronimo (1829-1909) was an Apache leader and medicine man best known for his fearlessness in resisting anyone–Mexican or American—who attempted to remove his people from their tribal lands. He kneels with a rifle in his hands in this 1887 photograph.
Sitting Bull born circa 1831 died 1890. Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man. Portrait on a 19th century cabinet card.UNSPECIFIED - CIRCA 1800: Sitting Bull born circa 1831 died 1890. Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man. Portrait on a 19th century cabinet card. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)
Sitting Bull (c. 1831-1890) was a Teton Dakota chief who united the Sioux tribes of the American Great Plains against white settlers who invaded Sioux land when gold was discovered in the Black Hills in the mid-1870s. Sitting Bull’s refusal to follow an 1875 order to bring his people to the Sioux reservation led to the Battle of the Little Bighorn, during which the Sioux and Cheyenne wiped out five troops of General Custer’s 7th Cavalry.
Hinmatóowyalahtq?It (Chief Joseph)Hinmatóowyalahtq?it (Chief Joseph), 1879. Artist Charles Milton Bell. (Photo by Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images)
Chief Joseph, born born Hinmuuttu-yalatlat, (1840-1904) was a Nez Perce chief who faced white settlement of tribal lands in Oregon and led his followers in an effort to escape to Canada. He was famously quoted as saying, "My heart is sad and sick. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever," upon his surrender in 1877.
Chief Crazy Horse(Original Caption) Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Sioux (1845-1877). He led the charge of the Cheyennes against General Custer at Little Big Horn.
Crazy Horse (c. 1842–1877) was an Oglala Sioux chief who fought against removal to a reservation in the Black Hills. In 1876, he joined with Cheyenne forces in a surprise attack against Gen. George Crook; then united with Chief Sitting Bull in the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
1 / 11: GETTY IMAGES / KEAN COLLECTION / STAFF
1788/89: Sacagawea is born.
1791: The Treaty of Holston is signed, in which the Cherokee give up all their land outside of the borders previously established.
August 20, 1794: The Battle of Fallen Timbers, the last major battle over Northwest territory between Native Americans and the United States following the Revolutionary War, commences and results in U.S. victory.
November 2, 1804: Native American Sacagawea, while 6 months pregnant, meets explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark during their exploration of the territory of the Louisiana Purchase. The explorers realize her value as a translator.
April 7, 1805: Sacagawea, along with her baby and husband Toussaint Charbonneau, join Lewis and Clark on their voyage.
Sacagawea
November 1811: U.S. forces attack Native American War Chief Tecumseh and his younger brother Lalawethika. Their community at the juncture of the Tippecanoe and Wabash rivers is destroyed.
June 18, 1812: President James Madison signs a declaration of war against Britain, beginning the war between U.S. forces and the British, French and Native Americans over independence and territory expansion.
March 27, 1814: Andrew Jackson, along with U.S. forces and Native American allies attack Creek Indians who opposed American expansion and encroachment of their territory in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. The Creeks cede more than 20 million acres of land after their loss.
May 28, 1830: President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act, which gives plots of land west of the Mississippi River to Native American tribes in exchange for land that is taken from them.
1836: The last of the Muscogee (Creek) Native Americans leave their land for Oklahoma as part of the Indian removal process. Of the 15,000 Muscogees who make the voyage to Oklahoma, more than 3,500 don’t survive.
1838: With only 2,000 Cherokees having left their land in Georgia to cross the Mississippi River, President Martin Van Buren enlists General Winfield Scott and 7,000 troops to speed up the process by holding them at gunpoint and marching them 1,200 miles. More than 5,000 Cherokee die as a result of the journey. The series of relocations of Native American tribes and their hardships and deaths during the journey would become known as the Trail of Tears.
A photographer's interpretation of James Fraser's classic sculpture, the 'End of the Trail,' circa 1915. (Credit: Underwood Archives/Getty Images)
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Sioux boys arrive at the Carlisle School, October 5, 1879. (Credit: Corbis/Getty Images)
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Native American tribes are still seeking the return of their children.
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At the turn of the century, photographer Edward Curtis spent 30 years documenting more than 80 Native American tribes.
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1851: Congress passes the Indian Appropriations Act, creating the Indian reservation system. Native Americans aren’t allowed to leave their reservations without permission.
October 1860: A group of Apache Native Americans attack and kidnap a white American, resulting in the U.S. military falsely accusing the Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache tribe, Cochise. Cochise and the Apache increase raids on white Americans for a decade afterwards.
November 29, 1864: 650 Colorado volunteer forces attack Cheyenne and Arapaho encampments along Sand Creek, killing and mutilating more than 150 American Indians during what would become known as the Sand Creek Massacre.
April 29, 1868: The U.S. Government and the Sioux Nation sign the Treaty of Fort Laramie. In this treaty, the United States recognizes the Black Hills of Dakota as the Great Sioux Reservation, the exclusive territory of the Sioux (Dakota, Lakota and Nakota) and Arapaho people. But after gold is discovered in the Black Hills, miners and settlers begin moving onto the land en masse. Native resistance to the treaty’s violation culminates in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. In 1980, the Supreme Court rules that the Black Hills were illegally confiscated, and awards the Sioux more than $100 million in reparations. Sioux leaders reject the payment, saying the land had never been for sale.
Battle of the Little Bighorn
November 27, 1868: General George Armstrong Custer leads an early morning attack on Cheyenne living with Chief Black Kettle, destroying the village and killing more than 100 people, including many women and children and Black Kettle himself.
1873: Crazy Horse encounters General Custer for the first time.
1874: Gold discovered in South Dakota’s Black Hills drives U.S. troops to ignore a treaty and invade the territory.
June 25, 1876: In the Battle of Little Bighorn, also known as “Custer’s Last Stand,” Lieutenant Colonel George Custer’s troops fight Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, along Little Bighorn River. Custer and his troops are defeated and killed, increasing tensions between Native Americans and white Americans.
October 6, 1879: The first students attend Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, the country’s first off-reservation boarding school. The school, created by Civil War veteran Richard Henry Pratt, is designed to assimilate Native American students.
Carlisle Indian School
In 1879, U.S. cavalry captain Richard Henry Pratt opened a boarding school in Pennsylvania called the Carlisle Indian Industrial School—a government-backed institution that forcibly separated Native American children from their parents in order to, as Pratt put it, “kill the Indian in him, and save the man.”
Native American Assimilation School
Student Tom Torlino, upon his arrival to the Carlisle School.
Native American Assimilation School
Tom Torlino after some time at the Carlisle School.
Carlisle Indian School
Children from the Chiricahua Apache tribe upon arrival to the school.
Carlisle Indian School
The children were given new Anglo-American names, clothes, and haircuts, and told they must abandon their way of life because it was inferior to white people’s.
Carlisle Indian School
A group of boys in school uniforms, circa 1890.
As part of this federal push for assimilation, boarding schools forbid Native American children from using their own languages and names, as well as from practicing their religion and culture.
Carlisle Indian School
Clothes mending class, circa 1901.
Carlisle Indian School
Laundry class, circa 1901.
Carlisle Indian School
Young men in metalworking workshop with pails, washtubs, watering cans, and other metal items, circa 1904.
Carlisle Indian School
Cooking class, circa 1903.
Carlisle Indian School
Classroom experiment, circa 1901.
Carlisle Indian School
Students in English class learning penmanship, circa 1901.
Carlisle Indian School
Physical education class, circa 1901.
Carlisle Indian School
The Carlisle Indian School football team, circa 1899.
Carlisle Indian School
The Carlisle Indian School band, circa 1901.
1 / 16: THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
February 8, 1887: President Grover Cleveland signs the Dawes Act, giving the president the authority to divide up land allotted to Native Americans in reservations to individuals.
December 15, 1890: Sitting Bull is killed during a confrontation with Indian police in Grand River, South Dakota.
December 29, 1890: U.S. Armed Forces surround Ghost Dancers led by Chief Big Foot near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, demanding the surrender of their weapons. An estimated 150 Native Americans are killed in the Wounded Knee Massacre, along with 25 men with the U.S. cavalry.
January 29, 1907: Charles Curtis becomes the first Native American U.S. Senator.
September 1918: Choctaw soldiers use their native language to transmit secret messages for U.S. troops during World War I's Meuse-Argonne Offensive on the Western Front. The Choctaw Telephone Squad provide Allied forces a critical edge over the Germans.
June 2, 1924: U.S. Congress passes the Indian Citizenship Act, granting citizenship to all Native Americans born in the territorial limits of the country. Previously, citizenship had been limited, depending on what percentage Native American ancestry a person had, whether they were veterans, or, if they were women, whether they were married to a U.S. citizen.
Photographer Edward S. Curtis (1868-1952) spent over 30 years photographing over 80 tribes west of the Mississippi. In 1912, a show of his work was presented at the New York Public Library, and was later reprised in 1994 on the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the Americas. The work features Curtis' photos, along with the photographer's notes (in italics), which he had written on the back of each print.
Curtis's photographs command respect for a group of people that had been marginalized over the span of the 19th century. But the work has also been met with criticism. Some have argued the photos, many of which were staged, present a romanticized version of Native American life—by a white photographer."The Blackfoot Medicine Lodge Encampment of the Summer of 1899."
"A Blackfoot picture on the prairies of Montana. In the early days and closely following the acquisition of the horse, many of the Northern plains tribes carried their camp equipment on the Travaux. This form of transportation had practically disappeared by the beginning of 1900."
"The Canoe is to the Coast Indian what the pony is to the people of the plains. In these picturesque canoes, built from the trunk of the great cedars, they travel the whole length of the Coast from the mouth of the Columbia to Yakutat Bay, Alaska."
"Navajo Indians emerging from the shadows of the high walls of Canyon de Chelly, Arizona typifying the transition from barbarism to civilization."
"The healing ceremonies of the Navajo people are locally called sings, or in other words, a doctor or priest attempts to cure a disease by singing rather than by medicine. The healing ceremonies vary in length from a fraction of a day to the two great ceremonies of nine days and nights. These elaborate ceremonies which have been so fully described by Washington Mathews are called by him the night chant and the mountain chant."
"A good type of the younger Navajos."
"The Navajo blanket is the most valuable product made by our Indians. Their blankets are now as of old, woven on the simple primitive loom, and during the bleak months of Winter the looms are placed in the Hogans or homes, but in the Summer they place them outside in the shade of a tree or under and improvised shelter of branches."
A Sioux man.
"Three Sioux mountain sheep hunters in the Bad Lands of South Dakota."
"A statuesque, picturesque Sioux Chief and his favorite pony at a water hold in the band lands of the Dakotas."
"Red Cloud is perhaps as well known in Indian history, and especially in Sioux Indian history, as was George Washington in the thirteen colonies. At the present time he is blind, and feeble, and has but a few years before him; his mind though is yet keen in spite of the 91 yrs., he enjoys recalling details of the prouder days of his youth."
An Apache man.
"An Apache picture. One must know the desert to [...] appreciate the sight of the cool, life-giving pool or murmuring stream."
"Showing the typical baby carrier of the Apache people."
"An Apache maiden. The manner in which the hair is wrapped with beaded buckskin is the custom followed by the unmarried Apache girl. After marriage the hair drops loosely down the back."
"A fine type of the Hopi men. These people are best known by their striking ceremony 'The Snake Dance.' "
"A Hopi Snake Priest."
"The Hopi villages are built on a small high straight-walled mesa where water must be carried up from springs on lower levels. This shows two women at their early morning task."
Hopi women, with their iconic hairstyles, looking out atop their homes. The hairstyle was created with the help of wooden discs which the hair was fashioned around. The style is said to be work by unmarried Hopi women, specifically during celebrations of the winter solstice.
1 / 20: EDWARD S. CURTIS FROM THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
March 4, 1929: Charles Curtis serves as the first Native American U.S. Vice President under President Herbert Hoover.
May 1942: Members of the Navajo Nation develop a code to transmit messages and radio messages for the U.S. armed forces during World War II. Eventually hundreds of code talkers from multiple Native American tribes serve in the U.S. Marines during the war.
April 11, 1968: The Indian Civil Rights Act is signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson, granting Native American tribes many of the benefits included in the Bill of Rights.
July 1968: Dennis Banks and Clyde Bellecourt found the American Indian Movement (AIM) in Minneapolis, along with Bellecourt’s brother Vernon and Banks’ friend George Mitchell. Originally an urban-focused movement formed in response to police brutality and racial profiling, AIM grows rapidly in the 1970s to become the driving force behind the Indigenous civil rights movement.
November 20, 1969: A group of San Francisco Bay-area Native Americans, calling themselves “Indians of All Tribes,” journey to Alcatraz Island, declaring their intention to use the island for an Indian school, cultural center and museum. Referencing Europeans' colonization of North America, they claim Alcatraz is theirs “by right of discovery.” On June 11, 1971 armed federal marshals descend on the island and remove the last of its Indian residents.
August 29, 1970: A group of Native Americans, led by the San Francisco-based United Native Americans, ascend 3,000 feet to the top of Mount Rushmore and set up camp to protest the broken Treaty of Fort Laramie.
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November 26, 1970: On Thanksgiving Day, AIM members seize a replica of the Mayflower in Boston Harbor, declaring the holiday a National Day of Mourning.
June 6, 1971: A group of Native Americans, led by AIM, occupy Mount Rushmore to demand the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie be honored. Twenty Native Americans—nine men and 11 women—are eventually arrested.
October 1972: Hundreds of Native Americans drive in caravans, beginning at the West Coast, to the offices of the Department of the Interior in Washington, D.C. in a movement called the Trail of Broken Treaties. During the occupation, AIM releases the Twenty Points, a list of demands that includes the re-recognition of Native tribes, abolition of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and federal protections for Indigenous cultures and religions. The occupiers hold the BIA office for a week.
February 27, 1973: The Wounded Knee Occupation begins as some 200 Oglala Lakota (also referred to as Oglala Sioux) and AIM members seize and occupy the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The occupation lasts for 71 days, during which time two Sioux men are shot to death by federal agents and several more are wounded.
January 4, 1975: Congress passes the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, which reverses the termination policy of previous decades when American Indian tribes were disbanded, their land sold and "relocations" forced Indians off reservations and into urban centers. The 1975 act provides recognition and funds to Indian tribes.
July 15, 1978: A transcontinental trek for Native American justice, called the "Longest Walk," sets off from Alcatraz Island, California. By the time marchers reach Washington, D.C. they number 30,000.
August 11, 1978: The American Indian Religious Freedom Act is passed, granting Native Americans the right to use certain lands and controlled substances for religious ceremonies.
October 11, 1980: President Jimmy Carter signs the Maine Indian Claims Settlement Act. The act grants Indian tribes, including the Passamaquoddy, Maliseet and Penobscot, $81.5 million for land taken from them more than 150 years ago.
November 16, 1990: President George H.W. Bush signs the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA into law. The act requires federal agencies and museums that receive federal funds to repatriate Native American cultural items to their respective peoples.
October, 1991: The National Coalition of Racism in Sports and Media (NCRSM) is established by leaders at the National Congress of American Indians to organize against the use of Indian names, logos, symbols and mascots in sports.
July 13, 2020: The Washington National Football League franchise announces it is dropping its name, the “Redskins,” as well as its Indian head logo. The move is in response to decades of criticism that they are offensive to Native Americans. The team is eventually renamed the Commanders.
March 15, 2021: Representative Deb Haaland of New Mexico is confirmed as secretary of the Interior, making her the first Native American to lead a cabinet agency. “Growing up in my mother’s Pueblo household made me fierce," Haaland Tweeted after her confirmation. "I’ll be fierce for all of us, our planet, and all of our protected land.”
July 23, 2021: In response to criticisms, Cleveland's Major League Baseball team announces they are changing their name to the Guardians and are dropping their previous name, the Indians.
Many thousands of years before Christopher Columbus’ ships landed in the Bahamas, a different group of people discovered America: the nomadic ancestors of modern Native Americans who hiked over a “land bridge” from Asia to what is now Alaska more than 12,000 years ago.
In fact, by the time European adventurers arrived in the 15th century, scholars estimate that more than 50 million people were already living in the Americas. Of these, some 10 million lived in the area that would become the United States. As time passed, these migrants and their descendants pushed south and east, adapting as they went.
In order to keep track of these diverse groups, anthropologists and geographers have divided them into “culture areas,” or rough groupings of contiguous peoples who shared similar habitats and characteristics. Most scholars break North America—excluding present-day Mexico—into 10 separate culture areas: the Arctic, the Subarctic, the Northeast, the Southeast, the Plains, the Southwest, the Great Basin, California, the Northwest Coast and the Plateau.
The Arctic
The Arctic culture area, a cold, flat, treeless region (actually a frozen desert) near the Arctic Circle in present-day Alaska, Canada and Greenland, was home to the Inuit and the Aleut. Both groups spoke, and continue to speak, dialects descended from what scholars call the Eskimo-Aleut language family.
Native American Cultures
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Because it is such an inhospitable landscape, the Arctic’s population was comparatively small and scattered. Some of its peoples, especially the Inuit in the northern part of the region, were nomads, following seals, polar bears and other game as they migrated across the tundra. In the southern part of the region, the Aleut were a bit more settled, living in small fishing villages along the shore.
Did you know? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are about 4.5 million Native Americans and Alaska Natives in the United States today. That’s about 1.5 percent of the population.
The Inuit and Aleut had a great deal in common. Many lived in dome-shaped houses made of sod or timber (or, in the North, ice blocks). They used seal and otter skins to make warm, weatherproof clothing, aerodynamic dogsleds and long, open fishing boats (kayaks in Inuit; baidarkas in Aleut).
By the time the United States purchased Alaska in 1867, decades of oppression and exposure to European diseases had taken their toll: The native population had dropped to just 2,500; the descendants of these survivors still make their homes in the area today.
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Long before Christopher Columbus stepped foot on what would come to be known as the Americas, the expansive territory was inhabited by Native Americans. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, as more explorers sought to colonize their land, Native Americans responded in various stages, from cooperation to indignation to revolt. After siding with the French […]
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Native Americans dance during the grand entry of the 30th annual Morongo Thunder & Lightning Pow Wow at the Morongo Band of Mission Indians reservation in Cabazon on Saturday, September 25, 2021.
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The Subarctic
The Subarctic culture area, mostly composed of swampy, piney forests (taiga) and waterlogged tundra, stretched across much of inland Alaska and Canada. Scholars have divided the region’s people into two language groups: the Athabaskan speakers at its western end, among them the Tsattine (Beaver), Gwich’in (or Kuchin) and the Deg Xinag (formerly—and pejoratively—known as the Ingalik), and the Algonquian speakers at its eastern end, including the Cree, the Ojibwa and the Naskapi.
In the Subarctic, travel was difficult—toboggans, snowshoes and lightweight canoes were the primary means of transportation—and population was sparse. In general, the peoples of the Subarctic did not form large permanent settlements; instead, small family groups stuck together as they traipsed after herds of caribou. They lived in small, easy-to-move tents and lean-tos, and when it grew too cold to hunt they hunkered into underground dugouts.
The growth of the fur trade in the 17th and 18th centuries disrupted the Subarctic way of life—now, instead of hunting and gathering for subsistence, the Indians focused on supplying pelts to the European traders—and eventually led to the displacement and extermination of many of the region’s native communities.
The Northeast
Proclamation of 1763
The Northeast culture area, one of the first to have sustained contact with Europeans, stretched from present-day Canada’s Atlantic coast to North Carolina and inland to the Mississippi River valley. Its inhabitants were members of two main groups: Iroquoian speakers (these included the Cayuga, Oneida, Erie, Onondaga, Seneca and Tuscarora), most of whom lived along inland rivers and lakes in fortified, politically stable villages, and the more numerous Algonquian speakers (these included the Pequot, Fox, Shawnee, Wampanoag, Delaware and Menominee) who lived in small farming and fishing villages along the ocean. There, they grew crops like corn, beans and vegetables.
Life in the Northeast culture area was already fraught with conflict—the Iroquoian groups tended to be rather aggressive and warlike, and bands and villages outside of their allied confederacies were never safe from their raids—and it grew more complicated when European colonizers arrived. Colonial wars repeatedly forced the region’s Indigenous people to take sides, pitting the Iroquois groups against their Algonquian neighbors. Meanwhile, as white settlement pressed westward, it eventually displaced both sets of Indigenous people from their lands.
The Southeast
The Southeast culture area, north of the Gulf of Mexico and south of the Northeast, was a humid, fertile agricultural region. Many of its natives were expert farmers—they grew staple crops like maize, beans, squash, tobacco and sunflower—who organized their lives around small ceremonial and market villages known as hamlets. Perhaps the most familiar of the Southeastern Indigenous peoples are the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole, sometimes called the Five Civilized Tribes, some of whom spoke a variant of the Muskogean language.
By the time the U.S. had won its independence from Britain, the Southeast culture area had already lost many of its native people to disease and displacement. In 1830, the federal Indian Removal Act compelled the relocation of what remained of the Five Civilized Tribes so that white settlers could have their land. Between 1830 and 1838, federal officials forced nearly 100,000 Indigenous people out of the southern states and into “Indian Territory” (later Oklahoma) west of the Mississippi. The Cherokee called this frequently deadly trek the Trail of Tears.
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The Plains
The Plains culture area comprises the vast prairie region between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, from present-day Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Before the arrival of European traders and explorers, its inhabitants—speakers of Siouan, Algonquian, Caddoan, Uto-Aztecan and Athabaskan languages—were relatively settled hunters and farmers. After European contact, and especially after Spanish colonists brought horses to the region in the 18th century, the peoples of the Great Plains became much more nomadic.
Groups like the Crow, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Comanche and Arapaho used horses to pursue great herds of buffalo across the prairie. The most common dwelling for these hunters was the cone-shaped teepee, a bison-skin tent that could be folded up and carried anywhere. Plains Indians are also known for their elaborately feathered war bonnets.
As white traders and settlers moved west across the Plains region, they brought many damaging things with them: commercial goods, like knives and kettles, which Indigenous people came to depend on; guns; and disease. By the end of the 19th century, white sport hunters had nearly exterminated the area’s buffalo herds. With settlers encroaching on their lands and no way to make money, the Plains natives were forced onto government reservations.
The Southwest
The peoples of the Southwest culture area, a huge desert region in present-day Arizona and New Mexico (along with parts of Colorado, Utah, Texas and Mexico) developed two distinct ways of life.
Sedentary farmers such as the Hopi, the Zuni, the Yaqui and the Yuma grew crops like corn, beans and squash. Many lived in permanent settlements, known as pueblos, built of stone and adobe. These pueblos featured great multistory dwellings that resembled apartment houses. At their centers, many of these villages also had large ceremonial pit houses, or kivas.
Other Southwestern peoples, such as the Navajo and the Apache, were more nomadic. They survived by hunting, gathering and raiding their more established neighbors for their crops. Because these groups were always on the move, their homes were much less permanent than the pueblos. For instance, the Navajo fashioned their iconic eastward-facing round houses, known as hogans, out of materials like mud and bark.
By the time the southwestern territories became a part of the United States after the Mexican War, many of the region’s native people had already been killed. (Spanish colonists and missionaries had enslaved many of the Pueblo Indians, for example, working them to death on vast Spanish ranches known as encomiendas.) During the second half of the 19th century, the federal government resettled most of the region’s remaining natives onto reservations.
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Battle of the Little Bighorn
In 1876, General Custer and members of several Plains Indian tribes, including Crazy Horse and Chief Gall, battled in eastern Montana in what would become known as Custer’s Last Stand.
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A fall harvest of corn, pumpkins and squash.
7 Foods Developed by Native Americans
These dietary staples were cultivated over thousands of years by Indigenous peoples of America.
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The Five Nation Confederacy. Engraving from Pere Joseph Francois Lafitau, "Moeurs des sauvages ameriquains." Paris, 1724.
The Native American Government That Helped Inspire the US Constitution
The constitutional framers may have viewed Indigenous people of the Iroquois Confederacy as inferior, but that didn’t stop them from admiring their federalist principles.
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The Great Basin
The Great Basin culture area, an expansive bowl formed by the Rocky Mountains to the east, the Sierra Nevadas to the west, the Columbia Plateau to the north, and the Colorado Plateau to the south, was a barren wasteland of deserts, salt flats and brackish lakes. Its people, most of whom spoke Shoshonean or Uto-Aztecan dialects (the Bannock, Paiute and Ute, for example), foraged for roots, seeds and nuts and hunted snakes, lizards and small mammals. Because they were always on the move, they lived in compact, easy-to-build wikiups made of willow poles or saplings, leaves and brush. Their settlements and social groups were impermanent, and communal leadership (what little there was) was informal.
After European contact, some Great Basin groups got horses and formed equestrian hunting and raiding bands that were similar to the ones we associate with the Great Plains natives. After white prospectors discovered gold and silver in the region in the mid-19th century, most of the Great Basin’s people lost their land and, frequently, their lives.
California
Before European contact, the temperate California area had more people than any other North American landscape at the time, with approximately 300,000 people in the mid-16th century. It's estimated that 100 different tribes and groups spoke more than 200 dialects. These languages were derived from the Penutian (the Maidu, Miwok and Yokuts), the Hokan (the Chumash, Pomo, Salinas and Shasta), the Uto-Aztecan (the Tubabulabal, Serrano and Kinatemuk) and the Athapaskan (the Hupa, among others). Many of the “Mission Indians” who were driven out of the Southwest by Spanish colonization also spoke Uto-Aztecan dialects.
Despite this great diversity, many native Californians lived very similar lives. They did not practice much agriculture. Instead, they organized themselves into small, family-based bands of hunter-gatherers known as tribelets. Inter-tribelet relationships, based on well-established systems of trade and common rights, were generally peaceful.
Broken Treaties in Native American History: Timeline
Broken Treaties With Native American Tribes: Timeline
From 1778 to 1871, the United States signed some 368 treaties with various Indigenous people across the North American continent.
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Native Americans Used Fire to Protect and Cultivate Land
Native Americans Used Fire to Protect and Cultivate Land
Indigenous people routinely burned land to drive prey, clear underbrush and provide pastures.
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When Native Americans Briefly Won Back Their Land
A proclamation by King George III set the stage for Native American rights—and the eventual loss of most tribal lands.
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Spanish explorers infiltrated the California region in the middle of the 16th century. In 1769, the cleric Junipero Serra established a mission at San Diego, inaugurating a particularly brutal period in which forced labor, disease and assimilation nearly exterminated the culture area’s native population.
The Northwest Coast
The Northwest Coast culture area, along the Pacific coast from British Columbia to the top of Northern California, has a mild climate and an abundance of natural resources. In particular, the ocean and the region’s rivers provided almost everything its people needed—salmon, especially, but also whales, sea otters, seals and fish and shellfish of all kinds. As a result, unlike many other hunter-gatherers who struggled to eke out a living and were forced to follow animal herds from place to place, the Indians of the Pacific Northwest were secure enough to build permanent villages that housed hundreds of people apiece.
Those villages operated according to a rigidly stratified social structure, more sophisticated than any outside of Mexico and Central America. A person’s status was determined by his closeness to the village’s chief and reinforced by the number of possessions—blankets, shells and skins, canoes and even slaves—he had at his disposal. (Goods like these played an important role in the potlatch, an elaborate gift-giving ceremony designed to affirm these class divisions.)
Prominent groups in the region included the Athapaskan Haida and Tlingit; the Penutian Chinook, Tsimshian and Coos; the Wakashan Kwakiutl and Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka); and the Salishan Coast Salish.
The Plateau
The Plateau culture area sat in the Columbia and Fraser River basins at the intersection of the Subarctic, the Plains, the Great Basin, California and the Northwest Coast (present-day Idaho, Montana and eastern Oregon and Washington). Most of its people lived in small, peaceful villages along streams and riverbanks and survived by fishing for salmon and trout, hunting and gathering wild berries, roots and nuts.
In the southern Plateau region, the great majority spoke languages derived from the Penutian (the Klamath, Klikitat, Modoc, Nez Perce, Walla Walla and Yakima or Yakama). North of the Columbia River, most (the Skitswish (Coeur d’Alene), Salish (Flathead), Spokane and Columbia) spoke Salishan dialects.
In the 18th century, other native groups brought horses to the Plateau. The region’s inhabitants quickly integrated the animals into their economy, expanding the radius of their hunts and acting as traders and emissaries between the Northwest and the Plains.
In 1805, the explorers Lewis and Clark passed through the area, followed by increasing numbers of white settlers. By the end of the 19th century, most of the remaining members of Plateau tribes had been cleared from their lands and resettled in government reservations.