Native Americans in the United States

This article is about the people indigenous to the United States. For broader uses of "Native American" and related terms, see Native Americans.

Native Americans
and Alaska Natives

Total population
American Indian and Alaska Native One race: 2.5 million In combination with one or more other races: 1.6 million
Regions with significant populations
United States (predominantly the Midwest and West)
Languages
American English Native American languages
Religion
Native American Church Christianity Sacred Pipe Kiva Religion Long House
Related ethnic groups
Other Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which are still enduring as political communities. There is a wide range of terms used, and some controversy surrounding their use: they are variously known as American Indians, Indians, Amerindians, Amerinds, or Indigenous, Aboriginal or Original Americans.

Not all Native Americans come from the contiguous U.S. Some come from Alaska, Hawaii and other insular regions. These other indigenous peoples, including Alaskan Native groups such as the Inupiaq, Yupik Eskimos, and Aleuts, are not always counted as Native Americans, although Census 2000 demographics listed "American Indian and Alaskan Native" collectively. Native Hawaiians (also known as Kanaka Māoli and Kanaka ʻOiwi) and various other Pacific Islander American peoples, such as the Chamorros (Chamoru), can also be considered Native American, but it is not common to use such a designation.

European colonization

For information about Native Americans before European contact, see Indigenous peoples of the Americas.

Initial impacts

The European colonization of the Americas nearly obliterated the populations and cultures of the Native Americans. During the 16th through 19th centuries, their populations were ravaged by conflicts with European explorers and colonists, disease, displacement, enslavement, internal warfare as well as high rate of intermarriage. Scholars now believe that, among the various contributing factors, epidemic disease was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the American natives.

The first Native American group encountered by Christopher Columbus in 1492, were the Island Arawaks (more properly called the Taino) of Boriquen (Puerto Rico), the (Quisqueya) of the Dominican Republic, the Cubanacan (Cuba). It is said that of the 250 thousand to 1 million Island Arawaks, only about 500 survived by the year 1550, and the group was considered extinct before 1650. Yet DNA studies show that the genetic contribution of the Taino to that region continues, and the mitochondrial DNA studies of the Taino are said to show relationships to the Northern Indigenous Nations, such as Inuit (Eskimo) and others.

In the sixteenth century, Spaniards and other Europeans brought horses to the Americas. Some of these animals escaped and began to breed and increase their numbers in the wild. Ironically, the horse had originally evolved in the Americas, but the early American horse became game for the earliest humans and became extinct about 7,000 BC, just after the end of the last ice age. The re-introduction of the horse had a profound impact on Native American culture in the Great Plains of North America. As a new mode of travel the horse made it possible for some tribes to greatly expand their territories, exchange goods with neighboring tribes, and more easily capture game.

European settlers brought diseases against which the Native Americans had no natural immunity. Chicken pox and measles, though common and rarely fatal among Europeans, often proved deadly to Native Americans. Smallpox, always a terrible disease, proved particularly deadly to Native American populations. Epidemics often immediately followed European exploration, sometimes destroying entire villages. While precise figures are difficult to arrive at, some historians estimate that up to 80% of some Native populations died due to European diseases.

In 1617-1619 smallpox wiped out 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Indians. As it had done elsewhere, the virus wiped out entire population groups of Native Americans. It reached Lake Ontario in 1636, and the lands of the Iroquois by 1679, killing millions. During the 1770's, smallpox killed at least 30% of the West Coast Native Americans.

Early relations

Spanish explorers of the early 16th century were probably the first Europeans to interact with the native population of Florida. The first documented encounter of Europeans with Native Americans of the United States came with the first expedition of Juan Ponce de León to Florida in 1513, although he encountered at least one native that spoke Spanish. In 1521, he encountered the Calusa people during a failed colonization attempt in which they drove off the Europeans.

In 1526, Lucas Vásquez de Ayllón tried to found a colony in what is now South Carolina, but for multiple reasons it failed after only a year. The remaining slaves of the colony revolted and fled into the wilderness to live among the Cofitachiqui people.

The next encounter came with the members of the Narváez expedition from 1528–1536. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca wrote a detailed account of the failed expedition which includes descriptions of several Native American cultures he encountered from Florida, the northern Gulf Coast, Texas, possibly New Mexico and Arizona, and northern Mexico. He described the behavior, living situation, dress, and food of the people he encountered as he wandered from village to village.

An expedition in 1539 headed by Fray Marcos de Niza went in search of The Seven Cities of Gold. They were guided by another survivor of the Narváez expedition, Estevanico, who encountered the Zuni people in his wanderings. Following de Niza in search of the fabled cities was Francisco Vásquez de Coronado from 1540–1542. He had encounters with the Hopi and Zuni as well as several other native groups in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

Also in 1539, the Hernando De Soto expedition traveled through the Southern United States from 1539–1542. This expedition was responsible for introducing diseases into that region, and also resulted in several battles with various tribes. De Soto's expedition was almost lost in what is today Alabama when Chief Tuskaloosa of the Choctaw people, suspicious of de Soto's intentions, prepared an ambush. When one of the Spanish explorers attacked a Choctaw man, Tuskaloosa's warriors almost decimated the Spanish contingent. The expedition included a member of the failed Narváez expedition of 1528 named Juan Ortiz who lived among the Tocobaga people for twelve years before being rescued by de Soto.

In August 1570, a group of Spanish Jesuits landed on the Virginia Peninsula to create their Ajacan Mission. Their guide, a convert to Christianity named Don Luis, soon left them and rejoined his tribe. Around February of 1571, Don Luis returned with other natives, stole all their clothing and supplies, and killed all but a young servant boy. This disastrous attempt at establishing a mission in Virginia spelled the end of Spanish ventures to colonize the area. [7] [8]

Another encounter was the failed Roanoke Colony led by Sir Walter Raleigh of England beginning in 1584. At first, the local tribes on Roanoke Island bartered with the colonists, but this was during a time of a severe drought, and when the local tribes grew more reluctant to trade, relations deteriorated. Supplies from England were interrupted by a war with Spain, and they were gone when the supplies finally arrived after 3 years. The fate of the colonists has never been ascertained, leading to the 400 year mystery of the "Lost Colony". [9]

By 1578 there were about 350 European fishing vessels at Newfoundland and sailors began to trade metal implements (particularly knives) for the natives' well worn pelts. The French fur trade was undertaken by Francis Grave (a merchant) and Chauvin (a captain) in 1599 when they acquired a monopoly from Henry IV and their attempt to establish a colony at the mouth of the Saguenay River was a direct result of their desire to profit from trading native fur pelts for European goods.

Ninigret, chief of the Narragansett tribe, 1681.

England attempted again to colonize, in May of 1607 at Jamestown, Virginia, and in August 1607 with the Popham Colony in present-day Maine. The Popham Colony interacted with the Abeneki tribe, but failed to establish cooperation, and was abandoned after a year. Jamestown became the first permanent English settlement in the United States. However, it only survived with a great loss of life. Jamestown's breakdown in relations with the Paspahegh and Powhatan tribes resulted in the First Anglo–Powhatan War, which ended with the marriage of John Rolfe and Pocahontas, the youngest daughter of Chief Powhatan in 1614.

In 1610 a teenage Étienne Brûlé was sent by Samuel de Champlain to live with the Hurons for a year as a sort of 'exchange student'. Champlain, in turn, accepted the company of a Huron youth named Savignon who accompanied him back to France. The two cultures made a successful rendezvous the next year and the young men returned to their respective groups to report their experiences.

In 1620, a group of English settlers, including the Pilgrims, who were heading for the Hudson River, got blown off-course and anchored in Provincetown Harbor before they settled at present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts, instead, during a harsh winter. In the autumn of 1621, they celebrated a three-day thanksgiving feast with the native Wampanoag people, without whom they would not have survived the winter of 1620.

On March 22, 1622m about 347 people, or almost one-third of the English population of Jamestown colony, were killed by a coordinated series of surprise attacks of the Powhatan Confederacy under Chief Opechancanough. Opechancanough launched a campaign of surprise attacks upon at least thirty-one separate English settlements mostly along the James river.

The Great Migration continued into the 1630s and 40s, creating many settlements in New England and the Virginia colony. Dutch colonization activities proceeded in an overlapping Pequot War. Meanwhile, Spanish and French colonization were also proceeding on other areas of the continent. The French and Iroquois Wars erupted during the mid-17th century, fueled by the fur trade.

Some European settlers used Native American contacts to further their activities in the fur trade; others sold European technology to the natives, including firearms which fueled tribal wars. Peaceful coexistence was established in some times and places. For example, the careful diplomacy of William Pynchon facilitated the founding of what would become Springfield, Massachusetts in a desirable farming location close to the native Agawam settlement.

Struggles for economic and territorial dominance also continued to result in armed conflict. In some cases these latent conflicts resulted in escalating tensions, gradually followed by escalating multi-party violence. In other cases sudden, relatively unprovoked raids were conducted on native and colonial settlements, which might involve arson, massacre, or kidnapping for slavery.

Determining how many people died in these massacres overall is difficult. In the book The Wild Frontier: Atrocities during the American-Indian War from Jamestown Colony to Wounded Knee, amateur historian William M. Osborn sought to tally every recorded atrocity in the area that would eventually become the continental United States, from first contact (1511) to the closing of the frontier (1890), and determined that 9,156 people died from atrocities perpetrated by Native Americans, and 7,193 people died from atrocities perpetrated by Europeans. Osborn defines an atrocity as the murder, torture, or mutilation of civilians, the wounded, and prisoners.

Pre-existing rivalries among both the Native American tribes and confederacies and the European nations led groups from both continents to find war allies among the others against their traditional enemies. When transatlantic civilizations clashed, better technology (including firearms) and the epidemics decimating native populations gave Europeans a substantial military advantage.

In 1637, the Pequot War erupted in the Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies. Indian Wars in the English colonies would continue on and off into the American Revolution.

In the early 1680s, Philadelphia was established by William Penn in the Delaware Valley, which was home to the Lenni-Lenape nation. Chief Tamanend reputably took part in a peace treaty between the leaders of the Lenni-Lenape nation and the leaders of the Pennsylvania colony held under a large elm tree at Shakamaxon.

In the Spanish sphere, many of the Pueblo people harbored hostility toward the Spanish, primarily due to their denigration and prohibition of the traditional religion (the Spanish at the time being staunchly and aggressively Roman Catholic). The traditional economies of the pueblos were likewise disrupted when they were forced to labor on the encomiendas of the colonists. However, the Spanish had introduced new farming implements and provided some measure of security against Navajo and Apache raiding parties. As a result, they lived in relative peace with the Spanish following the founding of the Northern New Mexican colony in 1598. In the 1670s, however, drought swept the region, which not only caused famine among the Pueblo, but also provoked increased attacks from neighboring hunter-gatherer tribes — attacks against which Spanish soldiers were unable to defend. Unsatisfied with the protective powers of the Spanish crown, the Pueblo revolted in 1680. In 1692, Spanish control was reasserted, but under much more lenient terms.

At the same time, European-introduced diseases were ravaging the natives, greatly decreasing their numbers. It has also been alleged that the introduction of these diseases was exacerbated when soldiers handed out infected blankets. During the Siege of Fort Pitt late in the French and Indian War (1756-1763), British General Jeffery Amherst wrote in a letter to Colonel Henry Bouquet on July 17, 1763, "You will Do well to try to Inoculate the Indians, by means of Blankets, as well as to Try Every other Method, that can Serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race. — I should be very glad [if] your Scheme for Hunting them down by Dogs could take Effect; but England is at too great a Distance to think that at present." Prior correspondence between Amherst and Bouquet also discussed the use of smallpox-infected blankets. Fort Pitt trader William Trent had already given two smallpox-infected blankets to Delaware Indians, apparently without Amherst's knowledge, but likely with the knowledge of the Fort Pitt commander Captain Simeon Ecuyer.

Historians have been unable to establish whether or not this plan was implemented, particularly in light of the fact that smallpox was already present in the region. Despite the lack of historical evidence, the claim that British and American soldiers used germ warfare against North American tribes has remained fairly strong in certain oral traditions and in popular culture. A smallpox epidemic in fact did devastate the Delawares, but it is impossible to know if they were infected by the blankets or through exposure to English soldiers infected with the disease.

Relations during and after the American Revolutionary War

A section of Benjamin West's The Death of General Wolfe; West's depiction of this Native American has been considered an idealization in the tradition of the "Noble savage" (Fryd, 75)

During the American Revolutionary War, the newly proclaimed United States competed with the British for the allegiance of Native American nations east of the Mississippi River. Most Native Americans who joined the struggle sided with the British, hoping to use the war to halt further colonial expansion onto Native American land. Many native communities were divided over which side to support in the war. For the Iroquois Confederacy, the American Revolution resulted in civil war. Cherokees split into a neutral (or pro-American) faction and the anti-American Chickamaugas, led by Dragging Canoe.

Frontier warfare during the American Revolution was particularly brutal, and numerous atrocities were committed by settlers and native tribes. Noncombatants suffered greatly during the war, and villages and food supplies were frequently destroyed during military expeditions. The largest of these expeditions was the Sullivan Expedition of 1779, which destroyed more than 40 Iroquois villages in order to neutralize Iroquois raids in upstate New York. The expedition failed to have the desired effect: Native American activity became even more determined.

The British made peace with the Americans in the Treaty of Paris (1783), and had ceded a vast amount of Native American territory to the United States without informing the Native Americans. The United States initially treated the Native Americans who had fought with the British as a conquered people who had lost their land. When this proved impossible to enforce, the policy was abandoned. The United States was eager to expand, and the national government initially sought to do so only by purchasing Native American land in treaties. The states and settlers were frequently at odds with this policy.

Removal and reservations

Shoshoni tipis, circa 1900.

See also: List of Indian reservations in the United States

In the nineteenth 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. Under President Andrew Jackson, 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 eventually relocated in 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), but in practice great pressure was put on Native American leaders to sign removal treaties. Arguably the most egregious violation of the stated intention of the removal policy was the Treaty of New Echota, which was signed by a dissident faction of Cherokees, but not the elected leadership. The treaty was brutally enforced by President Andrew Jackson, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated four thousand Cherokees on the Trail of Tears.

The explicit policy of Indian Removal forced or coerced the relocation of major Native American groups in both the Southeast and the Northeast United States, resulting directly and indirectly in the deaths of tens of thousands. The subsequent process of assimilations was no less devastating to Native American peoples. Tribes were generally located to reservations on which they could more easily be separated from traditional life and pushed into European-American society. Some Southern states additionally enacted laws in the 19th century forbidding non-Indian settlement on Indian lands, intending to prevent sympathetic white missionaries from aiding the scattered Indian resistance.

At one point, President Jackson told people to kill as many bison as possible in order to cut out the Plains Indian's main source of food. Later in time there were fewer than 500 bison left in the Great Plains.

Conflicts, generally known as "Indian Wars", broke out between U.S. forces and many different tribes. U.S. government authorities entered numerous treaties during this period, but later abrogated many for various reasons. Well-known military engagements include the Native American victory at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876 and the massacre of Native Americans at Wounded Knee in 1890. This, together with the near-extinction of the American Bison that many tribes had lived on, set about the downturn of Prairie Culture that had developed around the use of the horse for hunting, travel and trading.

Students at the Bismarck Indian School in the early twentieth century.

American policy toward Native Americans has been an evolving process. In the late nineteenth century, reformers, in efforts to "civilize" or otherwise assimilate Indians (as opposed to relegating them to reservations), adapted the practice of educating native children in Indian Boarding Schools. These schools, which were primarily run by Christian missionaries, often proved traumatic to Native American children, who were forbidden to speak their native languages, taught Christianity instead of their native religions and in numerous other ways forced to abandon their various Native American identities and adopt European-American culture. There are also many documented cases of sexual, physical and mental abuses occurring at these schools.

The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 gave United States citizenship to Native Americans, in part because of an interest by many to see them merged with the American mainstream, and also because of the heroic service of many Native American veterans in World War I.

Current status

There are 561 federally recognized tribal governments in the United States. These tribes possess the right to form their own government, to enforce laws (both civil and criminal), to tax, to establish 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).

According to 2003 United States Census Bureau estimates, a little over one third of the 2,786,652 Native Americans in the United States live in three states: California at 413,382, Arizona at 294,137 and Oklahoma at 279,559.

As of 2000, the largest tribes in the U.S. by population were Navajo, Cherokee, Choctaw, Sioux, Chippewa, Apache, Lumbee, Blackfeet, Iroquois, and Pueblo. In 2000, eight of ten Americans with Native American ancestry were of mixed blood. It is estimated that by 2100 that figure will rise to nine out of ten. 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.

Some tribal nations have been unable to establish their heritage and obtain federal recognition. The Muwekma Ohlone of the San Francisco bay area are pursuing litigation in the federal court system to establish recognition. Many of the smaller eastern tribes have been trying to gain official recognition of their tribal status. The 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 recognition as a tribe is extremely difficult; to be established as a tribal group, members have to submit extensive genealogical proof of tribal descent.

Military defeat, cultural pressure, confinement on reservations, forced cultural assimilation, outlawing of native languages and culture, termination policies of the 1950s and 1960s and earlier, slavery, and poverty have had deleterious effects on Native Americans' mental and physical health. Contemporary health problems suffered disproportionately include alcoholism, heart disease, diabetes, and suicide.

As recently as the 1970s, the Bureau of Indian Affairs was still actively pursuing a policy of "assimilation", dating at least to the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924. The goal of assimilation — plainly stated early on — was to eliminate the reservations and steer Native Americans into mainstream U.S. culture. In July 2000 the Washington state Republican Party adopted a resolution of termination for tribal governments. As of 2004, there are still claims of theft of Native American land for the coal and uranium it contains.

In the state of Virginia, Native Americans face a unique problem. Virginia has no federally recognized tribes, largely due to Walter Ashby Plecker. In 1912, Plecker became the first registrar of the state's Bureau of Vital Statistics, serving until 1946. Plecker believed that the state's Native Americans had been "mongrelized" with its African American population. A law passed by the state's General Assembly recognized only two races, "white" and "colored". Plecker pressured local governments into reclassifying all Native Americans in the state as "colored", leading to the destruction of records on the state's Native American community.

Maryland also has a non-recognized tribal nation — the Piscataway Indian Nation.

This Census Bureau map depicts the locations of Native Americans in the United States as of 2000.

In order to receive federal recognition and the benefits it confers, tribes must prove their continuous existence since 1900. The federal government has so far refused to bend on this bureaucratic requirement. A bill currently before U.S. Congress to ease this requirement has been favorably reported out of a key Senate committee, being supported by both of Virginia's senators, George Allen and John Warner, but faces opposition in the House from Representative Virgil Goode, who has expressed concerns that federal recognition could open the door to gambling in the state.

In the early 21st century, Native American communities remain an enduring fixture on the United States landscape, in the American economy, and in the lives of Native Americans. Communities have consistently formed governments that administer services like firefighting, natural resource management, and law enforcement. Most Native American communities have established court systems to adjudicate matters related to local ordinances, and most also look to various forms of moral and social authority vested in traditional affiliations within the community. To address the housing needs of Native Americans, Congress passed the Native American Housing and Self Determination Act (NAHASDA) in 1996. This legislation replaced public housing, and other 1937 Housing Act programs directed towards Indian Housing Authorities, with a block grant program directed towards Tribes.

Gambling has become a leading industry. Casinos operated by many Native American governments in the United States are creating a stream of gambling revenue that some communities are beginning to use as leverage to build diversified economies. Native American communities have waged and prevailed in legal battles to assure recognition of rights to self-determination and to use of natural resources. Some of those rights, known as treaty rights are enumerated in early treaties signed with the young United States government. Tribal sovereignty has become a cornerstone of American jurisprudence, and at least on the surface, in national legislative policies. Although many Native American tribes have casinos, they are a source of conflict. Most tribes, especially small ones such as the Winnemem Wintu of Redding, California, feel that casinos and their proceeds destroy culture from the inside out. These tribes refuse to participate in the gaming industry.

On May 19, 2005, the Massachusetts legislature finally repealed a disused 330 year-old law that barred Native Americans from entering Boston.

In August 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) banned the use of "hostile and abusive" Native American mascots from postseason tournaments. The use of Native American themed team names in U.S. professional sports is widespread and often controversial, with examples such as Chief Wahoo of the Cleveland Indians and the Washington Redskins.

Conflicts between the federal government and native Americans occasionally erupt into violence. Perhaps one of the more noteworthy incidents in recent history is the Wounded Knee incident in small town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota. On February 27, 1973, the town was surrounded by federal law enforcement officials and the United States military. The town itself was under the control of members of the American Indian Movement which was protesting a variety of issues important to the organization. Two members of AIM were killed and one United States Marshal was paralyzed as a result of gunshot wounds. In the aftermath of the conflict, one man, Leonard Peltier was arrested and sentenced to life in prison while another, John Graham, as late as 2007, was extradited to the U.S. to stand trial for killing a Native American woman, months after the standoff, that he believed to be an FBI informant.

Blood Quanta

See also: Blood quantum laws

Intertribal and interracial mixing was common among Native American tribes making it difficult to clearly identify which tribe an individual belonged to. Bands or entire tribes occasionally split or merged to form more viable groups in reaction to the pressures of climate, disease and warfare. A number of tribes practiced the adoption of captives into their group to replace their members who had been captured or killed in battle. These captives came from rival tribes and later from European settlers. Some tribes also sheltered or adopted white traders and runaway slaves and Native American-owned slaves. So a number of paths to genetic mixing existed.

In later years, such mixing, however, proved an obstacle to qualifying for recognition and assistance from the U.S. federal government or for tribal money and services. To receive such support, Native Americans must belong to and be certified by a recognized tribal entity. This has taken a number of different forms as each tribal government makes its own rules while the federal government has its own set of standards. In many cases, qualification is based upon the percentage of Native American blood, or the "blood quanta" identified in an individual seeking recognition. To attain such certainty, some tribes have begun requiring genetic genealogy (DNA testing). Requirements for tribal certification vary widely. The Cherokee require only a descent from an Native American listed on the early 20th century Dawes Rolls while federal scholarships require enrollment in a federally recognized tribe as well as a Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood card showing at least a one-quarter Native American descent. Tribal rules regarding recognition of members with Native American blood from multiple tribes are equally diverse and complex.

Tribal membership conflicts have led to a number of activist groups, legal disputes and court cases. One example are the Cherokee freedmen, who were descendants of slaves once owned by the Cherokees. The Cherokees had allied with the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War and, after the war, were forced by the federal government, in an 1866 treaty, to free their slaves and make them citizens. They were later disallowed as tribe members due to their not having "Indian blood". However, in March 2006, the Judicial Appeals Tribunal — the Cherokee Nation's highest court — ruled that Cherokee freedmen are full citizens of the Cherokee Nation. The court declared that the Cherokee freedmen retain citizenship, voting rights and other privileges despite attempts to keep them off the tribal rolls for not having identifiable "Indian" blood. In March 2007 the Freedmen were voted out of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma.

In the 20th century, among white ethnic groups, it became popular to claim descent from an "American Indian princess", often a Cherokee. The prototypical "American Indian princess" was Pocahontas, and, in fact, descent from her is a frequent claim. However, the American Indian "princess" is a false concept, derived from the application of European concepts to Native Americans, as also seen in the naming of war chiefs as "kings". Descent from "Indian braves" is also sometimes claimed.

This descent from Native Americans was seen as fashionable not only among whites claiming prestigious colonial descent but also among whites seeking to claim connection to groups with distinct folkways that would differentiate them from the mass culture. Large influxes of recent immigrants with unique social customs may have been partially an object of envy. Among African-Americans, the desire to be un-black was sometimes expressed in claims of Native American descent. Those passing as white might use the slightly more acceptable Native American ancestry to explain inconvenient details of their heritage.

Cultural aspects

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 hunter-gatherer tribes made stone weapons from around 10,000 years ago; as the age of metallurgy dawned, newer technologies were used and more efficient weapons produced. Prior to contact with Europeans, most tribes used similar weaponry. The most common implement were the bow and arrow, the war club, and the spear. Quality, material, and design varied widely.

Large mammals like mammoths and mastodons were largely extinct by around 8,000 B.C., and the Native Americans switched to hunting other large game, such as bison. The Great Plains tribes were still hunting the bison when they first encountered the Europeans. The acquisition of the horse and horsemanship from the Spanish in the 17th century greatly altered the natives' culture, changing the way in which these large creatures were hunted and making them a central feature of their lives.

Organization

Gens structure

Before the formation of tribal structure, a structure dominated by gentes existed.

• The right of electing its sachem and chiefs.
• The right of deposing its sachem and chiefs.
• The obligation not to marry in the gens.
• Mutual rights of inheritance of the property of deceased members.
• Reciprocal obligations of help, defense, and redress of injuries.
• The right of bestowing names upon its members.
• The right of adopting strangers into the gens.
• Common religious rights, query.
• A common burial place.
• A council of the gens.

Tribal structure

Subdivision and differentiation took place between various groups. Upwards of forty stock languages developed in North America, with each independent tribe speaking a dialect of one of those languages. Some functions and attributes of tribes are:

• The possession of a territory and a name.
• The exclusive possession of a dialect.
• The right to invest sachems and chiefs elected by the gentes.
• The right to depose these sachems and chiefs.
• The possession of a religious faith and worship.
• A supreme government consisting of a council of chiefs.
• A head-chief of the tribe in some instances.

Society and art

Panoramic view of California Indians in 1916.

See also: petroglyph, pictogram, and petroform

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.

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. 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 high-quality pottery and formalized pictorial arts.

Navajo spirituality focused on the maintenance of a harmonious relationship with the spirit world, often achieved by ceremonial acts, usually incorporating sandpainting. The colors—made from sand, charcoal, cornmeal, and pollen—depicted specific spirits. These vivid, intricate, and colorful sand creations were erased at the end of the ceremony.

Religion

The most widespread religion at the present time 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. 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).

Native Americans are the only known ethnic group in the United States requiring a federal permit to practice their religion. 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. Native Americans and non-Native Americans frequently contest the value and validity of the eagle feather law, charging that the law is laden with discriminatory racial preferences and infringes on tribal sovereignty. The law does not allow Native Americans to give eagle feathers to non-Native Americans, a common modern and traditional practice. Many non-Native Americans have been adopted into Native American families, made tribal members and given eagle feathers.

Many Native Americans would describe their religious practices as a form of spirituality, rather than religion, although in practice the terms may sometimes be used interchangeably.

Native Americans and African American slaves

There were historical treaties between the European Colonists and the Native American tribes requesting the return of any runaway slaves. For example, in 1726, the British Governor of New York exacted a promise from the Iroquois to return all runaway slaves who had joined up with them. This same promise was extracted from the Huron Natives in 1764 and from the Delaware Natives in 1765. There are also numerous accounts of advertisements requesting the return of African Americans who had married Native Americans or who spoke a Native American language. Individuals in some tribes owned African slaves; however, other tribes incorporated African Americans, slave or freemen, into the tribe. This custom among the Seminoles was part of the reason for the Seminole Wars where the European Americans feared their slaves fleeing to the Natives. The Cherokee Freedmen and tribes such as the Lumbee in North Carolina include African American ancestors.

After 1800, the Cherokees and some other tribes started buying and using black slaves, a practice they continued after being relocated to Indian Territory in the 1830s. The nature of slavery in Cherokee society often mirrored that of white slave-owning society. The law barred intermarriage of Cherokees and blacks, whether slave or free. Blacks who aided slaves were punished with one hundred lashes on the back. In Cherokee society, blacks were barred from holding office, bearing arms, and owning property, and it was illegal to teach blacks to read and write.

Gender roles

Most Native American tribes had traditional gender roles. In some tribes, such as the Iroquois nation, social and clan relationships were matrilinear and/or matriarchal, although several different systems were in use. One example is the Cherokee custom of wives owning the family property. Men hunted, traded and made war, while women cared for the young and the elderly, fashioned clothing and instruments and cured meat. The cradle board was used by mothers to carry their baby while working or traveling. However, in some (but not all) tribes a kind of transgender was permitted; see Two-Spirit.

At least several dozen tribes allowed polygyny to sisters, with procedural and economic limits.

Apart from making home, women had many tasks that were essential for the survival of the tribes. They made weapons and tools, took care of the roofs of their homes and often helped their men hunt buffalos. In some of the Plains Indian tribes there reportedly were medicine women who gathered herbs and cured the ill.

In some of these tribes girls were also encouraged to learn to ride and fight. Though fighting was mostly left to the boys and men, there had been cases of women fighting alongside them, especially when the existence of the tribe was threatened.

Music and art

Main article: Native American music

Mystic River Singers performing at a pow wow in 1998.

Native American music is almost entirely monophonic, but there are notable exceptions. Traditional Native American music often includes drumming and/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 these flutes is not precise and depends on the length of the wood used and the hand span of the intended player, but the finger holes are most often around a whole step apart and, at least in Northern California, a flute was not used if it turned out to have an interval close to a half step.

Performers with Native American parentage have occasionally appeared in American popular music, such as Rita Coolidge, Wayne Newton, Gene Clark, Tori Amos and Redbone (band). Some, such as John Trudell have used music to comment on life in Native America, and others, such as R. Carlos Nakai integrate traditional sounds with modern sounds in instrumental recordings. 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.

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.

Ancient art, such as this engraved stone plate from Mississippi, often exhibited a sophisticated and well-developed style.

Native American art comprises a major category in the world art collection. Native American contributions include pottery, paintings, jewelry, weavings, sculptures, basketry, and carvings.

Hopi man weaving on traditional loom.

Artists have at times misrepresented themselves as having native parentage, most notably Johnny Cash, who traced his heritage to Scottish ancestors and admitted he fabricated a story that he was one-quarter Cherokee. The integrity of certain Native American artworks is now protected by an act of Congress that prohibits representation of art as Native American when it is not the product of an enrolled Native American artist.

Traditional economy

The Inuit, or Eskimo, prepared and buried large amounts of dried meat and fish. Pacific Northwest tribes crafted seafaring dugouts 40–50 feet long for fishing. Farmers in the Eastern Woodlands tended fields of maize with hoes and digging sticks, while their neighbors in the Southeast grew tobacco as well as food crops. On the Plains, some tribes engaged in agriculture but also planned buffalo hunts in which herds were efficiently driven over bluffs. Dwellers of the Southwest deserts hunted small animals and gathered acorns to grind into flour with which they baked wafer-thin bread on top of heated stones. Some groups on the region's mesas developed irrigation techniques, and filled storehouses with grain as protection against the area's frequent droughts.

As these native peoples encountered European explorers and settlers and engaged in trade, they exchanged food, crafts, and furs for trinkets, blankets, iron, and steel implements, horses, firearms, and alcoholic beverages.

Depictions by Europeans and Americans

Native Americans have been depicted by American artists in various ways at different historical periods. During the period when America was first being colonized, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the artist John White made watercolors and engravings of the people native to the southeastern states. John White’s images were, for the most part, faithful likenesses of the people he observed. Later the artist Theodore de Bry used White’s original watercolors to make a book of engravings entitled, A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia. In his book, de Bry often altered the poses and features of White’s figures to make them appear more European, probably in order to make his book more marketable to a European audience. During the period that White and de Bry were working, when Europeans were first coming into contact with native Americans, there was a large interest and curiosity in native American cultures by Europeans, which would have created the demand for a book like de Bry’s.

Several centuries later, during the reconstruction of the Capitol building in the early nineteenth century, the U.S. government commissioned a series of four relief panels to crown the doorway of the Rotunda. The reliefs encapsulate a vision of European--Native American relations that had assumed mythicohistorical proportions by the nineteenth century. The four panels depict: The Preservation of Captain Smith by Pocahontas (1825) by Antonio Capellano, The Landing of the Pilgrims (1825) and The Conflict of Daniel Boone and the Indians (1826-27) by Enrico Causici, and William Penn’s Treaty with the Indians (1827) by Nicholas Gevelot. The reliefs present idealized versions of the Europeans and the native Americans, in which the Europeans appear refined and gentile, and the natives appear ferocious and savage. The Whig representative of Virginia, Henry A. Wise, voiced a particularly astute summary of how Native Americans would read the messages contained in all four reliefs: “We give you corn, you cheat us of our lands: we save your life, you take ours.”

While many nineteenth century images of native Americans conveyed similarly negative messages, there were artists, such as Charles Bird King, who sought to express a more positive image of the native Americans as noble savages.

Terminology differences

Further information: [[:Native American name controversy]]

When Christopher Columbus arrived in the "New World", he described the people he encountered as Indians because he mistakenly believed that he had reached the Indies, the original destination of his voyage. The name Indian (or American Indian) stuck, and for centuries the people who first came to the Americas were collectively called Indians in America, and similar terms in Europe. The problem with this traditional term is that the peoples of India are also known as Indians. The term Red Man was common among the early settlers of New England because the northeastern tribes colored their bodies with red pigments, but later this term became a pejorative and insulting epithet during the western push into America, with the corruption redskin becoming its most virulent form. A usage in British English was to refer to natives of North America as 'Red Indians', though now old fashioned, it is still widely used.

Common usage in the United States

The term Native American was originally introduced in the United States by anthropologists as a more accurate term for the indigenous people of the Americas, as distinguished from the people of India. Because of the widespread acceptance of this newer term in and outside of academic circles, some people believe that Indians is outdated or offensive. People from India (and their descendants) who are citizens of the United States are known as Indian Americans.

Criticism of the neologism Native American, however, comes from diverse sources. Some American Indians have misgivings about the term Native American. Russell Means, a famous American Indian activist, opposes the term Native American because he believes it was imposed by the government without the consent of American Indians. Furthermore, some American Indians question the term Native American because, they argue, it serves to ease the conscience of "white America" with regard to past injustices done to American Indians by effectively eliminating "Indians" from the present. Still others (both Indians and non-Indians) argue that Native American is problematic because "native of" literally means "born in," so any person born in the Americas could be considered "native". However, very often the compound "Native American" will be capitalized in order to differentiate this intended meaning from others. Likewise, "native" (small 'n') can be further qualified by formulations such as "native-born" when the intended meaning is only to indicate place of birth or origin.

A 1996 survey revealed that more American Indians in the United States still preferred American Indian to Native American. Nonetheless, most American Indians are comfortable with Indian, American Indian, and Native American, and the terms are now used interchangeably. The continued usage of the traditional term is reflected in the name chosen for the National Museum of the American Indian, which opened in 2004 in Washington, D.C..

Recently, the U.S. Census introduced the "Asian Indian" category to more accurately sample the Indian American population.

State percentages

As of 2005 Census estimates, 1.0 percent of the US population is of American Indian and Alaska Native descent. This population is unevenly distributed across the country, with Alaska and New Mexico boasting double digit native populations while in five states they constitute only 0.2% of the population.

Alaska 16%

New Mexico 10.2%

South Dakota 8.8%

Oklahoma 8.1%

Montana 6.5%

North Dakota 5.3%

Arizona 5.1%

Wyoming 2.7%

Washington 1.7%

Idaho 1.4%

Nevada 1.4%

Oregon 1.4%

Utah 1.3%

North Carolina 1.3%

Minnesota 1.2%

California 1.2%

Colorado 1.1%

Wisconsin 0.9%

Kansas 0.9%

Nebraska 0.9%

Texas 0.7%

Arkansas 0.7%

Maine 0.6%

Rhode Island 0.6%

Michigan 0.6%

Louisiana 0.6%

New York 0.5%

Alabama 0.5%

Vermont 0.4%

South Carolina 0.4%

Missouri 0.4%

Mississippi 0.4%

Delaware 0.4%

Florida 0.4%

Virginia 0.3%

District of Columbia 0.3%

Connecticut 0.3%

New Jersey 0.3%

Maryland 0.3%

Iowa 0.3%

Massachusetts 0.3%

Indiana 0.3%

Tennessee 0.3%

Illinois 0.3%

Hawaii 0.3% Native Hawaiian 9%

Georgia 0.3%

Kentucky 0.2%

New Hampshire 0.2%

Ohio 0.2%

Pennsylvania 0.2%

West Virginia 0.2%

See also

• African and Native American interaction
• Alaska Natives
• American Indian College Fund
• American Indians in Children's Literature
• Classification of Native Americans (list of tribes by cultural area)
• Company/product names derived from Indigenous peoples
• Eagle feather law
• European Contact
• First Nations
• Fur trade (historical treatment)
• Genocide reference by L. Frank Baum
• Indian Campaign Medal
• Indian Massacres
• Indian old field
• Indian Removal
• Indian Reorganization Act
• Indian Territory
• Indigenous peoples of the Americas
• List of English words from indigenous languages of the Americas
• List of Indian reservations in the United States
• Lists of Native Americans
• List of pre-Columbian civilizations
• List of writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas
• Medicine man
• Medicine wheel
• NAFPS
• National Museum of the American Indian
• Native American Church
• Native American gambling enterprises
• Native American languages
• Native American mascot controversy
• Native American mythology
• Native American name controversy
• Native American pottery
• Native Americans and World War II
• Petrosomatoglyph
• Population history of American indigenous peoples
• Pre-Columbian Africa-Americas contact theories
• Residential school
• Sports team names/mascots derived from Indigenous peoples
• Trail of Tears
• Treaties of the United States (includes Native American treaties)
• Two-Spirit

Bibliography

• Adams, David Wallace. Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience 1875–1928, University Press of Kansas, 1975. ISBN 0-7006-0735-8 (hbk); ISBN 0-7006-0838-9 (pbk).
• Bierhorst, John. A Cry from the Earth: Music of North American Indians. ISBN 0-941270-53-X.
• Deloria, Vine. 1969. Custer Died for Your Sins: an Indian Manifesto. New York: Macmillan.
• Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (e-CFR), Title 50: Wildlife and Fisheries PART 22—EAGLE PERMITS [10]
• Hirschfelder, Arlene B.; Byler, Mary G.; & Dorris, Michael. Guide to research on North American Indians. American Library Association (1983). ISBN 0-8389-0353-3.
• Jones, Peter N. Respect for the Ancestors: American Indian Cultural Affiliation in the American West. Boulder, CO: Bauu Press (2005). ISBN 0-9721349-2-1.
• Nichols, Roger L. Indians in the United States & Canada, A Comparative History. University of Nebraska Press (1998). ISBN 0-8032-8377-6.
• Pohl, Frances K. Framing America. A Social History of American Art. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2002 (pages 54-56 & 105-106 & 110-111)
• Kathryn Winona Shanley The Paradox of Native American Indian Intellectualism and Literature MELUS, Vol. 29, 2004
• Kathryn Winona Shanley The Indians America Loves to Love and Read: American Indian Identity and Cultural Appropriation American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Autumn, 1997), pp. 675-702 doi:10.2307/1185719
• The Ecological Indian: Myth and History / Shepard Krech. - W.W. Norton, 1999. - 352 p. - ISBN 0393047555
• Sletcher, Michael, ‘North American Indians’, in Will Kaufman and Heidi Macpherson, eds., Britain and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History, (2 vols., Oxford, 2005).
• Snipp, C.M. (1989). American Indians: The first of this land. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
• Sturtevant, William C. (Ed.). (1978–present). Handbook of North American Indians (Vol. 1–20). Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution. (Vols. 1–3, 16, 18–20 not yet published).
• Tiller, Veronica E. (Ed.). Discover Indian Reservations USA: A Visitors' Welcome Guide. Foreword by Ben Nighthorse Campbell. Council Publications, Denver, Colorado (1992). ISBN 0-9632580-0-1. yo

External links

• Houghton Mifflin Encyclopedia of North American Indians
• Comanche Lodge - American Indian History And Genealogy
• American Indian History and Related Issues
• Indian Days of the Long Ago By Thomas L. M’Kenney and James Hall. Publisher: Philadelphia: E.C. Biddle, etc., 1836-44. (searchable facsimile at the University of Georgia Libraries; DjVu & layered PDF)
• Bonneville Collection of 19th century photographs of Native Americans at University of South Carolina Library's Digital Collections Page

University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections

• American Indians of the Pacific Northwest
• McKenney and Hall Tribes of North America
• American Indian Inventions By P. F. Ceaton. Publisher: SterlingHouse Publisher, Inc. ISBN 1-58501-038-3
• First Nations Seeker: Visit Native American communities across North America