Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Painting of various ethnic groups from the Americas, early 20th century.

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of the Americas, their descendants, and many ethnic groups who identify with those peoples. They are often also referred to as Native Americans, First Nations and by Christopher Columbus' historical mistake Indians, modernly disambiguated as the American Indian race, American Indians, Amerindians, Amerinds, or Red Indians.

According to the still-debated New World migration model, a migration of humans from Eurasia to the Americas took place via Beringia, a land bridge which formerly connected the two continents across what is now the Bering Strait. The most recent point at which this migration could have taken place is c. 12,000 years ago, with the earliest period remaining a matter of some unresolved contention.^[1] These early Paleoamericans soon spread throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes.^[2] According to the oral histories of many of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, they have been living there since their genesis, described by a wide range of traditional creation accounts.

Application of the term "Indian" originated with Christopher Columbus, who thought that he had arrived in the East Indies, while seeking India. This has served to imagine a kind of racial or cultural unity for the aboriginal peoples of the Americas. Once created, the unified "Indian" was codified in law, religion, and politics. The unitary idea of "Indians" was not originally shared by indigenous peoples, but many now embrace the identity.

While some indigenous peoples of the Americas were historically hunter-gatherers, many practiced aquaculture and agriculture. The impact of their agricultural endowment to the world is a testament to their time and work in reshaping, taming, and cultivating the flora indigenous to the Americas.^[3] Some societies depended heavily on agriculture while others practiced a mix of farming, hunting, and gathering. In some regions the indigenous peoples created monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, chiefdoms, states, and massive empires.

Many parts of the Americas are still populated by indigenous Americans, some countries with sizeable populations are Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, Mexico, Brazil, Guatemala, Colombia, and Ecuador. At least a thousand different indigenous languages are spoken in the Americas and some like Quechua, Guaraní, Mayan languages, and Nahuatl count their speakers in millions. Most indigenous peoples have largely adopted the lifestyle of the western world, but many also maintain aspects of indigenous cultural practices to varying degrees, including religion, social organization and subsistence practices. Some indigenous peoples still live in relative isolation from Europeanized society, and a few are still counted as uncontacted peoples.

History

See also: Archaeology of the Americas and Models of migration to the New World

Original migrations to the Americas

See also: Models of migration to the New World, Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Solutrean hypothesis, Kennewick Man, and Pre-Siberian American Aborigines

Language families of North American indigenous peoples

Scholars who follow the Bering Strait theory agree that most indigenous peoples of the Americas descended from people who probably migrated from Siberia across the Bering Strait, anywhere between 9,000 and 50,000 years ago. The time frame and exact routes are still matters of debate, and the model faces continuous challenges. A 2006 study (to be published in Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology) reports new DNA-based research that links DNA retrieved from a 10,000-year-old fossilized tooth from an Alaskan island, with specific coastal tribes in Tierra del Fuego, Ecuador, Mexico, and California.^[4] Unique DNA markers found in the fossilized tooth were found only in these specific coastal tribes, and were not comparable to markers found in any other indigenous peoples in the Americas. This finding lends substantial credence to a migration theory that at least one set of early peoples moved south along the west coast of the Americas in boats. However, these results may be ambiguous, as there are other issues with DNA research and biological and cultural affiliation as outlined in Peter N. Jones' book Respect for the Ancestors: Cultural Affiliation and Cultural Continuity in the American West.

One result of these waves of migration is that large groups of peoples with similar languages and perhaps physical characteristics as well, moved into various geographic areas of North, and then Central and South America. While these peoples have traditionally remained primarily loyal to their individual tribes, ethnologists have variously sought to group the myriad of tribes into larger entities which reflect common geographic origins, linguistic similarities, and lifestyles.^[5]

Remnants of a human settlement in Monte Verde, Chile dated to 12,500 years B.P. (another layer at Monteverde has been tentatively dated to 33,000–35,000 years B.P.) suggests that southern Chile was settled by peoples who entered the Americas before the peoples associated with the Bering Strait migrations. It is suggested that a coastal route via canoes could have allowed rapid migration into the Americas.

The traditional view of a relatively recent migration has also been challenged by older findings of human remains in South America; some dating to perhaps even 30,000 years old or more. Some recent finds (notably the Luzia Woman in Lagoa Santa, Brazil) are claimed to be morphologically distinct from most Asians and are more similar to Africans, Melanesians and Australian Aborigines. These American Aborigines would have been later displaced or absorbed by the Siberian immigrants. The distinctive Fuegian natives of Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of the American continent, are speculated to be partial remnants of those Aboriginal populations. These early immigrants would have either crossed the ocean by boat or traveled north along the Asian coast and entered America through the Northwest, well before the Siberian waves. This theory is presently viewed by many scholars as conjecture, as many areas along the proposed routes now lie underwater, making research difficult. Some scholars believe the earliest forensic evidence for early populations appears to more closely resemble Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders, and not those of Northeast Asia. ^[6]

Scholars' estimates of the total population of the Americas before European contact vary enormously, from a low of 10 million to a high of 112 million.^[7] Some authors see ideological underpinnings in this population debate. For example, Robert Royal writes that "estimates of pre-Columbian population figures have become heavily politicized with scholars who are particularly critical of Europe and/or Western civilization often favoring wildly higher figures."^[8] Some scholars believe that most of the indigenous population resided in Mesoamerica and South America, with approximately 10 percent residing in North America, prior to European colonization.^[9]

The Solutrean hypothesis suggests an early European migration into the Americas^{[10][11][12][13]} and that stone tool technology of the Solutrean culture in prehistoric Europe may have later influenced the development of the Clovis tool-making culture in the Americas. Some of its key proponents include Dr. Dennis Stanford of the Smithsonian Institution and Dr. Bruce Bradley of the University of Exeter. In this hypothesis, peoples associated with the Solutrean culture migrated from Ice Age Europe to North America, bringing their methods of making stone tools with them and providing the basis for later Clovis technology found throughout North America. The hypothesis rests upon particular similarities in Solutrean and Clovis toolmaking styles, and the fact that no predecessors of Clovis technology have been found in Eastern Asia, Siberia or Beringia, areas from which or through which early Americans are thought to have migrated.

American Indian creation legends tell of a variety of originations 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".^[14]

Vine Deloria, Jr., author and Nakota activist, cites some of the oral histories that claim an in situ origin in his book Red Earth, White Lies, rejecting the Bering Strait land bridge route. Deloria takes a Young Earth position, arguing that Native Americans actually originated in the Americas.^[15]

Recent genetic research

An article in the American Journal of Human Genetics states "Our results strongly support the hypothesis that haplogroup X, together with the other four main mtDNA haplogroups, was part of the gene pool of a single Native American founding population; therefore they do not support models that propose haplogroup-independent migrations, such as the migration from Europe posed by the Solutrean hypothesis."^[16] The National Geographic Genographic Project identified haplogroup Q-M242 as the YDNA male ancestor of the "Siberian Clan," some of whom remained in Asia, but that today "almost all Native Americans are descendants from this man."^[17]

European colonization

Cultural areas of North America at time of European contact.

Further information: European colonization of the Americas, Population history of American indigenous peoples, and Columbian Exchange

The European colonization of the Americas forever changed the lives, bloodlines and cultures of the peoples of the continent. The Population history of American indigenous peoples postulates that disease exposure, displacement, and warfare may have diminished populations.^[18][19] The first indigenous group encountered by Columbus were the 250,000 Tainos of Hispaniola who were the dominant culture in the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas. In thirty years, about 70% of the Tainos died.^[20] Enslaved, forced to labour in the mines, mistreated, the Tainos began to adopt suicidal behaviors, with women aborting or killing their newly-born children, men jumping from the cliffs or ingesting manioc, a violent poison^[20]. They were not immune to European diseases, so outbreaks of measles and smallpox ravaged their population.^[21]

The Laws of Burgos, 1512-1513 were the first codified set of laws governing the behavior of Spanish settlers in America, particularly with regards to native Indians. They forbade the maltreatment of natives, and endorsed their conversion to Catholicism.^[22]

Reasons for the decline of the Native American populations are variously theorized to be from diseases, conflicts with Europeans, and conflicts among warring tribes. More recently, collective mobilization among the indigenous peoples in the Americas has required the incorporation of closely-knit local communities into a broader national and international framework of political action.

Scholars now believe that, among the various contributing factors, epidemic disease was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the American natives.^[23][24] After first contacts with Europeans and Africans, some believe that the death of 90 to 95% of the native population of the New World was caused by Old World diseases.^[25] Half the native population of Hispaniola in 1518 was killed by smallpox.^[26] Within a few years smallpox killed between 60% and 90% of the Inca population, with other waves of European disease weakening them further.^[27] Smallpox was only the first epidemic. Typhus (probably) in 1546, influenza and smallpox together in 1558, smallpox again in 1589, diphtheria in 1614, measles in 1618—all ravaged the remains of Inca culture. Smallpox had killed millions of native inhabitants of Mexico.^[28][29] Unintentionally introduced at Veracruz with the arrival of Panfilo de Narvaez on April 23, 1520, smallpox ravaged Mexico in the 1520s,^[30] killing 150,000 in Tenochtitlán alone, including the emperor, and was credited with the victory of Cortes over the Aztec empire at Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City) in 1521.^[31]

Over the centuries, the Europeans had developed high degrees of immunity to these diseases, while the Native Americans had no such immunity.^[32]

In 1633 in Plymouth, Massachusetts, the Native Americans were struck by the virus. As it had done elsewhere, the virus wiped out entire population groups of Native Americans.^[33] It reached Lake Ontario in 1636, and the lands of the Iroquois by 1679.^[34][35] During the 1770s, smallpox killed at least 30% of the West Coast Native Americans.^[36] Smallpox epidemics in 1780–1782 and 1837–1838 brought devastation and drastic population depletion among the Plain Indians.^[37][38] By 1832, the federal government of the United States established a smallpox vaccination program for Native Americans (The Indian Vaccination Act of 1832).^[39][40]

In Brazil the indigenous population has declined from a pre-Columbian high of an estimated 3 million to some 300,000 in 1997.^[41][42]

Later explorations of the Caribbean led to the discovery of the Aruak peoples of the lesser Antilles. The culture was extinct by 1650. Only 500 had survived by the year 1550, though the bloodlines continued through the modern populace. In Amazonia, indigenous societies weathered centuries of colonization^[43]

The 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.^[44] The re-introduction of the horse had a profound impact on Native American culture in the Great Plains of North America and of Patagonia in South America. This new mode of travel made it possible for some tribes to greatly expand their territories, exchange many goods with neighboring tribes, and more easily capture game.

Agriculture

At about 4,000 years BP, the Archaic Native American cultures began practicing agriculture. Technology had advanced to the point that pottery was becoming common, and the small-scale felling of trees became feasible. Concurrently, the Archaic Indians began using fire in a widespread manner. Intentional burning of vegetation was taken up to mimic the effects of natural fires that tended to clear forest understories, thereby making travel easier and facilitating the growth of herbs and berry-producing plants that were important for both food and medicines.^[45]

Over the course of thousands of years, a large array of plant species were domesticated, bred and cultivated by the indigenous peoples of the American continent. These species now constitute 50–60% of all crops in cultivation worldwide^[46]. In certain cases, the indigenous peoples developed entirely new species and strains through artificial selection, as was the case in the domestication and breeding of maize from wild teosinte grasses in the valleys of southern Mexico. A great number of these agricultural products still retain native names in the English and Spanish lexicons.

In the Mississippi River valley, it has been noted that in addition to the use of gardens and agricultural fields, Europeans described managed groves of nut and fruit trees as orchards, not far from villages and towns. Wildlife competition could be reduced by understory burning. Further away, prescribed burning would have been used in forest and prairie areas.^[47]

Many crops first domesticated by indigenous Americans are now produced and/or used globally. Chief among these is maize or "corn", arguably the most important crop in the world^[48]. Other significant crops include cassava, squash (pumpkins, zucchini, marrow, acorn squash, butternut squash), the pinto bean, Phaseolus beans including most common beans, tepary beans and lima beans, tomato, 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, manioc and some species of cotton.

Culture

The Cascajal Block. These undeciphered glyphs have been termed "Olmec hieroglyphs".

Cultural practices in the Americas seem to have been mostly shared within geographical zones where otherwise unrelated peoples might adopt similar technologies and social organizations. An example of such a cultural area could be Mesoamerica, where millennia of coexistence and shared development between the peoples of the region produced a fairly homogeneous culture with complex agricultural and social patterns. Another well-known example could be the North American plains area, where until the 19th century, several different peoples shared traits of nomadic hunter-gatherers primarily based on buffalo hunting. Within the Americas, dozens of larger and hundreds of smaller culture areas can be identified.

Writing systems

An independent origin and development of writing is counted among the many achievements and innovations of pre-Columbian American cultures. The region of Mesoamerica produced a number of indigenous writing systems from the 1st millennium BCE onwards. What may be the earliest-known example in the Americas of an extensive text thought to be writing is by the Cascajal Block. The Olmec hieroglyphs tablet has been indirectly dated from ceramic shards found in the same context to approximately 900 BCE, around the time that Olmec occupation of San Lorenzo began to wane.^[49]

The Maya writing system (often called hieroglyphs from a superficial resemblance to the Ancient Egyptian writing) was a combination of phonetic symbols and logograms. It is most often classified as a logographic or (more properly) a logosyllabic writing system, in which syllabic signs play a significant role. It is the only writing system of the Pre-Columbian New World which is known to completely represent the spoken language of its community. In total, the script has more than a thousand different glyphs, although a few are variations of the same sign or meaning, and many appear only rarely or are confined to particular localities. At any one time, no more than around 500 glyphs were in use, some 200 of which (including variations) had a phonetic or syllabic interpretation.

Aztec codices (singular codex) are books written by pre-Columbian and colonial-era Aztecs. These codices provide some of the best primary sources for Aztec culture. The pre-Columbian codices differ from European codices in that they are largely pictorial; they were not meant to symbolize spoken or written narratives.^[50] The colonial era codices not only contain Aztec pictograms, but also Classical Nahuatl (in the Latin alphabet), Spanish, and occasionally Latin.

The Ojibwe birchbark scroll pictographs can also be considered a form of writing.

Music and art

Native American music in North America is almost entirely monophonic, but there are notable exceptions. Traditional Native American music often includes drumming but little other instrumentation, although flutes are played by individuals. 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.

Music from indigenous peoples of Central Mexico and Central America often was pentatonic. Before the arrival of the Spaniards it was inseparable from religious festivities and included a large variety of percussion and wind instruments such as drums, flutes, sea snail shells (used as a kind of trumpet) 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 AD), which depicts a stringed musical instrument which has since been reproduced. This instrument is astonishing in at least two respects. First, it is the only stringed instrument known in the Americas prior to the introduction of European musical instruments. Second, when played, it produces a sound virtually identical to a jaguar's growl. A sample of this sound is available at the Princeton Art Museum website.

Art of the indigenous peoples of the Americas composes a major category in the world art collection. Contributions include pottery, paintings, jewellery, weavings, sculptures, basketry, carvings and hair pipes [2].

Demography of contemporary populations

The following table provides estimates of the per-country populations of indigenous people, and also those with part-indigenous ancestry, expressed as a percentage of the overall country population of each country that is comprised by indigenous peoples, and of people with partly indigenous descent. The total percentage obtained by adding both of these categories is also given (One should note however that these categories, especially the second one, are inconsistently defined and measured differently from country to country).

History and status by country

Argentina

See also: Demographics of Argentina

See also: Argentine Amerindians

See also: List of indigenous languages in Argentina

Argentina's indigenous population is about 403,000 (0.9 percent of total population).^[54] Indigenous nations include the Toba, Wichí, Mocoví, Pilagá, Chulupí, Diaguita-Calchaquí, Kolla, Guaraní (Tupí Guaraní and Avá Guaraní in the provinces of Jujuy and Salta, and Mbyá Guaraní in the province of Misiones), Chorote (Iyo'wujwa Chorote and Iyojwa'ja Chorote), Chané, Tapieté, Mapuche (probably the largest indigenous nation in Argentina) and Tehuelche. The Selknam (Ona) people is now virtually extinct in its pure form. The languages of the Diaguita, Tehuelche, and Selknam nations are now extinct or virtually extinct: the Cacán language (spoken by Diaguitas) in the 18th century, the Selknam language in the 20th century; whereas one Tehuelche language (Southern Tehuelche) is still spoken by a small handful of elderly people.

Belize

Mestizos (European with indigenous peoples) number about 34 percent of the population; unmixed Maya make up another 10.6 percent (Ketchi, Mopan, and Yucatec). The Garifuna, who came to Belize in the 1800s, originating from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, with a mixed African, Carib, and Arawak ancestry make up another 6 percent of the population.^[55]

Bolivia

In Bolivia about 2.5 million people speak Quechua, 2.1 million speak Aymara, while Guaraní is only spoken by a few hundred thousand people. The languages are recognized; nevertheless, there are no official documents written in those languages. However, the constitutional reform in 1997 for the first time recognized Bolivia as a multilingual, 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.

Brazil

Brazilian Indigenous chiefs of the Kayapo tribe: Raony, Kaye, Kadjor, Panara.

See also: Indigenous peoples in Brazil

See also: List of Indigenous peoples in Brazil

The Amerindians make up 0.4% of Brazil's population, or about 700,000 people.^[56] Indigenous peoples are found in the entire territory of Brazil, although the majority of them live in Indian reservations in the North and Centre-Western part of the country. On 18 January 2007, FUNAI reported that it had confirmed the presence of 67 different uncontacted tribes in Brazil, up from 40 in 2005. With this addition Brazil has now overtaken the island of New Guinea as the country having the largest number of uncontacted tribes.^[57]

Canada

Bill Reid's sculpture The Raven and The First Men, showing part of a Haida creation myth. The Raven represents the Trickster figure common to many mythologies. The work is in the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology, Vancouver.

Main article: Aboriginal peoples in Canada

The most commonly preferred term for the indigenous peoples of what is now Canada is Aboriginal peoples. Of these Aboriginal peoples who are not Inuit or Métis, "First Nations" is the most commonly preferred term of self-identification. Aboriginal peoples make up approximately 3.8 percent of the Canadian population. [3]

Chile

Main article: Indigenous peoples in Chile

Less than 5 percent of Chileans belong to indigenous peoples, such as the Mapuche in the country's central valley and lake district, and the Mapuche successfully fought off defeat in the first 300–350 years of Spanish rule during the War of Arauco. Relation 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. The former land was opened to settlement for mestizo and white Chileans. Conflict over Mapuche land rights continued until present days.

Sculpture of a Chibchan-Sutagao Native American standing at the entrance of Fusagasugá, Colombia

Colombia

Main article: Indigenous peoples in Colombia

A small minority today within Colombia's overwhelmingly Mestizo and Afro-Colombian population, Colombia's indigenous peoples nonetheless encompass at least 85 distinct cultures and more than 1,378,884 people^[58]. A variety of collective rights for indigenous peoples are recognized in the 1991 Constitution.

One of these 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 Chibchas were the largest native civilization between the Incas and the Aztecs.

Costa Rica

Costa Rica was the site of many indigenous cultures, but only eight remain today: Bribri, Brunka, Cabecar, Chorotega, Guaymi, Huetar, Maleku and Terraba, also called Teribe or Naso.

Ecuador

Main article: Indigenous peoples in 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 architecture remains were later destroyed by Spaniards and the Incas.

Otavaleña girl from Ecuador

Approximately 96.4% of Ecuador's are Highland Quichuas living in the valleys of the Sierra region. Primarily consisting of the descendents of Incans, they are Kichwa speakers and include the Caranqui, the Otavaleños, the Cayambi, 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 be the descendents of Bolivian ethnic groups transplanted to Ecuador as mitimaes.

Coastal groups, including the Awá, Chachi, and the Tsáchila, make up .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 people formed the first "truly" national political organization.[The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) has been the primary political organism ever since, and has been influential in national politics, including the ouster of the presidents Abdalá Bucaram in 1997 and Jamil Mahuad in 2000.

Guatemala

Many of the indigenous peoples of Guatemala are of Maya heritage. Other groups are Xinca people and Garífuna.

Pure Maya account for some 40 percent of the population; although around 40 percent of the population speaks an indigenous language, those tongues (of which there are more than 20) enjoy no official status.

El Salvador

Much of El Salvador was home to the Pipil, Lenca, and a number of Maya. The Pipil lived in western El Salvador and spoke Nahuatl like their Aztec and Maya counterparts, and had many settlements there. The Pipil had no treasure but held land that had rich and fertile soil, good for farming. This both disappointed and garnered attention from the Spaniards who were shocked not to find gold or jewels in El Salvador like they did in other lands like Guatemala or Mexico, but later learned of the fertile land El Salvador had to offer and attempted to conquer it. At first the Pipil had repelled Spanish Attacks but after many other attacks they had stopped fighting and many were sadly used for labor by Spaniards. Today many Pipil and Indigenous populations live in small towns of El Salvador like Izalco and Nahuizalco.

Mexico

Main article: Indigenous peoples of Mexico

Benito Juárez, an indigenous Zapotec and President of Mexico from 1858 to 1872. He was the first Mexican president with indigenous roots.

The territory of modern-day Mexico was home to numerous indigenous civilizations prior to 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 neighbouring areas of contemporary Central America); the Purepecha or Tarascan in present day Michoacán and surrounding areas, and the Aztecs, who, from their central capital at Tenochtitlan, dominated much of the centre 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 quickly came to account for a majority of the colony's population; however, significant pockets of pure-blood indígenas (as the native peoples are now known) have survived to the present day.

With mestizos numbering some 60 percent of the modern population, estimates for the numbers of unmixed indigenous peoples vary from 13% percent (pure Amerindian, as reported by the National Commission for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples)^[59] to 30 percent (predominantly Ameridian)^[60] of the population.

In the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca and in the interior of the Yucatán peninsula the majority of the population is indigenous. Large indigenous minorities, including Nahuas, Purépechas, and Mixtecs are also present in the central regions of Mexico. In Northern 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.^[61] Along with Spanish, the law has granted them –more than 60 languages– the status of "national languages". The law includes all Amerindian languages regardless of origin; that is, it includes the Amerindian languages of ethnic groups non-native to the territory. As such the National Commission for the Development of the Indigenous Peoples recognizes the language of the Kickapoo, who immigrated from the United States,^[62] and recognizes the languages of the Guatemalan Amerindian refugees.^[63] The Mexican government has promoted and established bilingual primary and secondary education in some indigenous rural communities. Nonetheless, of the 13% of pure indigenous peoples in Mexico, only about 67% of them (or 7.1% of the country's population) speak an Amerindian language and about a tenth (1.2% of the country's population) do not speak Spanish.^[64]

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:^[65]

• the right to decide the internal forms of social, economic, political and cultural organization;

the right to apply their own 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.

Nicaragua

Main article: Miskito

The Miskito are a native people in Central America. Their territory extended from Cape Cameron, Honduras, to Rio Grande, Nicaragua along the Miskito Coast. There is a native Miskito language, but large groups speak Miskito creole English, Spanish, Rama and other languages. The creole English came about through frequent contact with the British who colonized the area. Many are Christians.

Over the centuries the Miskito have intermarried with escaped slaves who have sought refuge in Miskito communities. Traditional Miskito society was highly structured, with a defined political structure. There was a king but he did not have total power. Instead, the power was split between him, a governor, a general, and by the 1750s, an admiral. Historical information on kings is often obscured by the fact that many of the kings were semi-mythical.

Peruvian indigenous people, learning to read.

Peru

Main article: Indigenous Peoples in Peru

Most Peruvians are either indigenous or mestizos (of mixed Indigenous and European ancestry). Peru has the largest indigenous population of South America, and its 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.

Throughout the Peruvian Amazon, indigenous peoples have long faced centuries of missionization, unregulated streams of colonists, land-grabbing, decades of formal schooling in an alien tongue, pressures to conform to a foreign national culture, and more recently, explosive expressions of violent social conflict fueled by a booming underground coca economy. The disruptions accompanying the establishment of extractive economies, coupled with the Peruvian state-sanctioned civilizing project, have led to a devastating impoverishment of Amazonia's richly variegated social and ecological communities.^[66]

The most visited tourist destinations of Peru were built by indigenous peoples (the Quechua, Aymara, Moche, etc.), while Amazonian peoples, such as the Urarina, Bora, Matsés, Ticuna, Yagua, Shipibo and the Aguaruna, developed elaborate shamanic systems of belief prior to the European Conquest of the New World. Macchu Picchu is considered one of the marvels of humanity, and it was constructed by the Inca civilization. Even though Peru officially declares its multi-ethnic character and recognizes at least six–dozen languages—including Quechua, Aymara and hegemonic Spanish—discrimination and language endangerment continue to challenge the indigenous peoples in Peru.^[67]

United States

A Choctaw Belle, Painted by P. Romer

Main article: Native Americans in the United States

Indigenous peoples in what is now the contiguous United States are commonly called "American Indians", or just "Indians" domestically, but are also often referred to as "Native Americans". In Alaska, indigenous peoples, which include Native Americans, Yupik and Inupiat Eskimos, and Aleuts, are referred to collectively as Alaska Natives. Native Americans and Alaska Natives make up 2 percent of the population, with more than 6 million people identifying themselves as such, although only 1.8 million are registered tribal members. A minority of U.S. Native Americans live in zones called Indian reservations. There are also many Southwestern U.S. tribes, such as the Yaqui and Apache, that have registered tribal communities in Northern Mexico and several bands of Blackfoot reside in southern Alberta.

An Inuit woman

Venezuela

Most Venezuelans have some indigenous heritage, but the indigenous population make up only around 2% of the total population. They speak around 29 different languages and many more dialects, but some of the ethnic groups are very small and their languages are in danger of becoming extinct in the next decades. The most important indigenous groups are the Wayuu, the Pemones and the Waraos.

The 1999 constitution gives them special rights, although the vast majority of them still live in very critical conditions of poverty. The largest groups receive some basic primary education in their languages.

Other parts of the Americas

Indigenous peoples make up the majority of the population in Bolivia and Peru, and are a significant element in most other former Spanish colonies. Exceptions to this include Costa Rica, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Dominican Republic, Chile, and Uruguay. At least three of the native American languages (Quechua in Peru and Bolivia, Aymara also in Peru, Bolivia, and Guarani in Paraguay) are recognized along with Spanish as national languages.

Native American name controversy

Main article: Native American name controversy

The Native American name controversy is an ongoing dispute over the acceptable ways to refer to the indigenous peoples of the Americas and to broad subsets thereof, such as those living in a specific country or sharing certain cultural attributes. Once-common terms like "Indian" remain in use, despite the introduction of terms such as "Native American" and "Amerindian" during the latter half of the 20th century.

Rise of Indigenous Movements

In recent years, there has been a rise of indigenous movements in the Americas (mainly South America). These are rights-driven groups that organize themselves in order to achieve some sort of self-determination and the preservation of their culture for their peoples. Organizations like the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin and the Indian Council of South America are examples of movements that are breaking the barrier of borders in order to obtain rights for Amazonian indigenous populations everywhere. 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 Indian group into the UNPO. There has also been a recognition of indigenous movements on an international scale with the United Nations adopting the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, despite dissent from the stronger countries of the Americas.

Moves towards the rights of the indigenous in the Leftist countries of Latin America, also led to a surge in activity in the most historically right-winged state in South America. In Colombia various indigenous groups protested the denial of their rights. A march in the city of Cali in October 2008, demanded the government live up to promises to protect indigenous lands, defend the indigenous against violence and reconsider the a free trade pact with the Unites States.^[68]

Legal prerogative

With the rise to power of Leftist regimes in Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay, and especially Bolivia, the indigenous movement gained a strong foothold on the ability to create legal sanction without violence (as the Tupac Amaru in Peru had done). As Evo Morales, the first indigenous president of a Latin American state, pressed for the resolution of a new constitution in Bolivia, and fought through deep resentment by the European elite, other indigenous states and peoples around the country rallied to his cause celebre.

Representatives from indigenous and rural organizations from major South American countries, including, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Chile and Brazil, started a forum in support of Morales' legal process of change. The meeting condemned plans by the European "foreign" power elite to destabilize the country. The forum also expressed solidarity with the Morales and his economic and social changes in the interest of the historically marginalized majorities. The text of the document also expressed outrages against indigenous people and farm workers are practiced by "descendents from murderers and usurpers." Furthermore, in a cathartic blow to the US-backed elite it questions US interference through diplomats and NGO's, as well as plots against Bolivia and other countries, including, Cuba, Venezuela, Ecuador, Paraguay and Nicaragua. The forum rejected the violent methods used by regional civic leaders from the so-called "Crescent departments" in Bolivia to impose their illegal autonomous statutes; while also applauding the decision to expel the US ambassador to La Paz, Philip Goldberg, and reaffirming the sovereignty and independence of the presidency. Amongst others, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, the Chilean Council of All Lands, and the Brazilian Landless Movement attended the forum.^[69]

See also

Native American Warrior in Brazil, depicted by Jean-Baptiste Debret in the early 19th century

• Haplogroup Q1a3a (Y-DNA)
• Alaska Natives
• History of the west coast of North America
• Hyphenated American
• Indigenous languages of the Americas
• Indigenous Movements in the Americas
• Native Hawaiians
• Pacific Islander
• Mongoloid race
• Population history of American indigenous peoples
• Uncontacted peoples

Notes

References

• Cappel, Constance, "The Smallpox Genocide of the Odawa Tribe at L'Arbre Croche, 1763: The History of a Native American People," Edwin Mellen Press, 2007, ISBN-10:0-7734-5220-6
• Churchill, Ward (1997). A Little Matter of Genocide. City Lights Books. ISBN 0-872-86323-9. 
• Dean, Bartholomew (2003). "State Power and Indigenous Peoples in Peruvian Amazonia: A Lost Decade, 1990–2000". in David Maybury-Lewis (Ed.). The Politics of Ethnicity Indigenous Peoples in Latin American States. David Rockefeller Center Series on Latin American Studies. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. pp. pp.199–238. ISBN 0-674-00964-9. 
• Dean, Bartholomew (January 2006). "Salt of the Mountain: Campa Asháninka History and Resistance in the Peruvian Jungle (review)". The Americas 62 (3): pp.464–466. doi:10.1353/tam.2006.0013. ISSN 0003-1615. 
• Dean, Bartholomew; and Jerome M. Levi, (Eds.) (2003). At the Risk of Being Heard; Identity, Indigenous Rights, and Postcolonial States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-09736-9. 
• Jacobs, James Q. (2001). "The Paleoamericans: Issues and Evidence Relating to the Peopling of the New World". Anthropology and Archaeology Pages. jqjacobs.net. Retrieved on 2007-06-20.
• Jacobs, James Q. (2002). "Paleoamerican Origins: A Review of Hypotheses and Evidence Relating to the Origins of the First Americans". Anthropology and Archaeology Pages. jqjacobs.net. Retrieved on 2007-06-20.
• Jones, Peter N. (2005). Respect for the Ancestors: American Indian Cultural Affiliation in the American West. Boulder CO: Bauu Press. ISBN 0-972-13492-1. 
• Kane, Katie (1999). "Nits Make Lice: Drogheda, Sand Creek, and the Poetics of Colonial Extermination". Cultural Critique 42: pp.81–103. doi:10.2307/1354592. ISSN 0882-4371. 
• Krech, Shepard III (1999). The Ecological Indian: Myth and History. New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-04755-5. 
• Mann, Charles C. (2005). 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. New York: Knopf Publishing Group. ISBN 1-400-04006-X. 
• Skidmore, Joel (2006). "The Cascajal Block: The Earliest Precolumbian Writing" (PDF). Mesoweb Reports & News. Mesoweb. Retrieved on 2007-06-20.
• Taylor, Alan (2001). American colonies. New York: Viking. ISBN 0-670-87282-2. 
• Thornton, Bruce S. (July 2006). "New World, Old Myths: A review of Charles C. Mann's 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus". Claremont Review of Books. Retrieved on 2006-09-14.
• Varese, Stefano (2004). Salt of the Mountain: Campa Asháninka History and Resistance in the Peruvian Jungle. Susan Giersbach Rascón (trans.). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-806-13512-3. 

External links

• The Peopling of the American Continents
• America's Stone Age Explorers