Native Americans in the United States

Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, including parts of Alaska and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as intact political communities. The terms used to refer to Native Americans are controversial; according to a 1995 US Census Bureau set of home interviews, most of the respondents with an expressed preference refer to themselves as American Indians or Indians.

In the last 500 years, Afro-Eurasian migration to the Americas has led to centuries of conflict and adjustment between Old and New World societies. Most of the written historical record about Native Americans was made by Europeans after their immigration to the Americas.^[3] Many Native Americans lived as hunter-gatherer societies, although in many groups, women carried out sophisticated cultivation of a variety of staples: maize, beans and squash. Their cultures were quite different from those of the agrarian, proto-industrial immigrants from western Eurasia. The differences in culture between the established native Americans and immigrant Europeans, as well as shifting alliances among different nations of each culture, caused a great deal of political tension and ethnic violence. Estimates of the pre-Columbian population of what today constitutes the US vary significantly, ranging from 1 million to 18 million.^[4][5]

After the colonies revolted against Great Britain and established the United States of America, President George Washington and Henry Knox conceived of the idea of "civilizing" Native Americans in preparation for United States citizenship.^{[6][7][8][9][10]} Assimilation (whether voluntary as with the Choctaw,^[11][12] or forced) became a consistent policy through American administrations. During the 19th century, the ideology of Manifest destiny became integral to the American nationalist movement. Expansion of European-American populations after the American Revolution resulted in increasing pressure on Native American lands, warfare between the groups, and rising tensions. In 1830, the US Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the government to relocate most Native Americans of the Deep South east of the Mississippi River from their homelands to accommodate European-American expansion from the United States. Government officials thought that by decreasing the conflict between the groups, they could also help the Indians survive. Remnant groups have descendants living throughout the South. They have organized and been recognized as tribes since the late 20th century by several states and, in some cases, by the federal government.

The first European Americans encountered western tribes as fur traders. As United States expansion reached into the American West, settler and miner migrants came into increasing conflict with the Great Plains tribes. These were complex nomadic cultures based on using horses and traveling seasonally to hunt bison. They carried out strong resistance to American incursions in the decades after the American Civil War, in a series of "Indian Wars", which were frequent up until the 1890s. The coming of the transcontinental railroad increased pressures on the western tribes. Over time, the US forced a series of treaties and land cessions by the tribes, and established reservations for them in many western states. US agents encouraged Native Americans to adopt European-style farming and similar pursuits, but the lands were often too poor to support such uses.

Contemporary Native Americans today have a unique relationship with the United States because they may be members of nations, tribes, or bands of Native Americans who have sovereignty or independence from the government of the United States. Their societies and cultures flourish within a larger population of descendants of immigrants (both voluntary and slave): African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and European peoples. Native Americans who were not already U.S. citizens were granted citizenship in 1924 by the Congress of the United States.

History

Pre-Columbian

Further information: Settlement of the Americas, Paleo-Indians and Pre-Columbian

Map showing the approximate location of the ice-free corridor and specific Paleoindian sites (Clovis theory).

According to the still-debated Settlement of the Americas, 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.^[13] Falling sea levels created the Bering land bridge that joined Siberia to Alaska, which began about 60,000 – 25,000 years ago.^[13] The minimum time depth by which this migration had taken place is confirmed at 12,000 years ago, with the upper bound (or earliest period) remaining a matter of some unresolved contention.^[14] These early Paleoamericans soon spread throughout the Americas, diversifying into many hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes.^[15] The North American climate finally stabilized by 8000 BCE; climatic conditions were very similar to today's.^[16] This led to widespread migration, cultivation of crops, and subsequently a dramatic rise in population all over the Americas.

The big-game hunting culture labeled as the Clovis culture is primarily identified with its production of fluted projectile points. The culture received its name from artifacts found near Clovis, New Mexico; the first evidence of this tool complex was excavated in 1932. The Clovis culture ranged over much of North America and also appeared in South America. The culture is identified by the distinctive Clovis point, a flaked flint spear-point with a notched flute, by which it was inserted into a shaft. Dating of Clovis materials has been by association with animal bones and by the use of carbon dating methods. Recent reexaminations of Clovis materials using improved carbon-dating methods produced results of 11,050 and 10,800 radiocarbon years B.P. (roughly 9100 to 8850 BCE).

Numerous Paleoindian cultures occupied North America, with some restricted to the Great Plains and Great Lakes of the modern United States of America and Canada, as well as adjacent areas to the west and southwest. 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.^[17] The Folsom Tradition was characterized by use of Folsom points as projectile tips, and activities known from kill sites where slaughter and butchering of bison took place. Folsom tools were left behind between 9000 BCE and 8000 BCE.^[18]

A Folsom point for a spear.

The Na-Dené people entered North America starting around 8000 BCE, reaching the Pacific Northwest by 5000 BCE,^[19] and from there migrating along the Pacific Coast and into the interior. Linguists, anthropologists and archeologists believe their ancestors comprised a separate migration into North America, later than the first Paleo-Indians. They settled first around present-day Queen Charlotte Islands, British Columbia, from where they migrated into Alaska and northern Canada, south along the Pacific Coast, and into the interior. They were the earliest ancestors of the Athabascan- speaking peoples, including the present-day and historical Navajo and Apache. Their villages were constructed with large multi-family dwellings, used seasonally. People did not live there year round, but for the summer to hunt and fish, and to gather food supplies for the winter.^[20] The Oshara Tradition people lived from 5500 BCE to 600 CE. The Southwestern Archaic Tradition was centered in north-central New Mexico, the San Juan Basin, the Rio Grande Valley, southern Colorado, and southeastern Utah.

Poverty Point culture is an archaeological culture whose people inhabited the area of the lower Mississippi Valley and surrounding Gulf Coast. The culture thrived from 2200 BCE- 700 BCE, during the late Archaic period.^[21] Evidence of this culture has been found at more than 100 sites, from Poverty Point, Louisiana across a 100-mile range to the Jaketown Site near Belzoni, Mississippi.

The Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures refers to the time period from roughly 1000 BCE to 1000 CE in the eastern part of North America. The term "Woodland" was coined in the 1930s and refers to prehistoric sites dated between the Archaic period and the Mississippian cultures. The Hopewell tradition is the term used to describe common aspects of the Native American culture that flourished along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern United States from 200 BCE to 500 CE.^[22]

Cultural areas of pre-Columbian North America, according to Alfred Kroeber.

The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society, but a widely dispersed set of related populations, who were connected by a common network of trade routes,^[23] known as the Hopewell Exchange System. At its greatest extent, the Hopewell exchange system ran from the Southeastern United States into the southeastern Canadian shores of Lake Ontario. Within this area, societies participated in a high degree of exchange with the highest amount of activity along the waterways serving as their major transportation routes. The Hopewell exchange system traded materials from all over the United States.

Coles Creek culture is an archaeological culture from the Lower Mississippi valley in the southern present-day United States. The period marked a significant change in the cultural history of the area. Population increased dramatically. There is strong evidence of a growing cultural and political complexity, especially by the end of the Coles Creek sequence. Although many of the classic traits of chiefdom societies were not yet manifested, by 1000 CE the formation of simple elite polities had begun. Coles Creek sites are found in Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Texas. It is considered ancestral to the Plaquemine culture.

Hohokam is one of the four major prehistoric archaeological traditions of the present-day American Southwest.^[24] Living as simple farmers, they raised corn and beans. The early Hohokam founded a series of small villages along the middle Gila River. The communities were located near good arable land, with dry farming common in the earlier years of this period.^[24] Wells, usually less than 10 feet (3 m) deep, were dug for domestic water supplies by 300 CE to 500 CE.^[24] Early Hohokam homes were constructed of branches bent in a semi-circular fashion and then covered with twigs, reeds and heavily applied mud and other materials at hand.^[24]

Although not as technologically advanced as the Mesoamerican civilizations further south, sophisticated pre-Columbian sedentary societies evolved in North America. The Southeastern Ceremonial Complex is the name archeologists have given to the regional stylistic similarity of artifacts, iconography, ceremonies and mythology of the Mississippian culture, which coincided with the people's adoption of maize agriculture and chiefdom-level complex social organization from 1200 CE to 1650 CE.^[25][26] Contrary to popular belief, this development appears to have no direct links to Mesoamerica. It developed independently, with sophistication based on the accumulation of maize surpluses, more dense population and specialization of skills. This Ceremonial Complex represents a major component of the religion of the Mississippian peoples, and is one of the primary means by which their religion is understood.^[27]

The Mississippian culture created the largest earthworks in North America north of Mexico, most notably at Cahokia, based on a tributary of the Mississippi River in present-day Illinois. Its 10-story Monks Mound has a larger circumference than the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan or the Great Pyramid of Egypt. The six-square mile city complex was based on the people's cosmology and had more than 100 mounds, oriented to their sophisticated knowledge of astronomy. It included a Woodhenge, whose sacred cedar poles were placed to mark the summer and winter solstices and fall and spring equinoxes. Its peak population in 1250 CE of 30,000–40,000 people was not equalled by any city in the present-day United States until after 1800. In addition, Cahokia was a major regional chiefdom, with trade and tributary chiefdoms ranging from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico.

The Iroquois League of Nations or "People of the Long House" was a politically advanced and unique social structure whose confederacy model contributed to political thinking during the later development of the democratic United States government. Their system of affiliation was a kind of federation, a departure from the strong monarchies from which the Europeans came.^[28] Long-distance trading did not prevent warfare among the indigenous peoples. For instance, archaeology and the tribes' oral histories have contributed to an understanding that the Iroquois' conducted invasions and warfare about 1200 CE against tribes in the Ohio River area of present-day Kentucky. Finally they drove many to migrate west to their historically traditional lands west of the Mississippi River. Tribes' originating in the Ohio Valley who moved west included the Osage, Kaw, Ponca and Omaha. By the mid-17th century, they had resettled in their historical lands in present-day Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas and Oklahoma. The Osage warred with native Caddo-speaking Native Americans, displacing them in turn by the mid-18th century and dominating their new historical territories.^[29]

European exploration and colonization

Discovery of the Mississippi by William Henry Powell (1823–1879) is a Romantic depiction of de Soto's seeing the Mississippi River for the first time. It hangs in the United States Capitol rotunda.

After 1492 European exploration of the Americas revolutionized how the Old and New Worlds perceived themselves. One of the first major contacts, in what would be called the American Deep South, occurred when conquistador Juan Ponce de León landed in La Florida in April of 1513. Ponce de León was later followed by other Spanish explorers, such as Pánfilo de Narváez in 1528 and Hernando de Soto in 1539. The subsequent European colonialists in North America often rationalized the spread of empire with the presumption that they were saving a barbaric and pagan world by spreading Christian civilization.^[30] In the Spanish colonization of the Americas the policy of Indian Reductions resulted in forced conversions of the indigenous people in northern Nuevo España from their long practiced spiritual and religious traditions and theological beliefs.

Impact on Native Populations

From the 16th through the 19th centuries, the population of Native Americans declined in the following ways: epidemic diseases brought from Europe; genocide and warfare ^[31] at the hands of European explorers and colonists, as well as between tribes; displacement from their lands; internal warfare,^[32] enslavement; and a high rate of intermarriage.^[33][34] Most mainstream scholars believe that, among the various contributing factors, epidemic disease was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the American natives because of their lack of immunity to new diseases brought from Europe.^[35][36][37] With the rapid declines of some populations and continuing rivalries among their own nations, Native Americans sometimes re-organized to form new cultural groups, such as the Seminoles of Florida and Mission Indians of Alta California.

The lack of hard evidence or written records has made estimating the number of Native Americans living in what is today the United States of America before the arrival of the European explorers and settlers the subject of much debate. A low estimate arriving at around 1 million was first posited by anthropologist James Mooney in the 1890s, computing population density of each culture area based on its carrying capacity.

In 1965, American anthropologist Henry Dobyns published studies estimating the original population at 10 to 12 million. By 1983, however, he increased his estimates to 18 million.^[38] He took into account the mortality rates caused by infectious diseases of European explorers and settlers, against which Native Americans had no natural immunity. Dobyns combined the known mortality rates of these diseases among native people with reliable population records of the 19th century, to calculate the probable size of the original populations.^[4][5]

Chicken pox and measles, although by this time endemic and rarely fatal among Europeans (long after being introduced from Asia), often proved deadly to Native Americans. Smallpox proved particularly fatal to Native American populations.^[39] Epidemics often immediately followed European exploration and sometimes destroyed entire village populations. While precise figures are difficult to determine, some historians estimate that up to 80% of some Native populations died after first contact due to Eurasian infectious diseases.^[40] One theory of Columbian exchange suggests explorers from the Christopher Columbus expedition contracted syphilis from indigenous peoples and carried it back to Europe, where it spread widely.^[41] Other researchers believe that the disease existed in Europe and Asia before Columbus and his men returned from exposure to indigenous peoples of the Americas, but that they brought back a more virulent form. (See Syphilis.)

In 1618–1619, smallpox wiped out 90% of the Massachusetts Bay Native Americans.^[42] Historians believe many Mohawk Native Americans in present-day New York were infected after contact with children of Dutch traders in Albany in 1634. The disease swept through Mohawk villages, reaching Native Americans at Lake Ontario by 1636, and the lands of the western Iroquois by 1679, as it was carried by Mohawk and other Native Americans who traveled the trading routes.^[43] The high rate of fatalities caused breakdowns in Native American societies and disrupted generational exchanges of culture.

Conference between the French and Indian leaders around a ceremonial fire.

Between 1754 and 1763 many Native American tribes were involved in the French and Indian War/Seven Years War with French forces against British colonial militias. Native Americans fought on both sides of the conflict. The greater number of tribes fought with the French in the hopes of checking European expansion. The British had made fewer allies, but had some tribes that wanted to prove assimilation and loyalty in support of treaties. They were often disappointed when these were later overturned. In addition, the tribes had their own purposes, using their alliances with the European powers to battle traditional Native enemies.

Native California Population, according to Cook 1978.

After European explorers reached the West Coast in the 1770s, smallpox rapidly killed at least 30% of Northwest Coast Native Americans. For the next 80 to 100 years, smallpox and other diseases devastated native populations in the region.^[44] Puget Sound area populations, once estimated as high as 37,000 people, were reduced to only 9,000 survivors by the time settlers arrived en masse in the mid-19th century.^[45] Although the Spanish missions in California did not significantly affect the Population of Native American Californians, their number saw a rapid decrease after California ceased to be a Spanish colony, specially during the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th (see chart on the right).

Smallpox epidemics in 1780–1782 and 1837–1838 brought devastation and drastic depopulation among the Plains Indians.^[46][47] By 1832, the federal government established a smallpox vaccination program for Native Americans (The Indian Vaccination Act of 1832). It was the first federal program created to address a health problem of Native Americans.^[48][49]

Animal introductions

With the meeting of two worlds, animals, insects, and plants were exchanged between two. Sheep, pigs, and cattle were all Old World animals that were introduced to contemporary Native Americans who never knew such animals.

In the 16th century, Spaniards and other Europeans brought horses to the Americas. The early American horse had been game for the earliest humans on the continent. It was hunted to extinction about 7,000 BC, just after the end of the last glacial period. Native Americans benefited by reintroduction of horses. As they adopted use of the animals, they began to change their cultures in substantial ways, especially by extending their ranges. Some of the horses escaped and began to breed and increase their numbers in the wild.

The reintroduction of the horse to North America had a profound impact on Native American culture of the Great Plains. The tribes trained and used horses to ride and to carry packs or pull travois. The people fully incorporated the use of horses into their societies and expanded their territories. They used horses to carry goods for exchange with neighboring tribes, to hunt game, especially bison, and to conduct wars and horse raids.

Foundations for freedom

Treaty of Penn with Indians by Benjamin West painted in 1827

Some Europeans considered Native American societies to be representative of a golden age known to them only in folk history.^[50] The political theorist Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote that the idea of freedom and democratic ideals was born in the Americas because "it was only in America" that Europeans from 1500 to 1776 knew of societies that were "truly free."^[50]

The Iroquois nations' political confederacy and democratic government have been credited as influences on the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution.^[51][52] Historians debate how much the colonists borrowed from existing Native American governmental models. Several founding fathers had contact with Native American leaders and had learned about their styles of government. Prominent figures such as Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were more involved with leaders of the Iroquois Confederacy, based in New York. John Rutledge of South Carolina in particular is said to have read lengthy tracts of Iroquoian law to the other framers, beginning with the words, "We, the people, to form a union, to establish peace, equity, and order..."^[53]

Colonials revolt

Yamacraw Creek Native Americans meet with the Trustee of the colony of Georgia in England, July 1734, Notice the Native American boy (in a blue coat) and woman (in a red dress) in European clothing.

During the American Revolution, 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 American Revolutionary War to halt further colonial expansion onto Native American land. Many native communities were divided over which side to support in the war. The first native community to sign a treaty with the new United States Government was the Lenape. For the Iroquois Confederacy, the American Revolution resulted in civil war. The only Iroquois tribes to ally with the colonials were the Oneida and Tuscarora.

Frontier warfare during the American Revolution was particularly brutal, and numerous atrocities were committed by settlers and native tribes alike. Noncombatants suffered greatly during the war. Military expeditions on each side destroyed villages and food supplies to reduce the ability of people to fight, as in frequent raids in the Mohawk Valley and western New York.^[55] The largest of these expeditions was the Sullivan Expedition of 1779, in which American colonial troops destroyed more than 40 Iroquois villages to neutralize Iroquois raids in upstate New York. The expedition failed to have the desired effect: Native American activity became even more determined.

American Indians have played a central role in shaping the history of the nation, and they are deeply woven into the social fabric of much of American life ... During the last three decades of the twentieth century, scholars of ethnohistory, of the "new Indian history," and of Native American studies forcefully demonstrated that to understand American history and the American experience, one must include American Indians.

—Robbie Ethridge, Creek Country.^[56]

Bronze medals struck at behest of Virginia governor Thomas Jefferson and carried by Joseph Martin to give to Cherokee allies of colonial forces. Notice peace pipe atop the medal

The British made peace with the Americans in the Treaty of Paris (1783), through which they ceded vast Native American territories to the United States without informing the Native Americans, leading immediately to the Northwest Indian War. The United States initially treated the Native Americans who had fought with the British as a conquered people who had lost their lands. Although many of the Iroquois tribes went to Canada with the Loyalists, others tried to stay in New York and western territories and tried to maintain their lands. Nonetheless, the state of New York made a separate treaty with Iroquois and put up for sale 5,000,000 acres (20,000 km²) of land that had previously been their territory. The state established a reservation near Syracuse for the Onondagas who had been allies of the colonists.

The United States was eager to expand, to develop farming and settlements in new areas, and to satisfy land hunger of settlers from New England and new immigrants. The national government initially sought to purchase Native American land by treaties. The states and settlers were frequently at odds with this policy.^[57]

Transmuted Native America

George Washington advocated the advancement of Native American society and he "harbored some measure of goodwill towards the Indians."^[58]

European nations sent Native Americans (sometimes against their will) to the Old World as objects of curiosity. They often entertained royalty and were sometimes prey to commercial purposes. Christianization of Native Americans was a charted purpose for some European colonies.

United States policy toward Native Americans had continued to evolve after the American Revolution. George Washington and Henry Knox believed that Native Americans were equals but that their society was inferior. Washington formulated a policy to encourage the "civilizing" process.^[7] Washington had a six-point plan for civilization which included,

1. impartial justice toward Native Americans
2. regulated buying of Native American lands
3. promotion of commerce
4. promotion of experiments to civilize or improve Native American society
5. presidential authority to give presents
6. punishing those who violated Native American rights.^[9]

Benjamin Hawkins, seen here on his plantation, teaches Creek Native Americans how to use European technology. Painted in 1805.

Robert Remini, a historian, wrote that "once the Indians adopted the practice of private property, built homes, farmed, educated their children, and embraced Christianity, these Native Americans would win acceptance from white Americans."^[8] The United States appointed agents, like Benjamin Hawkins, to live among the Native Americans and to teach them how to live like whites.^[6]

Assimilation

Portrait of Native Americans from the Cherokee, Cheyenne, Choctaw, Comanche, Iroquois, and Muscogee tribes in American attire. Photos date from 1868 to 1924.

In the late 18th century, reformers starting with Washington and Knox,^[60] supported educating native children, in efforts to "civilize" or otherwise assimilate Native Americans to the larger society (as opposed to relegating them to reservations). The Civilization Fund Act of 1819 promoted this civilization policy by providing funding to societies (mostly religious) who worked on Native American improvement.

After the American Civil War and Indian wars in the late 19th century, Native American boarding schools were established, which were often run primarily by or affiliated with Christian missionaries.^[61] At this time American society thought that Native American children needed to be acculturated to the general society. The boarding school experience often proved traumatic to Native American children, who were forbidden to speak their native languages, taught Christianity and denied the right to practice their native religions, and in numerous other ways forced to abandon their Native American identities^[62] and adopt European-American culture. There were documented cases of sexual, physical and mental abuse occurring at these schools.^[63][64]

Native Americans as American citizens

In 1857, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney expressed that since Native Americans were "free and independent people" that they could become U.S. citizens.^[65] Taney asserted that Native Americans could be naturalized and join the "political community" of the United States.^[65]

The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 granted U.S. citizenship to all Native Americans. Prior to the passage of the act, nearly two-thirds of Native Americans were already U.S. citizens.^[66] The earliest recorded date of Native Americans' becoming U.S. citizens was in 1831 when the Mississippi Choctaw became citizens after the United States Legislature ratified the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. Under article XIV of that treaty, any Choctaw who elected not to move with the Choctaw Nation could become an American citizen when he registered and if he stayed on designated lands for five years after treaty ratification.

Through the years, Native Americans became US citizens by:

1. Treaty provision (as with the Mississippi Choctaw)
2. Registration and land allotment under the Dawes Act of February 8, 1887
3. Issuance of Patent in Fee Simple
4. Adopting Habits of Civilized Life
5. Minor Children
6. Citizenship by Birth
7. Becoming Soldiers and Sailors in the U.S. Armed Forces
8. Marriage to a US citizen
9. Special Act of Congress.

American expansion justification

Native Americans flee from the allegorical representation of Manifest Destiny, Columbia, painted in 1872 by John Gast

In July 1845, the New York newspaper editor John L. O’Sullivan coined the phrase “Manifest Destiny,” to explain how the "design of Providence" supported the territorial expansion of the United States.^[67] Manifest Destiny had serious consequences for Native Americans since continental expansion implicitly meant the occupation of Native American land. Manifest Destiny was an explanation or justification for expansion and westward movement, or, in some interpretations, an ideology or doctrine which helped to promote the process of civilization. Advocates of Manifest Destiny believed that expansion was not only good, but that it was obvious and certain. The term was first used primarily by Jacksonian Democrats in the 1840s to promote the annexation of much of what is now the Western United States (the Oregon Territory, the Texas Annexation, and the Mexican Cession).

The age of Manifest Destiny, which came to be known as "Indian Removal", gained ground. Although some humanitarian advocates of removal believed that Native Americans would be better off moving away from whites, an increasing number of Americans regarded the natives as nothing more than "savages" who stood in the way of American expansion. Thomas Jefferson believed that while Native Americans were the intellectual equals of whites, they had to live like the whites or inevitably be pushed aside by them. Jefferson's belief, rooted in Enlightenment thinking, that whites and Native Americans would merge to create a single nation did not last, and he began to believe that the natives should emigrate across the Mississippi River and maintain a separate society.

Indian Appropriations Act of 1871

In 1871 Congress added a rider to the Indian Appropriations Act ending United States recognition of additional Native American tribes or independent nations, and prohibiting additional treaties.

Resistance

Tecumseh was the Shawnee leader of Tecumseh's War who attempted to organize an alliance of Native American tribes throughout North America.^[70]

U.S. government authorities entered into numerous treaties during this period but later violated many for various reasons. Other treaties were considered "living" documents whose terms could be altered. Major conflicts east of the Mississippi River include the Pequot War, Creek War, and Seminole Wars. Notably, a multi-tribal army led by Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief, fought a number of engagements during the period 1811–12, known as Tecumseh's War. In the latter stages, Tecumseh's group allied with the British forces in the War of 1812 and was instrumental in the conquest of Detroit. St. Clair's Defeat (1791) was the worst U.S. Army defeat by Native Americans in U.S. history.

Native American Nations west of the Mississippi were numerous and were the last to submit to U.S. authority. Conflicts generally known as "Indian Wars" broke out between American government and Native American societies. The Battle of Little Bighorn (1876) was one of the greatest Native American victories. Defeats included the Creek War of 1813–14, the Sioux Uprising of 1862, the Sand Creek Massacre (1864) and Wounded Knee in 1890.^[71] These conflicts were catalysts to the decline of dominant Native American culture. By 1872, the U.S. Army pursued a policy to exterminate all Native Americans unless or until they agreed to surrender and live on reservations "where they could be taught Christianity and agriculture."^[72]

Removals and reservations

In the 19th century, the incessant westward expansion of the United States incrementally compelled large numbers of Native Americans to resettle further west, often by force, almost always reluctantly. Native Americans believed this forced relocation illegal, given the Hopewell Treaty of 1785. Under President Andrew Jackson, United States Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which authorized the President to conduct treaties to exchange Native American land east of the Mississippi River for lands west of the river. As many as 100,000 Native Americans relocated to the West as a result of this Indian Removal policy. In theory, relocation was supposed to be voluntary and many Native Americans did remain in the East. In practice, great pressure was put on Native American leaders to sign removal treaties.

The most egregious violation of the stated intention of the removal policy took place under the Treaty of New Echota, which was signed by a dissident faction of Cherokees but not the elected leadership. President Jackson rigidly enforced the treaty, which resulted in the deaths of an estimated 4,000 Cherokees on the Trail of Tears. About 17,000 Cherokees, along with approximately 2,000 enslaved blacks held by Cherokees, were removed from their homes.^[74]

Tribes were generally located to reservations where 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-Native American settlement on Native American lands, with the intention to prevent sympathetic white missionaries from aiding the scattered Native American resistance.^[75]

Native American Slavery

Traditions of Native American Slavery

The majority of Native American tribes did practice some form of slavery before the European introduction of African slavery into North America; but none exploited slave labor on a large scale. In addition, Native Americans did not buy and sell captives in the pre-colonial era, although they sometimes exchanged enslaved individuals with other tribes in peace gestures or in exchange for their own members. "Slave" may not be an accurate term for their system of using captives.^[76]

The conditions of enslaved Native Americans varied among the tribes. In many cases, young enslaved captives were adopted into the tribes to replace warriors killed during warfare or by disease. Other tribes practiced debt slavery or imposed slavery on tribal members who had committed crimes; but, this status was only temporary as the enslaved worked off their obligations to the tribal society.^[76]

Among some Pacific Northwest tribes, about a quarter of the population were slaves.^[77] Other slave-owning tribes of North America were, for example, Comanche of Texas, Creek of Georgia, the Pawnee, and Klamath.^[78]

European enslavement

When Europeans arrived as colonists in North America, Native Americans changed their practice of slavery dramatically. They found that British settlers, especially those in the southern colonies, purchased or captured Native Americans to use as forced labor in cultivating tobacco, rice, and indigo. Native Americans began selling war captives to whites rather than integrating them into their own societies. As the demand for labor in the West Indies grew with the cultivation of sugar cane, Europeans enslaved Native Americans for export to the "sugar islands." Accurate records of the numbers enslaved do not exist. Scholars estimate tens of thousands of Native Americans may have been enslaved by the Europeans.^[76]

As slavery became a racial caste, the Virginia General Assembly defined some terms in 1705:

"All servants imported and brought into the Country. . . who were not Christians in their native Country. . . shall be accounted and be slaves. All Negro, mulatto and Indian slaves within this dominion. . . shall be held to be real estate. If any slave resists his master. . . correcting such slave, and shall happen to be killed in such correction. . . the master shall be free of all punishment. . . as if such accident never happened." – Virginia General Assembly declaration, 1705.^[79]

The slave trade of Native Americans lasted only until around 1730, and it gave rise to a series of devastating wars among the tribes, including the Yamasee War. The Indian wars of the early 18th century, combined with the increasing importation of African slaves, effectively ended the Native American slave trade by 1750. Colonists found it too easy for Native American slaves to escape, and the wars took the lives of numerous colonial slave traders. The remaining Native American groups banded together to face the Europeans from a position of strength. Many surviving Native American peoples of the southeast joined confederacies such as the Choctaw, the Creek, and the Catawba for protection.^[76]

Native American women were at risk for rape whether they were enslaved or not; many southern communities had a disproportionate number of men in the early colonial years and they turned to Native women for sexual relationships.^[80] Both Native American and African enslaved women suffered rape and sexual harassment by male slaveholders and other white men.^[80]

Native American adoption of African slavery

Native Americans resisted Anglo-American encroachment on their lands and maintained cultural ways. Native Americans interacted with enslaved Africans and African Americans on many levels. Over time all the cultures interracted. Native Americans began slowly to adopt white culture.^[81] Native Americans shared some experiences with Africans, especially during the period when both were enslaved.^[82]

The five civilized tribes tried to gain power by owning slaves, as they assimilated some other European-American ways. Among the slave-owning families of the Cherokee, 78 percent claimed some white ancestry. The nature of the interactions among the peoples depended upon the historical character of the Native American groups, the enslaved people, and the European slaveholders. Native Americans often assisted runaway slaves. They also sold Africans to whites, trading them like so many blankets or horses.^[76]

While Native Americans might treat enslaved people as brutally as Europeans did, most Native American masters rejected the worst features of southern white bondage (Chattel Slavery).^[83] Though less than 3% of Native Americans owned slaves, bondage created destructive cleavages among Native Americans. Mixed-race slaveholders were part of a class hierarchy that seemed related to European ancestry, but their advantage was based on the transfer of social capital from their fathers.^[83] Proposals for Indian Removal heightened tensions of cultural changes due to the increase in the number of mixed-race Native Americans in the South. Full bloods sometimes tried harder to maintain traditional ways, including control of land. The more traditional members who did not hold slaves often resented the sale of lands to Anglo-Americans.^[76]

Wars

King Philip's War

King Philip's War sometimes called Metacom's War or Metacom's Rebellion, was an armed conflict between Native American inhabitants of present-day southern New England and English colonists and their Native American allies from 1675–1676. It continued in northern New England (primarily on the Maine frontier) even after King Philip was killed, until a treaty was signed at Casco Bay in April 1678. According to a combined estimate of loss of life in Schultz and Tougias' "King Philip's War, The History and Legacy of America's Forgotten Conflict" (based on sources from the Department of Defense, the Bureau of Census, and the work of Colonial historian Francis Jennings), 800 out of 52,000 English colonists of New England (1 out of every 65) and 3,000 out of 20,000 natives (3 out of every 20) lost their lives due to the war, which makes it proportionately one of the bloodiest and costliest in the history of America. More than half of New England's ninety towns were assaulted by Native American warriors. One in ten soldiers on both sides were wounded or killed.^[84]

The war is named after the main leader of the Native American side, Metacomet, Metacom, or Pometacom, known to the English as "King Philip." He was the last Massasoit (Great Leader) of the Pokanoket Tribe/Pokanoket Federation & Wampanoag Nation. Upon their loss to the Colonists and the attempted genocide of the Pokanoket Tribe and Royal Line, many managed to flee to the North to continue their fight against the British (Massachusetts Bay Colony) by joining with the Abanaki Tribes and Wabanaki Federation.

Civil War

Ely S. Parker was a Union Civil War General who wrote the terms of surrender between the United States and the Confederate States of America.^[85] Parker was one of two Native Americans to reach the rank of Brigadier General during the Civil War.

Many Native Americans served in the military during the Civil War.,^[86] the vast majority of whom siding with the Union. By fighting with the whites, Native Americans hoped to gain favor with the prevailing government by supporting the war effort.^[86][87] They also believed war service might mean an end to discrimination and relocation from ancestral lands to western territories.^[86] While the war raged and African Americans were proclaimed free, the U.S. government continued its policies of assimilation, submission, removal, or extermination of Native Americans.^[86]

Cherokee confederates reunion in New Orelans, 1903.

General Ely S. Parker, a member of the Seneca tribe, created the articles of surrender which General Robert E. Lee signed at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865. Gen. Parker, who served as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's military secretary and was a trained attorney, was once rejected for Union military service because of his race. At Appomattox, Lee is said to have remarked to Parker, "I am glad to see one real American here," to which Parker replied, "We are all Americans."^[86]

Spanish–American War

The Spanish–American War was an armed military conflict between Spain and the United States that took place between April and August 1898, over the issues of the Occupation of Cuba, Philippines and Puerto Rico. Theodore Roosevelt actively encouraged intervention in Cuba. Roosevelt worked with Leonard Wood in convincing the Army to raise an all-volunteer regiment, the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry. The "Rough Riders" was the name bestowed on the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry and the only regiment to see action. Recruiters gathered a diverse bunch of men consisting of cowboys, gold or mining prospectors, hunters, gamblers, and Native Americans. There were sixty Native Americans who served as "Rough Riders."^[88]

World War II

General Douglas MacArthur meeting Navajo, Pima, Pawnee and other Native American troops.

Some 44,000 Native Americans served in the United States military during World War II.^[89] Described as the first large-scale exodus of indigenous peoples from the reservations since the removals of the 19th century, the international conflict was a turning point in Native American history. Men of native descent were drafted into the military like other American males. Their fellow soldiers often held them in high esteem, in part since the legend of the tough Native American warrior had become a part of the fabric of American historical legend. White servicemen sometimes showed a lighthearted respect toward Native American comrades by calling them "chief."

The resulting increase in contact with the world outside of the reservation system brought profound changes to Native American culture. "The war," said the U.S. Indian commissioner in 1945, "caused the greatest disruption of Native life since the beginning of the reservation era", affecting the habits, views, and economic well-being of tribal members.^[90] The most significant of these changes was the opportunity—as a result of wartime labor shortages—to find well-paying work. Yet there were losses to contend with as well. Altogether, 1,200 Pueblo people served in World War II; only about half came home alive. In addition many more Navajo served as code talkers for the military in the Pacific. The code they made, although cryptologically very simple, was never cracked by the Japanese.

Native Americans today

Portrait of Native Americans from various bands, tribes, and nations from across "Indian country."

In 1975 the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act was passed, marking the culmination of 15 years of policy changes. Related to Indian activism, the Civil Rights Movement and community development aspects of social programs of the 1960s, the Act recognized the need of Native Americans for self-determination. It marked the U.S. government's turn away from the policy of termination; the U.S. government encouraged Native Americans' efforts at self government and determining their futures.

Navajo Educator Rebecca Benally with former Utah Governor and current US Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, Jr.

There are 562 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 requirements for membership, to license and regulate activities, to zone and to exclude persons from tribal territories. Limitations on tribal powers of self-government include the same limitations applicable to states; for example, neither tribes nor states have the power to make war, engage in foreign relations, or coin money (this includes paper currency).^[91]

Many Native Americans and advocates of Native American rights point out that the US Federal government's claim to recognize the "sovereignty" of Native American peoples falls short, given that the US still wishes to govern Native American peoples and treat them as subject to US law. True respect for Native American sovereignty, according to such advocates, would require the United States federal government to deal with Native American peoples in the same manner as any other sovereign nation, handling matters related to relations with Native Americans through the Secretary of State, rather than the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Bureau of Indian Affairs reports on its website that its "responsibility is the administration and management of 55,700,000 acres (225,000 km²) of land held in trust by the United States for American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives."^[92] Many Native Americans and advocates of Native American rights believe that it is condescending for such lands to be considered "held in trust" and regulated in any fashion by a foreign power, whether the US Federal Government, Canada, or any other non-Native American authority.

Poldine Carlo, Koyukon author from Alaska

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.^[94]

As of 2000, the largest tribes in the U.S. by population were Navajo, Cherokee, Choctaw, Sioux, Chippewa, Apache, Blackfeet, Iroquois, and Pueblo. In 2000, eight of ten Americans with Native American ancestry were of mixed blood. It is estimated that by 2100 that figure will rise to nine out of ten.^[95] 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.^[96] 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.

Abandoned Uranium Mines across Indian country are an epic issue in which Native peoples struggle to have contained and eradicated.

Native American struggles amid poverty to maintain life on the reservation or in larger society have resulted in a variety of health issues, some related to nutrition and health practices. The community suffers a disproportionately high rate of alcoholism.^[97] Agencies working with Native American communities are trying better to respect their traditions and integrate benefits of Western medicine within their own cultural practices.

"It has long been recognized that Native Americans are dying of diabetes, alcoholism, tuberculosis, suicide, and other health conditions at shocking rates. Beyond disturbingly high mortality rates, Native Americans also suffer a significantly lower health status and disproportionate rates of disease compared with all other Americans."

— The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, September 2004 ^[98]

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

In July 2000 the Washington state Republican Party adopted a resolution recommending that the federal and legislative branches of the U.S. government terminate tribal governments .^[99] In 2007 a group of Democratic Party congressmen and congresswomen introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to "terminate" the Cherokee Nation.^[100] As of 2004, various Native Americans are wary of attempts by others to gain control of their reservation lands for natural resources, such as coal and uranium in the West.^{[101][102][103]}

In the state of Virginia, Native Americans face a unique problem. Virginia has no federally recognized tribes. Some analysts attribute this to work by Walter Ashby Plecker, who as registrar of the state's Bureau of Vital Statistics vigorously applied his own interpretation of the one-drop rule. He served from 1912–1946. In 1920 the state's General Assembly passed a law recognizing only two races: "white" and "colored". Plecker believed that the state's Native Americans had been "mongrelized" by intermarriage with African Americans and, further, that some people with partial black heritage were trying to pass as Native Americans. To Plecker, anyone with any African heritage had to be classified as colored, regardless of appearance and cultural identification. Plecker pressured local governments into reclassifying all Native Americans in the state as "colored", and gave them lists of family surnames to examine for reclassification based on his interpretation of data and the law. This led to the state's destruction of accurate records related to Native American communities and families. Sometimes different members of the same family were split by classification as "white" or "colored". There was no place for primary identification as Native American.^[104] However, in 2009, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee endorsed a bill that would grant federal recognition to tribes in Virginia.^[105]

To achieve federal recognition and its benefits, tribes must prove their continuous existence since 1900. The federal government has maintained this requirement, in part because through participation on councils and committees, federally recognized tribes have been adamant about groups' satisfying the same requirements as they did.^[104]

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.

Societal discrimination, racism and conflicts

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A discriminatory sign posted above a bar. Birney, Montana, 1941.

Perhaps because the most well-known Native Americans live on reservations relatively isolated from major population centers, universities have conducted relatively little public opinion research on attitudes toward them among the general public. In 2007 the non-partisan Public Agenda organization conducted a focus group study. Most non-Native Americans admitted they rarely encountered Native Americans in their daily lives. While sympathetic toward Native Americans and expressing regret over the past, most people had only a vague understanding of the problems facing Native Americans today. For their part, Native Americans told researchers that they believed they continued to face prejudice and mistreatment in the broader society.^[106]

Conflicts between the federal government and Native Americans occasionally erupt into violence. Perhaps the more notable late 20th century event was the Wounded Knee incident in small town South Dakota. During the period of expanding civil rights protests, about 200 activist members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) took control of Wounded Knee on February 27, 1973. They were protesting issues related to Native American rights and the nearby Pine Ridge Reservation. Federal law enforcement officials and the United States military surrounded the town. In the ensuing gunfights, two members of AIM were killed and one United States Marshal was wounded and paralyzed.^[108] In June 1975, two FBI agents seeking to effect an armed robbery arrest at Pine Ridge Reservation were wounded in a firefight, then killed by shots fired at point-blank range. AIM activist Leonard Peltier was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life in prison in the FBI deaths.^[109]

LeCompte also endured taunting on the battlefield. "They ridiculed him and called him a 'drunken Indian.' They said, 'Hey, dude, you look just like a haji—you'd better run.' They call the Arabs 'haji.' I mean, it's one thing to worry for your life, but then to have to worry about friendly fire because you don't know who in the hell will shoot you?

—Tammie LeCompte, May 25, 2007, "Soldier highlights problems in U.S. Army"^[110]

In 2004, Senator Sam Brownback (Republican of Kansas) introduced a joint resolution (Senate Joint Resolution 37) to “offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States” for past “ill-conceived policies” by the United States Government regarding Indian Tribes. The United States Senate has yet to take action on the measure.^[111]

In 2007, AIM activist John Graham was extradited from Canada to the US to stand trial for killing N.S. Mimaq in 1975. The Native American woman activist was killed years after the Wounded Knee standoff, allegedly for having been an FBI informant at the time.^[112][113]

In 2010, dispute over cigarette taxes between the Seneca Nation and New York City Mayor Bloomberg is calling for the mayor's resignation. The dispute over the tax, set to go into effect Sept. 1, drew attention last week after Bloomberg said on a radio show that Governor Paterson needs to grab a "cowboy hat and a shotgun" and demand the money himself.^[114]

Native Americans UN Human Rights Exclusion

On September 13, 2007 the UN General Assembly adopted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples after nearly 25 years of discussion. Indigenous representatives played a key role in the development of this Declaration. With an overwhelming majority of 143 votes in favour, only 4 negative votes cast (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, United States). The four states that voted against – all with historically oppressed and disenfranchised small indigenous populations far outnumbered by settler populations^[115]– continued to express serious reservations about the final text of the Declaration as placed before the General Assembly. Two of the four opposing countries, Australia and New Zealand, have since then changed their vote in favour of the Declaration.

Speaking for the United States mission to the UN, spokesman Benjamin Chang, who was staff under Richard Grenell, said, "What was done today is not clear. The way it stands now is subject to multiple interpretations and doesn't establish a clear universal principle."^[116] The U.S. mission also issued a floor document, "Observations of the United States with respect to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples", setting out its objections to the Declaration. Most of these are based on the same points as the three other countries' rejections but, in addition, the United States drew attention to the Declaration's failure to provide a clear definition of exactly whom the term "indigenous peoples" is intended to cover.^[117]

Native American mascots in sports

A student acting as Chief Osceola, the Florida State University mascot

The use of Native American mascots in sports has become a contentious issue in the United States and Canada. Americans have had a history of "playing Indian" that dates back to at least the 18th century.^[118] Many individuals admire the heroism and romanticism evoked by the classic Native American warrior image, but numerous Native Americans think use of items associated with them as mascots is both offensive and demeaning. While many universities (for example, North Dakota Fighting Sioux of University of North Dakota) and professional sports teams (for example, Chief Wahoo of Cleveland Indians) no longer use such images without consultation with Native American nations, some lower level schools,such as Vallejo High School in Vallejo, CA and John Swett High School in Crockett, CA and other lower level sports teams continue to do so. In the Bay Area of California a number of High Schools such as Tomales Bay High and Sequoia High have retired their Mascots.

In August 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) banned the use of "hostile and abusive" Native American mascots in postseason tournaments.^[120] An exception was made to allow the use of tribal names as long as approved by that tribe (such as the Seminole Tribe of Florida's approving use of their name for the team of Florida State University.)^[121][122] The use of Native American-themed team names in U.S. professional sports is widespread. Examples are mascot Chief Wahoo and teams such as the Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins, considered controversial by some.

"Could you imagine people mocking African Americans in black face at a game?" he said. "Yet go to a game where there is a team with an Indian name and you will see fans with war paint on their faces. Is this not the equivalent to black face?"

—"Native American Mascots Big Issue in College Sports",Teaching Tolerance, May 9, 2001^[123]

Depictions by Europeans and Americans

Sketch by John White of Roanoke Indians

American Indian on five-dollar Silver Certificate, 1899

Native Americans have been depicted by American artists in various ways at different historical periods. During the sixteenth century, 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. During the period when White and de Bry were working, when Europeans were first coming into contact with native Americans, Europeans were greatly interested in native American cultures. Their curiosity created demand for a book like de Bry’s.

A number of 19th and 20th century American and Canadian painters, often motivated by a desire to document and preserve Native culture, specialized in Native American subjects. Among the most prominent of these were Elbridge Ayer Burbank, George Catlin, Seth and Mary Eastman, Paul Kane, W. Langdon Kihn, Charles Bird King, Joseph Henry Sharp, and John Mix Stanley.

During the construction of the Capitol building in the early 19th 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 mythic historical proportions by the 19th 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 the natives appear ferocious. 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, artists such as Charles Bird King sought to express a more balanced image of Native Americans.

During this time there were writers of fiction who were informed about Native American culture and wrote about it with sympathy. One such writer was Marah Ellis Ryan.

In the 20th century, early portrayals of Native Americans in movies and television roles were first depicted by European-Americans dressed in mock traditional attire. Examples included The Last of the Mohicans (1920), Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans (1957), and F Troop (1965–67). In later decades, Native American actors such as Jay Silverheels in The Lone Ranger television series (1949–57) came to prominence. Roles of Native Americans were limited and not reflective of Native American culture. In the 1970s some Native Americans roles were improved in movies: Little Big Man (1970), Billy Jack (1971), and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) depicted Native Americans in minor supporting roles.

In addition to overtly negative depictions, Native people on US television have also been relegated to secondary, subordinate roles. During the years of the series Bonanza (1959–1973), no major or secondary Native characters appeared on a consistent basis. The series The Lone Ranger (1949–1957), Cheyenne (1957–1963), and Law of the Plainsman (1959–1963) had Native characters who were essentially aides to the central White characters. This characterization was also a feature of later television pilots and shows such as How the West Was Won. These programs resembled the “sympathetic” yet contradictory film Dances With Wolves of 1990, in which, according to Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, the narrative choice was to relate the Lakotas story as told through a Euro-American voice, for wide impact among a general audience.^[124] Like the 1992 remake of The Last of the Mohicans and Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), Dances with Wolves employed a number of Native American actors, and made some effort to portray Indigenous languages.

In 2004, Co-Producer Guy Perrotta presented the film Mystic Voices: The Story of the Pequot War (2004), a television documentary on the first major war between colonists and Native peoples in the Americas. Perrotta and Charles Clemmons intended to increase public understanding of the significance of this early event. They believed it had significance not only for northeastern Native Peoples and descendants of English and Dutch colonists, but for all Americans today. The producers wanted to make the documentary as historically accurate and as unbiased as possible. They invited a broadly based Advisory Board, and used scholars, Native Americans, and descendants of the colonists to help tell the story. They elicited personal and often passionate viewpoints from contemporary Americans. The production portrayed the conflict as a struggle between different value systems that included not only the Pequots, but a number of Native American tribes, most of which allied with the English. It not only presents facts, but also seeks to help the viewer better understand the people who fought the War.

In 2009, We Shall Remain (2009), a television documentary by Ric Burns and part of the American Experience series, presented a five-episode series "from a Native American perspective": it represented "an unprecedented collaboration between Native and non-Native filmmakers and involves Native advisors and scholars at all levels of the project."^[125] The five episodes explore the impact of King Philip's War on the northeastern tribes, the "Native American confederacy" involved in Tecumseh's War, the forced relocation known as Trail of Tears, the pursuit and capture of Geronimo and the Apache Wars, and concludes with the American Indian Movement's involvement at the Wounded Knee incident and the resurgence in modern Native cultures afterward.

Terminology differences

Common usage in the United States

Native Americans are more commonly known as Indians or American Indians, and have been known as Aboriginal Americans, Amerindians, Amerinds, Colored,^[86][126] First Americans, Native Indians, Indigenous, Original Americans, Red Indians, Redskins or Red Men. The term Native American was originally introduced in the United States by academics in preference to the older term Indian to distinguish the indigenous peoples of the Americas from the people of India, and to avoid negative stereotypes supposedly associated with the term Indian. Because of the acceptance of this newer term in academic circles, some academics believe that Indians should be considered as outdated or offensive. Many actual indigenous Americans, however, prefer American Indian. Also, some people point out that anyone born in the United States is, technically, native to America, and that the academic who first promoted Native American confused the term native with indigenous. People from India (and their descendants) who are citizens of the United States are called Indian Americans or Asian Indians.

Martha Gradolf, Hochunk weaver from Indiana

Criticism of the neologism Native American, however, comes from diverse sources. Many American Indians have misgivings about the term Native American. Russell Means, an American Indian activist, opposes the term Native American because he believes it was imposed by the government without the consent of American Indians. He has also argued that this use of the word Indian derives not from a confusion with India but from a Spanish expression En Dio, meaning "in God".^[127] 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.^[128] 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 1995 US Census Bureau survey found that more Native Americans in the United States preferred American Indian to Native American.^[129] Nonetheless, most American Indians are comfortable with Indian, American Indian, and Native American, and the terms are often used interchangeably.^[130] The traditional term is reflected in the name chosen for the National Museum of the American Indian, which opened in 2004 on the Mall in Washington, D.C..

Recently, the U.S. Census Bureau has introduced the "Asian-Indian" category to avoid ambiguity.

Gambling industry

Sandia Casino, owned by the Sandia Pueblo of New Mexico

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, the Impact of Native American gambling is widely debated. Some tribes, 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 gambling industry.

Society, language, and culture

Ethno-linguistic classification

Far from forming a single ethnic group, Native Americans were divided into several hundred ethno-linguistic groups, most of them grouped into the Na-Dené (Athabaskan), Algic (including Algonquian), Uto-Aztecan, Iroquoian, Siouan-Catawban, Yok-Utian, Salishan and Yuman-Cochimí phyla, besides many smaller groups and several language isolates. Demonstrating genetic relationships has proved difficult due to the great linguistic diversity present in North America.

The indigenous peoples of North America can be classified as belonging to a number of large cultural areas:

Early Indian languages in the US

• Alaska Natives
  • Arctic: Eskimo-Aleut
  • Subarctic: Northern Athabaskan
• Western United States
  • Californian tribes (Northern): Yok-Utian, Pacific Coast Athabaskan, Coast Miwok, Yurok, Palaihnihan, Chumashan, Uto-Aztecan
  • Plateau tribes: Interior Salish, Plateau Penutian
  • Great Basin tribes: Uto-Aztecan
  • Pacific Northwest Coast: Pacific Coast Athabaskan, Coast Salish
  • Southwestern tribes: Uto-Aztecan, Yuman, Southern Athabaskan
• Central United States
  • Plains Indians: Siouan, Plains Algonquian, Southern Athabaskan
• Eastern United States
  • Northeastern Woodlands tribes: Iroquoian, Central Algonquian, Eastern Algonquian
  • Southeastern tribes: Muskogean, Siouan, Catawban, Iroquoian

Of the surviving languages, Uto-Aztecan has the most speakers (1.95 million) if the languages in Mexico are considered (mostly due to 1.5 million speakers of Nahuatl); Nadene comes in second with approximately 180,200 speakers (148,500 of these are speakers of Navajo). Na-Dené and Algic have the widest geographic distributions: Algic currently spans from northeastern Canada across much of the continent down to northeastern Mexico (due to later migrations of the Kickapoo) with two outliers in California (Yurok and Wiyot); Na-Dené spans from Alaska and western Canada through Washington, Oregon, and California to the U.S. Southwest and northern Mexico (with one outlier in the Plains). Another area of considerable diversity appears to have been the Southeast; however, many of these languages became extinct from European contact and as a result they are, for the most part, absent from the historical record.

Cultural aspects

Hopi woman dressing hair of unmarried girl from 1900.

Sheep remain an important aspect in Navajo Tradition and Culture.

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 implements were the bow and arrow, the war club, and the spear. Quality, material, and design varied widely. Native American use of fire both helped provide and prepare for food and altered the landscape of the continent to help the human population flourish.

Large mammals like mammoths and mastodons were largely extinct by around 8,000 B.C. 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 Spanish reintroduction of the horse to North America in the 17th century and Native Americans' learning to use them greatly altered the natives' culture, including changing the way in which they hunted large game. (Evidence of pre-historic horses prior to the arrival of the Spanish has been found in the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, CA.^[131][132]) In addition, horses became such a valuable, central element of Native lives that they were counted as a measure of wealth.

Organization

Zuni girl with pottery jar on her head in 1909

Gens structure

Early European American scholars described the Native Americans as having a society dominated by clans or gentes (in the Roman model) before tribes were formed. There were some common characteristics:

• The right to elect its sachem and chiefs.
• The right to depose 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 to bestow names on its members.
• The right to adopt strangers into the gens.
• Common religious rights, query.
• A common burial place.
• A council of the gens.^[133]

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:

Shonto Begay, Diné painter from Arizona

• The possession of 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.^[133]

Society and art

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.^[134]

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.

Agriculture

Maize raised by Native Americans

Chippewa baby waits on a cradleboard while parents tend rice crops (Minnesota, 1940).

An early crop the Native Americans grew was squash. Others early crops included cotton, sunflower, pumpkins, tobacco, goosefoot, knotgrass, and sump weed.

Agriculture in the southwest started around 4,000 years ago when traders brought cultigens from Mexico. Due to the varying climate, some ingenuity was needed for agriculture to be successful. The climate in the southwest ranged from cool, moist mountains regions, to dry, sandy soil in the desert. Some innovations of the time included irrigation to bring water into the dry regions and the selection of seed based on the traits of the growing plants that bore them. In the southwest, they grew beans that were self-supported, much like the way they are grown today.

In the east, however, they were planted right by corn in order for the vines to be able to "climb" the cornstalks. The most important crop the Native Americans raised was maize. It was first started in Mesoamerica and spread north. About 2,000 years ago it reached eastern America. This crop was important to the Native Americans because it was part of their everyday diet; it could be stored in underground pits during the winter, and no part of it was wasted. The husk was made into art crafts, and the cob was used as fuel for fires. By 800 A.D. the Native Americans had established three main crops — beans, squash, and corn — called the three sisters.

The agriculture gender roles of the Native Americans varied from region to region. In the southwest area, men prepared the soil with hoes. The women were in charge of planting, weeding, and harvesting the crops. In most other regions, the women were in charge of doing everything, including clearing the land. Clearing the land was an immense chore since the Native Americans rotated fields frequently. There is a tradition that Squanto showed the Pilgrims in New England how to put fish in fields to act like a fertilizer, but the truth of this story is debated. Native Americans did plant beans next to corn; the beans would replace the nitrogen which the corn took from the ground, as well as using corn stalks for support for climbing. Native Americans used controlled fires to burn weeds and clear fields; this would put nutrients back into the ground. If this did not work, they would simply abandon the field to let it be fallow, and find a new spot for cultivation.

Europeans in the eastern part of the continent observed that Natives cleared large areas for cropland. Their fields in New England sometimes covered hundreds of acres. Colonists in Virginia noted thousands of acres under cultivation by Native Americans.^[135]

Native Americans commonly used tools such as the hoe, maul, and dibber. The hoe was the main tool used to till the land and prepare it for planting; then it was used for weeding. The first versions were made out of wood and stone. When the settlers brought iron, Native Americans switched to iron hoes and hatchets. The dibber was a digging stick, used to plant the seed. Once the plants were harvested, women prepared the produce for eating. They used the maul to grind the corn into mash. It was cooked and eaten that way or baked as corn bread.^[136]

Religion

Baptism of Pocahontas was painted in 1840. John Gadsby Chapman depicts Pocahontas, wearing white, being baptized Rebecca by Anglican minister Alexander Whiteaker in Jamestown, Virginia; this event is believed to have taken place in 1613 or 1614.

Traditional Native American ceremonies are still practiced by many tribes and bands, and the older theological belief systems are still held by many of the "traditional" people. These spiritualities may accompany adherence to another faith, or can represent a person's primary religious identity. While much Native American spiritualism exists in a tribal-cultural continuum, and as such cannot be easily separated from tribal identity itself, certain other more clearly defined movements have arisen among "traditional" Native American practitioners, these being identifiable as "religions" in the clinical sense. Traditional practices of some tribes include the use of sacred herbs such tobacco, sweetgrass or sage. Many Plains tribes have sweatlodge ceremonies, though the specifics of the ceremony vary among tribes. Fasting, singing and prayer in the ancient languages of their people, and sometimes drumming are also common.

The Midewiwin Lodge is a traditional medicine society inspired by the oral traditions and prophesies of the Ojibwa (Chippewa) and related tribes.

Another significant religious body among Native peoples is known as the Native American Church. It is a syncretistic church incorporating elements of Native spiritual practice from a number of different tribes as well as symbolic elements from Christianity. Its main rite is the peyote ceremony. Prior to 1890, traditional religious beliefs included Wakan Tanka. In the American Southwest, especially New Mexico, a syncretism between the Catholicism brought by Spanish missionaries and the native religion is common; the religious drums, chants, and dances of the Pueblo people are regularly part of Masses at Santa Fe's Saint Francis Cathedral.^[137] 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).

The eagle feather law (Title 50 Part 22 of the Code of Federal Regulations) stipulates that only individuals of certifiable Native American ancestry enrolled in a federally recognized tribe are legally authorized to obtain eagle feathers for religious or spiritual use. The law does not allow Native Americans to give eagle feathers to non-Native Americans.

Gender roles

Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte was the first Native American woman to become a physician in the United States.

Most Native American tribes had traditional gender roles. In some tribes, such as the Iroquois nation, social and clan relationships were matrilineal 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 gathered plants, cared for the young and the elderly, fashioned clothing and instruments and cured meat. The cradleboard was used by mothers to carry their baby while working or traveling.^[138] In some (but not all) tribes, two-spirit individuals served mixed or third gender gender roles.

At least several dozen tribes allowed polygyny to sisters, with procedural and economic limits.^[133]

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 bison.^[139] In some of the Plains Indian tribes there reportedly were medicine women who gathered herbs and cured the ill.^[140]

In some of these tribes such as the Sioux girls were also encouraged to learn to ride, hunt and fight.^[141] 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.^[142]

Sports

Native American leisure time led to competitive individual and team sports. Jim Thorpe, Notah Begay III, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Billy Mills are well known professional athletes.

Team based

Ball players from the Choctaw and Lakota tribe as painted by George Catlin in the 1830s

Native American ball sports, sometimes referred to as lacrosse, stickball, or baggataway, was often used to settle disputes rather than going to war which was a civil way to settle potential conflict. The Choctaw called it ISITOBOLI ("Little Brother of War");^[143] the Onondaga name was DEHUNTSHIGWA'ES ("men hit a rounded object"). There are three basic versions classifed as Great Lakes, Iroquoian, and Southern.^[144] The game is played with one or two rackets/sticks and one ball. The object of the game is to land the ball on the opposing team's goal (either a single post or net) to score and prevent the opposing team from scoring on your goal. The game involves as few as twenty or as many as 300 players with no height or weight restrictions and no protective gear. The goals could be from a few hundred feet apart to a few miles; in Lacrosse the field is 110 yards. A Jesuit priest referenced stickball in 1729, and George Catlin painted the subject.

Individual based

Chunke was a game that consisted of a stone shaped disk that was about 1–2 inches in diameter. The disk was thrown down a 200-foot (61 m) corridor so that it could roll past the players at great speed. The disk would roll down the corridor, and players would throw wooden shafts at the moving disk. The object of the game was to strike the disk or prevent your opponents from hitting it.

U.S. Olympics

Jim Thorpe was called the "greatest athlete in the world" by king Gustaf V of Sweden

Billy Mills crosses the finish line for the 10,000 meter race at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics

Jim Thorpe, a Sauk and Fox Native American, was an all-round athlete playing football and baseball in the early 20th century. Future President Dwight Eisenhower injured his knee while trying to tackle the young Thorpe. In a 1961 speech, Eisenhower recalled Thorpe: "Here and there, there are some people who are supremely endowed. My memory goes back to Jim Thorpe. He never practiced in his life, and he could do anything better than any other football player I ever saw."^[145]

In the 1912 Olympics, Thorpe could run the 100-yard dash in 10 seconds flat, the 220 in 21.8 seconds, the 440 in 51.8 seconds, the 880 in 1:57, the mile in 4:35, the 120-yard high hurdles in 15 seconds, and the 220-yard low hurdles in 24 seconds.^[146] He could long jump 23 ft 6 in and high-jump 6 ft 5 in.^[146] He could pole vault 11 feet, put the shot 47 ft 9 in, throw the javelin 163 feet, and throw the discus 136 feet.^[146] Thorpe entered the U.S. Olympic trials for both the pentathlon and the decathlon.

Billy Mills, a Lakota and USMC officer, won the Gold medal in the 10,000 meter run at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He was the only American ever to win the Olympic gold in this event. An unknown prior to the Olympics, he had finished second in the U.S. Olympic trials.

Music and art

Jake Fragua, Jemez Pueblo from New Mexico

Traditional Native American music is almost entirely monophonic, but there are notable exceptions. Native American music often includes drumming 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 Robbie Robertson (The Band), Rita Coolidge, Wayne Newton, Gene Clark, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Blackfoot, Tori Amos, Redbone, and CocoRosie. 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.^[147]

Native American art comprises a major category in the world art collection. Native American contributions include pottery(Native American pottery), paintings, jewellery, weavings, sculptures, basketry, and carvings. Franklin Gritts, was a Cherokee artist, who taught students from many tribes at Haskell Institute (now Haskell Indian Nations University) in the 1940s, the Golden Age of Native American painters.

The integrity of certain Native American artworks is 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.

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 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.

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

Barriers to economic development

"The King of the Seas in the Hands of the Makahs," photograph taken in 1910 of Makah Native Americans

Today, other than tribes successfully running casinos, many tribes struggle. There are an estimated 2.1 million Native Americans, and they are the most impoverished of all ethnic groups. According to the 2000 Census, an estimated 400,000 Native Americans reside on reservation land. While some tribes have had success with gaming, only 40% of the 562 federally recognized tribes operate casinos.^[148] According to a 2007 survey by the U.S. Small Business Administration, only 1 percent of Native Americans own and operate a business.^[149] Native Americans rank at the bottom of nearly every social statistic: highest teen suicide rate of all minorities at 18.5 per 100,000, highest rate of teen pregnancy, highest high school drop out rate at 54%, lowest per capita income, and unemployment rates between 50% to 90%.

The barriers to economic development on Native American reservations often cited by others and two experts Joseph Kalt^[150] and Stephen Cornell^[151] of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at Harvard University, in their classic report: What Can Tribes Do? Strategies and Institutions in American Indian Economic Development,^[152] are as follows (incomplete list, see full Kalt & Cornell report):

• Lack of access to capital.
• Lack of human capital (education, skills, technical expertise) and the means to develop it.
• Reservations lack effective planning.
• Reservations are poor in natural resources.
• Reservations have natural resources, but lack sufficient control over them.
• Reservations are disadvantaged by their distance from markets and the high costs of transportation.
• Tribes cannot persuade investors to locate on reservations because of intense competition from non-Native American communities.
• The Bureau of Indian Affairs is inept, corrupt, and/or uninterested in reservation development.
• Tribal politicians and bureaucrats are inept or corrupt.
• On-reservation factionalism destroys stability in tribal decisions.
• The instability of tribal government keeps outsiders from investing.
• Entrepreneurial skills and experience are scarce.
• Tribal cultures get in the way.

One of the major barriers for overcoming the economic strife is the lack of entrepreneurial knowledge and experience across Indian reservations. “A general lack of education and experience about business is a significant challenge to prospective entrepreneurs,” also says another report on Native American entrepreneurship by the Northwest Area Foundation in 2004. “Native American communities that lack entrepreneurial traditions and recent experiences typically do not provide the support that entrepreneurs need to thrive. Consequently, experiential entrepreneurship education needs to be embedded into school curricula and after-school and other community activities. This would allow students to learn the essential elements of entrepreneurship from a young age and encourage them to apply these elements throughout life.”.^[153] One publication devoted to addressing these issues is Rez Biz magazine.

Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans

Lillian Gross, described as a "Mixed Blood" by the Smithsonian source, was of Native American and European/American heritage. She identified with her Cherokee culture.

Interracial relations between Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans is a complex issue that has been mostly neglected with "few in-depth studies on interracial relationships".^[154][155] Some of the first documented cases of European/Native American intermarriage and contact were recorded in Post-Columbian Mexico. One case is that of Gonzalo Guerrero, a European from Spain, who was shipwrecked along the Yucatan Peninsula, and fathered three Mestizo children with a Mayan noblewoman. Another is the case of (Hernán Cortés) and his mistress La Malinche, who gave birth to another of the first multi-racial people in the Americas.^[156]

Native Americans and assimilation acceptance with Europeans

European impact was immediate, widespread, and profound—more than any other race that had contact with Native Americans during the early years of colonization and nationhood. Europeans living among Native Americans were often called "white indians". They "lived in native communities for years, learned native languages fluently, attended native councils, and often fought alongside their native companions."^[157]

The 1725 return of an Osage bride from a trip to Paris, France. The Osage woman was married to a French soldier.

Early contact was often charged with tension and emotion, but also had moments of friendship, cooperation, and intimacy.^[158] Marriages took place in English, Spanish, and French colonies between European men and Native women. In 1528, Isabel de Moctezuma, an heir of Moctezuma II, was married to Alonso de Grado, a Spanish Conquistador, and later after his death to Juan Cano de Saavedra. Together they had five children. Much later, on April 5, 1614, Pocahontas married Englishman John Rolfe, and they had a child called Thomas Rolfe. Also, many heirs of Emperor Moctezuma II were acknowledged by the Spanish crown, who granted them many titles including Duke of Moctezuma de Tultengo.

Intimate relations among Native American and Europeans were widespread, beginning with the French and Spanish explorers and trappers. For instance, in the early 19th century, the Native American woman Sacagawea, who would help translate for the Lewis and Clark Expedition, was married to French trapper Toussaint Charbonneau. They had a son named Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. This was the most typical pattern among the traders and trappers.

Five Indians and a Captive, painted by Carl Wimar, 1855

Many settlers feared Native Americans because they were different.^[158] Their ways seemed savage to whites, and they were suspicious of a culture they did not understand.^[158] A Native American author Andrew J. Blackbird in 1897, found that white settlers introduced some immoralities into Native American tribes.^[158]

He wrote in his book, History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan,

"The Ottawas and Chippewas were quite virtuous in their primitive state, as there were no illegitimate children reported in our old traditions. But very lately this evil came to exist among the Ottawas-so lately that the second case among the Ottawas of Arbor Croche is yet living in 1897. And from that time this evil came to be quite frequent, for immorality has been introduced among these people by evil white persons who bring their vices into the tribes."^[158]

The U. S. government had two purposes in mind when making land agreements with Native Americans. First, they wanted to open it up more land for white settlement.^[159] Second, they wanted to ease tensions between whites and Native Americans by forcing Natives to use the land like whites did.^[159] The government had a variety of strategies to accomplish these aims; many treaties required Native Americans to become farmers in order to keep their land.^[159] Government officials often did not translate the documents Native Americans were forced to sign, and native chiefs often had little or no idea what they were signing.^[159]

For a Native American man to marry a white woman he had to get consent of the parents as long as "he can prove to support her as a white woman in a good home".^[160] In the early 19th century, Shawnee Native American Tecumseh and blonde hair & blued eyed Rebbecca Galloway had a inter-racial affair. In the late 19th century, three European-American middle-class female staff married Native American men met during the years when Hampton Institute ran its Native American program.^[161] Charles Eastman married his European-American wife Elaine Goodale whom he had met in Dakota Territory when Goodale was social worker and the superintendent of Native American education for the reservations. They had six children together.

Native American and African relations

African and Native Americans have interacted for centuries. The earliest record of African and Native American contact occurred in April 1502, when the first Africans were brought to Hispaniola to serve as slaves.^[162]

Sometimes Native Americans resented the presence of African Americans.^[163] In one description the "Catawaba tribe in 1752 showed great anger and bitter resentment when an African American came among them as a trader."^[163] The Cherokee had the strongest color prejudice of all Native Americans to gain favor with Europeans.^[164] The hostility has been attributed to European fears of a unified revolt of Native Americans and African Americans: "Whites sought to convince Native Americans that African Americans worked against their best interests." ^[165] In 1751, South Carolina law stated:

"The carrying of Negroes among the Indians has all along been thought detrimental, as an intimacy ought to be avoided."^[166]

Europeans considered both races inferior and made efforts to make both Native Americans and Africans enemies.^[81] Native Americans were rewarded if they returned escaped slaves, and African Americans were rewarded for fighting in "Indian Wars".^{[81][167][168]}

Ras K'Dee, Pomo-Kenyan singer and editor from California

"Native Americans, during the transitional period of Africans becoming the primary race enslaved, were enslaved at the same time and shared a common experience of enslavement. They worked together, lived together in communal quarters, produced collective recipes for food, shared herbal remedies, myths and legends, and in the end they intermarried."^[82] Because of this many tribes encouraged marriage between the two groups, to create stronger, healthier children from the unions.^[169] In the 18th century, many Native American women did marry freed or runaway African men due to a large decrease in the population of men in Native American villages.^[81] In addition, records also show that many Native American women actually bought African men, but unknown to European sellers the women freed and married the men into their tribe.^[81] It was also beneficial for African men to marry or have children by a Native American woman because children born to a mother who was not a slave were free.^[81] European colonists often requested the return of any runaway slaves in treaties. 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.^[170] In the mid 1760s, Huron and Delaware Native Americans were also requested to return runaway slaves however no record of slaves being returned occurred.^[171] Ads were used to request the return of slaves.

L to R: Mrs. Amos Chapman, her daughter, sister (all Cheyenne, and an unidentified African-American girl. 1886^[172]

Slave ownership was prevalent among a few Native American tribes, especially in the southeast where the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek lived. Though less than 3% of Native Americans owned slaves, bondage practices created destructive divisions among Native Americans.^[83] Among the Cherokee, records show that slave holders in the tribe were largely the children of European men that had showed their children the economics of slavery.^[167] As European expansion increased more African and Native American marriages became more prominent.^[81]

A few historians suggest that most African Americans have Native American heritage^[173] Based on the work of geneticists, a PBS series on African Americans explained that while most African Americans are racially mixed, it is relatively rare that they have Native American ancestry.^[174][175] According to the PBS series, the most common "non-black" mix is English and Scots-Irish.^[174][175] However, the Y-chromosome and mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) testing processes for direct-line male and female ancestors can fail to pick up the heritage of many ancestors. (Some critics thought the PBS series did not sufficiently explain the limitations of DNA testing for assessment of heritage.)^[176] Another study suggests that relatively few Native Americans have African-American heritage.^[177] A study reported in The American Journal of Human Genetics stated, "We analyzed the European genetic contribution to 10 populations of African descent in the United States (Maywood, Illinois; Detroit; New York; Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Baltimore; Charleston, South Carolina; New Orleans; and Houston) ... mtDNA haplogroups analysis shows no evidence of a significant maternal Amerindian contribution to any of the 10 populations."^[178]

Researchers caution that genetic ancestry DNA testing has limitations and should not be depended on by individuals to answer all their questions about heritage.^[176][179] Testing cannot distinguish among separate Native American tribes. Nor can it be used alone to assert membership in a tribe.^[180]

Blood Quantum

Intertribal mixing was common among Native American tribes, so individuals could be said to be descended from more than one tribe.^[33][34] Bands or entire tribes occasionally split or merged to form more viable groups in reaction to the pressures of climate, disease and warfare.^[181] A number of tribes traditionally adopted captives into their group to replace 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. Tribes with long trading histories with Europeans show a higher rate of European admixture, reflecting years of intermarriage between European men and Native American women.^[181] A number of paths to genetic diversity among Native Americans thus existed.

Members of the Creek (Muscogee) Nation in Oklahoma around 1877, including those with some European and African ancestry.^[182]

While in recent years some commentators have suggested high rates of admixture between Native Americans and African Americans, genetic genealogists have found lesser frequency. Literary critic and author Henry Louis Gates, Jr. cites experts who argue that only 5 percent of African Americans have at least 12.5 percent Native American ancestry (equivalent to one great-grandparent). Of course this means that a greater percentage could have a very small percentage of ancestry, but it also suggests that past estimates of admixture may have been too high.^[183] As some genetic tests assess only direct male or female ancestors, individuals may not discover Native American ancestry from other ancestors. Among an individual's 64 4xgreat-grandparents, direct testing yields DNA evidence of only two.^{[176][179][184]}

In addition to limitations if only direct male and female lines are tested, DNA testing cannot be used for determining tribal membership because it can not distinguish among Native American groups. Native American identity has historically been based on culture, not just biology. The Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism (IPCB) notes that:

"Native American markers" are not found solely among Native Americans. While they occur more frequently among Native Americans they are also found in people in other parts of the world.^[184]

Geneticists also state:

Not all Native Americans have been tested especially with the large number of deaths due to disease such as small pox, it is unlikely that Native Americans only have the genetic markers they have identified, even when their maternal or paternal bloodline does not include a non-Native American.^[176][179]

To receive tribal services, a Native American must belong to and be certified by a recognized tribal organization. Each tribal government makes its own rules for citizens or tribal members. The federal government has standards related to services available to certified Native Americans. For instance, Federal scholarships for Native Americans require the student to be enrolled in a federally recognized tribe and have at least one-quarter Native American descent (equivalent to one grandparent), attested by a Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood card. Among tribes, qualification may be based upon a required percentage of Native American "blood", or the "blood quantum" of an individual seeking recognition.

To attain certainty, some tribes have begun requiring genealogical DNA testing, but this is usually related to proving parentage or direct descent from a certified member.^[185] Requirements for tribal membership vary widely by tribe. The Cherokee require documented genealogical descent from a Native American listed on the early 20th century Dawes Rolls. Tribal rules regarding recognition of members who have heritage 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, descendants of enslaved African Americans once held by the Cherokees, who were granted citizenship in the Cherokee nation as freedmen after the Civil War, by federal treaty. The Cherokee nation has recently excluded them from the rolls unless individuals can prove descent from a Cherokee Native American (not just freedman) on the Dawes Rolls.

In the 20th century, an increasing number of Caucasian-Americans have seemed more interested in claiming descent from Native Americans. Many people have claimed descent from the Cherokee.^[186]

Kateri Tekakwitha, the patron of ecologists, exiles, and orphans, was beatified by the Roman Catholic Church.

Mishikinakwa ("Little Turtle")'s forces defeated an American force of nearly 1000 U.S Army soldiers and other casualties at the Battle of the Wabash in 1791.

Charles Eastman was one of the first Native Americans to become a Western Medical Doctor.^[187][188]

Population

In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that about 0.8 percent of the U.S. population was of American Indian or Alaska Native descent. This population is unevenly distributed across the country.^[189] Below, all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, are listed by the proportion of residents citing American Indian or Alaska Native ancestry, based on 2006 estimates:

In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that about less than 1.0 percent of the U.S. population was of Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander descent. This population is unevenly distributed across 26 states.^[189] Below, are the 26 states that had at least 0.1%. They are listed by the proportion of residents citing Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander ancestry, based on 2006 estimates:

Genetics

A genetic tree of 18 world human groups by a neighbour-joining autosomal relationships.

Genetic history of indigenous peoples of the Americas primarily focus on Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups and Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroups. "Y-DNA" is passed solely along the patrilineal line, from father to son, while "mtDNA" is passed down the matrilineal line, from mother to offspring of both sexes. Neither recombines, and thus Y-DNA and mtDNA change only by chance mutation at each generation with no intermixture between parents' genetic material.^[190] Autosomal "atDNA" markers are also used, but differ from mtDNA or Y-DNA in that they overlap significantly.^[191] AtDNA is generally used to measure the average continent-of-ancestry genetic admixture in the entire human genome and related isolated populations.^[191]

The genetic pattern indicates Indigenous Amerindians experienced two very distinctive genetic episodes; first with the initial-peopling of the Americas, and secondly with European colonization of the Americas.^{[192][193][194]} The former is the determinant factor for the number of gene lineages, zygosity mutations and founding haplotypes present in today's Indigenous Amerindian populations.^[192]

Human settlement of the New World occurred in stages from the Bering sea coast line, with an initial 15, 000 to 20,000-year layover on Beringia for the small founding population.^{[193][195][196]} The micro-satellite diversity and distributions of the Y lineage specific to South America indicates that certain Amerindian populations have been isolated since the initial colonization of the region.^[197] The Na-Dené, Inuit and Indigenous Alaskan populations exhibit haplogroup Q (Y-DNA) mutations, however are distinct from other indigenous Amerindians with various mtDNA and atDNA mutations.^{[198][199][200]} This suggests that the earliest migrants into the northern extremes of North America and Greenland derived from later migrant populations.^[201][202]

See also

Notes

References

External links

• Native American Historical Records available in the Archival Research Catalog of the National Archives and Records Administration
• Precolumbian Native American History, Art & Culture @ LostWorlds.org
• Bonneville Collection of 19th century photographs of Native Americans at University of South Carolina Library's Digital Collections Page
• Houghton Mifflin Encyclopedia of North American Indians
• Native American Treaties and Information from UCB Libraries GovPubs
• Native American History from the Library of Congress American Memory project
• Native Americans in the United States at the Open Directory Project
• First Nations Seeker Visit Native American communities across North America and discover their history.

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