Native Americans, or American Indians[[note]]This name may be considered incorrect, but some natives prefer it. It should not be confused with "Indian-Americans", which means Americans who are from or have ancestry from UsefulNotes/{{India}}[[/note]], are the people and their descendants who inhabited the land of the UsefulNotes/UnitedStates, prior to the arrival of UsefulNotes/{{Europe}}ans. UsefulNotes/{{Canada}} uses different terms; you can read about First Nations/Inuit/Métis in their article. Generally "Native Americans" refers only to groups living in the continental ("lower 48") U.S., with Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians normally viewed as separate groups with unique histories and cultures (plus they have very different relationships with the federal government). Because of this, Native Alaskans and Hawaiians will be grouped in their own state pages. Note, however, that the US Census Bureau defines "Native Americans" to include Alaska Natives, but ''not'' Native Hawaiians.[[labelnote:Further note]]The latter are included in the Census' "Pacific Islanders" group, their ancestry and culture being emphatically Polynesian.[[/labelnote]] Like most useful notes pages, this article is meant to inform and enlighten and hopefully be less boring than more traditional encyclopedias.

Census data consistently show Native Americans making up around three percent of America's population of 332 million, though this varies by state, with the largest concentration being in the Southwest, especially Oklahoma.[[note]]By US Census standards, the jurisdiction with the highest concentration of "Native Americans" is Alaska, but as noted above, popular usage views Alaska Natives as separate from Native Americans.[[/note]] Due to romanticism of the peoples and their largely lost lifestyles, they tend to be somewhat over-represented in media (but under-represented in having actual Natives portraying them). Shockingly considering the source, one of the most accurate representations - to a point - is Disney's ''{{WesternAnimation/Pocahontas}}'' (seriously). Of course, ''modern'' Natives can be just as urbane as anyone else. This article is also designed to correct assumptions and stereotypes.

“Native American” and “Indian” are also generally used to refer to all pre-Columbian peoples of the Americas, but this article focuses specifically on the United States.

For tropes about Native Americans, see NativeAmericansTropes. For media about them, see NativeAmericanAndFirstNationsMedia. For media-makers, see NativeAmericanAndFirstNationsCreators.
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[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder:Tribal Groups]]
This article will discuss larger geographical groupings rather than the individual tribes, since listing and describing all 565 federally-recognized tribes would itself require multiple wikis (and probably more true scholars than this site has). Geography was naturally one of the biggest influences on Native American culture; however, it should be noted that these descriptions are generalizations and there is plenty of variation within each group. For a complete list of all tribes with descriptions, try the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classification_of_indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas other wiki]].

!!North East (Eastern Woodlands tribes): AKA the guys in ''{{WesternAnimation/Pocahontas}}'' and ''Literature/TheIndianInTheCupboard''
* These are the groups that lived around the Great Lakes and the eastern side of the Appalachians. One of the Aboriginal groups that usually farmed, they were more semi-nomadic than their wandering neighbors and often had more complicated clan style family structures. They tended to live in more permanent structures like longhouses and wigwams, usually made of bark moss and smaller branches. They are the group that grew maize, squash, and beans (the "three sisters") and usually hunted and fished as well. The Cree are one of the largest groups of Indian people in North America, ranging all across Canada and into the Great Plains. Anglos have probably heard of Robbie Robertson of Music/TheBand: he was a Mohawk (one of the six nations within the Haudenosaunee, or Iroquois). Another member of these peoples whom Anglos are likely to have heard of is [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeagueNamesToKnow Jim Thorpe]] (Sac and Fox), an Olympic champion, major-league baseball player, and pioneer of American football. Shawnee artist Link Wray is acknowledged to have ''[[https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-kickass-native-american-rock-bands-music-history-forgot invented the power chord]]''. The Cree you are most likely to have heard of is folk rocker Buffy Sainte-Marie; actress Irene Bedard has both Cree and Inupiat heritage. Another famous Eastern Indian is Handsome Lake (Seneca, another one of the Haudenosaunee nations) who was inspired by visions to found a new religion. [[https://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/iro/parker/index.htm The Code of Handsome Lake]] promotes kindness and forbids alcohol, cruelty and greed.

!!South East: AKA the moundbuilders
* Similar in culture to the North Eastern group, often speaking similar languages to the North Eastern peoples and with some tribes seeing some North Eastern ones distant kin; one Iroquoian-speaking South Eastern tribe, the Tuscarora, actually moved to the North East and joined their cousins in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, becoming the sixth of the aforementioned Six Nations, after being forced out of their original homeland in the Carolinas by the English colonists in the early 18th century. The South Eastern peoples were also essentially agricultural, and also grew the "three sisters." However, they had much bigger emphasis on the sun and fire gods.\\
The tribes of the southeast built many mounds and other structures to worship and honor the sun and other gods, some of which are still honored today. Many of the South Eastern tribes, most notoriously the so-called "Five Civilized Tribes" (Cherokee, Choctaw, Muscogee [or Creek], Chickasaw, and some of the Seminole tribes), were relocated to modern-day Oklahoma in the 1830s as part of the Trail of Tears. The tribes that didn't (primarily the Okahumpka and Miccosukee Seminole tribes) remain today as the only tribes to have never surrendered to the United States. Famous Southeasterners: Sequoyah (created the Cherokee writing system), Albert Billy (Choctaw, one of the first Code Talkers), Bud Adams and his daughter Amy Adams Strunk (Cherokee; founding and current owners of the NFL's Tennessee Titans).

* The "Mound Builders", aka the Mississippian Civilization, were probably the ancestors of most of the Southeastern tribes. The mounds themselves were the beginnings of a sophisticated urban civilization, which by the 13th century had already produced at least one major urban center (Cahokia, in what is now southern Illinois, about 7.5 miles northeast of downtown UsefulNotes/StLouis), with other "mounds" showing definite patterns of concentration of power in the hands of central spiritual and political elites, with definite hinterlands outside the cities paying tribute. This probably would have developed quite nicely had it not been for a big plague; for which, see "History" below.

!! Plains: AKA the guys who lived in tipis and beat Custer
* The group you're mostly likely to see in media, due to their association with the romanticized Wild West. They originated many of the tropes common in Westerns. Anglos are most likely to have heard of Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and Black Elk. The only American to have won Olympic gold in the men's 10,000 meters, Billy Mills (1964; tribal name Tamakoce Te'Hila) is an Oglala Lakota. Nomads who followed the bison ("American buffalo" for you pedants and tropers not from the Americas); they did actually live in tipis, although there were also several Plains tribes, including the Omaha, that farmed as well. It should be noted that horses were extinct in the Americas until the Spanish arrived, so many of the tropes associated with natives and horses are actually [[NewerThanTheyThink relatively recent]].

!! Northwestern Plateau: AKA Sacajawea's people[[note]]Sacajawea was the woman who helped Lewis and Clark. She and her son Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau are on [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fe/Sacagawea_dollar_obverse.png the U.S. dollar coin]].[[/note]]
* Hunter-gatherers who lived in the area between the Columbia and Fraser rivers. The tribes of the plateau moved around, following their various food sources. They lived in a prime location for trade routes and often traded with other tribes. In addition to Sacajawea, Anglos are most likely to have heard of Chief Joseph, the Nez Perce leader who led a faction of his tribe that resisted an attempt to relocate them. In 1877, he led the US Army on a chase of over 1,000 miles, fighting the Army to a draw but losing the war of attrition. His message upon surrendering, with the most notable phrase being "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever", remains one of America's most famous speeches. In the 2010s, Shoni Schimmel (Umatilla) had a brief WNBA career.

!! Great Basin (Paiute, Shoshone, Ute)
* Mostly speakers of the Numic Languages, this group lived in the desert and moved around seasonally following sources of food and water. One of the last groups to encounter European influence, and therefore have maintained stronger cultural and linguistic ties to their heritage. Anglos may have heard of the Paiute holy man Wovoka (Jack Wilson), whose visions gave birth to the Ghost Dance ceremonies that swept the Plains in the 1890s and led to the Wounded Knee massacre (see below). The rock band Redbone was made up of Shoshone and Yaqui musicians.

!!South West: AKA the guys who built Pueblos
* The group that lived in the driest part of the United States. There is a definite emphasis on water and especially rain in these cultures. There is also a noticeable cultural influence from the Mexican cultures farther south; with the Southeastern Moundbuilders, they're on the list for the "most likely to build an urban civilization by 2000 if the Europeans hadn't gotten in the way" award. They also were an agrarian society with very strong family groups. The best known of these peoples is probably the Navajo, who also happen to be the most numerous of any remaining Native group. The others are Apache, Hopi, Pueblo and Zuni. Anglos are most likely to hear of the Navajo Code Talkers, although code talkers really came from many tribes; Geronimo (Bedonkohe Apache), a holy man as well as a leader; possibly rock artist Robert Mirabal (Taos Pueblo).

!!Pacific Northwest: AKA the guys with the totem poles
* Note that most of the tribes in this region who actually built totem poles actually live over the border in Canada or in southern Alaska. Many of them traditionally spoke Salish languages, or, once American and British traders moved in, a hybrid tongue known as Chinook Jargon. Salmon fishing and basketweaving were both very important culturally. Tribes would often gather together for elaborate gift-giving ceremonies called potlatches. However, these were viewed with suspicion by the American and Canadian governments and were banned in both countries for a while. Look up "gift economy" on Website/TheOtherWiki if you're interested in how this really worked. Art was usually very intricately done and beautiful, usually as decoration on practical items. They were particularly good at crafting wooden boxes out of one single piece of bark.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:History]]
There are two issues to take into consideration when looking at Native history. The first is European/Western Bias: since most history is written by white men, they tend to bring their preconceptions into their work and interpret things wrongly because of them. The second is a tendency to paint Natives as simple or even backward. This was used to justify the European annexations, ethnic cleansing, forcible resettlement, population control measures, etc. Though some such accounts are genuine, many come off as attempts to layer a thin veneer of civilization atop deep greed and contempt. As 'settler societies' Australia, Argentina, South Africa, some regions of India, and a few other places are known to have this problem with regards to accounts of 'the natives'.\\\

This is far less true of works made after the 1960s due to massive cultural shifts which caused many Europeans (and Americans) to re-examine their own role in history. In addition, the number of Native scholars who were accepted in their fields increased. That's not to say that any work done prior to 1960 is without value; just that you might want to keep these things in mind. Also while the prejudice may have lessened in recent years, that doesn't mean it has disappeared altogether. Likewise, keep in mind as well that it works also in the other direction: just as Native Americans weren't/aren't simple-minded "noble savages", neither were/are Europeans (or their modern-day progeny) evil. More often than not it's a case of misunderstanding and ignorance, although it does slide into WellIntentionedExtremist territory at points. Not that this excuses the government policies enacted, or people who really did act with unspeakable brutality or cruelty.\\\

Native people's cultures can also be romanticized to the point of {{noble savage}} territory. This was true even during colonization, though not to the same extent as plain "savage". It's inaccurate too, of course, and basically goes in the opposite direction. This has become popular in the wake of revisionism regarding colonialism and native history since 1960 as noted above. Even in positive portrayals, however, it can still be not simply inaccurate but also problematic in its own ways. Witness ''Film/DancesWithWolves'', for instance, where although the Dakota Sioux are clearly portrayed as the heroes fighting to keep their land, they are led by a white American. Also, the Pawnee are demonized at the same time. History is more complicated, of course: the Pawnee sided with the US mostly because the Dakota were taking ''their'' land (they had originally moved into the area from the northwest), and they certainly had no whites helping them when fighting the army.

!!Pre-Columbian
* How did we get here? Up until recently, consensus was that the first Americans came over from Siberia, over land that is now sunk beneath the Bering Strait, around 30,000 years ago. Nicknamed the Clovis Culture after their distinctive fluted arrowheads (first found in Clovis, New Mexico), they've recently been dethroned from their position as First Americans by the discovery of unambiguously older human sites. There's also the small matter that the entire Bering Strait land bridge would have been a glacier for most of the last ice age. The new thinking (supported by the aforementioned pre-Clovis findings, plus linguistic studies and genetic research) is that there were several waves of migration (from Asia), starting no later than about fifty thousand years ago.
** An alternate theory espoused by some Native scholars is that native people were ''always'' there, originating from somewhere in the Americas. This theory was prompted by concerns that the Bering Land-Bridge theory was yet another attempt by whites to undermine Native claims to their ancestral lands (as in: "Hey, you guys immigrated from Siberia just like we immigrated from Europe, so this isn't really ''your'' land"). Given what can happen with interpretations of law in court over claims of tribal land and heritage, the idea that the land-bridge origin story was cooked up by Anglos doesn't sound so far-fetched. However, the "always there" idea is not given very much credence, as it conflicts with the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans Recent African Origin]] hypothesis, which covers ''all'' human beings and is thus far supported by virtually all the credible biological evidence (particularly mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal DNA). The "always there" idea does align with native creation myths, to the point that some have said basically "{{science is wrong}}" (scholar Vine Deloria made this explicit with works like ''Red Earth, White Lies''), and it still causes issues with scientists in the US investigating ancient human remains who their findings indicate pre-date modern native peoples, though various tribes [[https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/22/science/indian-tribes-creationists-thwart-archeologists.html?referer=http://disq.us/url%3furl=http%253A%252F%252Fwww.nytimes.com%252F1996%252F10%252F22%252Fscience%252Findian-tribes-creationists-thwart-archeologists.html%253AQGOzBMSg80S0haz1Q4Uw19N7hc4&cuid=2306652 claim them for burial]] at times, thwarting further study.
* For the first several thousand years most early North Americans roamed around in small bands of about twenty or so family members following large game. At around 8000 BCE the climate of North America stabilized and larger groups and tribes started to form.
* The largest society to exist north of the Aztecs was the Mississippian Culture, who had a complex society with several specialized careers and classes. Centered around what is now Cahokia, Illinois (a little east of modern UsefulNotes/StLouis, just proving that some locations are just naturally well suited for settlement), they had a large chiefdom and many smaller tributary chiefdoms spread across what is now the southern US. In 1250, the city at Cahokia was actually larger than some major European cities (including London and Paris) with a population numbering in the tens of thousands. These large chiefdoms would've probably developed into full-blown kingdoms and maybe even empires given half a chance. After all, if there's one thing that's fairly consistent across history and cultures, it's that once you get to the "agricultural society of cities with tens of thousands of inhabitants ruled by an aristocracy" mode of development, the self-reinforcing cycle of ever-expanding power and territory of rising states that turn to empire has already begun (it had already happened at least twice in the Americas,[[note]]In Mesoamerica and the Andes[[/note]] to say nothing of the at least half-dozen independent or semi-independent inventions of imperial urban civilization in the Old World[[note]]To wit, Mesopotamia/the Fertile Crescent, Egypt, India, and China arose more or less independently, and the "invention" of imperial urban civilization in Ethiopia, West Africa, and Mediterranean Europe seems to have been only partially inspired by contact with the cultures of Egypt and the Fertile Crescent.[[/note]]). However, they were not given a chance, instead being hit by a series of catastrophes, particularly the Columbian epidemics.
* Most tribes had a traditional enemy they periodically went to war with, often over territory but occasionally for other reasons. Battles were often less violent then their European counterparts since Native Americans tended to capture rather than kill their enemies[[note]]small populations meant that taking captives was often more beneficial[[/note]]. Battles also took place at dusk so the retreating side could escape into the dark once shamed.
!!Invasion and Colonization
* Europeans didn't just start settling right away. Indeed, they didn't even make it to the mainland of the Americas for several years after Columbus' first voyage.
* Related to this: the European contact was a disaster for the Native Americans in a manner completely unintended by them. Old World diseases hit the New shortly after contact, and within the span of a century had spread across North and South America. In North America, at least, this plague killed some ''90 percent'' of the population--which is why the continent was relatively easy for Britain and France to colonize and the US and Canada to conquer. Had it not been for a temporary decline in the various civilizations of North America (chief among them the aforementioned Mississippian one) combining with the lethality of the plague, the history of the continent would have been quite different (more English-speaking mestizos, for one thing...).
** One remarkable blind spot that persisted for centuries in the minds of European settlers was how well-suited North America was for colonization. They attributed this to divine providence and/or their own industry. Only very recently have less biased historians done their best to point out that North America made for great colonies because the land had already been cultivated for centuries by the suddenly plague-stricken Native Americans. In some cases, the Europeans had been able to simply move into existing villages whose inhabitants were wiped out by disease they unwittingly spread among them. Indeed, native cultivation of the land was so widespread many features which we think of as being simply the landscape were created by wilderness growing back in ''after'' populations were wiped out (such as large parts of the Amazon rainforest and forests in North America).
!!Western Expansion and Assimilation
* Colonial Era - Initial English colonists often tried very hard to not go to war with the local tribes, namely because they were very outnumbered and wanted to turn to the Native Americans to help them cultivate these new lands. Some also wanted to convert the tribes to Christianity, which sometimes happened. Eventually, though, enough Europeans came over that they became serious threats to Native American sovereignty. Naturally, most Native Americans were not very happy with this. Notable colonial wars during this time included the Pequot War (1636-1638) and King Philip's War (1675-1678) in New England, various conflicts with Powhatans in Virginia, and Pontiac's War (1736-1766) in the Great Lakes. The latter led to the British banning colonial settlement past the Appalachian Mountains, which got the ball rolling for the UsefulNotes/AmericanRevolution. Fur-trading with Native Americans was one of North America's largest and most profitable businesses during this time, with beaver skins being especially valued.
* Revolution-1820s — Many Native American tribes west of the Appalachians fought on the side of the British during the UsefulNotes/AmericanRevolution and the UsefulNotes/WarOf1812, believing that the British would try to protect their ancestral lands. They were led by Joseph Brant during the Revolutionary War and Tecumseh during the War of 1812. While good leaders in their own right, they never really stood a chance of actually stopping the flow of settlers coming from the coast. There were other notable conflicts, with Little Turtle's War (1785-1795) in Ohio being the most famous. Two future Presidents, UsefulNotes/AndrewJackson and UsefulNotes/WilliamHenryHarrison, became national figures thanks to their battles with frontier tribes.
* 1823-32 — Marshall Trilogy:[[note]]No, you smart-aleck first-year law students, the one about Native people by ''John'' Marshall, not federal civil procedure by Thurgood.[[/note]] Three US Supreme Court decisions that drastically changed the legal status of native people in the eyes of the US gov't. Remarkably [[FairForItsDay fair for their day]], they defined the tribes as sovereign but dependent states under the protection of the United States federal government. As such, they would have certain protections, including certain land rights and so on. However:
* 1824 - The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bureau_of_Indian_Affairs Bureau of Indian Affairs]] is created. Think "I'm from the government, I'm here to help you." In 2000, the BIA's assistant secretary, Kevin Gover, admitted that the BIA was founded as an instrument of ethnic cleansing.
* 1830 — Indian Removal Act: The discovery of [[GoldFever gold]] in Georgia in 1820 caused more white settlers to pour into the state, putting increased pressure on the US government to somehow get rid of the Native Americans living on the gold-rich land. President UsefulNotes/AndrewJackson (who got elected in part because he supported Indian Removal) signed the Indian Removal Act--over the Supreme Court's objection (Jackson is said to have said, "John Marshall has issued his decision; now let him enforce it!"). The Act forced the entire Cherokee nation to relocate to Oklahoma, which US citizens of the time basically viewed as [[ReassignedToAntarctica no-man's-land]]. Since the Cherokees were forced to move there in winter, and most of them [[WalkingTheEarth on foot]], about 25% of them died along the way, leading their ordeal to become known as the Trail of Tears. Additionally, this era saw the last of the major Indian Wars east of the Mississippi River; the Black Hawk War (1832) in Illinois (fun fact, [[UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln two]] [[UsefulNotes/JeffersonDavis participants]] in this war would be the future leaders of the two sides of UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar) and the Second Seminole War (1835-1842) in Florida.
* 1850s — [[GoldFever Gold Rush]]: Of the many eras of US/Native relations, the Gold Rush was probably the most openly genocidal. Over 100,000 Californians died during this period.
** This ugly chapter is particularly little known in US schools and media, even today. Most fiction set in this period still focuses mainly on conflicts between the ex-Mexican residents and the new US settlers. Meanwhile, both sides were busy killing and driving off the Natives in droves. Only very recently has this been widely acknowledged, with California governor Gavin Newsom issuing a public apology.[[note]]This genocide was state-sponsored; the government had legalized widespread enslavement of native people in the state, with massacres allowed or supported openly, the California militia being among the perpetrators. Bounties were offered to kill natives as well. Estimates have ranged to over 100,000 killed. By contrast, natives killed only around 1,000 settlers.[[/note]]
* Plains Wars (roughly 1850 to 1890) - The most famous era in the minds of most non-Native Americans. If a Native American is portrayed in any media, chances are they'll be based off of some Plains culture. As more and more people poured into the land west of the Mississippi River, the federal government began pressuring and (often) forcing tribes to give up their lands and move onto reservations, especially if the tribes lived on lands with lots of gold or oil or any other resource. Since this was during the era of photography, telegraphs and telephones, and better record keeping, there is a lot more information about the tribes and wars of this time than during all of the aforementioned eras. Also, because this was the last era of Indian Wars, this one has stuck the most in America's cultural conscience. [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn The Battle of Little Bighorn]], where combined elements of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho forces whooped the ass of George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry Regiment, is especially legendary. There are too many famous figures to name, but some of the most noteworthy include Manuelito, Red Cloud, Crow King, Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, and Geronimo.
* 1887 — Dawes Act: aka the General Allotment Act. Most native cultures traditionally owned land in a communal fashion; the Dawes Act divided up native land-holdings into small chunks which were allotted to individual members of each tribe.[[note]]160-40 acres per person.[[/note]] The goals behind this act were: a) to undermine tribal leadership and break up native communal ties in a divide-and-conquer fashion and b) to assimilate native people into a more Western style of land ownership and encourage them to become Western-style yeomen farmers and ranchers. The fine print of the Dawes Act meant that these allotments could be sold off to non-Indians incredibly easily, usually helped along by trickery, fraud, or marrying out.[[note]]If a Native woman married a white man, he'd end up owning her allotment -- or stood to inherit it if she died, which led to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osage_Indian_murders one of the most horrific chapters of American history]]. This is one reason the rules for inheritance of Indian allotments was finally changed in 1925.[[/note]] Consequently, the remaining native landholdings plummeted by 75% — roughly a 90-million-acre loss.
** Coinciding with the Dawes Act, the US gov't also banned all Native American religious practices from 1890-1934[[note]] In case you're wondering "but what about separation of church and state?" — the Constitution only applies to land and persons "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. The unique status of Native people articulated in the Marshall Trilogy meant that Natives, being citizens of their sovereign-but-dependent tribes, were not fully "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States, particularly when they were on the reservation. That until 1924 many Native Americans weren't even US citizens didn't help matters.[[/note]] The ban even forbade [[CulturePolice dancing]], since many native dances had spiritual significance. Many Native Americans continued to practice their religions in secrecy and endured fines and imprisonments due to their refusal to submit, but the long duration of the ban combined with the demoralizing nature of reservation life at the time resulted in the loss of much native cultural knowledge.
** The Dawes era also saw the widespread rise of [[http://web.archive.org/web/20041214161531/http://www.oyate.org:80/books-to-avoid/indianSchool.html Indian Boarding Schools]] — [[TruthInTelevision real life]] [[BoardingSchoolOfHorrors Boarding Schools of Horrors]] where native children were forcibly taken from their parents (who risked imprisonment if they resisted) and assimilated into Western culture. They were forced to wear Western clothing (often military uniforms), cut their hair (which in native cultures was only done [[TraumaticHaircut when somebody died]]), [[MeaningfulRename change their names]], speak English, and practice Christianity, and [[CorporalPunishment severe punishments]] were meted out for any attempts to practice native culture (punishments for speaking one's native language included being forced to eat lye soap and having a needle stuck through one's tongue) resulting in the death of many native languages. The schools operated under the philosophy of "Kill the Indian, save the man," a phrase coined by Richard Henry Pratt, who founded the Carlisle Indian School that served as the blueprint for most other Dawes-era boarding schools (and who modeled Carlisle off a [[POWCamp POW prison]], charmingly enough). [[HarmfulToMinors Physical, psychological, and sexual abuse]] were rampant at the boarding schools, and the enormous toll this took on native communities is [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1waOvZ9qvE still strongly felt to this day]].
*** We should note that both Canada and Australia thought this system was a wonderful idea and applied it to the First Nations and the Aboriginal Australians, respectively.
* 1890 — Wounded Knee Massacre: In the late 1800s, the Plains tribes were getting [[DespairEventHorizon increasingly demoralized]] by the near-extinction of the bison, the subsequent starvation of their people, the grim quality of life on reservations, and the continued loss of their land to the US. Out of this atmosphere of desperation sprang the Ghost Dance: a messianic religious movement that espoused a return to traditional values and promised that soon the bison would return, the people's ancestors would [[BackFromTheDead rise from the dead]], and the whites would disappear from the land. White settlers grew increasingly nervous about the pan-tribal nature of the Ghost Dance and misinterpreted the "whites disappearing" part to mean "we're going to kill you all", and US officials tried arresting some of the chiefs associated with the movement, leading to the killing of Sitting Bull, who was perceived as a Ghost Dance leader (he was not, but had given it the go-ahead). This tension finally boiled over in the winter of 1890, when 350 Lakota, mostly women and children, many sick and starving, gathered under a flag of truce at Wounded Knee. Their camp was surrounded by the 7th Cavalry, numbering 500, who ordered the Lakota to surrender their weapons. A [[PoorCommunicationKills miscommunication]] led both sides to start firing, and by the end, 150 Lakota and 25 US soldiers were dead (though it's believed that many of the latter deaths were from friendly fire).
* 1924 — This year, all Native Americans living in US borders were given citizenship status. Several tribes had already been granted citizenship, but the remaining tribes had not until this date. Surprisingly to modern ears, many of those non-citizen tribes actually ''opposed'' this policy, arguing it was an attempt to force them to join US culture.
* 1934 — Indian Reorganization Act: Prompted by the Meriam Report, a congressional report that revealed how badly the Dawes Act had screwed everything up, the IRA ended the allotment practice and returned some land to the reservations, although it also continued some of the Dawes Act's [[MightyWhitey paternalistic]] policies towards Native Americans (e.g.: tribes could now form their own gov'ts and constitutions again, but only with approval from the Secretary of the Interior.) The ban on native religion was also lifted the following year. Considered to be one of the few policies that actually had some actual benefit, even if it was still a mixed bag.
* 1940s-1960s — Termination: In the mid-[[TheForties forties]], the Bureau of Indian Affairs had grown tired of managing the problematic reservation system and decided that it would be best if they could assimilate Native Americans into US society once and for all. To that end, the gov't "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_termination_policy terminated]]" 109 tribes, which meant that a) about 2.5 million acres of native-held land previously held in trust by the gov't no longer had that protected status, b) native people were subject to state laws and state/federal taxes, rather than determining their own tribal laws, c) about 3% of native people lost their tribal affiliation, and d) terminated tribes immediately lost all federal aid and services, including health care. Though intended to fix the broken reservation system and improve the lives of Native Americans, termination had an overall negative effect, undermining tribal sovereignty and leading to even more loss of native land.
** To aid the termination process, the BIA also tried to encourage those living on reservations to move to the cities, usually offering jobs or education to entice them. This urban migration met with mixed reviews: some people liked it while others felt alienated by it, and as a termination policy it was largely unsuccessful since most of the people participating would just move back home to the reservation once their job or schooling was finished. However the urban migration did have one unforeseen positive effect: the formation of a collective "Native American" identity. Previously most native people identified solely with their specific tribe, but when members of many different tribes were thrown together in the cities, they found more in common with each other than with their non-native city neighbors and started to think of themselves as belonging to a larger pan-tribal group. This paved the way for the rise of pan-tribal civil rights activism in later decades. See the 1961 film ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLlsAme5fIQ The Exiles]]'' ([[https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-exiles-2008 review by Roger Ebert here]].)
* 1973 — Wounded Knee II: Among the many civil rights groups that sprang up in the [[TheSixties sixties]] and [[TheSeventies seventies]] was AIM, the American Indian Movement. Founded in 1968, AIM led and participated in numerous acts of protest, the most famous of which was Wounded Knee II. On February 27, 1973, a group of AIM members and Oglala Lakota supporters (led by, among others, Creator/JohnTrudell (Jimmy Looks Twice in ''Film/{{Thunderheart}}'') and Creator/RussellMeans (whom you might know as the voice of [[{{WesternAnimation/Pocahontas}} Pocahontas's]] dad and Chingachgook in ''Film/TheLastOfTheMohicans'') seized control of the town of Wounded Knee (chosen for its obvious historical and symbolic value) and held it for 71 days. This was done to protest the failed impeachment of corrupt Oglala tribal president Dick Wilson and more generally the US government's long history of broken treaties. After numerous shoot-outs between the protesters and the FBI/US Marshals/law enforcement, the affair ended with AIM relinquishing control of the town to the US gov't. However, the protest drew considerable media attention, spotlighted the plight of modern-day Native Americans, inspired many native people and non-native allies across the country to travel to Wounded Knee and join the protest, and overall marked the start of a period of slight improvement for Native American people.

!! Modern History

[[SnicketWarningLabel This is the horrible part of the article.]] Do not read if you want to maintain [[IgnoranceIsBliss your view on the world.]]

[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States The current Native American population]], according to Website/TheOtherWiki, is 3.7 million, with an additional 5.9 million claiming mixed heritage. This number includes Alaska Natives but not Native Hawaiians.

Native Americans are often raped. To the point where they now expect it as a part of their lives, as stated by
[[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/23/us/native-americans-struggle-with-high-rate-of-rape.html?pagewanted=all this article by The New York Times which details it further.]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_and_murdered_Indigenous_women More on missing and murdered Native women here.]] They are routinely beaten and murdered by non-Natives, including police.[[note]]The "arrested and then discovered dead in jail cell" scenario is bitterly familiar to Native people.[[/note]] This causes some to be suicidal. Others rehabilitate and have successful lives. The media barely illustrates the current pain and suffering, often showing Native Americans pre-[=WW2=]. In shows where modern Native Americans are portrayed, for example as tour guides, their suffering is never delved into. Modern times are horrible. Sadly, this is partly due to a quirk of federal law that has yet to be fixed - tribal police legally have no authority over non-native people who come onto the reservation. So natives are fair game for crimes (many native women have been raped by non-native men) since tribal police cannot even arrest them. They can only report this to local authorities who often cannot or will not go after the suspects.

Needless to say, it is a very sensitive topic for Anglo-Americans to discuss. Although that said, there are efforts to bridge centuries' worth of mistrust between the "natives" and the "white man".[[note]]"Anglo" is sometimes a preferred term since the problem most Natives have is not with white people in general but the dominant "Anglo" American culture.[[/note]] In an interesting side-note, many of the efforts done to alleviate their plight since the 1970s were either inspired by or begun by UsefulNotes/RichardNixon, who not only shut down the Termination policy but also had lands returned back to their original owners, resulting in him being generally regarded with respect among Native Americans.[[note]]Contrary to popular belief, the Paiute people of Pyramid Lake, Nevada, didn't name their capital in his memory—it was named after George S. Nixon, a US Senator from Nevada who died in 1912, about seven months before the future President was born.[[/note]]

As noted below, gambling laws are usually less restrictive on Indian reservations. This led to the rise of the "Indian casino" around the turn of the 21st century, and modern media depictions of Native Americans are likely to reference this phenomenon. In reality, although casino-building brings some much-needed income to the tribes that do it, it also brings [[https://www.thisamericanlife.org/491/tribes/act-one a whole host of fresh problems]]. It's far from a cure-all for the challenges Native Americans are still dealing with.
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[[folder:Culture]]
* Who is Native American? Most tribes require some form of officially documented family tree and a certain percentage of native blood or "blood quantum" for membership.[[note]]One notable exception is the Cherokee Nation, of which the aforementioned Bud Adams and his descendants are members. It only requires proven descent from an individual listed as Cherokee on their 1906 tribal rolls.[[/note]] However, since the historical record for most tribes aren't well documented, and many laws are designed to whittle down the number of those benefiting from treaties, there are a number of even full-blooded Native Americans who are not recognized by the federal government.
* Many within the Aboriginal community feel that there is a cultural component necessary to be considered truly Aboriginal, begging again the question of what Native American culture truly is. Not to mention the fact a cultural definition tends to lend itself to people who adopt Native American spirituality and attempt to [[GoingNative Go Native]] which most Native Americans find dubious at best.[[note]]Russell Means said that being an Indian wasn't a matter of skin color, blood quantum or tribal membership, but the way one lived. So it's not bad to try to Go Native, but one must go all the way, completely immerse -- not take little "pieces of the pie" as Russ said.[[/note]]
Some extremely conservative Plains traditionals refer to full-blooded Indians who share sacred traditions with non-Indians as "fraud", "twinkie" and "apple". Most Native Americans have their own definition and most don't agree.
* One of the biggest events in modern Native American culture is the pow wow, and it's the one non-native tropers are most likely to encounter. Pow wows are gatherings (often intertribal) where traditional songs and dances are performed. Usually dances are performed inside a circle (or several) formed by the various drum groups in attendance. Many dances are sacred, but some invite outsiders to join in. Historically a Plains tradition, the modern pow wow has spread to almost all tribal groups and geographic regions. The pow wow is seen as a celebration of Native culture and often attracts vendors of Native American art, crafts and food. Don't forget to try the fry bread/bannock/Indian bread. Watch out though, it's fattening!
** The outfits worn by the dancers are called "regalia", not costumes, and you should ask permission before touching them as they often have sacred significance. The same goes for photographing people, their regalia, or some of the structures that might be put up during a pow wow.
** Dances are called by a Master of Ceremonies (MC) and guides that the drum groups take turns providing. Pow wows generally fall into three categories:
*** Competition, where dancers compete for prize money
*** Traditional, where dancers simply perform and usually an honorarium is given out to cover dancers' expenses
*** Mixed, which is a combination of the two
* Native Americans have a unique sense of humor that is often deadpan and tongue in cheek. There is an emphasis on self-deprecation and many jokes about sex along with laughs at the Anglos' expense. Also Native Americans like to tease anyone and everyone. For a great example of Lakotah humor, read ''Lame Deer, Seeker of Visions'' by John Fire Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes.
* Most Native Americans have a strong reaction to alcohol--Aboriginal communities and Aboriginals have some of the highest rates of alcoholism in the world. This stems from the lack of genetic resistance due to less crops in the Americas which could be cultivated (and thus ferment). Views on alcohol are mixed; many see it as essential to a good party but others look upon it as literal poison.[[note]]Which isn't wrong, because that's ''exactly'' what alcohol is to humans.[[/note]]
** Some tribes even outright ''ban'' alcohol in their reservations because of this. The Navajo and Oglala Sioux are well known for this.
** The Iroquois Nation has its own religious healing tradition which has helped many Indian alcoholics, founded more than a century before AA: it's called the [[http://www.sacred-texts.com/nam/iro/parker/index.htm Code of Handsome Lake]].
* Many Native Americans live on reservations, plots of land set aside for their use under various treaties. This land is held in trust by the federal government, although it legally belongs to the division of the tribe or "band" it's allotted to. Some tribes consider their reserves their own sovereign territories. Although this is controversial, there is some legal precedent. In the United States, "Indian tribes" (as they are formally known on account of the language in the Constitution) are considered quasi-sovereign in a way similar if not quite identical to that of the states; in the US courts, analyses of "tribal sovereignty" often make analogies to analyses of state sovereignty, with a few key differences. Reserves are generally only subject to federal laws, and not state or provincial ones (despite "officially" being within the territory of the state or province), so they often have different laws than the areas surrounding them. This is why they often have different gambling laws and why they are one of the only places in Canada that you are allowed to [[EverybodySmokes smoke in public places]] unless the band has specifically banned this themselves.[[note]]Unfortunately, they also often have different usury laws--very often, they have ''no'' usury laws, allowing lenders that are officially chartered as organs of a tribe to make loans for outrageous rates of interest. A few less scrupulous tribes have gotten in bed with payday lenders to take advantage of this scheme, taking a cut of the profits in exchange for giving these companies access to their lending laws. This has made a lot of states angry, as most states have statutes against charging excessive interest, and since the financial crisis of 2007-08, which brought consumer debt to the forefront of state concern, many states have gone after the lenders (using whatever legal tools they could find to get around tribal sovereignty and immunity) and complained about the tribes. For their part, a large number of Native activists have also protested against these schemes, as they take advantage of people who, like many Native Americans, are poor and struggling to get by.[[/note]]
* Native Americans tend to live communally and practice an extended family model, which means families are very close and tend to pool resources among themselves. Even in urban communities Native Americans tend to have an extended network of family and neighbors to draw from. Boundaries tend to be very fluid in most families and in some cases are a completely foreign concept. The extended family model means that even that instead of your standard nuclear family Native Americans treat most of their family tree as immediate family. Since most Native tribes have a long history of adoption[[note]]including adopting Anglos -- as you can read in Mari Sandoz's books, there has always been lots of adoption and intermarriage. Many Indians believed intermarriage was valuable because the kids would inherit the best of both sides. Term marriages (for a specific number of years, with an option to renew vows or divorce) were common, as was the couple moving back and forth to live with both their Native and Anglo families.[[/note]] they also tend to have a few people who are not actually related but are considered family for one reason or another. Basically if you're Native American there's no such thing as too much family.
* Sports are a major part of Native American culture, with two especially standing out. Lacrosse, now one of the fastest-growing sports in the country, is descended from games played by tribes along the US and Canadian east coast as well as the Canadian plains. In parts of the American west, UsefulNotes/{{basketball}} has developed an enormous Native American following, especially at the high school level. "Rezball", so called by both Native Americans and the non-indigenous, is noted for its very fast pace, often with full-court pressure defense, and often flashy play.[[note]]The playing style of the aforementioned Shoni Schimmel had many rezball influences; she did spend most of her childhood on a reservation, though her family moved to UsefulNotes/{{Portland}} when she started high school.[[/note]]

It is useful to note here that as with all sweeping, broad-brush statements, there are exceptions to everything presented here. There are tribes that fit all of these generalities, tribes that fit some of these generalities, and tribes that fit none of these generalities. Lumping "Native Americans" together into one large "culture" is as incorrect as lumping all Europeans or all Asians together.
[[/folder]]
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