American Indians: History, Culture & Tribes of North America

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Introduction to American Indians

Indians, American, the original inhabitants of the Americas. The name was given to them by Columbus, who thought he had discovered the Indies. They—together with the Eskimos, or Inuit, and Aleuts—are also called Native Americans.

This article is concerned mainly with Indians north of Mexico.

American Indian cultural areas. The Indians of North and South America formed hundreds of tribes with many different ways of life. Scholars divide the various tribes into groups of similar tribes that they call cultural areas. This map shows the location of each cultural area. In North America, the cultural areas include the Arctic, Subarctic, Northwest Coast, Plateau, Plains, Northeast, Great Basin, California, Southeast, and South West. In Central America, the cultural areas include Middle American and Caribbean. In South America, the cultural areas include Andes, Tropical Forest, and Marginal.

In physical characteristics Indians vary so much that there are exceptions to almost anything that can be said about them. Generally they have features of Mongoloid peoples; coarse, straight, black hair; little facial or body hair; and skin color ranging from yellow-brown to reddish brown.

In cultural background there are also great differences among Indians. Noted for their cultural achievements were the Aztecs of Mexico, the Mayas of Central America, and the Incas of Peru. They had cities of stone, elaborately and artistically carved. They wove cloth and worked in gold and copper. Each of these civilizations lasted for several centuries. Most Indians of the pre-Columbian period, however, were nomadic hunters, practicing some agriculture. They lived in, or roamed over, all parts of the Western Hemisphere.

The Indian Population

No one knows how many Indians were living in the Americas when Europeans first arrived. Estimates for the area that became the United States usually range from 900,000 to 2,000,000. Some authorities estimate that there was a reduction from 900,000 at the time of Columbus to about 250,000 by 1900, mainly because of epidemics of smallpox and other diseases. Since 1900 there has been an increase because of improved health and sanitation.

Determining the Indian population today is complicated by the fact that there are many persons of part-Indian ancestry. The U.S. Census Bureau counts as Indian anyone who chooses to be so identified. According to the 2000 census, about 2.5 million people identify themselves as Indian, and 1.6 million counted themselves as Indian and some other race. Most of the Indian population is concentrated in California, Oklahoma, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Washington.

About half the Indians in the United States live in urban areas. Many of the remainder are on or near reservations or tribal lands and are under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Although reservations are under BIA jurisdiction, tribal governments manage tribal affairs. Most Indians on reservations wish to preserve their separate identity and their traditional culture.

The Indian population in the United States and the approximately 300,000 Indians in Canada are only a small part of the Indians in the Americas. There are an estimated 45,500,000 full-blooded Indians in Latin America, more than 15 per cent of the total population. Full-blooded Indians make up more than 40 per cent of the population in four countries—Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru, and Bolivia. Only about 10 per cent of all Mexicans have no Indian ancestors.

Earliest Americans

It is generally believed that the Americas were peopled from Asia by way of the Bering Strait. Migrations were probably made by several kinds of peoples—small groups of hunters pursuing the mammoth, mastodon, woolly rhinoceros, and prehistoric bison—over a long period of time. Most scientists believe the earliest migrations were 12,000 to 14,000 years ago. Some believe the migration may have begun as early as 35,000 years ago, but dates earlier than 14,000 years ago have not been generally accepted because of problems in interpreting the evidence.

The early peoples of the Americas are known mainly from the distinctive points used on their spears or arrows. Points are named for three sites in New Mexico where they were first found. Sandia Cave points are estimated to be 12,000 years old; Clovis points, about 11,000 to 11,500. First to be found, in 1926, was a Folsom point that had killed an Ice Age bison and so was at least 10,000 years old. Since then many more have been found.

Much later, but also in the Southwest, lived several groups who developed a high degree of civilization. One group—called Anasazi, meaning “ancient ones,” or Basket-makers, because of their fine baskets—were predecessors of Pueblo peoples that included the Cliff Dwellers. The Cliff Dweller apartment-style houses at Mesa Verde were built into canyon walls. They resembled the community dwellings built on flat land by related Pueblo groups.

Cliff dwellers lived in stone houses

Another group, the Hohokam, built courts for playing ball games and extensive irrigation works along the Gila River.

The Mound Builders left remains over the central and southern states. Some were effigy mounds—mounds in the form of serpents, eagles, turtles, or other animals. (For an example, Some were burial mounds, usually conical. Flat-topped, or platform, mounds may have been bases for temples. Some enclosures may have been forts. In these earth mounds have been found statues, ornaments, and tools of stone and of copper.

Coming of Europeans

When the Europeans arrived in what is now the United States and Canada, they found no Indians with highly developed civilizations such as those found in Mexico and Peru. The Indians north of Mexico had a Stone Age type of culture. They obtained their food by hunting, fishing, gathering, and, in many cases, small-scale farming.

How Indians obtained food. Most Indians hunted and fished for their food or gathered wild seeds, nuts, and roots. Farming was the main source of food only in the Southwest, Middle America, and the Andes. Many tribes of the Northeast and Tropical Forest areas also raised some crops.

The coming of the Europeans quickly changed many Indian ways of life. The Indians eagerly sought firearms, steel knives and tomahawks to replace their stone implements, and even pieces of iron for arrowheads. Glass beads replaced wampum, laboriously made from shells. The Europeans were quite as eager for the Indians' furs. There had always been a certain amount of trade among tribes, but now Indians became professional hunters and trappers.

The greatest change in Indian ways of life came with acquisition of the horse. Horses were brought to North America by the Spanish in the 16th century and proved so adaptable to the new conditions that herds of wild horses soon roamed the western plains. At first the Indians killed them for food. Later they realized their value as a means of transport. They traded with the Spanish in Mexico for horses and also stole them. The use of the horse moved northward from tribe to tribe, eventually reaching the Sioux living along the upper Mississippi by 1800.

Horses made it possible for Indians to follow the buffalo herds and to use the buffalo for much of their food and its hide to make their clothing and tepees. When they acquired horses, the Teton Sioux abandoned all agriculture and moved into the Plains. For the first time there was an adequate food supply, and their population increased enormously. Many tribes—including the Cheyenne, Blackfeet, Crow, Arikara, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, and Pawnee—measured the wealth of a tribe by the number of horses it possessed.

Thus developed a distinctive Plains culture, based on buffalo hunting and the horse. The Plains Indian astride a horse and wearing a feathered headdress became the archetypical Indian for most whites; this was the Indian of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, Frederic Remington's paintings, and numerous films and television shows.

This Plains culture lasted little more than a century. It began with the horse, obtained indirectly from Europeans, and it ended when white hunters killed off the buffalo herds, in the 1880's.

How the Indians Lived

Food

Some tribes depended almost entirely on agriculture and had permanent villages, as did the Pueblo peoples of the Southwest. Others depended almost entirely on hunting, as did the Plains Indians. A few tribes in the Northwest depended on salmon fishing almost as completely as the Plains tribes did on buffalo hunting.

Most Indians, however, had to search out every possible food resource. Typically, corn and other crops would be planted in spring near a permanent village site. The tribe would then go on a summer hunt, and, because any large band of Indians would soon kill or frighten off all game in a region, hunting grounds were changed frequently. The tribe would return to the village site to harvest crops, then move out again on a fall hunt. A winter camp might be made in an entirely different location. Stops were scheduled to gather such food as wild rice or camas roots, and much time was given to fishing.

Thus most tribes were migratory in a more or less annual pattern. Any of a number of factors, however, could cause them to migrate to an entirely different region. For example, hunting grounds were frequently exhausted.

Transportation

Although Central American Indians made wheeled figurines, the wheel as a transportation device was unknown to the Indians until the arrival of Europeans. Instead of wagons, the Plains tribes used the travois. It consisted of two poles bound on either side of an animal, with the other ends dragging along the ground and a mat or bundle tied between them. Dogs, the Indians' only fully domesticated animals, were used before horses were obtained, and could draw only light loads. When horses were acquired, the travois became practical for long journeys.

The principal form of water transport was the canoe. The bark-frame canoe was used in northern areas from Alaska to the Atlantic coast. Framed of spruce wood and covered with bark (usually birch) sewn together and made waterproof with pitch, it was light and could be easily carried. The dugout canoe was used on the Pacific coast, in the South, and in parts of the northeast and Great Lakes areas. It was made of a single log, hollowed out by burning or cutting. Some dugouts were as much as 100 feet (30 m) long.

The bull boat of Missouri River tribes was made of buffalo hide stretched on a circular framework of willow branches. The balsa, made of rushes tied in bundles, was used by Indians of the Pacific Slope. Some tribes had no boats; the Blackfeet, for example, used only temporary rafts.

Housing

In nothing did tribes differ more than in their habitations. Most Indians lived in single-family dwellings, but many dwelt in large community houses.

The wigwam of the Algonquians was a domed or conical structure framed with poles and covered with bark, rushes, or branches. The Apache wickiup was a circular brush shelter, sometimes covered with bark or earth. The Choctaw covered a frame of poles with palmetto leaves. The tepee of the Plains Indians was similar to the conical wigwam, but was covered with buffalo skin.

Wigwam. A wigwam is a domelike dwelling once common among the Algonquian-speaking Indians of the Eastern Woodlands of North America. It was usually made of light poles tied together with bark to form an oval-shaped dome. The builder covered this framework with reed mats or bark, as shown in this illustration.

The longhouse of the Iroquois was a communal house 50 to 100 feet (15 to 30 m) long by about 18 feet (5.5 m) wide. It was made of bark supported by a framework of poles. The Mandan built circular communal houses, each about 40 feet (12 m) in diameter. They were built of timber and branches covered with dirt or clay. The hogan of the Navaho was a mound-shaped structure, large enough for a single family, made of logs and mud. The Omaha, Osage, and Pawnee used earth lodges or grass lodges. The most elaborate community dwellings were the cliff dwellings and pueblos of the Southwest. They were made of stone, adobe, or coarse plastered wickerwork, often several stories high.

Clothing

Buckskin (tanned deer hide) was a common material for clothing. Men of many tribes wore a shirt that hung free over the hips, a breech-cloth, leggings, and moccasins. Women commonly wore a short-sleeved dress, reaching below the knee and tied at the waist by a belt. Women also wore leggings and moccasins. A few tribes wore sandals and some went barefoot, but moccasins of varied design and decoration were almost universal.

Garments were sewn with a bone awl, and often were elaborately decorated with shells, porcupine quills, feathers, and, after Europeans came, beads. Necklaces, armbands, and other articles of personal adornment were common.

Buffalo robes and, later, blankets served as winter overcoats. Some Indians in prehistoric times wove fabrics of cotton, hair, fur, mountain-sheep wool, or feathers.

The feathered headdress, often with long trails, was a late development among tribes of the Plains, although other Indians used feathers as ornaments. Many Indians of the East and South wore turbans or headbands. Along the Pacific Coast hats were of basketry.

Communication

Indians spoke many different languages (see section “Language Groups and Tribes”), but a sign language of hand gestures was widely understood by the tribes between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains, from Canada to Mexico.

Only the Mayas, who lived in Mexico and Central America, had a written language. The other Indians made many pictographs (pictures or symbols expressing ideas; called petroglyphs when made on stone). In place of writing, the Incas of Peru devised the quipu, consisting of cords of different lengths and colors, which, by the arrangement of knots, recorded accounts and events. Smoke signals conveyed only a few simple ideas, and usually required prearrangement.

During the early 19th century, Sequoya, a Cherokee, devised a system of writing used in printing newspapers and books for his people.

Family Life

In many tribes descent was through the mother, and children were members of the mother's clan. There was little distinction between mother and aunt, father and uncle, brother or sister and cousin. This wide relationship was the basis of a clan, which might be scattered through several bands or villages of a tribe. Marriage within clans was almost always taboo. Plural marriage was common; often a man would marry sisters of the same family.

Indians were generally indulgent with children, seldom punishing them, but taking great pains in training them.

Religion and Ceremony

Myths and folk tales are in great variety among tribes, most of them showing belief in magic power possessed by the forces of nature. The Great Spirit was not all-powerful, and the Evil Spirit might be a part of him. Old Man, of the Blackfeet Indians, was the creator, but he could be tricky, mean, and sometimes evil, and sometimes he overreached himself and was defeated. Similar was Old Man Coyote, of the Crows. Sun, his wife Moon, and their son Morning Star were powerful persons, but had frailties similar to those of the Greek gods.

The sun dance of many Plains tribes was dedicated to the sun, but these Indians were not exclusively sun worshipers. There were many dances whose purpose was to gain benefits from the deities—for example, the buffalo dance, corn dance, and rain dance.

Young warriors sought individual aid by prolonged fasting and prayer in solitude. They might dream that an animal or bird spoke to them; the creature would then become the personal “medicine” (guiding spirit) of the fasting warrior.

Government

The Iroquois had a well-organized confederacy and decided issues around a council fire. Sioux buffalo hunting and Pueblo agriculture were highly organized communal efforts, as were many religious festivals. Tribal councils, however, generally had little control over the individual, and chiefs governed only by the powers of personal leadership. Crime was largely a personal matter. Murder might be avenged by relatives of the victim, or an indemnity might be paid by the killer.

Secret societies of warriors often exercised considerable police power and directed hunts and tribal migrations.

Warfare was almost entirely a matter of personal leadership. A young warrior would announce that he planned a raid; those who wished, joined him. If he were uniformly successful he would become a popular war chief. Warfare was a normal state; other tribes were either allies or enemies.

Indian Wars

White explorers and settlers encountering Indians for the first time were met with any of various reactions, including friendliness, curiosity, fear, and hostility. Indians resented intruders; on the other hand they usually could be induced to trade for a variety of goods.

Early Conflicts

The Spanish enslaved and destroyed the natives of the West Indian islands, and their conquests of Mexico and Peru were ruthless. The Aztec, Inca, and Maya civilizations were destroyed. Many priests protested the cruelties, and devoted missionaries sought to Christianize the Indians. In much of South America, Central America, and Mexico, the Indians were little disturbed and eventually were absorbed into the general population.

The English settlers at Jamestown, Virginia, maintained an uneasy peace with Powhatan. After Powhatan's death, his brother Opechancanough led massacres of the settlers in 1622 and 1644.

Massachusetts settlers lived at peace with Massasoit, but fought his son King Philip. Later the colonists waged war against the Pequot in Connecticut.

The French in Canada were interested in the fur trade and became friendly with Algonquian tribes. The Iroquois took the British side in the French and Indian War.

During the American Revolutionary War frontier settlements were raided by Indian allies of the British. An American expedition under Major General John Sullivan defeated the Iroquois and destroyed their villages.

After the Revolution, Indians of the Northwest Territory opposed white settlement. Troops under General Arthur St. Clair were defeated with heavy loss. Major General Anthony Wayne's forces won the Battle of Fallen Timbers and Wayne negotiated the Treaty of Greenville, opening Ohio to settlement.

Tecumseh sought to unite tribes of the Middle West and South against the whites, but the defeat in 1811 of his brother, the Prophet, in the Battle of Tippecanoe thwarted his plan. His followers were allied with the British in the War of 1812.

When Andrew Jackson became President he sought to move all Indians west of the Mississippi River. Attempts to remove the Seminoles from Florida resulted in the Second Seminole War, 1835-42; although most were ultimately forced to move, a few hundred eluded the U.S. Army troops and remained in their homeland. The Black Hawk War (1832) was an unsuccessful effort by Sac and Fox Indians to resist attempts to move them out of Illinios.

Western Wars

The Mexican War and settlement of the dispute over the Oregon country added to the United States a huge area inhabited by numerous Indian tribes. From 1847 to 1891 there were no years, and very few months, in which one or more Indian fights were not recorded.

Indian war parties raided for horses and other booty. Infantry was scattered widely over the Plains to guard trails and settlements. Cavalry was used to pursue the raiders, but seldom could it bring them to bay. When pushed too hard Indian warriors scattered and rode off in all directions.

While great numbers of troops might be employed in the chase of a small band of elusive Indians, most of the fights were between small groups. Rarely were as many as 100 soldiers engaged. Indian attacks on settlements, wagon trains, or stagecoaches were infrequent, despite the popularity of such scenes in fiction and drama.

Indians west of the Mississippi River made no concerted effort to oppose the whites, and at no time did Indian wars halt the Westward Movement.

The Sioux were the most persistent fighters. Sioux, often accompanied by Cheyenne and Arapaho, conducted raids along the Oregon Trail in the 1850's. Santee Sioux in Minnesota killed more than 400 settlers in an outbreak in 1862. They were driven off and fled to their relatives the Teton Sioux. During the Civil War Union troops fought Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, 1864-65.

In 1866 Red Cloud's warriors massacred 82 soldiers from Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming. He had heavy casualties the following year, and signed a peace treaty in 1868. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse rallied some 5,000 warriors in 1876 and annihilated a cavalry force under George A. Custer near the Little Bighorn River. By 1877 most of the hostile Sioux had surrendered. Principal incidents of the Ghost Dance disorders of 1890 were the killing of Sitting Bull and the Battle of Wounded Knee.

Apache wars were almost continuous, but were fought separately against Apache tribes or bands that seldom aided each other.

Other important wars were fought against the Navahos, Comanches and Kiowas, Modocs, and Nez Percés.

Government Policy Toward Indians

While Spain, France, and England claimed that America was theirs by right of discovery, all made some effort to conciliate the Indians. Great Britain, for example, adopted a policy of buying land through treaties, assuming the tribes to be nations. The United States continued this policy.

There were few Indians compared to the amount of land, and they had no concept of land ownership. At first the Indians just moved on; they had vast areas in which to wander. As white settlement increased, it became customary for the whites to reserve part of the land within a given area for the Indians' use, or to move them into a new area, usually farther west.

Explorers and settlers commonly stated that one of their goals was Christianization of the Indians. Indian schools set up as part of missions were later supported by the United States government. The earliest missions were established by the Roman Catholics, chiefly French Jesuits and Spanish Franciscans. Later the Quakers, Moravians, and other Protestant sects established many Indian schools.

19th Century

Congress began making appropriations for Indian education to missionary organizations in 1819. In 1824 it created the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the War Department. Removal of all Indians east of the Mississippi to western territories was advocated by President Andrew Jackson and authorized by act of Congress in 1830. The removals were poorly planned, and many Indians died on the way. Some Indians remained behind, as did bands of Cherokees in North Carolina. Others returned, as did many Winnebagos to Wisconsin.

The Trade and Intercourse Act of 1834 gave Congress broad powers over the tribes. It defined Indian landholdings and provided that the commissioner of Indian affairs appoint traders and regulate all their trade with the Indians. Administrative centers called agencies were set up. Officials called agents were appointed to deal with the Indians. Many agents proved incompetent, and some were corrupt.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs became part of the new Department of the Interior in 1849. In 1871, Congress declared that no more treaties would be made with the Indians as independent nations or tribes.

Supervision of Indian schools was gradually taken over from the missionaries by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and in 1873 the government began establishing its own Indian schools. These soon became boarding schools where attempts were made to stamp out Indian ways of life. The most notable was the Carlisle (Pennsylvania) Indian School (1879-1918). The school was called a failure by many because most of its graduates returned to Indian life. It became famous in later years as the school attended by Jim Thorpe, one of the greatest athletes of all time. Haskell Institute (now Haskell Indian Nations University), another noted government school, was opened in 1884 at Lawrence, Kansas.

In 1887 Congress passed the General Allotment Act (Dawes Act). It was intended to break down tribal bonds and make farmers of the Indians. The act authorized the President to subdivide tribal land and allot family-sized plots to individuals. But many Indians were not used to farming, and their allotments were often in barren areas. Want and sometimes starvation resulted. Much tribal land was designated “surplus” and passed to white ownership.

20th Century

Until late in the century, government policy continued to promote assimilation of Indians into non-Indian life. Congress granted citizenship to all native-born Indians in 1924, in acknowledgment of the service of Indians as volunteers in World War I. The wisdom of destroying tribal government began to be questioned. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 ended allotment of tribal lands, encouraged a return to tribal organization, and created a federal loan system for the tribes. Payment for Indian lands taken illegally or at an unfair price began in 1946 with establishment of the Indian Claims Commission. (The commission was abolished in 1978, and its cases were transferred to the federal courts.)

After World War II, when about 25,000 Indians served in the armed forces, emphasis on assimilation was renewed. In 1953 Congress passed a resolution declaring its intention to terminate federal relations with the tribes. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) launched a relocation program to help Indians find homes and jobs off the reservations. The Indians, however, were opposed, feeling that the government had not adequately prepared them for nonreservation life.

In the 1960's, provisions of the Indian Reorganization Act were reemphasized. Government programs stressed economic development of the reservations and improvement of Indian standards of living. The tribes were given a role in operating federal programs on the reservations, and funds and assistance were made available to tribal groups who wished to launch business enterprises. Commercial projects were started on a number of reservations.

A movement calling for a return to Indian culture and for self-government gained momentum, especially among younger Indians. Many became involved in political activism. Various groups claimed former tribal lands, seeking either the land or payment for its loss. Among notable settlements by the federal government were awards of more than 29 million dollars to an intertribal group in California, more than 12 million dollars to the Seminoles in Florida, and nearly one billion dollars to Indians, Eskimos (Inuit), and Aleuts in Alaska.

Indians (American): Arctic cultural area. This map shows where the American Indians of the Arctic cultural area lived. The area includes most of the seacoast of Greenland, northern Canada, and Alaska. Next to the map is a list of the Indian groups that lived there. Three major groups in the Arctic cultural area were the Inuit, Aleuts, and Yuit.

In the 1970's, younger Indians became increasingly militant. Under the leadership of the American Indian Movement (AIM), they occupied the Washington offices of the BIA for a week in 1972. In 1973 AIM led a 70-day occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, to force carrying out of old treaties. The incident was followed by a reorganization of the BIA, with an effort being made to allow Indians to become more involved in the management of BIA programs.

Two long-standing land claims were settled in 1980: the federal government reimbursed the Sioux for land in South Dakota and the Passamaquoddy, Maliseet, and Penobscot tribes for land in Maine. Throughout the 1980's, Indians sought to regain lost land and to reclaim their culture. Tribal sovereignty was strengthened by several rulings, including a 1988 law approving gambling operations on Indian land. In 1990 Congress declared that museums and universities must surrender any Indian remains or relics they had to Indian groups with legitimate claim to them.

Influences and Contributions

Names

Place names all over America recall tribes once familiar there. More than half of the states of the United States, four of the Great Lakes, numerous rivers and mountains, and many communities have names of Indian origin.

Foods

Corn—called Indian corn or maize to distinguish it from the grains of the Old World—was developed by Indian agriculture from a native grass. Beans, pumpkins, squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes, and tomatoes were other foods unknown to Europeans before they came to America. The Indians were the first to make maple sugar.

Tobacco

was smoked by Indians mainly on ceremonial occasions. Its use quickly spread to Europe and throughout the colonies.

Transportation

The canoe, developed by the Indians, proved ideal for early European explorers and later became a popular pleasure craft.

Handicrafts

Despite their difficult lives, Indians found time to make works of art of many products. Basketry and pottery were rarely without decoration. The designs on Indian beadwork, rugs and blankets, and silverwork influenced many artists.

Music

Indian music is rhythmic, much of it accompanying ceremonial dances, but there are also lullabies, work songs, and love songs. Instruments are mainly drums, flutes, whistles, and rattles. Indian themes influenced Edward Alexander MacDowell and many later composers.

Literature and Language

Indian stories and legends were told orally in great variety. They were written down by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, George Bird Grinnell, Frank Linderman, and many others.

The influence of the Indians on world literature was tremendous. The novels of James Fenimore Cooper and Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha are examples of literary works inspired by Indians. Chateaubriand, Rousseau, and Alexander Pope saw the Indian as a “noble savage,” unspoiled by civilization—a concept that played an important part in the Romantic movement. Dime novels, captivity stories, and the travels of Buffalo Bill's Wild West and similar exhibitions also contributed to the idea that the Indian was a romantic figure, and led to his use, often inaccurately, in the literatures of many countries.

Language Groups and Tribes

A tribe is made up of Indians having a common language, culture, and, in some cases, government. It is not possible, however, to compile a list of all Indian tribes. Some historic tribes were actually confederacies of minor tribes. Some villages had no relationship with others apparently of the same people. A few tribes included people who spoke different languages.

A language group (linguistic family) includes Indians speaking the same language and its dialects, or different but related languages. At one time about 60 language groups were recognized in the United States and Canada. Later studies showed fewer groups. Some of the historically important language groups are:

Algonquian

This was the largest group both in numbers and in territory, and the first met by English colonists. They lived along the Atlantic Coast from Virginia northward, stretching westward to the Mississippi River, and north and west of the Great Lakes to the Rocky Mountains.

Iroquoian

This language family is named for the Iroquois Confederation, or Five Nations, which included the Cayugas, Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, and Senecas. Later they were joined by the Tuscaroras, making Six Nations. They lived along the Mohawk Valley and westward to Lake Erie.

Mowhawk Indians lived in forests and grew crops for food.

Other Iroquoian peoples were the Hurons, or Wyandots, of the St. Lawrence Valley; the Erie, who lived south of Lake Erie; and, between the Hurons and Eries, Indians of the Neutral Nation.

The Susquehannas, or Conestogas, lived along the Susquehanna River. The Cherokees lived at the southern end of the Appalachian Mountains. A Cherokee alphabet was invented by Sequoya.

Muskhogean

This language family is named for the Muskogees, or Creeks, and includes also the Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles. They lived in the southeastern part of the United States. When removed in the 1830's to the Indian Territory that became Oklahoma, they were known, with the Cherokees, as the Five Civilized Tribes.

Other Muskhogean tribes included Apalachee, Pensacola, Natchez, and Yamasee.

Siouan

This was the largest language family north of Mexico except for the Algonquian. Its peoples lived largely between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, north of the Arkansas River. The group is named for the Sioux.

Caddoan

This language family, named for the Caddo confederacy of Louisiana, included the Kichais (also Keechis or Keeckes), Wichitas, the Pawnee confederacy of the Platte Valley, and the Arikaras of North Dakota.

Shoshonean

The Shoshonean is one of the largest language families and, in turn, is part of an even larger group called the Uto-Aztecan linguistic stock. This group includes the ancient Aztec and other Mexican tribes of the Nahuatlan, or Aztecoidan, family, and the Piman family consisting of Arizona's Pima, Papago, and Quahatika.

The Shoshonis, for whom the family or division is named, lived on the Northern Plains. The Comanches broke away from the Shoshonis at about the time they acquired horses. The Utes and Bannocks were closely related.

The Shoshonean group includes peoples of widely diverse ways of life. The Hopi Indians are a highly developed Pueblo tribe, famed for their snake dance. In the Great Basin were tribes for whom edible roots, dug from the ground, were an important food source; these tribes were sometimes disparagingly referred to as “Diggers.” Among these tribes were the Paiute, Gosiute, and Chemehuevi.

Also Shoshonean were two small tribes in Oregon, and a dozen in California. Among them are the Cahuillas, the people of Helen Hunt Jackson's novel Ramona.

Various Shoshonean tribes were known as Snake Indians.

Athapascan

The most widely distributed of North American language families is named for the Athabascas of northern Canada. It includes two important peoples of the United States Southwest, the Navajos and the Apaches.

In northwestern Canada were the Chipewyan, and the Etchaottine, or Slaves. The Kutchin group includes nine tribes in Canada and Alaska. More than 30 small Athapascan tribes live in Alaska, Canada, Washington, Oregon, and California.

Skittagetan and Tlingit

The Skittagetan linguistic family consists of the Haidas, natives of Alaska and the Queen Charlotte Islands, notable for their totem poles and other carvings. The Tlingits, of a separate linguistic stock, lived along the Alaskan coast and islands, especially around Sitka. Haida and Tlingit are related languages and are sometimes classed as a branch of the Athapascan family.

Salishan

This language family is named for the Salish, or Flatheads, of Montana and Idaho. Its languages at one time were spoken by nearly 50 tribes, mostly in Washington and Oregon; most of the tribes were small. The Chimakuan family, including the Chimakun, Quileute, and Hoh, is probably related to the Salishan.

Hokan

This linguistic stock includes several language families, the most important of which is the Yuman, named for the Yuma of Arizona. The Yuman family includes the Havasupai of Grand Canyon, Maricopa, Mojave, Walapai, Yavapai, and nine small tribes of Arizona and California. The Shastan family, named for the Shasta, includes four more California tribes. The Hokan group also includes seven more California tribes, some of which formerly were considered separate linguistic stocks.

Shapwailutan

This linguistic stock also has branches. The Shahaptian division includes the Nez Percés, who revolted in 1877 under the leadership of Chief Joseph. Others were the Klickitat, Palouse, Wallawalla, Umatilla, Yakima, and seven more tribes of the Northwest. The Waiilatpuan branch includes the Cayuse, whose name was used for the Indian pony, and the Molala. The Lutuamian branch includes the Modoc and the Klamath.

Other Language Families

Chinookan is the language family of a dozen tribes of Washington and Oregon. The Chinook language was also the basis for a trade jargon, spoken along the Pacific Coast. The Yakonian, Kusan, Kalapooian, Takilman, Wakashan, Yukian, Penutian, Ritwan, and Wintun families include 32 Pacific Coast tribes.

The Kiowa, allies of the Comanche in wars and raiding, formerly were considered a separate language family. Now they are linked with the Tanoan family of Pueblo peoples, including Jemez, Manso, Piro, Tewa, and Tiwa.

Zuñi Pueblo is a separate language family. The remaining Pueblo peoples (except for the Hopi) are of the Keresan family, its eastern group including Cochiti, San Felipe, Santa Ana, Santo Domingo, and Zia, and its western group Acoma and Laguna.

The Karankawan and Tonkawan groups of tribes of Texas form separate language families. The Chitimacha and Atakapa groups of the Gulf Coast are considered a family of Tunican stock.