Indigenous peoples of North America

Indigenous peoples of North America
Locoluis · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Name	Indigenous peoples of North America
Region	North America
Population	Varied
Languages	Numerous Native languages
Related	Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Contents

Indigenous identity and classification

Identity among Indigenous peoples involves nations like the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Iroquois Confederacy, and segmentary groups such as the Lakota, Dakota, Ojibwe, Chippewa, and Anishinaabe whose membership ties to clans, kinship, and treaties with states like Mexico and Canada overlap with recognition by agencies such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs and provincial governments represented by bodies like the Assembly of First Nations. Ethnographic and legal classifications evolved through scholarship by figures and institutions including Franz Boas, Ruth Benedict, Smithsonian Institution, Royal Ontario Museum, and judicial rulings like Worcester v. Georgia and Calder v British Columbia, shaping categories such as First Nations status, Métis, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami membership, and tribal citizenship within nations like the Choctaw Nation and Seminole Tribe of Florida.

Pre-contact civilizations produced complex societies such as the Mississippian culture with sites like Cahokia Mounds, the Ancestral Puebloans with settlements at Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde, the agricultural systems of the Iroquois Confederacy, and maritime cultures like the Tlingit and Haida along the Pacific Northwest. Long-distance trade connected regions via routes like the North American fur trade trails used later by the Hudson's Bay Company and French colonial traders, while technological and social innovations influenced interactions documented by explorers including John Cabot, Hernán Cortés, Samuel de Champlain, and Henry Hudson.

Colonial contact led to conflicts and agreements exemplified by the Pequot War, King Philip's War, Pontiac's War, and forced removals like the Trail of Tears, enforced under laws including the Indian Removal Act and implemented by administrations such as the Andrew Jackson presidency. Treaties—Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851), Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), Treaty of Medicine Lodge—and legal frameworks like Dawes Act and Indian Appropriations Act reshaped land tenure, while resistance movements involved leaders such as Tecumseh, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, and Chief Joseph. Processes of colonization involved European powers—Spain, Britain, France, Portugal—and later nation-states confronting Indigenous sovereignty in cases before courts including Worcester v. Georgia and commissions like the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples.

North America hosts major families including Algonquian languages exemplified by Cree language and Ojibwe language, Siouan languages including Lakota language and Dakota language, Iroquoian languages such as Mohawk language and Seneca language, Uto-Aztecan languages including Nahuatl language, and Eskimo–Aleut languages represented by Inuktitut. Linguists like Edward Sapir, Noam Chomsky (in theoretical frameworks), and institutions such as the Language Conservancy and university departments collaborate on revitalization projects, dictionaries, and orthographies for languages like Kanaija'riq and endangered tongues documented in archives like the Smithsonian Institution collections and the Canadian Indigenous Languages and Literacy Development Institute.

Indigenous governance ranges from federated bodies like the Iroquois Confederacy to elected tribal councils of the Navajo Nation and hereditary systems among the Tlingit and Haida. Legal status interacts with statutes and cases such as Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, and Menominee Tribe v. United States, as well as international instruments like the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Economic enterprises include tribal casinos regulated under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and resource negotiations with corporations like Enbridge and governmental agencies such as the United States Department of the Interior and Natural Resources Canada.

Cultural expression spans ceremonies like the Powwows and Sun Dance, spiritual leaders such as medicine people in communities like the Hopi and Navajo, visual arts from Northwest Coast art to Plains hide painting and beadwork of the Lakota, performance traditions including oral epics preserved by figures like Black Elk, and contemporary writers and artists such as Louise Erdrich, Tomson Highway, Gerald McMaster, Kent Monkman, and Sherman Alexie. Museums and repatriation efforts involve the Museum of Anthropology at UBC, the National Museum of the American Indian, and legislation like the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.

Current priorities include land claims adjudicated in cases like Delgamuukw v British Columbia and negotiated agreements such as the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, language revitalization projects supported by entities like the Endangered Languages Project, health initiatives involving the Indian Health Service and Indigenous Services Canada, and activism seen in movements like Idle No More and protests against projects such as the Dakota Access Pipeline near Standing Rock. Cultural resurgence features language immersion schools, tribal colleges including Sinte Gleska University and First Nations University of Canada, and political organizations such as the National Indian Education Association and regional assemblies advocating for rights, reparations, and self-determination.