Native American peoples

Native American peoples
Locoluis · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Conventional long name	Native American peoples

Contents

Native American peoples are the Indigenous peoples originating in the lands now called the Americas, comprising a vast diversity of nations, tribes, bands, and communities across what are today Canada, the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Their histories include migration, state formation, artistic innovation, and complex diplomacy with continental empires such as the Spanish Empire, British Empire, French colonial empire, and later nation-states including the United States and Mexico. Contemporary Native communities engage in cultural revitalization, legal struggles over land and rights, and economic development through institutions like tribal governments and Indigenous organizations.

Terminology and groups

Archaeological and genetic research connects early inhabitants to migrations across the Bering Land Bridge and subsequent movements evidenced at sites like Clovis culture, Monte Verde, Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, Teotihuacan, Tikal, Chavín de Huantar, Moche, Tiwanaku, and Great Serpent Mound. Complex polities arose, including the Mississippian culture, Olmec civilization, Zapotec civilization, the Maya civilization, and the Inca Empire, with trade networks linking places such as Chaco Canyon, Pueblo Bonito, Machu Picchu, and Chan Chan. Interaction spheres included the Pacific Northwest Coast maritime cultures, the Plains Indians bison economies, the Amazon Basin agroforestry systems, and the Andean terrace agriculture traditions.

Linguistic diversity spans families such as Algonquian languages, Iroquoian languages, Siouan languages, Uto-Aztecan languages, Athabaskan languages, Eskimo–Aleut languages, Tanoan languages, Mayan languages, Quechua languages, Aymaran languages, Tupian languages, Cariban languages, and isolated languages like Zuni language and Basque–Iberian?. Social organizations ranged from confederacies like the Haudenosaunee Confederacy to chiefdoms like Cahokia and empires like Aztec Empire and Inca Empire. Technological and agricultural achievements include maize cultivation central to societies like the Mississippian culture, terrace farming practiced by Inca and Maya peoples, irrigation systems of the Hohokam, and canoe-building traditions along the Columbia River and St. Lawrence River corridors.

First sustained contacts involved expeditions of Christopher Columbus, Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro, Hernando de Soto, Juan Ponce de León, Sir Walter Raleigh, Samuel de Champlain, Henry Hudson, Jacques Cartier, and later colonial administrations such as the Viceroyalty of New Spain, New France, and Thirteen Colonies. Epidemics like smallpox decimated populations, while conflicts such as King Philip's War, Pueblo Revolt, Pequot War, Pontiac's Rebellion, Dakota War of 1862, and the Apache Wars reshaped territories. Colonial and national policies including Indian Removal Act, Reservation system, Dawes Act (General Allotment Act), Indian Reorganization Act, and legal cases such as Worcester v. Georgia and Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe altered sovereignty, landholding, and citizenship.

Treaties like the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Fort Bridger Treaty, and Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek codified land cessions and rights; decisions by the United States Supreme Court and institutions such as the Bureau of Indian Affairs and international instruments like the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples affect recognition. Modern governance includes tribal constitutions, federally recognized entities like the Pueblo of Acoma, state-recognized tribes, and Indigenous legal advocacy organizations such as the Native American Rights Fund and National Congress of American Indians. Resource disputes involve projects like the Dakota Access Pipeline protests and land claims adjudicated by courts including the Indian Claims Commission.

Contemporary populations live in urban centers like New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, Vancouver, and reservations or reserves such as the Navajo Nation, Six Nations of the Grand River, Manitoulin Island communities, Standing Rock Indian Reservation, and Akwesasne. Issues include health disparities addressed by the Indian Health Service, educational initiatives at institutions like Haskell Indian Nations University and Sinte Gleska University, economic development through casinos regulated under gaming compacts and cases like California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, and activism exemplified by movements connected to Idle No More, American Indian Movement, and leaders such as Oren Lyons, Russell Means, Winona LaDuke, Wilma Mankiller, Billy Mills, and LaDonna Harris.

Artistic traditions include pottery from Pueblo pottery, basketry of the Chitimacha, weaving by Navajo rugs, totem carving among the Tlingit and Haida, beadwork practiced by Plains tribes, and contemporary work by artists displayed at institutions like the National Museum of the American Indian and Smithsonian Institution. Spiritual practices vary across nations and include ceremonies like the Sun Dance, Potlatch, Kachina rituals, Green Corn Ceremony, and syncretic movements linked to figures such as Handsome Lake and Wovoka. Revival efforts encompass language reclamation programs for Cherokee language, Ojibwe language, Lakota language, Mayan languages, and Quechua, cultural festivals, repatriation under Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and contemporary literature by writers like N. Scott Momaday, Leslie Marmon Silko, Louise Erdrich, Sherman Alexie, and Joy Harjo.