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3,000 Natives died on the Trail of Tears

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3,000 Natives died on the Trail of Tears

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(Credit: Alamy)

Davy Crockett objected to Indian removal.

Frontiersman Davy Crockett, whose grandparents were killed by Creeks and Cherokees, was a scout for Andrew Jackson during the Creek War (1813-14). However, while serving as a U.S. congressman from Tennessee, Crockett broke with President Jackson over the Indian Removal Act, calling it unjust. Despite warnings that his opposition to Indian removal would cost him his seat in Congress, where he'd served since 1827, Crockett said, "I would sooner be honestly and politically damned than hypocritically immortalized." The year after the act's 1830 passage, Crockett lost his bid for reelection. After being voted back into office in 1833, he continued to express his opposition to Jackson's policy and wrote that he would leave the U.S. for the "wildes of Texas" if Martin Van Buren, Jackson's vice president, succeeded him in the White House. After Crockett was again defeated for reelection, in 1835, he did go to Texas, where he died fighting at the Alamo in March 1836.

Renegade Cherokees signed a treaty selling all tribal lands.

John Ross, who was of Scottish and Cherokee ancestry and became the tribe's principal chief in 1828, was strongly opposed to giving up the Cherokees' ancestral lands, as were the majority of the Cherokee people. However, a small group within the tribe believed it was inevitable that white settlers would keep encroaching on their lands and therefore the only way to preserve Cherokee culture and survive as a tribe was to move west. In 1835, while Ross was away, this minority faction signed a treaty at New Echota, the Cherokee Nation capital (located in Georgia), agreeing to sell the U.S. government all tribal lands in the East in exchange for $5 million and new land in the West. As part of the agreement, the government was supposed help cover the Cherokees' moving costs and pay to support them during their first year in Indian Territory. When Ross found out about the treaty, he argued it had been made illegally. Nevertheless, in 1836 it was ratified by a single vote in the U.S. Senate and signed by President Jackson. The treaty gave the Cherokees two years to vacate their lands. In June 1839, after the Cherokees had been forced to relocate to Indian Territory, several leaders of the so-called Treaty Party, who'd advocated for the New Echota agreement, were assassinated by tribe members who'd opposed removal to the west.

Martin Van Buren ordered the roundup of the Cherokees.

During his two terms in the White House, from 1829 to 1837, Andrew Jackson was responsible for putting Indian removal policies in place; however, he left office before the 1838 deadline for the Cherokees to surrender their lands in the East. It was Jackson's presidential successor, Martin Van Buren, who ordered General Winfield Scott to forcibly evict the Cherokees. Scott's troops rounded up thousands of Cherokees and then imprisoned them in forts in Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Alabama. During these roundups, the Indians weren't given time to pack and family members, including children, sometimes got left behind if they weren't home when the soldiers showed up. The Indians were transferred from the forts to detention camps, most of them in Tennessee, to await deportation. At both the forts and camps, living conditions were bleak and diseases rampant, and an unknown number of Cherokees died.

The Trail of Tears wasn't just one route.

The first group of Cherokees departed Tennessee in June 1838 and headed to Indian Territory by boat, a journey that took them along the Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi and Arkansas rivers. Heat and extended drought soon made travel along this water route impractical, so that fall and winter thousands more Cherokees were forced to trek from Tennessee to present-day Oklahoma via one of several overland routes. Federal officials allowed Chief John Ross to take charge of these overland removals, and he organized the Indians into 13 groups, each comprised of nearly a thousand people. Although there were some wagons and horses, most people had to walk.

The route followed by the largest number of Cherokees-12,000 people or more, according to some estimates-was the northern route, a distance of more than 800 miles through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas and into Indian Territory. The last groups of Cherokees made it to Indian Territory in March 1839. A century later, Route 66, the iconic highway established in 1926, overlapped with part of this route, from Rolla to Springfield, Missouri.

(Credit: Al Moldvay/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

Not all Cherokees left the Southeast.

A small group of Cherokee people managed to remain in North Carolina, either as a result of an 1819 agreement that enabled them to stay on their land there, or because they hid in the mountains from the U.S. soldiers sent to capture them. The group, which also included people who walked back from Indian Territory, became known as the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. Today, the group has approximately 12,500 members, who live primarily in western North Carolina on the 57,000-acre Qualla Boundary.

The Cherokees rebuilt in Indian Territory.

In the first years after their arrival in Indian Territory, life was difficult for many Cherokees. However, under the leadership of Chief Ross the tribe rebuilt in the 1840s and 1850s, establishing businesses and a public school system and publishing what was then America's only tribal newspaper. When the American Civil War broke out, the Cherokee Nation found itself politically divided. Ross initially believed the Cherokees should remain neutral in the conflict, but there was a faction who supported the South so the chief made an alliance with the Confederacy, in part to try to keep the Cherokees united. Ross soon grew disillusioned with the Confederates, who had abandoned their promises of protection and supplies to the Indians. Ross spent the rest of the war in Philadelphia, where his second wife had a home (his first wife died while walking the Trail of Tears) and Washington, D.C., trying to convince President Abraham Lincoln that the Cherokees were loyal to the Union. Ross died of illness on August 1, 1866, having served as principal chief for nearly 40 years.

The U.S. apologized to Native American groups in 2009.

In December 2009, President Barack Obama signed a bill that included an official apology to all American Indian tribes for past injustices. U.S. Senators Sam Brownback of Kansas and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota led a bipartisan effort to pass the resolution, which stated: "the United States, acting through Congress...recognizes that there have been years of official depredations, ill-conceived policies, and the breaking of covenants by the Federal Government regarding Indian tribes." However, the resolution did not call for reparations and included a disclaimer that it wasn't meant to support any legal claims against the United States.

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At Least 3,000 Native Americans Died on the Trail of Tears

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Frontiersman Davy Crockett, whose grandparents were killed by Creeks and Cherokees, was a scout for Andrew Jackson during the Creek War (1813-14). However, while serving as a U.S. congressman from Tennessee, Crockett broke with President Jackson over the Indian Removal Act, calling it unjust.

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The Author Of The The Book Sing Down The Moon Was Scoot o' dell

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The Author Of The The Book Sing Down The Moon Was Scoot o' dell

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The AIAN community faces educational issues similar to other minority groups, including the need for adequate funding for schools serving minority and disadvantaged students, as well as other issues with a special impact on the community:

Student achievement gaps need to be aggressively addressed. For example, while 71 percent of AIANs age 25 or older had a high school diploma or more in the 2000 census, only 11 percent had a bachelor's degree or more, compared to 27 percent of Whites.

There is an increasing need for quality teachers in Indian schools. Due to rural isolation, low teacher salaries, high poverty, and differences in languages and cultures, it is difficult to recruit and retain quality teachers in Indian schools. Further, the need for special education teachers is growing since representation of AIAN students in special education is at 18 percent, almost double the rest of the student population at 10 percent.

The contributions of AIANs in American history and contemporary society have not been adequately recognized in public school curriculums. Too few students know, for instance, that the U.S. Constitution was developed in part upon concepts of democracy gained from the League of the Iroquois. Misconceptions about the "discovery of America by Columbus" do not recognize the pre-existance of sophisticated Indian nations. In addition, the "land bridge" theory of migration perpetuates the myth that all people immigrated to this continent. More needs to be taught about the value and importance of AIAN history and culture.

Native schools continue to be plagued by safety concerns, with high suspension and expulsion rates, and the highest percentage of all groups to report injury with weapons and fights on school grounds.

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The AIAN community faces educational issues similar to other minority groups, including the need for adequate funding for schools serving minority and disadvantaged students, as well as other issues with a special impact on the community: Student achievement gaps need to be aggressively addressed.

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Stuff You May Not Now About The Trail Of Tears

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Stuff You May Not Now About The Trail Of Tears

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www.kawvalley.k12.ks.us/schools/rjh/marneyg/.../02.../02_masseyd_reportTOT.html

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Map of the Indian tribes of North America

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Map of the Indian tribes of North America

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The AIAN community faces educational issues similar to other minority groups, including the need for adequate funding for schools serving minority and disadvantaged students, as well as other issues with a special impact on the community:

Student achievement gaps need to be aggressively addressed. For example, while 71 percent of AIANs age 25 or older had a high school diploma or more in the 2000 census, only 11 percent had a bachelor's degree or more, compared to 27 percent of Whites.

There is an increasing need for quality teachers in Indian schools. Due to rural isolation, low teacher salaries, high poverty, and differences in languages and cultures, it is difficult to recruit and retain quality teachers in Indian schools. Further, the need for special education teachers is growing since representation of AIAN students in special education is at 18 percent, almost double the rest of the student population at 10 percent.

The contributions of AIANs in American history and contemporary society have not been adequately recognized in public school curriculums. Too few students know, for instance, that the U.S. Constitution was developed in part upon concepts of democracy gained from the League of the Iroquois. Misconceptions about the "discovery of America by Columbus" do not recognize the pre-existance of sophisticated Indian nations. In addition, the "land bridge" theory of migration perpetuates the myth that all people immigrated to this continent. More needs to be taught about the value and importance of AIAN history and culture.

Native schools continue to be plagued by safety concerns, with high suspension and expulsion rates, and the highest percentage of all groups to report injury with weapons and fights on school grounds.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The AIAN community faces educational issues similar to other minority groups, including the need for adequate funding for schools serving minority and disadvantaged students, as well as other issues with a special impact on the community: Student achievement gaps need to be aggressively addressed.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Indian Wars began the moment English colonists arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, when the settlers started an uneasy relationship with the Native Americans (or Indians) who had thrived on the land for thousands of years. At that time, millions of indigenous people had settled across North America in hundreds of different tribes. But between 1622 and the late 19th century, a series of wars and skirmishes known as the Indian Wars took place between American-Indians and European settlers, mainly over land control.

Colonial Period Indian Wars

On March 22, 1622, Powhatan Indians attacked and killed colonists in eastern Virginia. Known as the Jamestown Massacre, the bloodbath gave the English government an excuse to justify their efforts to attack Native Americans and confiscate their land.

In 1636, the Pequot War over trade expansion broke out between Pequot Indians and English settlers of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Connecticut. The colonists' Indian allies joined them in battle and helped defeat the Pequot.

A series of battles took place from 1636 to 1659 between New Netherlands settlers in New York and several Indian tribes (Lenape, Susquehannocks, Algonquians, Esopus). Some battles were especially violent and gruesome, sending many settlers fleeing back to the Netherlands.

The Beaver Wars of 1640-1701 occurred between the French and their Indian allies (Algonquian, Huron) and the powerful Iroquois Confederacy. The fierce fighting started over territory and fur trade dominance around the Great Lakes and ended with the signing of the Great Peace Treaty.

King Philip's War

King Philip's War (1675-1676), also known as Metacom's War, began after bands of Indians led by Wampanoag Chief Metacom (later called King Philip) grew frustrated with their dependence on the Puritans and attacked colonies and militia strongholds throughout Massachusetts and Rhode Island.

The attacks ignited a series of battles for power along the Connecticut River Valley between Metacom's warriors and a large colonial militia and their Mohawk allies. The war ended with Metacom's beheading and the decimation of the Native Americans in his coalition.

Queen Anne's War

Queen Anne's War of 1702-1713 occurred between French and English colonists and their respective Indian allies on several fronts including Spanish Florida, New England, Newfoundland and Acadia. The war ended with the Treaty of Utrecht, but the Indians were not included in peace negotiations and lost much of their land.

During the Tuscarora War (1711-1715), Tuscarora Indians burned North Carolina settlements and randomly killed colonists over treaty disputes. After two years of bloody fighting, North Carolina defeated the Indians with the help of the South Carolina militia.

In 1715, Yamasee Indians-frustrated with the loss of their hunting grounds and the high debts they owed white settlers of South Carolina-formed a confederacy with other local tribes and forced many settlers to flee, devastating South Carolina's economy.

French and Indian War

As France expanded into the Ohio River Valley from 1754 to 1763, it fought with Britain for control of North America. Both sides forged alliances with Indians to help fight their battles. Known as the French and Indian War, the struggle ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763.

In 1763, Pontiac Indians of the Ohio River became incensed upon learning King George III expected them to become British loyalists. During Pontiac's War, the Ottawa Chief Pontiac rallied support among other tribes and laid siege to Britain's Fort Detroit. When a British retaliatory assault plan on Pontiac's village was discovered, the Indians attacked and killed many British soldiers during the Battle of Bloody Run on July 31.

The Battle of Fallen Timbers happened on August 20, 1794, along Ohio's Maumee River between regional Indians (Miami, Shawnee, Lenape) and the United States. The well-trained U.S. Army decisively defeated the Indians and the battle ended with the adoption of the Treaty of Greenville.

In 1759, a series of battles known as the Cherokee Wars began from the valleys of Virginia to North Carolina and southward. Two peace treaties forced the Cherokee to give up millions of acres of land to settlers, provoking them to fight for the British in the Revolutionary War, hoping to keep what land they had left.
READ MORE: How 22-Year-Old George Washington Inadvertently Sparked the French and Indian War
Early American Indian Wars

Indians had to choose sides or try to stay neutral when the American Revolution broke out. Many tribes such as the Iroquois, Shawnee, Cherokee and Creek fought with British loyalists. Others, including the Potawatomi and the Delaware, sided with American patriots.

But no matter which side they fought on, Native Americans were negatively impacted. They were left out of peace talks and lost additional land. After the war, some Americans retaliated against those Indian tribes that had supported the British.

Cherokee Chief Dragging Canoe led bands of Indians against white settlers in the South from 1776 through 1794. At the Battle of the Bluffs, he led 400 warriors to destroy Fort Nashborough in Tennessee, but a pack of unleashed hunting dogs forced them back during the battle.

Nineteenth-Century Wars

At the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, Shawnee Chief Tecumseh formed a coalition to slow the flow of settlers into Illinois and Indiana. Territorial Governor William Henry Harrison led a force of soldiers and militia to destroy the Shawnee's village but agreed to a temporary cease-fire. Tecumseh's brother, "The Prophet," ignored the cease-fire and attacked. Harrison prevailed, however, and the Shawnee retreated north.

The War of 1812 was fought between Britain and the United States and their respective Indian allies. Tecumseh's defeat at the Battle of Tippecanoe led him to support the British. At the Battle of Thames (one of many battles in the War of 1812) along the Thames River in Ontario, British troops and Tecumseh's coalition were outnumbered and easily defeated again. Tecumseh died in the battle, leading many Indians to abandon the British cause.

By 1814, pro-American Creeks (Lower Creeks) and Creeks who resented Americans (Upper Creeks) were fighting a civil war. At the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in Alabama on March 27, American militia fought alongside Lower Creeks to defeat Upper Creeks. The battle ended with the signing of the Treaty of Fort Jackson and the Creeks ceding almost two million acres of land.

Seminole Wars

In the First Seminole War (1816-1818), the Seminoles, assisted by runaway slaves, defended Spanish Florida against the U.S. Army. In the Second Seminole War (1835-1842), the Indians fought to retain their land in the Florida Everglades but were almost wiped out. The Third Seminole War (1855-1858) was the Seminole's last stand. After being outgunned and outnumbered, most of them agreed to move to Indian reservations in Oklahoma.

In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, allowing the U.S. government to relocate Indians from their land east of the Mississippi River. In 1838, the government forcibly removed around 15,000 Cherokee from their homeland and made them walk more than 1,200 miles west. Over 3,000 Indians died on the grueling route, known as the Trail of Tears. The involuntary relocation fueled the Indians' anger toward the U.S. government.

In 1832, Chief Black Hawk led around 1,000 Sauk and Fox Indians back to Illinois to reclaim their land. The battle, known as the Black Hawk War, was a disaster for the Indians who were greatly outnumbered by the U.S. Army, militias and other Indian tribes.

Sand Creek Massacre

The Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 occurred after about 750 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho led by Chief Black Kettle were forced to abandon their winter campsite near Fort Lyon in southeastern Colorado. When they set up camp at Sand Creek, volunteer Colorado soldiers attacked, scattering them while slaughtering 148 men, women and children.

Red Cloud's War (1866) began as the U.S. government developed the Bozeman Trail through Indian territory to allow miners and settlers access to gold in Montana Territory via the Powder River. For two years, an Indian coalition led by Lakota Chief Red Cloud attacked workers, settlers and soldiers to save their native lands. Their persistence paid off when the U.S. Army left the area and signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868.

The treaty established the Black Hills of western South Dakota and northeastern Wyoming as part of the Great Sioux Reservation. After the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, however, the U.S. government began setting up Army posts there, leaving angry Sioux and Cheyenne warriors-led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse -determined to defend their territory.

Battle of the Little Bighorn

At the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876, General George Armstrong Custer led 600 men into the Little Bighorn Valley, where they were overwhelmed by approximately 3,000 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors led by Crazy Horse.

Custer and his men were all killed in the battle, known as Custer's Last Stand. Despite the decisive Indian victory, the U.S. government forced the Sioux to sell the Black Hills and leave the land.

The U.S. Army fought multiple skirmishes during the Red River War (1874-1875) against Southern Plains Indians who had left their reservations to reclaim former hunting grounds in the Texas Panhandle. The war ended after intense pressure from the U.S. Army forced the Indians to return to their reservations.

Driven by revenge for the slaughter of his family and the need to protect Apache native lands in northern Mexico and Southwest U.S. territory, the warrior Geronimo led his men in brutal attacks against Mexican troops, white settlers and the U.S. Army from 1850 until his capture in 1886.

Wounded Knee

In the late nineteenth century, Indian "Ghost Dancers" believed a specific dance ritual would reunite them with the dead and bring peace and prosperity. On December 29, 1890, the U.S. Army surrounded a group of Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee Creek near the Pine Ridge reservation of South Dakota.

During the ensuing Wounded Knee Massacre, fierce fighting broke out and 150 Indians were slaughtered. The battle was the last major conflict between the U.S. government and the Plains Indians.

By the early 20 century, the American-Indian Wars had effectively ended, but at great cost. Though Indians helped colonial settlers survive in the New World, helped Americans gain their independence and ceded vast amounts of land and resources to pioneers, tens of thousands of Indian and non-Indian lives were lost to war, disease and famine, and the Indian way of life was almost completely destroyed.
READ MORE: American Indian Wars: A Timeline
Sources

History of Queen Anne's War. History of Massachusetts Blog.
Native Americans in the Revolutionary War. History of Massachusetts.
Red River War (1874-1875). Oklahoma Historical Society.
Seminole Wars History. Seminole Wars Foundation.
The Reader's Companion to American History. Eric Foner and John A. Garraty, Editors. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
Tuscarora War. North Carolina History Project.
Indian Wars Campaign. U.S. Army Center of Military History.
The War of 1812 and Indian Wars: 1812-1821. Library of Congress.

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The Indian Wars began the moment English colonists arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, when the settlers started an uneasy relationship with the Native Americans (or Indians) who had thrived on the land for thousands of years. At that time, millions of indigenous people had settled across North America in hundreds of different tribes.

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The Arctic

The Arctic culture area, a cold, flat, treeless region (actually a frozen desert) near the Arctic Circle in present-day Alaska, Canada and Greenland, was home to the Inuit and the Aleut. Both groups spoke, and continue to speak, dialects descended from what scholars call the Eskimo-Aleut language family.

Because it is such an inhospitable landscape, the Arctic's population was comparatively small and scattered. Some of its peoples, especially the Inuit in the northern part of the region, were nomads, following seals, polar bears and other game as they migrated across the tundra. In the southern part of the region, the Aleut were a bit more settled, living in small fishing villages along the shore.

Did you know? According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are about 4.5 million Native Americans and Alaska Natives in the United States today. That's about 1.5 percent of the population.

The Inuit and Aleut had a great deal in common. Many lived in dome-shaped houses made of sod or timber (or, in the North, ice blocks). They used seal and otter skins to make warm, weatherproof clothing, aerodynamic dogsleds and long, open fishing boats (kayaks in Inuit; baidarkas in Aleut).

By the time the United States purchased Alaska in 1867, decades of oppression and exposure to European diseases had taken their toll: The native population had dropped to just 2,500; the descendants of these survivors still make their homes in the area today.

The Subarctic

The Subarctic culture area, mostly composed of swampy, piney forests (taiga) and waterlogged tundra, stretched across much of inland Alaska and Canada. Scholars have divided the region's people into two language groups: the Athabaskan speakers at its western end, among them the Tsattine (Beaver), Gwich'in (or Kuchin) and the Deg Xinag (formerly-and pejoratively-known as the Ingalik), and the Algonquian speakers at its eastern end, including the Cree, the Ojibwa and the Naskapi.

In the Subarctic, travel was difficult-toboggans, snowshoes and lightweight canoes were the primary means of transportation-and population was sparse. In general, the peoples of the Subarctic did not form large permanent settlements; instead, small family groups stuck together as they traipsed after herds of caribou. They lived in small, easy-to-move tents and lean-tos, and when it grew too cold to hunt they hunkered into underground dugouts.

The growth of the fur trade in the 17th and 18th centuries disrupted the Subarctic way of life-now, instead of hunting and gathering for subsistence, the Indians focused on supplying pelts to the European traders-and eventually led to the displacement and extermination of many of the region's native communities.

The Northeast

The Northeast culture area, one of the first to have sustained contact with Europeans, stretched from present-day Canada's Atlantic coast to North Carolina and inland to the Mississippi River valley. Its inhabitants were members of two main groups: Iroquoian speakers (these included the Cayuga, Oneida, Erie, Onondaga, Seneca and Tuscarora), most of whom lived along inland rivers and lakes in fortified, politically stable villages, and the more numerous Algonquian speakers (these included the Pequot, Fox, Shawnee, Wampanoag, Delaware and Menominee) who lived in small farming and fishing villages along the ocean. There, they grew crops like corn, beans and vegetables.

Life in the Northeast culture area was already fraught with conflict-the Iroquoian groups tended to be rather aggressive and warlike, and bands and villages outside of their allied confederacies were never safe from their raids-and it grew more complicated when European colonizers arrived. Colonial wars repeatedly forced the region's Indigenous people to take sides, pitting the Iroquois groups against their Algonquian neighbors. Meanwhile, as white settlement pressed westward, it eventually displaced both sets of Indigenous people from their lands.

The Southeast

The Southeast culture area, north of the Gulf of Mexico and south of the Northeast, was a humid, fertile agricultural region. Many of its natives were expert farmers-they grew staple crops like maize, beans, squash, tobacco and sunflower-who organized their lives around small ceremonial and market villages known as hamlets. Perhaps the most familiar of the Southeastern Indigenous peoples are the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole, sometimes called the Five Civilized Tribes, some of whom spoke a variant of the Muskogean language.

By the time the U.S. had won its independence from Britain, the Southeast culture area had already lost many of its native people to disease and displacement. In 1830, the federal Indian Removal Act compelled the relocation of what remained of the Five Civilized Tribes so that white settlers could have their land. Between 1830 and 1838, federal officials forced nearly 100,000 Indigenous people out of the southern states and into "Indian Territory" (later Oklahoma) west of the Mississippi. The Cherokee called this frequently deadly trek the Trail of Tears.

The Plains

The Plains culture area comprises the vast prairie region between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, from present-day Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. Before the arrival of European traders and explorers, its inhabitants-speakers of Siouan, Algonquian, Caddoan, Uto-Aztecan and Athabaskan languages-were relatively settled hunters and farmers. After European contact, and especially after Spanish colonists brought horses to the region in the 18th century, the peoples of the Great Plains became much more nomadic.

Groups like the Crow, Blackfeet, Cheyenne, Comanche and Arapaho used horses to pursue great herds of buffalo across the prairie. The most common dwelling for these hunters was the cone-shaped teepee, a bison-skin tent that could be folded up and carried anywhere. Plains Indians are also known for their elaborately feathered war bonnets.

As white traders and settlers moved west across the Plains region, they brought many damaging things with them: commercial goods, like knives and kettles, which Indigenous people came to depend on; guns; and disease. By the end of the 19th century, white sport hunters had nearly exterminated the area's buffalo herds. With settlers encroaching on their lands and no way to make money, the Plains natives were forced onto government reservations.

The Southwest

The peoples of the Southwest culture area, a huge desert region in present-day Arizona and New Mexico (along with parts of Colorado, Utah, Texas and Mexico) developed two distinct ways of life.

Sedentary farmers such as the Hopi, the Zuni, the Yaqui and the Yuma grew crops like corn, beans and squash. Many lived in permanent settlements, known as pueblos, built of stone and adobe. These pueblos featured great multistory dwellings that resembled apartment houses. At their centers, many of these villages also had large ceremonial pit houses, or kivas.

Other Southwestern peoples, such as the Navajo and the Apache, were more nomadic. They survived by hunting, gathering and raiding their more established neighbors for their crops. Because these groups were always on the move, their homes were much less permanent than the pueblos. For instance, the Navajo fashioned their iconic eastward-facing round houses, known as hogans, out of materials like mud and bark.

By the time the southwestern territories became a part of the United States after the Mexican War, many of the region's native people had already been killed. (Spanish colonists and missionaries had enslaved many of the Pueblo Indians, for example, working them to death on vast Spanish ranches known as encomiendas.) During the second half of the 19th century, the federal government resettled most of the region's remaining natives onto reservations.

The Great Basin

The Great Basin culture area, an expansive bowl formed by the Rocky Mountains to the east, the Sierra Nevadas to the west, the Columbia Plateau to the north, and the Colorado Plateau to the south, was a barren wasteland of deserts, salt flats and brackish lakes. Its people, most of whom spoke Shoshonean or Uto-Aztecan dialects (the Bannock, Paiute and Ute, for example), foraged for roots, seeds and nuts and hunted snakes, lizards and small mammals. Because they were always on the move, they lived in compact, easy-to-build wikiups made of willow poles or saplings, leaves and brush. Their settlements and social groups were impermanent, and communal leadership (what little there was) was informal.

After European contact, some Great Basin groups got horses and formed equestrian hunting and raiding bands that were similar to the ones we associate with the Great Plains natives. After white prospectors discovered gold and silver in the region in the mid-19th century, most of the Great Basin's people lost their land and, frequently, their lives.

California

Before European contact, the temperate California area had more people than any other North American landscape at the time, with approximately 300,000 people in the mid-16th century. It's estimated that 100 different tribes and groups spoke more than 200 dialects. These languages were derived from the Penutian (the Maidu, Miwok and Yokuts), the Hokan (the Chumash, Pomo, Salinas and Shasta), the Uto-Aztecan (the Tubabulabal, Serrano and Kinatemuk) and the Athapaskan (the Hupa, among others). Many of the "Mission Indians" who were driven out of the Southwest by Spanish colonization also spoke Uto-Aztecan dialects.

Despite this great diversity, many native Californians lived very similar lives. They did not practice much agriculture. Instead, they organized themselves into small, family-based bands of hunter-gatherers known as tribelets. Inter-tribelet relationships, based on well-established systems of trade and common rights, were generally peaceful.

Spanish explorers infiltrated the California region in the middle of the 16th century. In 1769, the cleric Junipero Serra established a mission at San Diego, inaugurating a particularly brutal period in which forced labor, disease and assimilation nearly exterminated the culture area's native population.

The Northwest Coast

The Northwest Coast culture area, along the Pacific coast from British Columbia to the top of Northern California, has a mild climate and an abundance of natural resources. In particular, the ocean and the region's rivers provided almost everything its people needed-salmon, especially, but also whales, sea otters, seals and fish and shellfish of all kinds. As a result, unlike many other hunter-gatherers who struggled to eke out a living and were forced to follow animal herds from place to place, the Indians of the Pacific Northwest were secure enough to build permanent villages that housed hundreds of people apiece.

Those villages operated according to a rigidly stratified social structure, more sophisticated than any outside of Mexico and Central America. A person's status was determined by his closeness to the village's chief and reinforced by the number of possessions-blankets, shells and skins, canoes and even slaves-he had at his disposal. (Goods like these played an important role in the potlatch, an elaborate gift-giving ceremony designed to affirm these class divisions.)

Prominent groups in the region included the Athapaskan Haida and Tlingit; the Penutian Chinook, Tsimshian and Coos; the Wakashan Kwakiutl and Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka); and the Salishan Coast Salish.

The Plateau

The Plateau culture area sat in the Columbia and Fraser River basins at the intersection of the Subarctic, the Plains, the Great Basin, California and the Northwest Coast (present-day Idaho, Montana and eastern Oregon and Washington). Most of its people lived in small, peaceful villages along streams and riverbanks and survived by fishing for salmon and trout, hunting and gathering wild berries, roots and nuts.

In the southern Plateau region, the great majority spoke languages derived from the Penutian (the Klamath, Klikitat, Modoc, Nez Perce, Walla Walla and Yakima or Yakama). North of the Columbia River, most (the Skitswish (Coeur d'Alene), Salish (Flathead), Spokane and Columbia) spoke Salishan dialects.

In the 18th century, other native groups brought horses to the Plateau. The region's inhabitants quickly integrated the animals into their economy, expanding the radius of their hunts and acting as traders and emissaries between the Northwest and the Plains.

In 1805, the explorers Lewis and Clark passed through the area, followed by increasing numbers of white settlers. By the end of the 19th century, most of the remaining members of Plateau tribes had been cleared from their lands and resettled in government reservations.

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Native American Cultures - Facts, Regions & Tribes

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Native Americans, also known as American Indians and Indigenous Americans, are the indigenous peoples of the United States. By the time European adventurers arrived in the 15th century A.D., scholars estimate that more than 50 million Native Americans were already living in the Americas - 10 million in the area that would become the United States.

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Most of the recent headlines about indigenous Americans have had to do with a certain D.C. football team, or a surpassingly dumb Adam Sandler movie, or casinos of the kind operated by the fictional Ugaya tribe on "House of Cards." And we're not saying these issues don't matter. But beyond the slot machines, the movie sets and the football fields, there are other problems facing Native communities -- insidious, systemic, life-or-death problems; the kinds of problems it takes years and votes and marches to resolve -- that aren't getting nearly as much attention.

There are 567 tribes, including 229 Alaska Native communities, currently recognized by the federal government. The Bureau of Indian Affairs -- the primary federal agency in charge of relations with indigenous communities -- is also considering extending federal status to Native Hawaiians.

Each of the federally recognized tribes is a nation unto itself -- sovereign, self-determining and self-governing -- that maintains a government-to-government relationship with the United States. In addition, the rights of all indigenous peoples, including Native Hawaiians, have been affirmed in a 2007 United Nations declaration. Each indigenous nation has a distinct history, language and culture. While many face concerns that are specific to their government, state, or region, there are certain issues that affect all Native communities throughout the United States -- from Hawaii to Maine, and Alaska to Florida. Here are 13 such issues that you probably aren't hearing enough about.

Native Americans face issues of mass incarceration and policing.

Thanks in large part to the Black Lives Matter movement, which has insisted that demands for justice and equality for the black community remain part of the national conversation, there is now growing momentum to address the issues of policing and mass incarceration. But while the brutalization of black Americans at the hands of police, and their maltreatment within the criminal justice system, have garnered national headlines, similar injustices against Native Americans have gone largely unreported.

Native peoples are also disproportionately affected by mass incarceration. In states with significant Native populations, Native Americans are wildly overrepresented in the criminal justice system. In South Dakota, for example, Native Americans make up 9 percent of the total population, but 29 percent of the prison population. In Alaska, Native people account for 15 percent of the total population and 38 percent of the prison population. And Native Hawaiians are only 10 percent of the state's population, but 39 percent of the incarcerated population.

The issue of mass incarceration in Native communities is complicated by overlapping and unresolved conflicts between tribal, federal and state jurisdictions. If a crime is thought to have occurred on a Native reservation or within a Native community, it's not always clear which agency is going to be in charge of prosecution. That's determined by a complex set of factors, including the severity of the charges and the races of the victims and alleged perpetrators. The overlapping jurisdictions of federal and tribal sovereignty also mean that Indians who commit crimes on tribal lands can be punished twice for the same offense: once under federal jurisdiction and again in tribal court. Lastly, aside from cases of domestic violence, tribal courts are not allowed to try major crimes as defined under the Major Crimes Act. This means that suspects in most felony cases are prosecuted in federal courts, where sentencing tends to be more severe.

In February, building off the momentum of Black Lives Matter, the Lakota Peoples' Law Project released its " Native Lives Matter" report, which gives an overview of the inequities faced by Native Americans in the criminal justice system. The report, like the voices of Native peoples in general, has been largely ignored in the growing national conversation about policing and criminal justice reform.

Native communities are often impoverished and jobless.

The federal government is still stripping Native people of their land.

And in the heartland, the Great Sioux Nation has refused a $1.3 billion settlement as payment for the government's illegal seizure of their sacred Black Hills in South Dakota in 1877. The faces of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt are etched into the Black Hills at Mount Rushmore.

Exploitation of natural resources threatens Native communities.

Throughout the history of North American settlement, the territorial dispossession of indigenous peoples has gone hand in hand with natural resource exploitation. In the 1800s, Indian nations in the West clashed with miners pouring into their territories in search of gold.

Violence against women and children is especially prevalent in Native communities.

Often, this violence comes from outside the community. The nonprofit Mending the Sacred Hoop, citing 1990s data from the CDC and the Department of Justice, reports that "over 80% of violence experienced by Native Americans is committed by persons not of the same race," a rate "substantially higher than for whites or blacks."

However, some progress has been made. This year, despite staunch GOP opposition, tribes won the right to prosecute non-Native men who commit crimes of domestic violence or dating violence or who violate orders of protection against Native women on Indian reservations. Tribes have continued to push for control over justice systems on sovereign Indian land, in spite of resistance from state, local and federal lawmakers and law enforcement authorities.

The education system is failing Native students.

For Native Americans, at least, these disparities are in large part the result of inadequate federal funding, to the point where some schools on Indian reservations are deteriorated and structurally dangerous.

Native families live in overcrowded, poor-quality housing.

Native patients receive inadequate health care.

There's a dearth of capital and financial institutions in Native communities.

Indian nations do not own their reservation lands. Rather, the lands are held in trust by the federal government. This prevents Native Americans who live on reservations from leveraging their assets for loans, making it difficult for them to start businesses or promote economic growth in the area.

Compounding this problem, 14.5 percent of Native Americans are unbanked, and therefore lack the basic financial resources needed for economic prosperity.

Native Americans have the right to vote... but that's not always enough.

Native Americans and Alaska Natives are often unable to vote because there are no polling places anywhere near them. Some communities, such as the Duck Valley Reservation in Nevada and the Goshute Reservation in Utah, are located more than 100 miles from the nearest polling place.

These problems are compounded by high rates of illiteracy in some rural Native communities, such as the Yup'ik in Alaska, who primarily speak and read their native language because public education was not available in their region until the 1980s.

There is an epidemic of youth suicide in Native communities.

Native languages are dying, and the U.S. government is doing little to help.

Many Native communities do not have their rights recognized by the federal government.

Native Hawaiians, and members of many other Native communities throughout the U.S., have never received federal recognition of their rights as Native peoples. This deprives them of basic services, and even of the limited rights of self-governance available to other Native communities. Many tribes spend decades wading through Bureau of Indian Affairs paperwork, only to lose their petitions for recognition.

Recently, however, the Obama administration announced that it would be streamlining the federal recognition process, making it easier for unrecognized Indian nations to secure their rights under the law.
Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

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13 Issues Facing Native People Beyond Mascots And Casinos

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Most of the recent headlines about indigenous Americans have had to do with a certain D.C. football team, or a surpassingly dumb Adam Sandler movie, or casinos of the kind operated by the fictional Ugaya tribe on "House of Cards." And we're not saying these issues don't matter.