Tribe (Native American)

The term tribe is defined in the United States for some federal government purposes to include only tribes that are federally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), established pursuant to the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act [43 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.]. Such tribes, including Alaska Native village or regional or village corporations recognized as such, are known as "federally recognized tribes" and are eligible for special programs and services provided by the United States. The BIA, part of the US Department of the Interior, issues Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood, which tribes use as a basis for tribal enrollment.

Some tribes, such as the United Houma Nation, do not have federal recognition, but are recognized at the state level using procedures defined by various states, without regard to federal recognition. Other organizations self-identify as Native American tribes for a variety of reasons; they may be a scattered tribe who no longer exist as an organized nation, or they have not completed the certification process established by the government entities in question, they may have lost their recognition, or they may be a group of non-Native individuals seeking recognition as a tribe for other reasons.

Some federally recognized tribes are confederacies of more than one tribe. Historically, the State of California formed rancherias and Nevada formed Indian Colonies. Multi-ethnic entities were formed by the U.S. federal government or by treaty with the U.S. government for the purpose of being assigned to reservations. For example, 19 tribes that existed in 1872 combined at that time to form the Colville Confederated Tribes, which is now the single federally recognized tribe, Colville Indian Reservation in Washington state.

The international meaning of the English word tribe is a people organized with a non–state government, who typically claim descent from a common founder and who speaks the same language.

In addition to their status as legal entities, tribes have political, social and historical rights and responsibilities. The term is also used to refer to communities of Native Americans who historically inhabit a particular landbase and share a language and culture.[1]

Indigenous peoples of the Americas includes all the Indigenous peoples on the landbase of the Americas - North, Central and South. "Native Americans" usually only refers to Native Americans in the United States; Alaska Natives, like the Iñupiat, Aleut, and Yupik peoples are sometimes included, but more often named individually. Indigenous peoples in Canada include the First Nations, Métis, and Inuit.

• Cornell Law
• Federally Recognized Tribes and Resource for Native Americans
• U.S. Department of the Interior - Indian Affairs