Native Americans in the United States

This map shows the approximate location of the ice-free corridor and specific Paleoindian sites (Clovis theory).

It is not definitively known how or when the Native Americans first settled the Americas and the present-day United States. The prevailing theory proposes that people migrated from Eurasia across Beringia, a land bridge that connected Siberia to present-day Alaska during the Last Glacial Period, and then spread southward throughout the Americas over subsequent generations. Genetic evidence suggests at least three waves of migrants arrived from East Asia, with the first occurring at least 15,000 years ago.[32] These migrations may have begun as early as 30,000 years ago[33] and continued to about 10,000 years ago, when the land bridge became submerged by the rising sea level at the onset of the current interglacial period.[34]

The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during the early modern period. While technically referring to the era before Christopher Columbus' 1492 arrival on the continent, in practice the term usually includes the history of Indigenous cultures until they were conquered or significantly influenced by Europeans, even if this happened decades, or even centuries, after Columbus' initial landing.

Native American cultures are not normally included in characterizations of advanced Stone Age cultures as "Neolithic", which is a category that more often includes only the cultures in Eurasia, Africa, and other regions. The archaeological periods used are the classifications of archaeological periods and cultures established in Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips' 1958 book Method and Theory in American Archaeology. They divided the archaeological record in the Americas into five phases.[35]

Numerous Paleoindian cultures occupied North America, with some arrayed around the Great Plains and Great Lakes of the modern United States and Canada, as well as exit

areas to the West and Southwest. According to the oral histories of many of the Indigenous peoples, they have been living on this continent since their genesis, described by a wide range of traditional creation stories. Other tribes have stories that recount migrations across long tracts of land and a great river believed to be the Mississippi River.[36] Genetic and linguistic data connect the Indigenous people of this continent with ancient northeast Asians. Archeological and linguistic data has enabled scholars to discover some of the migrations within the Americas.

Archeological evidence at the Gault site near Austin, Texas, demonstrates that pre-Clovis peoples settled in Texas some 16,000–20,000 years ago. Evidence of pre-Clovis cultures have also been found in the Paisley Caves in south-central Oregon and butchered mastodon bones in a sinkhole near Tallahassee, Florida. More convincingly but also controversially, another pre-Clovis has been discovered at Monte Verde, Chile.[37]

The Clovis culture, a megafauna hunting culture, is primarily identified by the use of fluted spear points. Artifacts from this culture were first excavated in 1932 near Clovis, New Mexico. The Clovis culture ranged over much of North America and appeared in South America. The culture is identified by the distinctive Clovis point, a flaked flint spear-point with a notched flute, by which it was inserted into a shaft. The dating of Clovis materials has been by association with animal bones and by the use of carbon dating methods. Recent reexaminations of Clovis materials using improved carbon-dating methods produced results of 11,050 and 10,800 radiocarbon years B.P. (roughly 9100 to 8850 BCE).[38]

A Folsom point for a spear

The Folsom tradition was characterized by the use of Folsom points as projectile tips and activities known from kill sites, where slaughter and butchering of bison took place. Folsom tools were left behind between 9000 BCE and 8000 BCE.[39]

Na-Dené-speaking peoples entered North America starting around 8000 BCE, reaching the Pacific Northwest by 5000 BCE,[40] and from there migrating along the Pacific Coast and into the interior. Linguists, anthropologists, and archaeologists believe their ancestors comprised a separate migration into North America, later than the first Paleo-Indians. They migrated into Alaska and northern Canada, south along the Pacific Coast, into the interior of Canada, and south to the Great Plains and the American Southwest. Na-Dené-speaking peoples were the earliest ancestors of the Athabascan-speaking peoples, including the present-day and historical Navajo and Apache. They constructed large multi-family dwellings in their villages, which were used seasonally. People did not live there year-round, but for the summer to hunt and fish, and to gather food supplies for the winter.[41]

Since the 1990s, archaeologists have explored and dated eleven Middle Archaic sites in present-day Louisiana and Florida at which early cultures built complexes with multiple earthwork mounds; they were societies of hunter-gatherers rather than the settled agriculturalists believed necessary according to the theory of Neolithic Revolution to sustain such large villages over long periods. The prime example is Watson Brake in northern Louisiana, whose 11-mound complex is dated to 3500 BCE, making it the oldest, dated site in North America for such complex construction.[42] It is nearly 2,000 years older than the Poverty Point site. Construction of the mounds went on for 500 years until the site was abandoned about 2800 BCE, probably due to changing environmental conditions.[43]

The Oshara tradition people lived from around 5,440 BCE to 460 CE. They were part of the Southwestern Archaic tradition centered in north-central New Mexico, the San Juan Basin, the Rio Grande Valley, southern Colorado, and southeastern Utah.[44][45][46]

Poverty Point culture is a Late Archaic archaeological culture that inhabited the area of the lower Mississippi Valley and surrounding Gulf Coast. The culture thrived from 2200 BCE to 700 BCE, during the Late Archaic period.[47] Evidence of this culture has been found at more than 100 sites, from the major complex at Poverty Point, Louisiana (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) across a 100-mile (160 km) range to the Jaketown Site near Belzoni, Mississippi.

Artists conception of Ohio Hopewell culture Shriver Circle with the Mound City Group to the left

Cahokia, the largest Mississippian culture site

The Formative, Classic and post-Classic stages are sometimes incorporated together as the Post-archaic period, which runs from 1000 BCE onward.[48] Sites & cultures include: Adena, Old Copper, Oasisamerica, Woodland, Fort Ancient, Hopewell tradition and Mississippian cultures.

Native Americans From southeast Idaho

The Woodland period of North American pre-Columbian cultures refers to the time period from roughly 1000 BCE to 1000 CE in the eastern part of North America. The Eastern Woodlands cultural region covers what is now eastern Canada south of the Subarctic region, the Eastern United States, along to the Gulf of Mexico.[49] The Hopewell tradition describes the common aspects of the culture that flourished along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern United States from 100 BCE to 500 CE, in the Middle Woodland period. The Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society, but a widely dispersed set of related populations. They were connected by a common network of trade routes.[50][51] This period is considered a developmental stage without any massive changes in a short period, but instead having a continuous development in stone and bone tools, leather working, textile manufacture, tool production, cultivation, and shelter construction.[50]

The Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast were of many nations and tribal affiliations, each with distinctive cultural and political identities, but they shared certain beliefs, traditions, and practices, such as the centrality of salmon as a resource and spiritual symbol. Their gift-giving feast, potlatch, is a highly complex event where people gather in order to commemorate special events. These events include the raising of a Totem pole or the appointment or election of a new chief. The most famous artistic feature of the culture is the Totem pole, with carvings of animals and other characters to commemorate cultural beliefs, legends, and notable events.

The Mississippian culture was a mound-building Native American civilization archaeologists date from approximately 800 CE to 1600 CE, varying regionally.[52] It was composed of a series of urban settlements and satellite villages (suburbs) linked together by a loose trading network,[53] the largest city being Cahokia, believed to be a major religious center. The civilization flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States.[54][55]

Numerous pre-Columbian societies were sedentary, such as the Pueblo peoples, Mandan, Hidatsa and others, and some established large settlements, even cities, such as Cahokia, in what is now Illinois. The Iroquois League of Nations or "People of the Long House" was a politically advanced, democratic society, which is thought by some historians to have influenced the United States Constitution,[56][57] with the Senate passing a resolution to this effect in 1988.[58] Other historians have contested this interpretation and believe the impact was minimal, or did not exist, pointing to numerous differences between the two systems and the ample precedents for the constitution in European political thought.[59][60][61]

Map showing the approximate locations of the Native American nations circa 16th century

Discovery of the Mississippi by William Henry Powell (1823–1879) is a Romantic depiction of Spanish explorer de Soto's seeing the Mississippi River for the first time. It hangs in the United States Capitol rotunda.

After 1492, European exploration and colonization of the Americas revolutionized how the Old and New Worlds perceived themselves. Many of the first major contacts were in Florida and the Gulf coast by Spanish explorers.[62] Some scholars have designated this point in history as the beginning of the "Age of Capital" or the Capitalocene: an epoch that encompasses the profit-driven era that has led to climate change, global land change.[63]

During European exploration and colonization of the Americas, the Europeans adopted the use of the Doctrine of Discovery, which involves a nation “discovering” land and claiming the rights to that land. There are two significant elements of the Doctrine that directly relate to the claim of Native lands; these elements are Christianity and Civilization. The Doctrine involved non-Christian peoples not having the same rights to lands as Christians. As Indigenous peoples were not Christian, Europeans used that as justification to declare rights to Indigenous lands. Europeans saw Indigenous peoples as ‘uncivilized savages’; therefore, civilization was a crucial aspect of the Discovery. The Europeans believed God intended them to bring civilization to the Indigenous peoples and their lands.[64]

Early Native American tribal territories color-coded by linguistic group

From the 16th through the 19th centuries, the population of Native Americans sharply declined.[65] Most mainstream scholars believe that, among the various contributing factors,[66] epidemic disease (e.g. smallpox) was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the Native Americans because of their lack of immunity to new diseases brought from Europe.[67][68][69][70][71] It is difficult to estimate the number of pre-Columbian Native Americans who were living in what is today the United States of America.[72] Estimates ranged from a low of 720,000 (Kroeber 1939) to a high of 15 million (Dobyns 1983), with a reanalysis estimating 5.65 million (Thornton 1990).[73][18][74] By 1800, the Native population of the present-day United States had declined to approximately 600,000, and only 250,000 Native Americans remained in the 1890s.[75] Chicken pox and measles, endemic but rarely fatal among Europeans (long after being introduced from Asia), often proved deadly to Native Americans.[76][77][78][79] In the 100 years following the arrival of the Spanish to the Americas, large disease epidemics depopulated large parts of the eastern United States in the 16th century.[80]

There are a number of documented cases where diseases were deliberately spread among Native Americans as a form of biological warfare. The most well-known example occurred in 1763, when Henry Bouquet (then serving as commander of Fort Pitt) distributed smallpox blankets to Native Americans besieging the fortification; the effectiveness of the attempt is unclear. In 1837, Mandan Native Americans at Fort Clark fell victim to a smallpox epidemic; some scholars have claimed they were intentionally infected with smallpox blankets.[81][82][83][84][85]

In 1634, Andrew White of the Society of Jesus established a mission in what is now the state of Maryland, and the purpose of the mission, stated through an interpreter to the chief of an Indian tribe there, was "to extend civilization and instruction to his ignorant race, and show them the way to heaven".[86] White's diaries report that by 1640, a community had been founded which they named St. Mary's, and the Indians were sending their children there "to be educated among the English".[87] This included the daughter of the Piscataway Indian chief Tayac, which exemplifies not only a school for Indians, but either a school for girls or an early co-ed school. The same records report that in 1677, "a school for humanities was opened by our Society in the centre of [Maryland], directed by two of the Fathers; and the native youth, applying themselves assiduously to study, made good progress. Maryland and the recently established school sent two boys to St. Omer who yielded in abilities to few Europeans, when competing for the honor of being first in their class. So that not gold, nor silver, nor the other products of the earth alone, but men also are gathered from thence to bring those regions, which foreigners have unjustly called ferocious, to a higher state of virtue and cultivation."[88]

Through the mid-17th century the Beaver Wars were fought over the fur trade between the Iroquois and the Hurons, the northern Algonquians, and their French allies. During the war the Iroquois destroyed several large tribal confederacies, including the Huron, Neutral, Erie, Susquehannock, and Shawnee, and became dominant in the region and enlarged their territory.

In 1727, the Sisters of the Order of Saint Ursula founded Ursuline Academy in New Orleans, which is currently the oldest continuously operating school for girls and the oldest Catholic school in the United States. From the time of its foundation, it offered the first classes for Native American girls, and would later offer classes for female African-American slaves and free women of color.

1882 studio portrait of the (then) last surviving Six Nations warriors who fought with the British in the War of 1812

Between 1754 and 1763, many Native American tribes were involved in the French and Indian War/Seven Years' War. Those involved in the fur trade tended to ally with French forces against British colonial militias. The British had made fewer allies, but it was joined by some tribes that wanted to prove assimilation and loyalty in support of treaties to preserve their territories. They were often disappointed when such treaties were later overturned. The tribes had their own purposes, using their alliances with the European powers to battle traditional Native enemies. Some Iroquois who were loyal to the British, and helped them fight in the American Revolution, fled north into Canada.

After European explorers reached the West Coast in the 1770s, smallpox rapidly killed at least 30% of Northwest Coast Native Americans. For the next eighty to one hundred years, smallpox and other diseases devastated native populations in the region.[89] Puget Sound area populations, once estimated as high as 37,000 people, were reduced to only 9,000 survivors by the time settlers arrived en masse in the mid-19th century.[90]

Smallpox epidemics in 1780–1782 and 1837–1838 brought devastation and drastic depopulation among the Plains Indians.[91][92] By 1832, the federal government established a smallpox vaccination program for Native Americans (The Indian Vaccination Act of 1832). It was the first federal program created to address a health problem of Native Americans.[93][94]

With the meeting of two worlds, animals, insects, and plants were carried from one to the other, both deliberately and by chance, in what is called the Columbian Exchange.[95] In the 16th century, Spaniards and other Europeans brought horses to Mexico. Some of the horses escaped and began to breed and increase their numbers in the wild. As Native Americans adopted use of the animals, they began to change their cultures in substantial ways, especially by extending their nomadic ranges for hunting. The reintroduction of the horse to North America had a profound impact on Native American culture of the Great Plains.

King Philip's War, also called Metacom's War or Metacom's Rebellion, was the last major armed[96] conflict between Native American inhabitants of present-day southern New England and English colonists and their Native American allies from 1675 to 1676. It continued in northern New England (primarily on the Maine frontier) even after King Philip was killed, until a treaty was signed at Casco Bay in April 1678.[97]

The Treaty of Penn with the Indians by Benjamin West, painted in 1771

Some European philosophers considered Native American societies to be truly "natural" and representative of a golden age known to them only in folk history.[98]

Yamacraw Creek Native Americans meet with the Trustee of the colony of Georgia in England, July 1734. The painting shows a Native American boy (in a blue coat) and woman (in a red dress) in European clothing.

During the American Revolution, the newly proclaimed United States competed with the British for the allegiance of Native American nations east of the Mississippi River. Most Native Americans who joined the struggle sided with the British, based both on their trading relationships and hopes that a United States defeat would result in a halt to further expansion onto Native American land. The first native community to sign a treaty with the new United States Government was the Lenape.

In 1779 the Sullivan Expedition was carried out during the American Revolutionary War against the British and the four allied nations of the Iroquois. George Washington gave orders that made it clear he wanted the Iroquois threat eliminated:

The Expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the Six Nations of Indians, with their associates and adherents. The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more.[99]

The British made peace with the Americans in the Treaty of Paris (1783), through which they ceded vast Native American territories to the United States without informing or consulting with the Native Americans.

The United States was eager to expand, develop farming and settlements in new areas, and satisfy the land hunger of settlers from New England and new immigrants. The national government initially sought to purchase Native American land by treaties. The states and settlers were frequently at odds with this policy.[100]

Benjamin Hawkins, seen here on his plantation, teaches Creek Native Americans how to use European technology, painted in 1805

United States policy toward Native Americans continued to evolve after the American Revolution. George Washington and Henry Knox believed that Native Americans were equals but that their society was inferior. Washington formulated a policy to encourage the "civilizing" process.[22] Washington had a six-point plan for civilization which included:

1. impartial justice toward Native Americans
2. regulated buying of Native American lands
3. promotion of commerce
4. promotion of experiments to civilize or improve Native American society
5. presidential authority to give presents
6. punishing those who violated Native American rights.[24]

In the late 18th century, reformers, starting with Washington and Knox,[101] supported educating native both children and adults, in efforts to "civilize" or otherwise assimilate Native Americans into the larger society (as opposed to relegating them to reservations). The Civilization Fund Act of 1819 promoted this civilization policy by providing funding to societies (mostly religious) who worked towards Native American improvement.[102]

Native-controlled territories in the West, 1836

Ho-Chunk Painting

The population of California Indians was reduced by 90% during the 19th century—from more than 250,000 to 200,000 in the early 19th century to approximately 15,000 at the end of the century, mostly due to disease.[103][104][105] Epidemics swept through California Indian Country, such as the 1833 malaria epidemic.[106] The population went into decline as a result of the Spanish authorities forcing Native Californians to live in the missions where they contracted diseases from which they had little immunity. Cook estimates that 15,250 or 45% of the population decrease in the Missions was caused by disease. Two epidemics of measles, one in 1806 and the other in 1828, caused many deaths. The mortality rates were so high that the missions were constantly dependent upon new conversions. During the California Gold Rush, many natives were killed by incoming settlers as well as by militia units financed and organized by the California government.[107] Some scholars contend that the state financing of these militias, as well as the US government's role in other massacres in California, such as the Bloody Island and Yontoket Massacres, in which up to 400 or more natives were killed in each massacre, constitutes a campaign of genocide against the native people of California.[108][109]

Tecumseh was the Shawnee leader of Tecumseh's War who attempted to organize an alliance of Native American tribes throughout North America.[110]

As American expansion continued, Native Americans resisted settlers' encroachment in several regions of the new nation (and in unorganized territories), from the Northwest to the Southeast, and then in the West, as settlers encountered the Native American tribes of the Great Plains. East of the Mississippi River, an intertribal army led by Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief, fought a number of engagements in the Northwest during the period 1811–12, known as Tecumseh's War. During the War of 1812, Tecumseh's forces allied themselves with the British. After Tecumseh's death, the British ceased to aid the Native Americans south and west of Upper Canada and American expansion proceeded with little resistance. Conflicts in the Southeast include the Creek War and Seminole Wars, both before and after the Indian Removals of most members of the Five Civilized Tribes.

The Rescue sculpture stood outside the U.S. Capitol between 1853 and 1958. A work commissioned by the U.S. government, its sculptor Horatio Greenough wrote that it was "to convey the idea of the triumph of the whites over the savage tribes".[111]

In the 1830s, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, a policy of relocating Indians from their homelands to Indian Territory and reservations in surrounding areas to open their lands for non-native settlements.[112] This resulted in the Trail of Tears.

In July 1845, the New York newspaper editor John L. O'Sullivan coined the phrase, "Manifest Destiny", as the "design of Providence" supporting the territorial expansion of the United States.[113] Manifest Destiny had serious consequences for Native Americans, since continental expansion for the U.S. took place at the cost of their occupied land.[114] A justification for the policy of conquest and subjugation of the Indigenous people emanated from the stereotyped perceptions of all Native Americans as "merciless Indian savages" (as described in the United States Declaration of Independence).[115] Sam Wolfson in The Guardian writes, "The declaration's passage has often been cited as an encapsulation of the dehumanizing attitude toward Indigenous Americans that the US was founded on."[116]

The Indian Appropriations Act of 1851 set the precedent for modern-day Native American reservations through allocating funds to move western tribes onto reservations since there were no more lands available for relocation.

Native American nations on the plains in the west continued armed conflicts with the U.S. throughout the 19th century, through what were called generally Indian Wars.[117] Notable conflicts in this period include the Dakota War, Great Sioux War, Snake War, Colorado War, and Texas-Indian Wars. Expressing the frontier anti-Indian sentiment, Theodore Roosevelt believed the Indians were destined to vanish under the pressure of white civilization, stating in an 1886 lecture:

I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.[118]

Mass grave for the dead Lakota following the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, which took place during the Indian Wars in the 19th century

One of the last and most notable events during the Indian wars was the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890.[119] In the years leading up to it the U.S. government had continued to seize Lakota lands. A Ghost Dance ritual on the Northern Lakota reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, led to the U.S. Army's attempt to subdue the Lakota. The dance was part of a religious movement founded by the Northern Paiute spiritual leader Wovoka that told of the return of the Messiah to relieve the suffering of Native Americans and promised that if they would live righteous lives and perform the Ghost Dance properly, the European American colonists would vanish, the bison would return, and the living and the dead would be reunited in an Edenic world.[119] On December 29 at Wounded Knee, gunfire erupted, and U.S. soldiers killed up to 300 Indians, mostly old men, women, and children.[119]

Ely Parker (of the Seneca people) was a Union Civil War general who wrote the terms of surrender between the United States and the Confederate States of America.[120]

Native Americans served in both the Union and Confederate military during the American Civil War. At the outbreak of the war, for example, the minority party of the Cherokees gave its allegiance to the Confederacy, while originally the majority party went for the North.[121] Native Americans fought knowing they might jeopardize their independence, unique cultures, and ancestral lands if they ended up on the losing side of the Civil War.[121][122] 28,693 Native Americans served in the Union and Confederate armies during the Civil War, participating in battles such as Pea Ridge, Second Manassas, Antietam, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, and in Federal assaults on Petersburg.[122][123] A few Native American tribes, such as the Creek and the Choctaw, were slaveholders and found a political and economic commonality with the Confederacy.[124] The Choctaw owned over 2,000 slaves.[125]

In the 19th century, the incessant westward expansion of the United States incrementally compelled large numbers of Native Americans to resettle further west, often by force, almost always reluctantly. Native Americans believed this forced relocation illegal, given the Treaty of Hopewell of 1785. Under President Andrew Jackson, United States Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which authorized the President to conduct treaties to exchange Native American land east of the Mississippi River for lands west of the river.

As many as 100,000 Native Americans relocated to the West as a result of this Indian removal policy. In theory, relocation was supposed to be voluntary and many Native Americans did remain in the East. In practice, great pressure was put on Native American leaders to sign removal treaties. The most egregious violation, the Trail of Tears, was the removal of the Cherokee by President Jackson to Indian Territory.[126] In 1864, 9,000 Navajos were forced by the U.S. government to an internment camp in Bosque Redondo,[127] where, under armed guards, up to 3,500 Navajo and Mescalero Apache men, women, and children died from starvation and disease over the next 4 years. The interned Navajo were allowed to return to their ancestral homeland in 1868.[127]

In 1817, the Cherokee became the first Native Americans recognized as U.S. citizens. Under Article 8 of the 1817 Cherokee treaty, "Upwards of 300 Cherokees (Heads of Families) in the honest simplicity of their souls, made an election to become American citizens".[27][128]

Factors establishing citizenship included:

1. Treaty provision (as with the Cherokee)
2. Registration and land allotment under the Dawes Act of February 8, 1887
3. Issuance of patent in fee simple
4. Adopting habits of civilized life
5. Minor children
6. Citizenship by birth
7. Becoming soldiers and sailors in the U.S. Armed Forces
8. Marriage to a U.S. citizen
9. Special act of Congress.

After the American Civil War, the Civil Rights Act of 1866 states, "that all persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States".[129]

In 1871, Congress added a rider to the Indian Appropriations Act, signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant, ending United States recognition of additional Native American tribes or independent nations, and prohibiting additional treaties.[130]

After the Indian wars in the late 19th century, the government established Native American boarding schools, initially run primarily by or affiliated with Christian missionaries.[131] At this time, American society thought that Native American children needed to be acculturated to the general society. The boarding school experience was a total immersion in modern American society, but it could prove traumatic to children, who were forbidden to speak their native languages. They were taught Christianity and not allowed to practice their native religions, and in numerous other ways forced to abandon their Native American identities.[132][133][134]

Before the 1930s, schools on the reservations provided no schooling beyond the sixth grade. To obtain more, boarding school was usually necessary.[135] Small reservations with a few hundred people usually sent their children to nearby public schools. The "Indian New Deal" of the 1930s closed many of the boarding schools, and downplayed the assimilationist goals. The Indian Division of the Civilian Conservation Corps operated large-scale construction projects on the reservations, building thousands of new schools and community buildings. Under the leadership of John Collier the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) brought in progressive educators to reshape Indian education. The BIA by 1938 taught 30,000 students in 377 boarding and day schools, or 40% of all Indian children in school. The Navajo largely opposed schooling of any sort, but the other tribes accepted the system. There were now high schools on larger reservations, educating not only teenagers but also an adult audience. There were no Indian facilities for higher education.[136][137] They deemphasized textbooks, emphasized self-esteem, and started teaching Indian history. They promoted traditional arts and crafts of the sort that could be conducted on the reservations, such as making jewelry. The New Deal reformers met significant resistance from parents and teachers, and had mixed results. World War II brought younger Indians in contact with the broader society through military service and work in the munitions industries. The role of schooling was changed to focus on vocational education for jobs in urban America.[138]

Since the rise of self-determination for Native Americans, they have generally emphasized education of their children at schools near where they live. In addition, many federally recognized tribes have taken over operations of such schools and added programs of language retention and revival to strengthen their cultures. Beginning in the 1970s, tribes have also founded colleges at their reservations, controlled, and operated by Native Americans, to educate their young for jobs as well as to pass on their cultures.

Republican Charles Curtis, of Kaw, Osage, Potawatomi, French and British ancestry from Kansas, was 31st vice president of the United States, 1929–1933, serving with Republican Herbert Hoover.

On August 29, 1911, Ishi, generally considered to have been the last Native American to live most of his life without contact with European-American culture, was discovered near Oroville, California.[139][140][141]

In 1919, the United States under President Woodrow Wilson granted citizenship to all Native Americans who had served in World War I. Nearly 10,000 men had enlisted and served, a high number in relation to their population.[142] Despite this, in many areas Native Americans faced local resistance when they tried to vote and were discriminated against with barriers to voter registration.

On June 2, 1924, U.S. President Republican Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act, which made all Native Americans born in the United States and its territories American citizens. Prior to passage of the act, nearly two-thirds of Native Americans were already U.S. citizens, through marriage, military service or accepting land allotments.[143][144] The Act extended citizenship to "all non-citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States".[142]

Republican Charles Curtis, a Congressman and longtime US Senator from Kansas, was of Kaw, Osage, Potawatomi, and European ancestry. After serving as a United States Representative and being repeatedly re-elected as United States Senator from Kansas, Curtis served as Senate Minority Whip for 10 years and as Senate Majority Leader for five years. He was very influential in the Senate. In 1928 he ran as the vice-presidential candidate with Herbert Hoover for president, and served from 1929 to 1933. He was the first person with significant Native American ancestry and the first person with acknowledged non-European ancestry to be elected to either of the highest offices in the land.

American Indians today in the United States have all the rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, can vote in elections, and run for political office. Controversies remain over how much the federal government has jurisdiction over tribal affairs, sovereignty, and cultural practices.[145]

Mid-century, the Indian termination policy and the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 marked a new direction for assimilating Native Americans into urban life.[146]

The census counted 332,000 Indians in 1930 and 334,000 in 1940, including those on and off reservations in the 48 states. Total spending on Indians averaged $38 million a year in the late 1920s, dropping to a low of $23 million in 1933, and returning to $38 million in 1940.[147]

General Douglas MacArthur meeting Navajo, Pima, Pawnee and other Native American troops

Some 44,000 Native Americans served in the United States military during World War II: at the time, one-third of all able-bodied Indian men from eighteen to fifty years of age.[148] Described as the first large-scale exodus of Indigenous peoples from the reservations since the removals of the 19th century, the men's service with the U.S. military in the international conflict was a turning point in Native American history. The overwhelming majority of Native Americans welcomed the opportunity to serve; they had a voluntary enlistment rate that was 40% higher than those drafted.[149]

Their fellow soldiers often held them in high esteem, in part since the legend of the tough Native American warrior had become a part of the fabric of American historical legend. White servicemen sometimes showed a lighthearted respect toward Native American comrades by calling them "chief". The resulting increase in contact with the world outside of the reservation system brought profound changes to Native American culture. "The war", said the U.S. Indian Commissioner in 1945, "caused the greatest disruption of Native life since the beginning of the reservation era", affecting the habits, views, and economic well-being of tribal members.[150] The most significant of these changes was the opportunity—as a result of wartime labor shortages—to find well-paying work in cities, and many people relocated to urban areas, particularly on the West Coast with the buildup of the defense industry.

There were also losses as a result of the war. For instance, a total of 1,200 Pueblo men served in World War II; only about half came home alive. In addition, many more Navajo served as code talkers for the military in the Pacific. The code they made, although cryptologically very simple, was never cracked by the Japanese.

Military service and urban residency contributed to the rise of American Indian activism, particularly after the 1960s and the occupation of Alcatraz Island (1969–1971) by a student Indian group from San Francisco. In the same period, the American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded in Minneapolis, and chapters were established throughout the country, where American Indians combined spiritual and political activism. Political protests gained national media attention and the sympathy of the American public.

Through the mid-1970s, conflicts between governments and Native Americans occasionally erupted into violence. A notable late 20th-century event was the Wounded Knee incident on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Upset with tribal government and the failures of the federal government to enforce treaty rights, about 300 Oglala Lakota and AIM activists took control of Wounded Knee on February 27, 1973.[151]

Indian activists from around the country joined them at Pine Ridge, and the occupation became a symbol of rising American Indian identity and power. Federal law enforcement officials and the national guard cordoned off the town, and the two sides had a standoff for 71 days. During much gunfire, one United States Marshal was wounded and paralyzed. In late April, a Cherokee and local Lakota man were killed by gunfire; the Lakota elders ended the occupation to ensure no more lives were lost.[151]

In June 1975, two FBI agents seeking to make an armed robbery arrest at Pine Ridge Reservation were wounded in a firefight, and killed at close range. The AIM activist Leonard Peltier was sentenced in 1976 to two consecutive terms of life in prison for the FBI deaths.[152]

In 1968, the government enacted the Indian Civil Rights Act. This gave tribal members most of the protections against abuses by tribal governments that the Bill of Rights accords to all U.S. citizens with respect to the federal government.[153] In 1975, the U.S. government passed the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act, marking the culmination of fifteen years of policy changes. It resulted from American Indian activism, the Civil Rights Movement, and community development aspects of President Lyndon Johnson's social programs of the 1960s. The Act recognized the right and need of Native Americans for self-determination. It marked the U.S. government's turn away from the 1950s policy of termination of the relationship between tribes and the government. The U.S. government encouraged Native Americans' efforts at self-government and determining their futures. Tribes have developed organizations to administer their own social, welfare and housing programs, for instance. Tribal self-determination has created tension with respect to the federal government's historic trust obligation to care for Indians; however, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has never lived up to that responsibility.[154]

A Navajo man on horseback in Monument Valley, Arizona, United States

Navajo Community College, now called Diné College, the first tribal college, was founded in Tsaile, Arizona, in 1968 and accredited in 1979. Tensions immediately arose between two philosophies: one that the tribal colleges should have the same criteria, curriculum and procedures for educational quality as mainstream colleges, the other that the faculty and curriculum should be closely adapted to the particular historical culture of the tribe. There was a great deal of turnover, exacerbated by very tight budgets.[155] In 1994, the U.S. Congress passed legislation recognizing the tribal colleges as land-grant colleges, which provided opportunities for large-scale funding. Thirty-two tribal colleges in the United States belong to the American Indian Higher Education Consortium. By the early 21st century, tribal nations had also established numerous language revival programs in their schools.

In addition, Native American activism has led major universities across the country to establish Native American studies programs and departments, increasing awareness of the strengths of Indian cultures, providing opportunities for academics, and deepening research on history and cultures in the United States. Native Americans have entered academia; journalism and media; politics at local, state and federal levels; and public service, for instance, influencing medical research and policy to identify issues related to American Indians.

Byron Mallott, an Alaskan Native, was the lieutenant governor of Alaska.

In 2009, an "apology to Native Peoples of the United States" was included in the Defense Appropriations Act. It stated that the U.S. "apologizes on behalf of the people of the United States to all Native Peoples for the many instances of violence, maltreatment, and neglect inflicted on Native Peoples by citizens of the United States".[156]

In 2013, jurisdiction over persons who were not tribal members under the Violence Against Women Act was extended to Indian Country. This closed a gap which prevented arrest or prosecution by tribal police or courts of abusive partners of tribal members who were not native or from another tribe.[157][158]

Migration to urban areas continued to grow with 70% of Native Americans living in urban areas in 2012, up from 45% in 1970 and 8% in 1940. Urban areas with significant Native American populations include Phoenix, Tulsa, Minneapolis, Denver, Albuquerque, Tucson, Chicago, Oklahoma City, Houston, New York City, Los Angeles, and Rapid City. Many live in poverty. Racism, unemployment, drugs and gangs were common problems that Indian social service organizations such as the Little Earth housing complex in Minneapolis attempt to address.[159] Grassroots efforts to support urban Indigenous populations have also taken place, as in the case of Bringing the Circle Together in Los Angeles.

In 2020, Congress passed a law to transition the management of a bison range on over 18,000 acres of undeveloped land in northwest Montana from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.[160] In the 1900s these lands were taken by the U.S. Government and the bison were depleted without the consent of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes.[160] Secretary Interior Deb Haaland at the Salish Kootenai College on May 21, 2022.[160]

Censuses counted around 345,000 Native Americans in 1880, around 274,000 in 1890 (including 25,000 in Alaska), 332,000 in 1930 and 334,000 in 1940, including those on and off reservations in the 48 states. Total spending on Native Americans averaged $38 million a year in the late 1920s, dropping to a low of $23 million in 1933, and returning to $38 million in 1940.[147]

American Indian and Alaska Native as percentage of population by U.S. state and territory (1880–2020)[164][165][166][167][168][169][170][171]

State/Territory	1880	1890	1900	1910	1920	1930	1940	1950	1960	1970	1980	1990	2000	2010	2020
Alabama	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.4%	0.5%	0.6%	0.7%
Alaska	98.7%	79.1%	46.5%	39.4%	48.3%	50.6%	44.8%	26.3%	19.1%	16.8%	16.0%	15.6%	15.6%	14.8%	15.2%
Arizona	37.5%	34.0%	21.5%	14.3%	9.9%	10.0%	11.0%	8.8%	6.4%	5.4%	5.6%	5.6%	5.0%	4.6%	4.5%
Arkansas	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.4%	0.5%	0.7%	0.8%	0.9%
California	2.4%	1.4%	1.0%	0.7%	0.5%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.5%	0.9%	0.8%	1.0%	1.0%	1.6%
Colorado	1.4%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.4%	0.6%	0.8%	1.0%	1.1%	1.3%
Connecticut	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%
Delaware	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.5%	0.5%
Florida	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%	0.4%
Georgia	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.5%
Hawaii	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%	0.5%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%
Idaho	10.0%	4.8%	2.6%	1.1%	0.7%	0.8%	0.7%	0.6%	0.8%	0.9%	1.1%	1.4%	1.4%	1.4%	1.4%
Illinois	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.8%
Indiana	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%
Iowa	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%	0.5%
Kansas	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.4%	0.7%	0.9%	0.9%	1.0%	1.1%
Kentucky	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%
Louisiana	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%	0.4%	0.6%	0.7%	0.7%
Maine	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.4%	0.5%	0.6%	0.6%	0.6%
Maryland	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%	0.5%
Massachusetts	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%
Michigan	1.1%	0.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.4%	0.6%	0.6%	0.6%	0.6%
Minnesota	1.1%	0.8%	0.5%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.6%	0.9%	1.1%	1.1%	1.1%	1.2%
Mississippi	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.4%	0.5%	0.6%
Missouri	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.3%	0.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.5%
Montana	38.3%	7.8%	4.7%	0.8%	2.0%	2.8%	3.0%	2.8%	3.1%	3.9%	4.7%	6.0%	6.2%	6.3%	6.2%
Nebraska	1.0%	0.6%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%	0.4%	0.6%	0.8%	0.9%	1.2%	1.2%
Nevada	13.9%	10.9%	12.3%	6.4%	6.3%	5.3%	4.3%	3.1%	2.3%	1.6%	1.7%	1.6%	1.3%	1.2%	1.4%
New Hampshire	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%
New Jersey	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.6%
New Mexico	23.2%	9.4%	6.7%	6.3%	5.4%	6.8%	6.5%	6.2%	5.9%	7.2%	8.1%	8.9%	9.5%	9.4%	10.0%
New York	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.4%	0.6%	0.7%
North Carolina	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%	0.4%	0.5%	0.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.8%	0.9%	1.1%	1.2%	1.2%	1.3%	1.2%
North Dakota	18.6%	4.3%	2.2%	1.1%	1.0%	1.2%	1.6%	1.7%	1.9%	2.3%	3.1%	4.1%	4.9%	5.4%	5.0%
South Dakota	17.2%	5.7%	5.0%	3.3%	2.6%	3.2%	3.6%	3.6%	3.8%	4.9%	6.5%	7.3%	8.3%	8.8%	8.8%
Ohio	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%
Oklahoma	100.0%	24.9%	8.2%	4.5%	2.8%	3.9%	2.7%	2.4%	2.8%	3.8%	5.6%	8.0%	7.9%	8.6%	8.4%
Oregon	3.5%	1.6%	1.2%	0.8%	0.6%	0.5%	0.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.6%	1.0%	1.4%	1.3%	1.4%	1.5%
Pennsylvania	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
Rhode Island	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%	0.4%	0.5%	0.6%	0.7%
South Carolina	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.4%	0.5%
Tennessee	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%
Texas	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.4%	0.6%	0.7%	1.0%
Utah	0.9%	1.6%	0.9%	0.8%	0.6%	0.6%	0.7%	0.6%	0.8%	1.1%	1.3%	1.4%	1.3%	1.2%	1.3%
Vermont	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%
Virginia	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.4%	0.5%
Washington	20.8%	3.1%	1.9%	1.0%	0.7%	0.7%	0.7%	0.6%	0.7%	1.0%	1.5%	1.7%	1.6%	1.5%	1.6%
West Virginia	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%
Wisconsin	0.8%	0.6%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.6%	0.8%	0.9%	1.0%	1.0%
Wyoming	9.6%	2.9%	1.8%	1.0%	0.7%	0.8%	0.9%	1.1%	1.2%	1.5%	1.5%	2.1%	2.3%	2.4%	2.4%
District of Columbia	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.5%
Puerto Rico													0.4%	0.5%	0.5%
United States	0.7%	0.4%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.3%	0.4%	0.6%	0.8%	0.9%	0.9%	1.1%

This Census Bureau map depicts the locations of differing Native American groups, including Indian reservations, as of 2000. Note the concentration (blue) in modern-day Oklahoma in the South West, which was once designated as an Indian Territory before statehood in 1907.

78% of Native Americans live outside a reservation. Full-blood individuals are more likely to live on a reservation than mixed-blood individuals. The Navajo, with 286,000 full-blood individuals, is the largest tribe if only full-blood individuals are counted; the Navajo are the tribe with the highest proportion of full-blood individuals, 86.3%. The Cherokee have a different history; it is the largest tribe with 819,000 individuals, and it has 284,000 full-blood individuals.[172]

As of 2012, 70% of Native Americans live in urban areas, up from 45% in 1970 and 8% in 1940. Urban areas with significant Native American populations include Minneapolis, Denver, Phoenix, Tucson, Chicago, Oklahoma City, Houston, New York City, and Los Angeles. Many live in poverty. Racism, unemployment, drugs and gangs are common problems which Indian social service organizations such as the Little Earth housing complex in Minneapolis attempt to address.[159]

Below are numbers for U.S. citizens self-identifying to selected tribal groupings, according to the 2010 U.S. census.[173]

2010 Native American distribution by tribal group

Tribal grouping	Tribal flag	Tribal seal	American Indian & Alaska Native Alone one tribal grouping reported	American Indian & Alaska Native Alone more than one tribal grouping reported	American Indian & Alaska Native Mixed one tribal grouping reported	American Indian & Alaska Native Mixed more than one tribal grouping reported	American Indian & Alaska Native tribal grouping alone or mixed in any combination
Total			2,879,638	52,610	2,209,267	79,064	5,220,579
Apache			63,193	6,501	33,303	8,813	111,810
Arapaho			8,014	388	2,084	375	10,861
Blackfeet			27,279	4,519	54,109	19,397	105,304
Canadian & French American Indian			6,433	618	6,981	790	14,822
Central American Indian			15,882	572	10,865	525	27,844
Cherokee			284,247	16,216	468,082	50,560	819,105
Cheyenne (Northern and Southern)			11,375	1,118	5,311	1,247	19,051
Chickasaw			27,973	2,233	19,220	2,852	52,278
Chippewa			112,757	2,645	52,091	3,249	170,742
Choctaw			103,910	6,398	72,101	13,355	195,764
Colville			8,114	200	2,148	87	10,549
Comanche			12,284	1,187	8,131	1,728	23,330
Cree			2,211	739	4,023	1,010	7,983
Creek			48,352	4,596	30,618	4,766	88,332
Crow			10,332	528	3,309	1,034	15,203
Delaware (Lenape)			7,843	372	9,439	610	18,264
Hopi			12,580	2,054	3,013	680	18,327
Houma			8,169	71	2,438	90	10,768
Iroquois			40,570	1,891	34,490	4,051	81,002
Kiowa			9,437	918	2,947	485	13,787
Lumbee			62,306	651	10,039	695	73,691
Menominee			8,374	253	2,330	176	11,133
Mexican American Indian			121,221	2,329	49,670	2,274	175,494
Navajo			286,731	8,285	32,918	4,195	332,129
Osage			8,938	1,125	7,090	1,423	18,576
Ottawa			7,272	776	4,274	711	13,033
Paiute[174]			9,340	865	3,135	427	13,767
Pima			22,040	1,165	3,116	334	26,655
Potawatomi			20,412	462	12,249	648	33,771
Pueblo			49,695	2,331	9,568	946	62,540
Puget Sound Salish			14,320	215	5,540	185	20,260
Seminole			14,080	2,368	12,447	3,076	31,971
Shoshone			7,852	610	3,969	571	13,002
Sioux			112,176	4,301	46,964	6,669	170,110
South American Indian			20,901	479	25,015	838	47,233
Spanish American Indian			13,460	298	6,012	181	19,951
Tohono O'odham			19,522	725	3,033	198	23,478
Ute			7,435	785	2,802	469	11,491
Yakama			8,786	310	2,207	224	11,527
Yaqui			21,679	1,516	8,183	1,217	32,595
Yuman			7,727	551	1,642	169	10,089
All other American Indian tribes			270,141	12,606	135,032	11,850	429,629
American Indian tribes, not specified			131,943	117	102,188	72	234,320
Alaska Native tribes, specified			98,892	4,194	32,992	2,772	138,850
Alaskan Athabaskans			15,623	804	5,531	526	22,484
Aleut			11,920	723	6,108	531	19,282
Inupiat			24,859	877	7,051	573	33,360
Tlingit-Haida			15,256	859	9,331	634	26,080
Tsimshian			2,307	240	1,010	198	3,755
Yup'ik			28,927	691	3,961	310	33,889
Alaska Native tribes, not specified			19,731	173	9,896	133	29,933
American Indian or Alaska Native tribes, not specified			693,709	no data	852,253	1	1,545,963

A discriminatory sign posted above a bar. Birney, Montana, 1941

Chief Plenty Coups and seven Crow prisoners under guard at Crow agency, Montana, 1887

In a study conducted in 2006–2007, non-Native Americans admitted they rarely encountered Native Americans in their daily lives. While sympathetic toward Native Americans and expressing regret over the past, most people had only a vague understanding of the problems facing Native Americans today. For their part, Native Americans told researchers that they believed they continued to face prejudice, mistreatment, and inequality in the broader society.[207]

Federal contractors and subcontractors, such as businesses and educational institutions, are legally required to adopt equal opportunity employment and affirmative action measures intended to prevent discrimination against employees or applicants for employment on the basis of "color, religion, sex, or national origin".[208][209] For this purpose, a Native American is defined as "A person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America (including Central America), and who maintains a tribal affiliation or community attachment". The passing of the Indian Relocation Act saw a 56% increase in Native American city dwellers over 40 years.[210] The Native American urban poverty rate exceeds that of reservation poverty rates due to discrimination in hiring processes.[210] However, self-reporting is permitted: "Educational institutions and other recipients should allow students and staff to self-identify their race and ethnicity unless self-identification is not practicable or feasible."[211]

Self-reporting opens the door to "box checking" by people who, despite not having a substantial relationship to Native American culture, innocently or fraudulently check the box for Native American.[212]

The difficulties that Native Americans face in the workforce, for example, a lack of promotions and wrongful terminations are attributed to racial stereotypes and implicit biases. Native American business owners are seldom offered auxiliary resources that are crucial for entrepreneurial success.[210]

Protest against the name of the Washington Redskins in Minneapolis, November 2014

American Indian activists in the United States and Canada have criticized the use of Native American mascots in sports, as perpetuating stereotypes. This is considered cultural appropriation. There has been a steady decline in the number of secondary school and college teams using such names, images, and mascots. Some tribal team names have been approved by the tribe in question, such as the Seminole Tribe of Florida's approving use of their name for the teams of Florida State University.[213][214] Among professional teams, the NBA's Golden State Warriors discontinued use of Native American-themed logos in 1971. The NFL's Washington Commanders, formerly the Washington Redskins, changed their name in 2020, as the term is considered to be a racial slur.[215]

MLB's Cleveland Guardians were formerly known as the Cleveland Indians. Their use of a caricature called Chief Wahoo faced protest for decades.[216][217] Starting in 2019, Chief Wahoo ceased to be a logo for Cleveland Indians, though Chief Wahoo merchandise could still be sold in the Cleveland-area.[218][219][220][221] On December 13, 2020, The New York Times reported that Cleveland would be officially changing their name.[222] On November 19, 2021, the team officially became the Cleveland Guardians.[223][224]

Secotan Indians' dance in North Carolina. Watercolor by John White, 1585

Native Americans have been depicted by American artists in various ways at different periods. A number of 19th- and 20th-century United States and Canadian painters, often motivated by a desire to document and preserve Native culture, specialized in Native American subjects. Among the most prominent of these were Elbridge Ayer Burbank, George Catlin, Seth Eastman, Paul Kane, W. Langdon Kihn, Charles Bird King, Joseph Henry Sharp, and John Mix Stanley.

Eagle Dance of the Sac and Fox Indians, painting by George Catlin, c. 1845

In the 20th century, early portrayals of Native Americans in movies and television roles were first performed by European Americans dressed in mock traditional attire. Examples included The Last of the Mohicans (1920), Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans (1957), and F Troop (1965–67). In later decades, Native American actors such as Jay Silverheels in The Lone Ranger television series (1949–57) came to prominence. The roles of Native Americans were limited and not reflective of Native American culture. By the 1970s some Native American film roles began to show more complexity, such as those in Little Big Man (1970), Billy Jack (1971), and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), which depicted Native Americans in minor supporting roles.

For years, Native people on U.S. television were relegated to secondary, subordinate roles. During the years of the series Bonanza (1959–1973), no major or secondary Native characters appeared on a consistent basis. The series The Lone Ranger (1949–1957), Cheyenne (1955–1963), and Law of the Plainsman (1959–1963) had Native characters who were essentially aides to the central white characters. This continued in such series as How the West Was Won. These programs resembled the "sympathetic" yet contradictory film Dances With Wolves of 1990, in which, according to Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, the narrative choice was to relate the Lakota story as told through a Euro-American voice, for wider impact among a general audience.[225] Like the 1992 remake of The Last of the Mohicans and Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), Dances with Wolves employed a number of Native American actors, and made an effort to portray Indigenous languages. In 1996, Plains Cree actor Michael Greyeyes would play renowned Native American warrior Crazy Horse in the 1996 television film Crazy Horse,[226] and would also later play renowned Sioux chief Sitting Bull in the 2017 movie Woman Walks Ahead.[227]

The 1998 film Smoke Signals, which was set on the Coeur D'Alene Reservation and discussed hardships of present-day American Indian families living on reservations, featured numerous Native American actors as well.[228] The film was the first feature film to be produced and directed by Native Americans, and was also the first feature to include an exclusive Native American cast.[228] At the annual Sundance Film Festival, Smoke Signals would win the Audience Award and it's producer Chris Eyre, an enrolled member of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, would win the Filmmaker's Trophy.[229] In 2009, We Shall Remain (2009), a television documentary by Ric Burns and part of the American Experience series, presented a five-episode series "from a Native American perspective". It represented "an unprecedented collaboration between Native and non-Native filmmakers and involves Native advisors and scholars at all levels of the project".[230] The five episodes explore the impact of King Philip's War on the northeastern tribes, the "Native American confederacy" of Tecumseh's War, the U.S.-forced relocation of Southeastern tribes known as the Trail of Tears, the pursuit and capture of Geronimo and the Apache Wars, and concludes with the Wounded Knee incident, participation by the American Indian Movement, and the increasing resurgence of modern Native cultures since.

The most common of the modern terms to refer to Indigenous peoples of the United States are Indians, American Indians, and Native Americans. Up to the early to mid 18th century, the term Americans was not applied to people of European heritage in North America. Instead it was equivalent to the term Indians. As people of European heritage began using the term Americans to refer instead to themselves, the word Indians became historically the most often employed term.[231]

The term Indians, long laden with racist stereotypes, began to be widely replaced in the 1960s with the term Native Americans, which recognized the indigenousness of the people who first made the Americas home. But as the term Native Americans became popular, the American Indian Movement saw pejorative connotations in the term native and reappropriated the term Indian, seeing it as witness to the history of violence against the many nations that lived in the Americas before European arrival.[232]

The term Native American was introduced in the United States in preference to the older term Indian to distinguish the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from the people of India.

The term Amerindian, a portmanteau of "American Indian", was coined in 1902 by the American Anthropological Association. However, it has been controversial since its creation. It was immediately rejected by some leading members of the Association, and, while adopted by many, it was never universally accepted.[233] While never popular in Indigenous communities themselves, it remains a preferred term among some anthropologists, notably in some parts of Canada and the English-speaking Caribbean.[234][235][236][237]

During World War II, draft boards typically classified American Indians from Virginia as Negroes.[238][239]

In 1995, a plurality of Indigenous Americans, however, preferred the term American Indian[240] and many tribes include the word Indian in their formal title.

Criticism of the neologism Native American comes from diverse sources. Russell Means, an Oglala Lakota activist, opposed the term Native American because he believed it was imposed by the government without the consent of Native people.[241]

A 1995 U.S. Census Bureau survey found that more Native Americans in the United States preferred American Indian to Native American.[240] Most American Indians are comfortable with Indian, American Indian, and Native American.[242] That term is reflected in the name chosen for the National Museum of the American Indian, which opened in 2004 on the Mall in Washington, DC.

Other commonly used terms are First Americans, First Nations, and Native Peoples.[243]

Sandia Casino, owned by the Sandia Pueblo of New Mexico

Gambling has become a leading industry. Casinos operated by many Native American governments in the United States are creating a stream of gambling revenue that some communities are beginning to leverage to build diversified economies.[244] Although many Native American tribes have casinos, the impact of Native American gaming is widely debated. Some tribes, such as the Winnemem Wintu of Redding, California, feel that casinos and their proceeds destroy culture from the inside out. These tribes refuse to participate in the gambling industry.

Numerous tribes around the country have entered the financial services market including the Otoe-Missouria, Tunica-Biloxi, and the Rosebud Sioux. Because of the challenges involved in starting a financial services business from scratch, many tribes hire outside consultants and vendors to help them launch these businesses and manage the regulatory issues involved. Similar to the tribal sovereignty debates that occurred when tribes first entered the gaming industry, the tribes, states, and federal government are currently in disagreement regarding who possesses the authority to regulate these e-commerce business entities.[245]

Prosecution of serious crime, historically endemic on reservations,[246][247] was required by the 1885 Major Crimes Act,[248] 18 U.S.C. §§1153, 3242, and court decisions to be investigated by the federal government, usually the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and prosecuted by United States Attorneys of the United States federal judicial district in which the reservation lies.[249][250][251][252][253]

A December 13, 2009 New York Times article about growing gang violence on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation estimated that there were 39 gangs with 5,000 members on that reservation alone.[254] Navajo country recently reported 225 gangs in its territory.[255]

As of 2012, a high incidence of rape continued to impact Native American women and Alaskan native women. According to the Department of Justice, 1 in 3 Native women have suffered rape or attempted rape, more than twice the national rate.[256] About 46 percent of Native American women have been raped, beaten, or stalked by an intimate partner, according to a 2010 study by the Centers for Disease Control.[257] According to Professor N. Bruce Duthu, "More than 80 percent of Indian victims identify their attacker as non-Indian".[258][259]

Today, other than tribes successfully running casinos, many tribes struggle, as they are often located on reservations isolated from the main economic centers of the country. The estimated 2.1 million Native Americans are the most impoverished of all ethnic groups. According to the 2000 Census, an estimated 400,000 Native Americans reside on reservation land. While some tribes have had success with gaming, only 40% of the 562 federally recognized tribes operate casinos.[260] According to a 2007 survey by the U.S. Small Business Administration, only 1% of Native Americans own and operate a business.[261]

The barriers to economic development on Native American reservations have been identified by Joseph Kalt[262] and Stephen Cornell[263] of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at Harvard University, in their report: What Can Tribes Do? Strategies and Institutions in American Indian Economic Development (2008),[264] are summarized as follows:

• Lack of access to capital
• Lack of human capital (education, skills, technical expertise) and the means to develop it
• Reservations lack effective planning
• Reservations are poor in natural resources
• Reservations have natural resources but lack sufficient control over them
• Reservations are disadvantaged by their distance from markets and the high costs of transportation
  

  Teacher with picture cards giving English instruction to Navajo day school students
• Tribes cannot persuade investors to locate on reservations because of intense competition from non-Native American communities
• The Bureau of Indian Affairs is inept, corrupt or uninterested in reservation development
• Tribal politicians and bureaucrats are inept or corrupt
• On-reservation factionalism destroys stability in tribal decisions
• The instability of tribal government keeps outsiders from investing. The lack of international recognition Native American tribal sovereignty weakens their political-economic legitimacy.[265] (Many tribes adopted constitutions by the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act model, with two-year terms for elected positions of chief and council members deemed too short by the authors for getting things done)
• Entrepreneurial skills and experience are scarce

A major barrier to development is the lack of entrepreneurial knowledge and experience within Indian reservations. "A general lack of education and experience about business is a significant challenge to prospective entrepreneurs", was the report on Native American entrepreneurship by the Northwest Area Foundation in 2004. "Native American communities that lack entrepreneurial traditions and recent experiences typically do not provide the support that entrepreneurs need to thrive. Consequently, experiential entrepreneurship education needs to be embedded into school curriculum and after-school and other community activities. This would allow students to learn the essential elements of entrepreneurship from a young age and encourage them to apply these elements throughout life".[266]

Some scholars argue that the existing theories and practices of economic development are not suitable for Native American communities—given the lifestyle, economic, and cultural differences, as well as the unique history of Native American-U.S. relations.[265] Little economic development research has been conducted on Native American communities. The federal government fails to consider place-based issues of American Indian poverty by generalizing the demographic.[265][267] In addition, the concept of economic development threatens to upend the multidimensionality of Native American culture.[265] The dominance of federal government involvement in Indigenous developmental activities perpetuates and exacerbates the salvage paradigm.[265]

Native land owned by individual Native Americans sometimes cannot be developed because of fractionalization. Fractionalization occurs when a landowner dies, and their land is inherited by their children, but not subdivided. This means that one parcel might be owned by 50 different individuals. A majority of those holding interest must agree to any proposal to develop the land, and establishing this consent is time-consuming, cumbersome, and sometimes impossible. Another landownership issue on reservations is checkerboarding, where Tribal land is interspersed with land owned by the federal government on behalf of Natives, individually owned plots, and land owned by non-Native individuals. This prevents Tribal governments from securing plots of land large enough for economic development or agricultural uses.[268] Because reservation land is owned "in trust" by the federal government, individuals living on reservations cannot build equity in their homes. This bars Native Americans from getting loans, as there is nothing that a bank can collect if the loan is not paid. Past efforts to encourage land ownership (such as the Dawes Act) resulted in a net loss of Tribal land. After they were familiarized with their smallholder status, Native American landowners were lifted of trust restrictions and their land would get transferred back to them, contingent on a transactional fee to the federal government. The transfer fee discouraged Native American land ownership, with 65% of tribal-owned land being sold to non-Native Americans by the 1920s.[269] Activists against property rights point to historical evidence of communal ownership of land and resources by tribes. They claim that because of this history, property rights are foreign to Natives and have no place in the modern reservation system. Those in favor of property rights cite examples of tribes negotiating with colonial communities or other tribes about fishing and hunting rights in an area.[270] Land ownership was also a challenge because of the different definitions of land that the Natives and the Europeans had.[271] Most Native American tribes thought of property rights more as "borrowing" the land, while those from Europe thought of land as individual property.[272]

State-level efforts such as the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act were attempts to contain tribal land in Native American hands. However, more bureaucratic decisions only expanded the size of the bureaucracy. The knowledge disconnect between the decision-making bureaucracy and Native American stakeholders resulted in ineffective development efforts.[267][269]

Traditional Native American entrepreneurship does not prioritize profit maximization; rather, business transactions must align with Native American social and cultural values.[273] In response to Indigenous business philosophy, the federal government created policies that aimed to formalize their business practices, which undermined the Native American status quo.[269] Additionally, legal disputes interfered with tribal land leasing, which were settled with the verdict against tribal sovereignty.[274]

Often, bureaucratic overseers of development are far removed from Native American communities and lack the knowledge and understanding to develop plans or make resource allocation decisions.[267] The top-down heavy involvement in developmental operations corrupts bureaucrats into further self-serving agenda. Such incidences include fabricated reports that exaggerate results.[267]

While Native American urban poverty is attributed to hiring and workplace discrimination in a heterogeneous setting,[210] reservation and trust land poverty rates are endogenous to deserted opportunities in isolated regions.[275]

Historical trauma is described as collective emotional and psychological damage throughout a person's lifetime and across multiple generations.[276] Examples of historical trauma can be seen through the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, where over 200 unarmed Lakota were killed,[277] and the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887, when American Indians lost four-fifths of their land.[278]

American Indian youth have higher rates of substance and alcohol use deaths than the general population.[279] Many American Indians can trace the beginning of their substance and alcohol use to a traumatic event related to their offender's own substance use.[280] A person's substance use can be described as a defense mechanism against the user's emotions and trauma.[281] For American Indians alcoholism is a symptom of trauma passed from generation to generation and influenced by oppressive behaviors and policies by the dominant Euro-American society.[282] Boarding schools were made to "Kill the Indian, Save the man".[283] Shame among American Indians can be attributed to the hundreds of years of discrimination.[281]

While research into Native American food security has gone unnoticed and under-researched until recent years, more studies are being conducted which reveal that Native Americans oftentimes experience higher rates of food insecurity than any other racial group in the United States. The studies do not focus on the overall picture of Native American households, however, and tend to focus rather on smaller sample sizes in the available research.[284] In a study that evaluated the level of food insecurity among White, Asian, Black, Hispanic and Indigenous Americans: it was reported that over the 10-year span of 2000–2010, Indigenous people were reported to be one of the highest at-risk groups from a lack of access to adequate food, reporting anywhere from 20% to 30% of households suffering from this type of insecurity. There are many reasons that contribute to the issue, but overall, the biggest lie in high food costs on or near reservations, lack of access to well-paying jobs, and predisposition to health issues relating to obesity and/or mental health.[285]

Pre-contact: distribution of North American language families, including northern Mexico

The Na-Dené, Algic, and Uto-Aztecan families are the largest in terms of the number of languages. Uto-Aztecan has the most speakers (1.95 million) if the languages in Mexico are considered (mostly due to 1.5 million speakers of Nahuatl); Na-Dené comes in second with approximately 200,000 speakers (nearly 180,000 of these are speakers of Navajo), and Algic in third with about 180,000 speakers (mainly Cree and Ojibwe). Na-Dené and Algic have the widest geographic distributions: Algic currently spans from northeastern Canada across much of the continent down to northeastern Mexico (due to later migrations of the Kickapoo) with two outliers in California (Yurok and Wiyot); Na-Dené spans from Alaska and western Canada through Washington, Oregon, and California to the U.S. Southwest and northern Mexico (with one outlier in the Plains). Several families consist of only 2 or 3 languages. Demonstrating genetic relationships has proved difficult due to the great linguistic diversity present in North America. Two large (super-) family proposals, Penutian and Hokan, look particularly promising. However, even after decades of research, a large number of families remain.

A number of words used in English have been derived from Native American languages.

Oklahoma Cherokee language immersion school student writing in the Cherokee syllabary

The Cherokee language taught to preschoolers as a first language, at New Kituwah Academy

To counteract a shift to English, some Native American tribes have initiated language immersion schools for children, where an Indigenous American language is the medium of instruction. For example, the Cherokee Nation initiated a 10-year language preservation plan that involved raising new fluent speakers of the Cherokee language from childhood on up through school immersion programs as well as a collaborative community effort to continue to use the language at home.[291] This plan was part of an ambitious goal that, in 50 years, will result in 80% or more of the Cherokee people being fluent in the language.[292] The Cherokee Preservation Foundation has invested $3 million in opening schools, training teachers, and developing curricula for language education, as well as initiating community gatherings where the language can be actively used.[292] Formed in 2006, the Kituwah Preservation & Education Program (KPEP) on the Qualla Boundary focuses on language immersion programs for children from birth to fifth grade, developing cultural resources for the general public and community language programs to foster the Cherokee language among adults.[293]

There is also a Cherokee language immersion school in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, that educates students from pre-school through eighth grade.[294] Because Oklahoma's official language is English, Cherokee immersion students are hindered when taking state-mandated tests because they have little competence in English.[295] The Department of Education of Oklahoma said that in 2012 state tests: 11% of the school's sixth-graders showed proficiency in math, and 25% showed proficiency in reading; 31% of the seventh-graders showed proficiency in math, and 87% showed proficiency in reading; 50% of the eighth-graders showed proficiency in math, and 78% showed proficiency in reading.[295] The Oklahoma Department of Education listed the charter school as a Targeted Intervention school, meaning the school was identified as a low-performing school but has not so that it was a Priority School.[295] Ultimately, the school made a C, or a 2.33 grade point average on the state's A-F report card system.[295] The report card shows the school getting an F in mathematics achievement and mathematics growth, a C in social studies achievement, a D in reading achievement, and an A in reading growth and student attendance.[295] "The C we made is tremendous", said school principal Holly Davis, "[t]here is no English instruction in our school's younger grades, and we gave them this test in English."[295] She said she had anticipated the low grade because it was the school's first year as a state-funded charter school, and many students had difficulty with English.[295] Eighth graders who graduate from the Tahlequah immersion school are fluent speakers of the language, and they usually go on to attend Sequoyah High School where classes are taught in both English and Cherokee.

Maize grown by Native Americans

Ojibwe baby waits on a cradleboard while parents tend wild rice crops (Minnesota, 1940).

Frybread, made into an Indian taco.

Historical diets of Native Americans differed dramatically from region to region. Different peoples might have relied more heavily on agriculture, horticulture, hunting, fishing, or gathering wild plants and fungi. Tribes developed diets best suited to their environments.

Iñupiat, Yupiit, Unangan, and fellow Alaska Natives fished, hunted, and harvested wild plants, but did not rely on agriculture. Coastal peoples relied more heavily on sea mammals, fish, and fish eggs, while inland peoples hunted caribou and moose.[296] Alaskan Natives prepared and preserved dried and smoked meat and fish.

Pacific Northwest tribes crafted seafaring dugout canoes 40–50 feet (12–15 m) long for fishing.

In the Eastern Woodlands, early peoples independently invented agricultural and by 1800 BCE developed the crops of the Eastern Agricultural Complex, which include squash (Cucurbita pepo ssp. ovifera), sunflower (Helianthus annuus var. macrocarpus), goosefoot (Chenopodium berlandieri), and marsh elder (Iva annua var. macrocarpa).[297][298]

The Sonoran desert region including parts of Arizona and California, part of a region known as Aridoamerica, relied heavily on the tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolius) as a staple crop. This and other desert crops, mesquite bead pods, tunas (prickly pear fruit), cholla buds, saguaro cactus fruit, and acorns are being actively promoted today by Tohono O'odham Community Action.[299] In the Southwest, some communities developed irrigation techniques while others, such as the Hopi dry-farmed. They filled storehouses with grain as protection against the area's frequent droughts.

Maize or corn, first cultivated in what is now Mexico was traded north into Aridoamerica and Oasisamerica, southwest. From there, maize cultivation spread throughout the Great Plains and Eastern Woodlands by 200 CE. Native farmers practiced polycropping maize, beans, and squash; these crops are known as the Three Sisters. The beans would replace the nitrogen, which the maize leached from the ground, as well as using corn stalks for support for climbing.

The agriculture gender roles of the Native Americans varied from region to region. In the Southwest area, men prepared the soil with hoes. The women were in charge of planting, weeding, and harvesting the crops. In most other regions, the women were in charge of most agriculture, including clearing the land. Clearing the land was an immense chore since the Native Americans rotated fields.

Europeans in the eastern part of the continent observed that Native Americans cleared large areas for cropland. Their fields in New England sometimes covered hundreds of acres. Colonists in Virginia noted thousands of acres under cultivation by Native Americans.[300]

Makah Native Americans and a whale, The King of the Seas in the Hands of the Makahs, 1910 photograph by Asahel Curtis

Early farmers commonly used tools such as the hoe, maul, and dibber. The hoe was the main tool used to till the land and prepare it for planting; then it was used for weeding. The first versions were made out of wood and stone. When the settlers brought iron, Native Americans switched to iron hoes and hatchets. The dibber was a digging stick, used to plant the seed. Once the plants were harvested, women prepared the produce for eating. They used the maul to grind the corn into a mash. It was cooked and eaten that way or baked as cornbread.[301]

Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, the patron of ecologists, exiles, and orphans, was canonized by the Catholic Church.

Baptism of Pocahontas was painted in 1840 by John Gadsby Chapman, who depicts Pocahontas, wearing white, being baptized Rebecca by Anglican minister Alexander Whiteaker (left) in Jamestown, Virginia. This event is believed to have taken place either in 1613 or 1614.

Native American religious practices, beliefs, and philosophies differ widely across tribes. These spiritualities, practices, beliefs, and philosophies may accompany adherence to another faith or can represent a person's primary religious, faith, spiritual or philosophical identity. Much Native American spirituality exists in a tribal-cultural continuum, and as such cannot be easily separated from tribal identity itself.

Cultural spiritual, philosophical, and faith ways differ from tribe to tribe and person to person. Some tribes include the use of sacred leaves and herbs such as tobacco, sweetgrass or sage. Many Plains tribes have sweatlodge ceremonies, though the specifics of the ceremony vary among tribes. Fasting, singing and prayer in the ancient languages of their people, and sometimes drumming are also common.[302]

The Midewiwin Lodge is a medicine society inspired by the oral history and prophesies of the Ojibwa (Chippewa) and related tribes.

Another significant religious body among Native peoples is known as the Native American Church. It is a syncretistic church incorporating elements of Native spiritual practice from a number of different tribes as well as symbolic elements from Christianity. Its main rite is the peyote ceremony. Prior to 1890, traditional religious beliefs included Wakan Tanka. In the American Southwest, especially New Mexico, a syncretism between the Catholicism brought by Spanish missionaries and the native religion is common; the religious drums, chants, and dances of the Pueblo people are regularly part of Masses at Santa Fe's Saint Francis Cathedral.[303] Native American-Catholic syncretism is also found elsewhere in the United States. (e.g., the National Kateri Tekakwitha Shrine in Fonda, New York, and the National Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York). Some Native American tribes who practice Christianity, including the Lumbee, organized denominations, such as the Lumber River Conference of the Holiness Methodist Church.[304]

The eagle feather law (Title 50 Part 22 of the Code of Federal Regulations) stipulates that only individuals of certifiable Native American ancestry enrolled in a federally recognized tribe are legally authorized to obtain eagle feathers for religious or spiritual use. The law does not allow Native Americans to give eagle feathers to non-Native Americans.

Susan La Flesche Picotte was the first Native American woman to become a physician in the United States.

Gender roles are differentiated in many Native American tribes. Many Natives have retained traditional expectations of sexuality and gender, and continue to do so in contemporary life despite continued and on-going colonial pressures.[305]

Whether a particular tribe is predominantly matrilineal or patrilineal, often both sexes have some degree of decision-making power within the tribe. Many Nations, such as the Haudenosaunee Five Nations and the Southeast Muskogean tribes, have matrilineal or Clan Mother systems, in which property and hereditary leadership are controlled by and passed through the maternal lines.[306] In these Nations, the children are considered to belong to the mother's clan. In Cherokee culture, women own the family property. When traditional young women marry, their husbands may join them in their mother's household.

Matrilineal structures enable young women to have assistance in childbirth and rearing and protect them in case of conflicts between the couple. If a couple separates or the man dies, the woman has her family to assist her. In matrilineal cultures the mother's brothers are usually the leading male figures in her children's lives; fathers have no standing in their wife and children's clan, as they still belong to their own mother's clan. Hereditary clan chief positions pass through the mother's line and chiefs have historically been selected on the recommendations of women elders, who could also disapprove of a chief.[306]

Ball-play of the women, painting by George Catlin, c. 1835

In the patrilineal tribes, such as the Omaha, Osage, Ponca, and Lakota, hereditary leadership passes through the male line, and children are considered to belong to the father and his clan. In patrilineal tribes, if a woman marries a non-Native, she is no longer considered part of the tribe, and her children are considered to share the ethnicity and culture of their father.[307]

In patriarchal tribes, gender roles tend to be rigid. Men have historically hunted, traded and made war while, as life-givers, women have primary responsibility for the survival and welfare of the families (and future of the tribe). Women usually gather and cultivate plants, use plants and herbs to treat illnesses, care for the young and the elderly, make all the clothing and instruments, and process and cure meat and skins from the game. Some mothers use cradleboards to carry an infant while working or traveling.[308] In matriarchal and egalitarian nations, the gender roles are usually not so clear-cut and are even less so in the modern era.[305]

At least several dozen tribes allowed polygyny to sisters, with procedural and economic limits.[287]

Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota girls are encouraged to learn to ride, hunt and fight.[309] Though fighting in war has mostly been left to the boys and men, occasionally women have fought as well – both in battles and in defense of the home – especially if the tribe was severely threatened.[310]

As of 2020 90% of Native American school-aged children attend public schools operated by school districts.[311] Tribally-operated schools under contracts/grants with the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) and direct BIE-operated schools take about 8% of Native American students,[312] including students who live in very rural remote areas.[311]

In 1978, 215,000 (78%) of Native Americans attended school district-operated public schools, 47,000 (17%) attended schools directly operated by the BIA, 2,500 (1%) attended tribal schools and/or other schools that contracted with the BIA, and the remaining 9,000 (3%) attended missionary schools for Native American children and/or other private schools.[313]

Jim Thorpe—gold medalist at the 1912 Olympics, in the pentathlon and decathlon events

Native American leisure time led to competitive individual and team sports. Jim Thorpe, Lewis Tewanima, Joe Hipp, Notah Begay III, Chris Wondolowski, Jacoby Ellsbury, Joba Chamberlain, Kyle Lohse, Sam Bradford, Jack Brisco, Tommy Morrison, Billy Mills, Angel Goodrich, Shoni Schimmel, and Kyrie Irving are well known professional athletes.

Ball players from the Choctaw and Lakota tribe in a 19th-century lithograph by George Catlin

Native American ball sports, sometimes referred to as lacrosse, stickball, or baggataway, were often used to settle disputes, rather than going to war, as a civil way to settle potential conflict. The Choctaw called it isitoboli ("Little Brother of War");[314] the Onondaga name was dehuntshigwa'es ("men hit a rounded object"). There are three basic versions, classified as Great Lakes, Iroquoian, and Southern.[315]

The game is played with one or two rackets or sticks and one ball. The object of the game is to land the ball in the opposing team's goal (either a single post or net) to score and to prevent the opposing team from scoring on your goal. The game involves as few as 20 or as many as 300 players with no height or weight restrictions and no protective gear. The goals could be from around 200 feet (61 m) apart to about 2 miles (3.2 km); in lacrosse the field is 110 yards (100 m).

Chunkey was a game that consisted of a stone-shaped disk that was about 1–2 inches in diameter. The disk was thrown down a 200-foot (61 m) corridor so that it could roll past the players at great speed. The disk would roll down the corridor, and players would throw wooden shafts at the moving disk. The object of the game was to strike the disk or prevent your opponents from hitting it.

Billy Mills crosses the finish line at the end of the 10,000-meter race at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

Jim Thorpe, a Sauk and Fox Native American, was an all-around athlete playing football and baseball in the early 20th century. Future President Dwight Eisenhower injured his knee while trying to tackle the young Thorpe. In a 1961 speech, Eisenhower recalled Thorpe: "Here and there, there are some people who are supremely endowed. My memory goes back to Jim Thorpe. He never practiced in his life, and he could do anything better than any other football player I ever saw."[316]

In the 1912 Olympics, Thorpe could run the 100-yard dash in 10 seconds flat, the 220 in 21.8 seconds, the 440 in 51.8 seconds, the 880 in 1:57, the mile in 4:35, the 120-yard high hurdles in 15 seconds, and the 220-yard low hurdles in 24 seconds.[317] He could long jump 23 ft 6 in and high-jump 6 ft 5 in.[317] He could pole vault 11 feet (3.4 m), put the shot 47 ft 9 in (14.55 m), throw the javelin 163 feet (50 m), and throw the discus 136 feet (41 m).[317] Thorpe entered the U.S. Olympic trials for the pentathlon and the decathlon.

Louis Tewanima, Hopi people, was an American two-time Olympic distance runner and silver medalist in the 10,000-meter run in 1912. He ran for the Carlisle Indian School where he was a teammate of Jim Thorpe. His silver medal in 1912 remained the best U.S. achievement in this event until another Indian, Billy Mills, won the gold medal in 1964. Tewanima also competed at the 1908 Olympics, where he finished in ninth place in the marathon.[1]

Ellison Brown, of the Narragansett people from Rhode Island, better known as "Tarzan" Brown, won two Boston Marathons (1936, 1939) and competed on the United States Olympic team in the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany, but did not finish due to injury. He qualified for the 1940 Olympic Games in Helsinki, Finland, but the games were canceled due to the outbreak of World War II.

Billy Mills, a Lakota and USMC officer, won the gold medal in the 10,000-meter run at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. He was the only American ever to win the Olympic gold in this event. An unknown before the Olympics, Mills finished second in the U.S. Olympic trials.

Billy Kidd, part Abenaki from Vermont, became the first American male to medal in alpine skiing in the Olympics, taking silver at age 20 in the slalom in the 1964 Winter Olympics at Innsbruck, Austria. Six years later at the 1970 World Championships, Kidd won the gold medal in the combined event and took the bronze medal in the slalom.

Ashton Locklear (Lumbee), an uneven bars specialist was an alternate for the 2016 Summer Olympics U.S. gymnastics team, the Final Five.[318] In 2016, Kyrie Irving (Sioux) also helped Team USA win the gold medal at the 2016 Summer Olympics. With the win, he became just the fourth member of Team USA to capture the NBA championship and an Olympic gold medal in the same year, joining LeBron James, Michael Jordan, and Scottie Pippen.[319]

Fancy Dancer at the Seafair Indian Days Pow-Wow, Daybreak Star Cultural Center, Seattle, Washington

Jake Fragua, Jemez Pueblo from New Mexico

Traditional Native American music is almost entirely monophonic, but there are notable exceptions. Native American music often includes drumming or the playing of rattles or other percussion instruments but little other instrumentation. Flutes and whistles made of wood, cane, or bone are also played, generally by individuals, but in former times also by large ensembles (as noted by Spanish conquistador de Soto). The tuning of modern flutes is typically pentatonic.

Performers with Native American parentage have occasionally appeared in American popular music such as Rita Coolidge, Wayne Newton, Gene Clark, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Blackfoot, and Redbone (members are also of Mexican descent). Some, such as John Trudell, have used music to comment on life in Native America. Other musicians such as R. Carlos Nakai, Joanne Shenandoah and Robert "Tree" Cody integrate traditional sounds with modern sounds in instrumental recordings, whereas the music by artist Charles Littleleaf is derived from ancestral heritage as well as nature. A variety of small and medium-sized recording companies offer an abundance of recent music by Native American performers young and old, ranging from pow-wow drum music to hard-driving rock-and-roll and rap. In the International world of ballet dancing Maria Tallchief was considered America's first major prima ballerina,[320] and was the first person of Native American descent to hold the rank.[321] along with her sister Marjorie Tallchief both became star ballerinas.

The most widely practiced public musical form among Native Americans in the United States is that of the pow-wow. At pow-wows, such as the annual Gathering of Nations in Albuquerque, New Mexico, members of drum groups sit in a circle around a large drum. Drum groups play in unison while they sing in a native language and dancers in colorful regalia dance clockwise around the drum groups in the center. Familiar pow-wow songs include honor songs, intertribal songs, crow-hops, sneak-up songs, grass-dances, two-steps, welcome songs, going-home songs, and war songs. Most Indigenous communities in the United States also maintain traditional songs and ceremonies, some of which are shared and practiced exclusively within the community.[322]

The Iroquois, living around the Great Lakes and extending east and north, used strings or belts called wampum that served a dual function: the knots and beaded designs mnemonically chronicled tribal stories and legends, and further served as a medium of exchange and a unit of measure. The keepers of the articles were seen as tribal dignitaries.[323]

Pueblo peoples crafted impressive items associated with their religious ceremonies. Kachina dancers wore elaborately painted and decorated masks as they ritually impersonated various ancestral spirits.[324] Pueblo people are particularly noted for their traditional high-quality pottery, often with geometric designs and floral, animal and bird motifs.[325] Sculpture was not highly developed, but carved stone and wood fetishes were made for religious use. Superior weaving, embroidered decorations, and rich dyes characterized the textile arts. Both turquoise and shell jewelry were created, as were formalized pictorial arts.[326]

Navajo spirituality focused on the maintenance of a harmonious relationship with the spirit world, often achieved by ceremonial acts, usually incorporating sandpainting. For the Navajo, the sand painting is not merely a representational object, but a dynamic spiritual entity with a life of its own, which helped the patient at the center of the ceremony re-establish a connection with the life force. These vivid, intricate, and colorful sand creations were erased at the end of the healing ceremony.[327]

The Native American arts and crafts industry brings in more than a billion in gross sales annually.[328]

Native American art comprises a major category in the world art collection. Native American contributions include pottery, paintings, jewellery, weavings, sculpture, basketry, and carvings. Franklin Gritts was a Cherokee artist who taught students from many tribes at Haskell Institute (now Haskell Indian Nations University) in the 1940s, the Golden Age of Native American painters. The integrity of certain Native American artworks is protected by the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, which prohibits the representation of art as Native American when it is not the product of an enrolled Native American artist. Attorney Gail Sheffield and others claim that this law has had "the unintended consequence of sanctioning discrimination against Native Americans whose tribal affiliation was not officially recognized".[329] Native artists such as Jeanne Rorex Bridges (Echota Cherokee) who was not enrolled ran the risk of fines or imprisonment if they continued to sell their art while affirming their Indian heritage.[330][331][332]

European impact was immediate, widespread, and profound already during the early years of colonization and the creation of the countries which currently exist in the Americas. Europeans living among Native Americans were often called "white indians". They "lived in native communities for years, learned native languages fluently, attended native councils, and often fought alongside their native companions".[335]

Early contact was often charged with tension and emotion, but also had moments of friendship, cooperation, and intimacy.[336] Marriages took place in English, Spanish, French, and Russian colonies between Native Americans and Europeans though Native American women were also the victims of rape.[337]

There was fear on both sides, as the different peoples realized how different their societies were.[336] Many whites regarded Native people as "savages" because the Native people were not Protestant or Roman Catholic and therefore the Native people were not considered to be human beings. Orthodox Christians never viewed Native people as savages or sub-human.[336] The Native American author, Andrew J. Blackbird, wrote in his History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan (1897), that white settlers introduced some immoralities into Native American tribes. Many Native Americans suffered because the Europeans introduced alcohol. Many Native people do not break down alcohol in the same way as people of Eurasian background. Many Native people were learning what their body could tolerate of this new substance and died as a result of imbibing too much.[336]

Blackbird wrote:

The Ottawas and Chippewas were quite virtuous in their primitive state, as there were no illegitimate children reported in our old traditions. But very lately this evil came to exist among the Ottawas-so lately that the second case among the Ottawas of 'Arbor Croche' is yet living in 1897. And from that time this evil came to be quite frequent, for immorality has been introduced among these people by evil white persons who bring their vices into the tribes.[336]

The 1725 return of an Osage bride from a trip to Paris, France. The Osage woman was married to a French soldier.

Five Indians and a Captive, painted by Carl Wimar, 1855

The U.S. government had two purposes when making land agreements with Native Americans: to open up more land for white settlement,[336] and to "ease tensions" (in other words assimilate Native people to Eurasian social ways) between whites and Native Americans by forcing the Native Americans to use the land in the same way as did the whites—for subsistence farms.[336] The government used a variety of strategies to achieve these goals; many treaties required Native Americans to become farmers in order to keep their land.[336] Government officials often did not translate the documents which Native Americans were forced to sign, and native chiefs often had little or no idea what they were signing.[336]

Charles Eastman was one of the first Native Americans to become certified as a medical doctor, after he graduated from Boston University.[338][339]

For a Native American man to marry a white woman, he had to get consent of her parents, as long as "he can prove to support her as a white woman in a good home".[340] In the early 19th century, the Shawnee Tecumseh and blonde hair, blue-eyed Rebbecca Galloway had an interracial affair. In the late 19th century, three European-American middle-class women teachers at Hampton Institute married Native American men whom they had met as students.[341]

As European-American women started working independently at missions and Indian schools in the western states, there were more opportunities for their meeting and developing relationships with Native American men. For instance, Charles Eastman, a man of European and Lakota origin whose father sent both his sons to Dartmouth College, got his medical degree at Boston University and returned to the West to practice. He married Elaine Goodale, whom he met in South Dakota. He was the grandson of Seth Eastman, a military officer from Maine, and a chief's daughter. Goodale was a young European-American teacher from Massachusetts and a reformer, who was appointed as the U.S. superintendent of Native American education for the reservations in the Dakota Territory. They had six children together.

The majority of Native American tribes did practice some form of slavery before the European introduction of African slavery into North America, but none exploited slave labor on a large scale. Most Native American tribes did not barter captives in the pre-colonial era, although they sometimes exchanged enslaved individuals with other tribes in peace gestures or in exchange for their own members.[342] When Europeans arrived as colonists in North America, Native Americans changed their practice of slavery dramatically. Native Americans began selling war captives to Europeans rather than integrating them into their own societies as they had done before. As the demand for labor in the West Indies grew with the cultivation of sugar cane, Europeans enslaved Native Americans for the Thirteen Colonies, and some were exported to the "sugar islands". The British settlers, especially those in the southern colonies, purchased or captured Native Americans to use as forced labor in cultivating tobacco, rice, and indigo. Accurate records of the numbers enslaved do not exist because vital statistics and census reports were at best infrequent.[343] Scholars estimate tens to hundreds of thousands of Native Americans may have been enslaved by the Europeans, being sold by Native Americans themselves or Europeans.[344][345]

In Colonial America, slavery soon became racialized, with those enslaved by the institution consisting of ethnic groups (non-Christian Native Americans and Africans) who were foreign to the Christian, European colonists. The House of Burgesses define the terms of slavery in Virginia in 1705:

All servants imported and brought into the Country ... who were not Christians in their native Country ... shall be accounted and be slaves. All Negro, mulatto and Indian slaves within this dominion ... shall be held to be real estate. If any slave resists his master ... correcting such slave, and shall happen to be killed in such correction ... the master shall be free of all punishment ... as if such accident never happened.

— Virginia General Assembly declaration, 1705[346]

The slave trade of Native Americans lasted only until around 1750. It gave rise to a series of devastating wars among the tribes, including the Yamasee War. The Indian Wars of the early 18th century, combined with the increasing importation of African slaves, effectively ended the Native American slave trade by 1750. Colonists found that Native American slaves could easily escape, as they knew the country. The wars cost the lives of numerous colonial slave traders and disrupted their early societies. The remaining Native American groups banded together to face the Europeans from a position of strength. Many surviving Native American peoples of the southeast strengthened their loose coalitions of language groups and joined confederacies such as the Choctaw, the Creek, and the Catawba for protection. Even after the Indian Slave Trade ended in 1750, the enslavement of Native Americans continued (mostly through kidnappings) in the west and in the Southern states.[347][348] Both Native American and African enslaved women suffered rape and sexual harassment by male slaveholders and other white men.[337]

African and Native Americans have interacted for centuries. The earliest record of Native American and African contact occurred in April 1502, when Spanish colonists transported the first Africans to Hispaniola to serve as slaves.[349]

Buffalo Soldiers, 1890. The nickname was given to the "Black Cavalry" by the Native American tribes they fought.

Sometimes Native Americans resented the presence of African Americans.[350] The "Catawaba tribe in 1752 showed great anger and bitter resentment when an African American came among them as a trader".[350] To gain favor with Europeans, the Cherokee exhibited the strongest color prejudice of all Native Americans.[350] Because of European fears of a unified revolt of Native Americans and African Americans, the colonists tried to encourage hostility between the ethnic groups: "Whites sought to convince Native Americans that African Americans worked against their best interests."[351] In 1751, South Carolina law stated:

The carrying of Negroes among the Indians has all along been thought detrimental, as an intimacy ought to be avoided.[352]

In addition, in 1758 the governor of South Carolina James Glen wrote:

it has always been the policy of this government to create an aversion in them [Indians] to Negroes.[353]

Europeans considered both races inferior and made efforts to make both Native Americans and Africans enemies. Native Americans were rewarded if they returned escaped slaves, and African Americans were rewarded for fighting in the late 19th-century Indian Wars.[354][355][356]

According to the National Park Service, "Native Americans, during the transitional period of Africans becoming the primary race enslaved, were enslaved at the same time and shared a common experience of enslavement. They worked together, lived together in communal quarters, produced collective recipes for food, shared herbal remedies, myths and legends, and in the end they intermarried."[357][358] Because of a shortage of men due to warfare, many tribes encouraged marriage between the two groups, to create stronger, healthier children from the unions.[359]

In the 18th century, many Native American women married freed or runaway African men due to a decrease in the population of men in Native American villages.[354] Records show that many Native American women bought African men but, unknown to the European sellers, the women freed and married the men into their tribe.[354] When African men married or had children by a Native American woman, their children were born free, because the mother was free (according to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, which the colonists incorporated into law).[354]

While numerous tribes used captive enemies as servants and slaves, they also often adopted younger captives into their tribes to replace members who had died. In the Southeast, a few Native American tribes began to adopt a slavery system similar to that of the American colonists, buying African American slaves, especially the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek. Though less than 3% of Native Americans owned slaves, divisions grew among the Native Americans over slavery.[360] Among the Cherokee, records show that slaveholders in the tribe were largely the children of European men who had shown their children the economics of slavery.[355] As European colonists took slaves into frontier areas, there were more opportunities for relationships between African and Native American peoples.[354]

Members of the Creek (Muscogee) Nation in Oklahoma around 1877; they include men with some European and African ancestry.[372]

Intertribal mixing was common among many Native American tribes prior to European contact, as they would adopt captives taken in warfare. Individuals often had ancestry from more than one tribe, particularly after tribes lost so many members from disease in the colonial era and after.[66] Bands or entire tribes occasionally split or merged to form more viable groups in reaction to the pressures of climate, disease and warfare.[373]

A number of tribes traditionally adopted captives into their group to replace members who had been captured or killed in battle. Such captives were from rival tribes and later were taken from raids on European settlements. Some tribes also sheltered or adopted white traders and runaway slaves, and others owned slaves of their own. Tribes with long trading histories with Europeans show a higher rate of European admixture, reflecting years of intermarriage between Native American women and European men, often seen as advantageous to both sides.[373] A number of paths to genetic and ethnic diversity among Native Americans have occurred.

In recent years, genetic genealogists have been able to determine the proportion of Native American ancestry carried by the African-American population. The literary and history scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., had experts on his TV programs who discussed African-American ancestry. They stated that 5% of African Americans have at least 12.5% Native American ancestry, or the equivalent to one great-grandparent, which may represent more than one distant ancestor. A greater percentage could have a smaller proportion of Indian ancestry, but their conclusions show that popular estimates of Native American admixture may have been too high.[374] Genetic testing research in 2015 found varied ancestries which show different tendencies by region and sex of ancestors. Though DNA testing is limited, these studies found that, on average, African Americans have 73.2–82.1% West African, 16.7%–29% European, and 0.8–2% Native American genetic ancestry, with large variation between individuals.[375][376][377][378]

DNA testing is not sufficient to qualify a person for specific tribal membership, as it cannot distinguish among Native American tribes; however, some tribes, such as the Meskwaki Nation, require a DNA test in order to enroll in the tribe.[379]

In Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science, Kim Tallbear states that a person, "… could have up to two Native American grandparents and show no sign of Native American ancestry. For example, a genetic male could have a maternal grandfather (from whom he did not inherit his Y chromosome) and a paternal grandmother (from whom he did not inherit his mtDNA) who were descended from Native American founders, but mtDNA and Y-chromosome analyses would not detect them."[368]

Native American identity has historically been based on culture, not just biology, as many American Indian peoples adopted captives from their enemies and assimilated them into their tribes. The Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism (IPCB) notes that:

"Native American markers" are not found solely among Native Americans. While they occur more frequently among Native Americans, they are also found in people in other parts of the world.[380]

Geneticists state:

Not all Native Americans have been tested; especially with the large number of deaths due to disease such as smallpox, it is unlikely that Native Americans only have the genetic markers they have identified [so far], even when their maternal or paternal bloodline does not include a [known] non-Native American.[381][382]

To receive tribal services, a Native American must be a certified (or enrolled) member of a federally recognized tribal organization. Each tribal government makes its own rules for the eligibility of citizens or tribal members. Among tribes, qualification for enrollment may be based upon a required percentage of Native American "blood" (or the "blood quantum") of an individual seeking recognition, or documented descent from an ancestor on the Dawes Rolls or other registers. But, the federal government has its own standards related to who qualifies for services available to certified Native Americans. For instance, federal scholarships for Native Americans require the student both to be enrolled in a federally recognized tribe and to be of at least one-quarter Native American descent (equivalent to one grandparent), attested to by a Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood (CDIB) card issued by the federal government.

Some tribes have begun requiring genealogical DNA testing of individuals' applying for membership, but this is usually related to an individual's proving parentage or direct descent from a certified member.[383] Requirements for tribal membership vary widely by tribe. The Cherokee require documented direct genealogical descent from a Native American listed in the early 1906 Dawes Rolls. Tribal rules regarding the recognition of members who have heritage from multiple tribes are equally diverse and complex. Federally recognized tribes do not accept genetic-ancestry results as appropriate documentation for enrollment and do not advise applicants to submit such documentation.[368]

Tribal membership conflicts have led to a number of legal disputes, court cases, and the formation of activist groups. One example of this is the Cherokee Freedmen. Today, they include descendants of African Americans once enslaved by the Cherokees, who were granted, by federal treaty, citizenship in the historic Cherokee Nation as freedmen after the Civil War. The modern Cherokee Nation, in the early 1980s, passed a law to require that all members must prove descent from a Cherokee Native American (not Cherokee Freedmen) listed on the Dawes Rolls, resulting in the exclusion of some individuals and families who had been active in Cherokee culture for years.

Since the 2000 United States Census, people may identify as being of more than one race.[162] Since the 1960s, the number of people claiming Native American ancestry has grown significantly and, by the 2000 census, the number had more than doubled. Sociologists attribute this dramatic change to "ethnic shifting" or "ethnic shopping"; they believe that it reflects a willingness of people to question their birth identities and adopt new ethnicities which they find more compatible.

The author Jack Hitt writes:

The reaction from lifelong Indians runs the gamut. It is easy to find Native Americans who denounce many of these new Indians as members of the wannabe tribe. But it is also easy to find Indians like Clem Iron Wing, an elder among the Lakota, who sees this flood of new ethnic claims as magnificent, a surge of Indians 'trying to come home.' Those Indians who ridicule Iron Wing's lax sense of tribal membership have retrofitted the old genocidal system of blood quantum—measuring racial purity by blood—into the new standard for real Indianness, a choice rich with paradox.[163]

The journalist Mary Annette Pember notes that identifying with Native American culture may be a result of a person's increased interest in genealogy, the romanticization of the lifestyle, and a family tradition of Native American ancestors in the distant past. There are different issues if a person wants to pursue enrollment as a member of a tribe. Different tribes have different requirements for tribal membership; in some cases persons are reluctant to enroll, seeing it as a method of control initiated by the federal government; and there are individuals who are 100% Native American but, because of their mixed tribal heritage, do not qualify to belong to any individual tribe. Pember concludes:

The subjects of genuine American Indian blood, cultural connection and recognition by the community are extremely contentious issues, hotly debated throughout Indian country and beyond. The whole situation, some say, is ripe for misinterpretation, confusion and, ultimately, exploitation.[384]

The genetic history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas primarily focuses on human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups and human mitochondrial DNA haplogroups. "Y-DNA" is passed solely along the patrilineal line, from father to son, while "mtDNA" is passed down the matrilineal line, from mother to offspring of both sexes. Neither recombines, and thus Y-DNA and mtDNA change only by chance mutation at each generation with no intermixture between parents' genetic material.[385] Autosomal "atDNA" markers are also used, but differ from mtDNA or Y-DNA in that they overlap significantly.[386] Autosomal DNA is generally used to measure the average continent-of-ancestry genetic admixture in the entire human genome and related isolated populations.[386] Within mtDNA, genetic scientists have found specific nucleotide sequences classified as "Native American markers" because the sequences are understood to have been inherited through the generations of genetic females within populations that first settled the "New World". There are five primary Native American mtDNA haplogroups in which there are clusters of closely linked markers inherited together. All five haplogroups have been identified by researchers as "prehistoric Native North American samples", and it is commonly asserted that the majority of living Native Americans possess one of the common five mtDNA haplogroup markers.[368]

The genetic pattern indicates Indigenous Americans experienced two very distinctive genetic episodes; first with the initial-peopling of the Americas, and secondly with European colonization of the Americas.[387][388][389] The former is the determinant factor for the number of gene lineages, zygosity mutations and founding haplotypes present in today's Indigenous Amerindian populations.[388]

Human settlement of the New World occurred in stages from the Bering sea coast line, with an initial 15,000 to 20,000-year layover on Beringia for the small founding population.[387][390][391] The micro-satellite diversity and distributions of the Y lineage specific to South America indicates that certain Amerindian populations have been isolated since the initial colonization of the region.[392] The Na-Dené, Inuit and Indigenous Alaskan populations exhibit haplogroup Q-M242 (Y-DNA) mutations, however, that are distinct from other Indigenous Amerindians, and that have various mtDNA and atDNA mutations.[393][394][395] This suggests that the paleo-Indian migrants into the northern extremes of North America and Greenland were descended from a later, independent migrant population.[396][397]

Genetic analyses of HLA I and HLA II genes as well as HLA-A, -B, and -DRB1 gene frequencies links the Ainu people of northern Japan and southeastern Russia to some Indigenous peoples of the Americas, especially to populations on the Pacific Northwest Coast such as Tlingit. Scientists suggest that the main ancestor of the Ainu and of some Native American groups can be traced back to Paleolithic groups in Southern Siberia.[398]