Origins

• First people appeared on the

continent ~ 15.000 years before
Christ
• came during the last Ice
Age
• walked on the ice of the
Bering Strait from Siberia to
Alaska
• Then they slowly, but steadily
moved to the South
• ~ 5000 BC they reached
the Southern end of South
America
 Biggest Communities:
The Pueblo
• Not a tribe, but a collective
name for several different tribes,
including:
• Hopi, Zuni, Taos, Acoma
• Original Territories:
• present day states of New
Mexico, Arizona, Texas
• Lifestyle:
• farming, including irrigation
and canals
• huts made of adobe bricks
• weaving, pottery
 Biggest Communities:
The Apache
• Several culturally related tribes
• Original Territories:
• present day states of Arizona, New
Mexico, Texas, Colorado
• Lifestyle:
• deer hunting, gathering wild plants,
nuts and roots
• raiding neighboring tribes
• wild, aggressive and warlike
• clothes made of leather
 Biggest Communities:
The Iroquois
• A confederacy of six tribes:
• Mohawk, Onondaga,
Oneida, Cayuga, Seneca,
Tuscarora
• Lifestyle:
• farming, hunting and fishing
• long, wooden cottages
housing up to 20 families
• canoes
• fierce warriors
• wampum belts
 Biggest Communities:
The Sioux
• Original Territories:
• between the
Mississippi River
and the Rocky
Mountains
• Lifestyle:
• buffalo herding and
procession
• teepees, leather
outfits and bags
 Moving West: The Frontier
• Until the 1730s:
• most settlers lived less than 50 miles away from the
Atlantic coast

• Radical change in the next 50 years

• Reason: increasing immigration
• The emergence of a special territory: the frontier
• The area between the European settlement and
the land of the natives
 Moving West: The Frontier
• Farms mostly divided by a day’s journey from each
other

• Produced everything on their own:

• Food
• Clothes
• Furniture
• Often had their own forms of religion, music and
festivities
• Could mostly rely only on themselves for protection →
independence, individualism, self-reliance
• Could not conquer the wilderness one by one
• Not able to protect themselves on their own against
 Pushing Them West
• Higher and high numbers of immigrants  the land was not enough
 further movement West  troubles with the natives – the settlers
were stealing their hunting grounds
• Reactions:
• 1787: Northwest Ordinance
• land should never be taken away from natives without their
consent
• they should never be invaded in their rights, liberty and
property
• 1817: President James Monroe
• either the natives live in a “civilized way” or they have no
right to stay and should be moved further West
• 1830: Indian Removal Act
• all natives living East of the Mississippi River to be moved to
the “Indian Territory” to be established beyond the Mississippi
 The Case of the Cherokees
• Their land was between Georgia and the Mississippi River
• By the beginning of the 19th century they lived in a Western,
“civilized” way:
• Converted to Christianity
• Had European-style houses in villages and towns
• Children were educated in schools
• Published bilingual newspapers

•1830: Congress declared that their lands belonged to the state

of Georgia
• everything taken away from them
• forced to walk hundreds of miles to present day Oklahoma
• 1838: Trail of Tears: soldiers gathered thousands of them,
and drove them west in a journey that took five months
(4000 dead)
1840s-1860s: Treaties, Buffalos
• gold diggers, railways and homesteaders needed to pass
through or settle in territories controlled by native tribes
• natives mostly tried to settle the question by written
agreements
• example: 1868, Fort Laramie Treaty – with the
Sioux
• giving up some of their land
• are guaranteed to use the rest the way they want
• explicitly promised that no one would take the rest
away
• in reality:
• the government only kept the treaties until they
did not need the land
• later they ignored it and forced the natives out
using the army
1840s-1860s: Treaties, Buffalos
• the Sioux and some other tribes
depended on the buffalos
• white settlers hunted them in huge
numbers
• as a sport
• to protect the crops
• not using the cadaver in any way
• they started to die out

• General Sheridan even encouraged

their extermination:
• no buffalos, no problem with the
natives
 Reservations
• lands too dry and rocky to be usable

• the natives fought back – best known leader: Sitting Bull

• but:
• outnumbered
• outgunned
• they had some victories, the best known one is:
• June, 1876: the Battle of Little Big Horn
• 3000 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, led by Crazy Horse
• 225 men of US cavalry, including a general named Custer
• by the 1890s the natives all lived in reservations
• the government promised:
• food
• building materials
• tools
 Ghost Dance Movement
• Wovoka – religious leader and prophet
• proper practice of the dance will:
• reunite the living and the dead
• bring the spirits of the dead back to fight
• make the colonists leave
• unite all natives
• completely peaceful movement

• officials and the government got scared

• arrested the leaders of the movement
and stopped it
• continued underground, but with much
less intensity
 Wounded Knee Massacre
• 350 Sioux people (2/3 women and
children!) led by Spotted Elk
• left their reservation to join a
group of ghost dancers nearby
• a group of soldiers stopped them
on the way:
• marched them to an army
station
• ordered them to give up their
guns
• one of them refused →
shooting
• the soldiers started
randomly shooting down
men, women, children
 Legal Milestones
• 1924: Indian Citizenship Act (Calvin Coolidge)
• accepted as full citizens of the United States
• right to vote
• 1934: Indian Reorganization Act (Franklin D. Roosevelt)
• allowed and encouraged to
• form their own councils
• run their own reservations
• 1968: Indian Civil Rights Act (Lyndon B. Johnson)
• Indian tribes cannot have laws that would contradict the Bill
of Rights or the Constitution
• 1975: Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance
Act (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford)
• natives apply for grants for projects they want, and implement
them together
• they decide what they spend on, how and when
 American Indian Movement
• Founded in 1968
• Spirituality, leadership, sovereignty

• Most important protests:

• Trail of Broken Treaties
• October, 1971 – protests all
across the country
• occupied the Bureau of
Indian Affairs National
Headquarters
• presented a 20-point list
of demands
• 1973: seized Wounded Knee
(armed!!) for 71 days
 Native Americans Now
• Population: ~ 5.2 million
• 78% outside reservations
• 70% in urban areas
• Biggest percentage of populations in:
• Alaska – 14.8%
• New Mexico – 9.4%
• South Dakota – 8.8%
• Biggest amount per state:
• California ~ 410,000
• Arizona ~ 295,000
• Oklahoma ~ 280,000
• Major health issues:
• alcoholism
• high rate of suicide
• tuberculosis