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INTRODUCTION
Traditionally, the very beginning of the United States’ history is
considered from the time of European exploration and settlement, starting
in the 16th century, to the present. But people had been living in America
for over 30,000 years before the first European colonists arrived.
When Columbus landed on the island of San Salvador in 1492 he was
welcomed by a brown-skinned people whose physical appearance confirmed him
in his opinion that he had at last reached India, and whom, therefore, he
called Indios, Indians, a name which, however mistaken in its first
application continued to hold its own, and has long since won general
acceptance, except in strictly scientific writing, where the more exact
term American is commonly used. As exploration was extended north and south
it was found that the same race was spread over the whole continent, from
the Arctic shores to Cape Horn, everywhere alike in the main physical
characteristics, with the exception of the Eskimo in the extreme North
(whose features suggest the Mongolian).
GENERAL BACKGROUND
Origin and Antiquity
Various origins have been assigned to the Indian race. The more or
less beleivable explanation is following. At the height of the Ice Age,
between 34,000 and 30,000 B.C., much of the world's water was contained in
vast continental ice sheets. As a result, the Bering Sea was hundreds of
meters below its current level, and a land bridge, known as Beringia,
emerged between Asia and North America. At its peak, Beringia is thought to
have been some 1,500 kilometers wide. A moist and treeless tundra, it was
covered with grasses and plant life, attracting the large animals that
early humans hunted for their survival. The first people to reach North
America almost certainly did so without knowing they had crossed into a new
continent. They would have been following game, as their ancestors had for
thousands of years, along the Siberian coast and then across the land
bridge.
Race Type
The most marked physical characteristics of the Indian race type are
brown skin, dark brown eyes, prominent cheek bones, straight black hair,
and scantiness of beard. The color is not red, as is popularly supposed,
but varies from very light in some tribes, as the Cheyenne, to almost black
in others, as the Caddo and Tarimari. In a few tribes, as the Flatheads,
the skin has a distinct yellowish cast. The hair is brown in childhood, but
always black in the adult until it turns grey with age. Baldness is almost
unknown. The eye is not held so open as in the Caucasian and seems better
adapted to distance than to close work. The nose is usually straight and
well shaped, and in some tribes strongly aquiline. Their hands and feet are
comparatively small. Height and weight vary as among Europeans, the Pueblos
averaging but little more than five feet, while the Cheyenne and Arapaho
are exceptionally tall, and the Tehuelche of Patagonia almost massive in
build. As a rule, the desert Indians, as the Apache, are spare and muscular
in build, while those of the timbered regions are heavier, although not
proportionately stronger. The beard is always scanty, but increases with
the admixture of white blood. The mistaken idea that the Indian has
naturally no beard is due to the fact that in most tribes it is plucked out
as fast as it grows, the eyebrows being treated in the same way. There is
no tribe of "white Indians", but albinos with blond skin, weak pink eyes
and almost white hair are occasionally found, especially among the Pueblos.
Major Cultural Areas
From prehistoric times until recent historic times there were roughly
six major cultural areas, excluding that of the Arctic (see Eskimo), i.e.,
Northwest Coast, Plains, Plateau, Eastern Woodlands, Northern, and
Southwest.
The Northwest Coast Area
The Northwest Coast area extended along the Pacific coast from South
Alaska to North California. The main language families in this area were
the Nadene in the north and the Wakashan (a subdivision of the Algonquian-
Wakashan linguistic stock) and the Tsimshian (a subdivision of the Penutian
linguistic stock) in the central area. Typical tribes were the Kwakiutl,
the Haida, the Tsimshian, and the Nootka. Thickly wooded, with a temperate
climate and heavy rainfall, the area had long supported a large Native
American population. Salmon was the staple food, supplemented by sea
mammals (seals and sea lions) and land mammals (deer, elk, and bears) as
well as berries and other wild fruit. The Native Americans of this area
used wood to build their houses and had cedar-planked canoes and carved
dugouts. In their permanent winter villages some of the groups had totem
poles, which were elaborately carved and covered with symbolic animal
decoration. Their art work, for which they are famed, also included the
making of ceremonial items, such as rattles and masks; weaving; and
basketry. They had a highly stratified society with chiefs, nobles,
commoners, and slaves. Public display and disposal of wealth were basic
features of the society. They had woven robes, furs, and basket hats as
well as wooden armor and helmets for battle. This distinctive culture,
which included cannibalistic rituals, was not greatly affected by European
influences until after the late 18th cent., when the white fur traders and
hunters came to the area.
TRIBES: Abenaki, Algonkin, Beothuk, Delaware, Erie, Fox, Huron,
Illinois, Iroquois, Kickapoo, Mahican, Mascouten, Massachuset,
Mattabesic, Menominee, Metoac, Miami, Micmac, Mohegan, Montagnais,
Narragansett, Nauset, Neutrals, Niantic, Nipissing, Nipmuc, Ojibwe,
Ottawa, Pennacook, Pequot, Pocumtuck, Potawatomi, Sauk, Shawnee,
Susquehannock, Tionontati, Wampanoag, Wappinger, Wenro, Winnebago.
The Plains Area
The Plains area extended from just North of the Canadian border, South
to Texas and included the grasslands area between the Mississippi River and
the foothills of the Rocky Mts. The main language families in this area
were the Algonquian-Wakashan, the Aztec-Tanoan, and the Hokan-Siouan. In
pre-Columbian times there were two distinct types of Native Americans
there: sedentary and nomadic. The sedentary tribes, who had migrated from
neighbor ing regions and had initally settled along the great river
valleys, were farmers and lived in permanent villages of dome-shaped earth
lodges surrounded by earthen walls. They raised corn, squash, and beans.
The foot nomads, on the other hand, moved about with their goods on dog-
drawn travois and eked out a precarious existence by hunting the vast herds
of buffalo (bison) - usually by driving them into enclosures or rounding
them up by setting grass fires. They supplemented their diet by exchanging
meat and hides for the corn of the agricultural Native Americans.
The horse, first introduced by the Spanish of the Southwest, appeared
in the Plains about the beginning of the 18th cent. and revolutionized the
life of the Plains Indians. Many Native Americans left their villages and
joined the nomads. Mounted and armed with bow and arrow, they ranged the
grasslands hunting buffalo. The other Native Americans remained farmers
(e.g., the Arikara, the Hidatsa, and the Mandan). Native Americans from
surrounding areas came into the Plains (e.g., the Sioux from the Great
Lakes, the Comanche and the Kiowa from the west and northwest, and the
Navajo and the Apache from the southwest). A universal sign language
developed among the perpetually wandering and often warring Native
Americans. Living on horseback and in the portable tepee, they preserved
food by pounding and drying lean meat and made their clothes from buffalo
hides and deerskins. The system of coup was a characteristic feature of
their society. Other features were rites of fasting in quest of a vision,
warrior clans, bead and feather art work, and decorated hides. These Plains
Indians were among the last to engage in a serious struggle with the white
settlers in the United States.
TRIBES: Arapaho, Arikara, Assiniboine, Bidai, Blackfoot, Caddo,
Cheyenne, Comanche, Cree, Crow, Dakota (Sioux), Gros Ventre, Hidatsa,
Iowa, Kansa, Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, Kitsai, Lakota (Sioux), Mandan,
Metis, Missouri, Nakota (Sioux), Omaha, Osage, Otoe, Pawnee, Ponca,
Sarsi, Sutai, Tonkawa, Wichita.
The Plateau Area
The Plateau area extended from above the Canadian border through the
plateau and mountain area of the Rocky Mts. to the Southwest and included
much of California. Typical tribes were the Spokan, the Paiute, the Nez
Perce, and the Shoshone. This was an area of great linguistic diversity.
Because of the inhospitable environment the cultural development was
generally low. The Native Americans in the Central Valley of California and
on the California coast, notably the Pomo, were sedentary peoples who
gathered edible plants, roots, and fruit and also hunted small game. Their
acorn bread, made by pounding acorns into meal and then leaching it with
hot water, was distinctive, and they cooked in baskets filled with water
and heated by hot stones. Living in brush shelters or more substantial lean-
tos, they had partly buried earth lodges for ceremonies and ritual sweat
baths. Basketry, coiled and twined, was highly developed. To the north,
between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mts., the social, political, and
religious systems were simple, and art was nonexistent. The Native
Americans there underwent (since 1730) a great cultural change when they
obtained from the Plains Indians the horse, the tepee, a form of the sun
dance, and deerskin clothes. They continued, however, to fish for salmon
with nets and spears and to gather camas bulbs. They also gathered ants and
other insects and hunted small game and, in later times, buffalo. Their
permanent winter villages on waterways had semisubterranean lodges with
conical roofs; a few Native Americans lived in bark-covered long houses.
TRIBES: Carrier, Cayuse, Coeur D'Alene, Colville, Dock-Spus,
Eneeshur, Flathead, Kalispel, Kawachkin, Kittitas, Klamath, Klickitat,
Kosith, Kutenai, Lakes, Lillooet, Methow, Modac, Nez Perce, Okanogan,
Palouse, Sanpoil, Shushwap, Sinkiuse, Spokane, Tenino, Thompson,
Tyigh, Umatilla, Wallawalla, Wasco, Wauyukma, Wenatchee, Wishram,
Wyampum, Yakima. Californian: Achomawi, Atsugewi, Cahuilla, Chimariko,
Chumash, Costanoan, Esselen, Hupa, Karuk, Kawaiisu, Maidu, Mission
Indians, Miwok, Mono, Patwin, Pomo, Serrano, Shasta, Tolowa,
Tubatulabal, Wailaki, Wintu, Wiyot, Yaha, Yokuts, Yuki, Yuman
(California).
The Eastern Woodlands Area
The Eastern Woodlands area covered the eastern part of the United
States, roughly from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River, and
included the Great Lakes. The Natchez, the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the
Creek were typical inhabitants. The northeastern part of this area extended
from Canada to Kentucky and Virginia. The people of the area (speaking
languages of the Algonquian-Wakashan stock) were largely deer hunters and
farmers; the women tended small plots of corn, squash, and beans. The
birchbark canoe gained wide usage in this area. The general pattern of
existence of these Algonquian peoples and their neighbors, who spoke
languages belonging to the Iroquoian branch of the Hokan-Siouan stock
(enemies who had probably invaded from the south), was quite complex. Their
diet of deer meat was supplemented by other game (e.g., bear), fish (caught
with hook, spear, and net), and shellfish. Cooking was done in vessels of
wood and bark or simple black pottery. The dome-shaped wigwam and the
longhouse of the Iroquois characterized their housing. The deerskin
clothing, the painting of the face and (in the case of the men) body, and
the scalp lock of the men (left when hair was shaved on both sides of the
head), were typical. The myths of Manitou (often called Manibozho or
Manabaus), the hero who remade the world from mud after a deluge, are also
widely known.
The region from the Ohio River South to the Gulf of Mexico, with its
forests and fertile soil, was the heart of the southeastern part of the
Eastern Woodlands cultural area. There before c.500 the inhabitants were
seminomads who hunted, fished, and gathered roots and seeds. Between 500
and 900 they adopted agriculture, tobacco smoking, pottery making, and
burial mounds. By c.1300 the agricultural economy was well established, and
artifacts found in the mounds show that trade was widespread. Long before
the Europeans arrived, the peoples of the Natchez and Muskogean branches of
the Hokan-Siouan linguistic family were farmers who used hoes with stone,
bone, or shell blades. They hunted with bow and arrow and blowgun, caught
fish by poisoning streams, and gathered berries, fruit, and shellfish. They
had excellent pottery, sometimes decorated with abstract figures of animals
or humans. Since warfare was frequent and intense, the villages were
enclosed by wooden palisades reinforced with earth. Some of the large
villages, usually ceremonial centers, dominated the smaller settlements of
the surrounding countryside. There were temples for sun worship; rites were
elaborate and featured an altar with perpetual fire, extinguished and
rekindled each year in a “new fire” ceremony. The society was commonly
divided into classes, with a chief, his children, nobles, and commoners
making up the hierarchy. For a discussion of the earliest Woodland groups,
see the separate article Eastern Woodlands culture.
TRIBES: Acolapissa, Asis, Alibamu, Apalachee, Atakapa, Bayougoula,
Biloxi, Calusa, Catawba, Chakchiuma, Cherokee, Chesapeake Algonquin,
Chickasaw, Chitamacha, Choctaw, Coushatta, Creek, Cusabo, Gaucata,
Guale, Hitchiti, Houma, Jeags, Karankawa, Lumbee, Miccosukee, Mobile,
Napochi, Nappissa, Natchez, Ofo, Powhatan, Quapaw, Seminole,
Southeastern Siouan, Tekesta, Tidewater Algonquin, Timucua, Tunica,
Tuscarora, Yamasee, Yuchi. Bannock, Paiute (Northern), Paiute
(Southern), Sheepeater, Shoshone (Northern), Shoshone (Western), Ute,
Washo.
The Northern Area
The Northern area covered most of Canada, also known as the Subarctic,
in the belt of semiarctic land from the Rocky Mts. to Hudson Bay. The main
languages in this area were those of the Algonquian-Wakashan and the Nadene
stocks. Typical of the people there were the Chipewyan. Limiting
environmental conditions prevented farming, but hunting, gathering, and
activities such as trapping and fishing were carried on. Nomadic hunters
moved with the season from forest to tundra, killing the caribou in
semiannual drives. Other food was provided by small game, berries, and
edible roots. Not only food but clothing and even some shelter (caribou-
skin tents) came from the caribou, and with caribou leather thongs the
Indians laced their snowshoes and made nets and bags. The snowshoe was one
of the most important items of material culture. The shaman featured in the
religion of many of these people.
TRIBES: Calapuya, Cathlamet, Chehalis, Chemakum, Chetco,
Chilluckkittequaw, Chinook, Clackamas, Clatskani, Clatsop, Cowich,
Cowlitz, Haida, Hoh, Klallam, Kwalhioqua, Lushootseed, Makah, Molala,
Multomah, Oynut, Ozette, Queets, Quileute, Quinault, Rogue River,
Siletz, Taidhapam, Tillamook, Tutuni, Yakonan.
The Southwest Area
The Southwest area generally extended over Arizona, New Mexico, and
parts of Colorado and Utah. The Uto-Aztecan branch of the Aztec-Tanoan
linguistic stock was the main language group of the area. Here a
seminomadic people called the Basket Makers, who hunted with a spear
thrower, or atlatl, acquired (c.1000 B.C.) the art of cultivating beans and
squash, probably from their southern neighbors. They also learned to make
unfired pottery. They wove baskets, sandals, and bags. By c.700 B.C. they
had initiated intensive agriculture, made true pottery, and hunted with bow
and arrow. They lived in pit dwellings, which were partly underground and
were lined with slabs of stone - the so-called slab houses. A new people
came into the area some two centuries later; these were the ancestors of
the Pueblo Indians. They lived in large, terraced community houses set on
ledges of cliffs or canyons for protection and developed a ceremonial
chamber (the kiva) out of what had been the living room of the pit
dwellings. This period of development ended c.1300, after a severe drought
and the beginnings of the invasions from the north by the Athabascan-
speaking Navajo and Apache. The known historic Pueblo cultures of such
sedentary farming peoples as the Hopi and the Zuni then came into being.
They cultivated corn, beans, squash, cotton, and tobacco, killed rabbits
with a wooden throwing stick, and traded cotton textiles and corn for
buffalo meat from nomadic tribes. The men wove cotton textiles and
cultivated the fields, while women made fine polychrome pottery. The
mythology and religious ceremonies were complex.
TRIBES: Apache (Eastern), Apache (Western), Chemehuevi, Coahuiltec,
Hopi, Jano, Manso, Maricopa, Mohave, Navaho, Pai, Papago, Pima, Pueblo
(breaking into: Acoma, Cochiti, Isleta, Jemez, Laguna, Nambe, Picuris,
Pojoaque, Sandia, San Felipe, San Ildefonso, San Juan, Santa Ana,
Santa Clara, Santo Domingo, Taos, Tesuque, Zia), Yaqui, Yavapai,
Yuman, Zuni. Am strongly thinking about
LIFESTYLE and TRADITIONS
Social Organization
Among most of the tribes east of the Mississippi, among the Pueblos,
Navahos, and others of the South-West, and among the Tlingit and Haida of
the north-west coast, society was based upon the clan system, under which
the tribe was divided into a number of large family groups, the members of
which were considered as closely related and prohibited from intermarrying.
The children usually followed the clan of the mother. The clans themselves
were sometimes grouped into larger bodies of related kindred, to which the
name of phratries has been applied. The clans were usually, but not always,
named from animals, and each clan paid special reverence to its tutelary
animal. Thus the Cherokee had seven clans, Wolf, Deer, Bird, Paint, and
three others with names not readily translated. A Wolf man could not marry
a Wolf woman, but might marry a Deer woman, or one of any of the other
clans, and his children were of the Deer clan or other clan accordingly. In
some tribes the name of the individual indicated the clan, as "Round Foot"
in the wolf clan and "Crawler" in the Turtle clan. Certain functions of
war, peace, or ceremonial were usually hereditary in special clans, and
revenge for injuries with the tribe devolved upon the clan relatives of the
person injured. The tribal council was made up of the hereditary or elected
chiefs, and any alien taken into the tribe had to be specifically adopted
into a family and clan. The clan system was by no means universal but is
now known to have been limited to particular regions and seems to have been
originally an artificial contrivance to protect land and other tribal
descent. It was absent almost everywhere west of the Missouri, excepting in
the South-West, and appears to have been unknown throughout the geater
portion of British America, the interior of Alaska, and probably among the
Eskimos. Among the plains tribes, the unit was the band, whose members
camped together under their own chief, in an appointed place in the tribal
camp circle, and were subject to no marriage prohibition, but usually
married among themselves.
With a few notable exceptions, there was very little idea of tribal
solidarity or supreme authority, and where a chief appears in history as
tribal dictator, as in the case of Powhatan in Virginia, it was usually due
to his own strong personality. The real authority was with the council as
interpreters of ancient tribal customs. Even such well-known tribes as the
Creeks and Cherokee were really only aggregations of closely cognate
villages, each acting independently or in cooperation with the others as
suited its immediate convenience. Even in the smaller and more compact
tribes there was seldom any provision for coercing the individual to secure
common action, but those of the same clan or band usually acted together.
In this lack of solidarity is the secret of Indian military weakness. In no
Indian war in the history of the United States has a single large tribe
ever united in solid resistance, while on the other hand other tribes have
always been found to join against the hostiles. Among the Natchez, Tinucua,
and some other southern tribes, there is more indication of a central
authority, resting probably with a dominant clan.
The Iroquois of New York had progressed beyond any other native people
north of Mexico in the elaboration of a state and empire. Through a
carefully planned system of confederations, originating about 1570, the
five allied tribes had secured internal peace and unity, by which they had
been able to acquire dominant control over most of the tribes from Hudson
Bay to Carolina, and if not prematurely checked by the advent of the
whites, might in time have founded a northern empire to rival that of the
Aztec.
Land was usually held in common, except among the Pueblos, where it
was apportioned among the clans, and in some tribes in northern California,
where individual right is said to have existed. Timber and other natural
products were free, and hospitality was carried to such a degree that no
man kept what his neighbour wanted. While this prevented extremes of
poverty, on the other hand it paralyzed individual industry and economy,
and was an effectual barrier to progress. The accumulation of property was
further discouraged by the fact that in most tribes it was customary to
destroy all the belongings of the owner at his death. The word for "brave"
and "generous" was frequently the same, and along the north-west coast
there existed the curious custom known as potlatch, under which a man saved
for half a lifetime in order to acquire the rank of chief by finally giving
away his entire hoard at a grand public feast.
Enslavement of captives was more or less common throughout the
country, especially in the southern states, where the captives were
sometimes crippled to prevent their escape. Along the north-west coast and
as far south as California, not only the captives but their children and
later descendants were slaves and might be abused or slaughtered at the
will of the master, being frequently burned alive with their deceased
owner, or butchered to provide a ceremonial cannibal feast. In the Southern
slave states, before the Civil War, the Indians were frequent owners of
negro slaves.
Men and women, and sometimes even the older
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