Native Americans in the United States - wikipedia Native Americans in the United States Native Americans Total population American Indian and Alaska Native ( 2010 Census Bureau ) One race : 2,932,248 are registered In combination with one or more of the other races listed : 2,288,331 Total : 5,220,579 ~ 1.6 % of the U.S. total population Regions with significant populations Predominantly in the Western United States ; small communities also exist in the Eastern United States Languages Native American languages ( including Navajo, Central Alaskan Yup'ik, Dakota, Western Apache, Keres, Cherokee, Choctaw, Zuni, Ojibwe, O'odham ) English, Spanish, French, Russian Religion Native American Church Protestant Roman Catholic Russian Orthodox Traditional Ceremonial Ways ( Unique to Specific Tribe or Band ) Related ethnic groups Indigenous peoples of the Americas Indigenous peoples of Mexico Aboriginal peoples in Canada Indigenous peoples of South Americans Métis Mestizo Native Americans, also known as American Indians, Indians, Indigenous Americans and other terms, are the indigenous peoples of the United States. There are over 500 federally recognized tribes within the U.S., about half of which are associated with Indian reservations. The term excludes Native Hawaiians and some Alaska Natives. The ancestors of modern Native Americans arrived in what is now the United States at least 15,000 years ago, possibly much earlier, from Asia through Beringia. A vast variety of peoples, societies and cultures subsequently developed. Native Americans were greatly affected by the European colonization of the Americas, which began in 1492, and their population declined precipitously due to introduced diseases, warfare, and slavery. After the founding of the United States, many Native American peoples were subjected to warfare, removals, and one - sided treaties, and they continue to suffer from discriminatory government policies today. Since the 1960s, Native American self - determination movements have resulted in many changes to the lives of Native Americans, though there are still many contemporary issues faced by Native Americans. Today, there are over five million Native Americans in the United States. Contents 1 Background 2 History 2.1 Pre-Columbian era 2.2 Settlement of the Americas 2.2. 1 Native development prior to European contact 2.2. 2 Major cultures 2.2. 2.1 Adena culture 2.2. 2.2 Hohokam culture 2.2. 2.3 Puebloan culture 2.2. 2.4 Mississippian culture 2.2. 2.5 Iroquois Culture 2.3 European exploration and colonization 2.3. 1 Impact on native populations 2.3. 2 Animal introductions 2.4 17th century 2.4. 1 King Philip 's War 2.5 18th century 2.5. 1 Natural society 2.5. 2 American Revolution 2.5. 3 The United States 2.6 19th century 2.6. 1 Westward expansion 2.6. 2 Civil War 2.6. 3 Removals and reservations 2.6. 4 Native Americans and U.S. Citizenship 2.6. 4.1 Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 2.6. 5 Education 2.7 20th century 2.7. 1 World War II 2.7. 2 Self - determination 2.7. 3 Tribal colleges 2.8 21st century 3 Demographics 3.1 Historical population 3.2 Population and distribution 3.2. 1 Urban migration 3.2. 2 Distribution by U.S. state 3.3 Population by tribal grouping 4 Current legal status 5 Contemporary issues 5.1 Societal discrimination and racism 5.1. 1 Affirmative action issues 5.2 Native American mascots in sports 5.3 Historical depictions in art 5.4 Terminology differences 5.4. 1 Common usage in the United States 5.5 Gambling industry 5.6 Financial services 5.7 Crime on reservations 5.8 Trauma 5.8. 1 Historical trauma 5.8. 2 Impacts of intergenerational trauma 5.8. 3 Solutions 6 Society, language, and culture 6.1 Ethno - linguistic classification 6.1. 1 Language education 6.2 Society and art 6.3 Agriculture 6.4 Religion 6.5 Gender roles 6.6 Sports 6.6. 1 Team sports 6.6. 2 Women 's basketball 6.6. 3 Individual sports 6.6. 4 U.S. Olympics 6.7 Music and art 6.8 Traditional economy 6.8. 1 Contemporary barriers to economic development 6.8. 2 Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans 6.8. 3 Assimilation 6.8. 4 European enslavement 6.8. 5 Native American slavery 6.8. 6 Traditions of Native American slavery 6.8. 7 Native American and African relations 6.8. 7.1 Native American adoption of African slavery 7 Racial identity 7.1 Admixture and genetics 7.2 Tribal membership 7.3 Increased self - identification 7.4 Genetics 8 See also 9 Further reading 10 References 11 External links Background Since the end of the 15th century, the migration of Europeans to the Americas has led to centuries of population, cultural, and agricultural transfer and adjustment between Old and New World societies, a process known as the Columbian exchange. As most Native American groups had historically preserved their histories by oral traditions and artwork, the first written sources of the conflict were written by Europeans. At the time of the first contact, the indigenous cultures were quite different from those of the proto - industrial and mostly Christian immigrants. Some Northeastern and Southwestern cultures, in particular, were matrilineal and operated on a more collective basis than the Europeans were familiar with. The majority of Indigenous American tribes maintained their hunting grounds and agricultural lands for use of the entire tribe. Europeans at that time had patriarchal cultures and had developed concepts of individual property rights with respect to land that were extremely different. The differences in cultures between the established Native Americans and immigrant Europeans, as well as shifting alliances among different nations in times of war, caused extensive political tension, ethnic violence, and social disruption. Even before the European settlement of what is now the United States, Native Americans suffered high fatalities from contact with new European diseases, to which they had not yet acquired immunity ; the diseases were endemic to the Spanish and other Europeans, and spread by direct contact and likely through pigs that escaped from expeditions. Smallpox epidemics are thought to have caused the greatest loss of life for indigenous populations. William M Denevan, noted author and Professor Emeritus of Geography at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, said on this subject in his essay `` The Pristine Myth : The Landscape of the Americas in 1492 '' ; `` The decline of native American populations was rapid and severe, probably the greatest demographic disaster ever. Old World diseases were the primary killer. In many regions, particularly the tropical lowlands, populations fell by 90 percent or more in the first century after the contact. '' Estimates of the pre-Columbian population of what today constitutes the U.S. vary significantly, ranging from William M Denevan 's 3.8 million in his 1992 work The Native Population of the Americas in 1492, to 18 million in Henry F Dobyns 's Their Number Become Thinned ( 1983 ). Henry F Dobyns ' work, being the highest single point estimate by far within the realm of professional academic research on the topic, has been criticized for being `` politically motivated ''. Perhaps Dobyns ' most vehement critic is David Henige, a bibliographer of Africana at the University of Wisconsin, whose Numbers From Nowhere ( 1998 ) is described as `` a landmark in the literature of demographic fulmination. '' `` Suspect in 1966, it is no less suspect nowadays, '' Henige wrote of Dobyns 's work. `` If anything, it is worse. '' After the thirteen colonies revolted against Great Britain and established the United States, President George Washington and Henry Knox conceived of the idea of `` civilizing '' Native Americans in preparation for assimilation as U.S. citizens. Assimilation ( whether voluntary, as with the Choctaw, or forced ) became a consistent policy through American administrations. During the 19th century, the ideology of manifest destiny became integral to the American nationalist movement. Expansion of European - American populations to the west after the American Revolution resulted in increasing pressure on Native American lands, warfare between the groups, and rising tensions. In 1830, the U.S. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the government to relocate Native Americans from their homelands within established states to lands west of the Mississippi River, accommodating European - American expansion. This resulted in the ethnic cleansing of many tribes, with the brutal, forced marches coming to be known as The Trail of Tears. As American expansion reached into the West, settler and miner migrants came into increasing conflict with the Great Basin, Great Plains, and other Western tribes. These were complex nomadic cultures based on ( introduced ) horse culture and seasonal bison hunting. They carried out resistance against United States incursion in the decades after the end of the Civil War and the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in a series of Indian Wars, which were frequent up until the 1890s and continued into the 20th century. Over time, the United States forced a series of treaties and land cessions by the tribes and established reservations for them in many western states. U.S. Indian agents encouraged Native Americans to adopt European - style farming and similar pursuits, but European - American agricultural technology of the time was inadequate for the often dry reservation lands, leading to mass starvation. In 1924, Native Americans who were not already U.S. citizens were granted citizenship by Congress. Contemporary Native Americans have a unique relationship with the United States because they may be members of nations, tribes, or bands with sovereignty and treaty rights. Cultural activism since the late 1960s has increased political participation and led to an expansion of efforts to teach and preserve indigenous languages for younger generations and to establish a greater cultural infrastructure : Native Americans have founded independent newspapers and online media, recently including First Nations Experience, the first Native American television channel ; established Native American studies programs, tribal schools, and universities, and museums and language programs ; and have increasingly been published as authors in numerous genres. The terms used to refer to Native Americans have at times been controversial. The ways Native Americans refer to themselves vary by region and generation, with many older Native Americans self - identifying as `` Indians '' or `` American Indians '', while younger Native Americans often identify as `` Indigenous '' or `` Aboriginal ''. The term `` Native American '' has not traditionally included Native Hawaiians or certain Alaskan Natives, such as Aleut, Yup'ik, or Inuit peoples. By comparison, the indigenous peoples of Canada are generally known as First Nations. History Main article : History of Native Americans in the United States Pre-Columbian era Main articles : Paleo - Indians and Pre-Columbian era 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 Ice Age, and then spread southward throughout the Americas over the subsequent generations. Genetic evidence suggests at least three waves of migrants arrived from Asia, with the first occurring at least 15 thousand years ago. These migrations may have begun as early as 30,000 years ago and continued through to about 10,000 years ago, when the land bridge became submerged by the rising sea level caused by the ending of the last glacial period. These early inhabitants, called Paleoamericans, soon diversified into many hundreds of culturally distinct nations and tribes. 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 ' voyages of 1492 to 1504, in practice the term usually includes the history of American indigenous cultures until they were conquered or significantly influenced by Europeans, even if this happened decades or even centuries after Columbus ' initial landing. Settlement of the Americas Native development prior to European contact The Cultural areas of pre-Columbian North America, according to Alfred Kroeber 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 ; see Archaeology of the Americas. 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 also 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. 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 ). 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 adjacent areas to the West and Southwest. According to the oral histories of many of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, 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. 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. 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. Na - Dené - speaking peoples entered North America starting around 8000 BCE, reaching the Pacific Northwest by 5000 BCE, 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. The Oshara Tradition people lived from 5500 BCE to 600 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. Since the 1990s, archeologists 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 the Americas for such complex construction. 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. 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. 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. Totem poles in Wrangell, Alaska Poverty Point is a 1 square mile ( 2.6 km ) complex of six major earthwork concentric rings, with additional platform mounds at the site. Artifacts show the people traded with other Native Americans located from Georgia to the Great Lakes region. This is one among numerous mound sites of complex indigenous cultures throughout the Mississippi and Ohio valleys. They were one of several succeeding cultures often referred to as mound builders. 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 term `` Woodland '' was coined in the 1930s and refers to prehistoric sites dated between the Archaic period and the Mississippian cultures. The Hopewell tradition is the term for the common aspects of the Native American culture that flourished along rivers in the northeastern and midwestern United States from 200 BCE to 500 CE. 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 Hopewell tradition was not a single culture or society, but a widely dispersed set of related populations, who were connected by a common network of trade routes, known as the Hopewell Exchange System. At its greatest extent, the Hopewell exchange system ran from the Southeastern United States into the southeastern Canadian shores of Lake Ontario. Within this area, societies participated in a high degree of exchange ; most activities were conducted along the waterways that served as their major transportation routes. The Hopewell exchange system traded materials from all over the United States. Major cultures Adena culture Grave Creek Mound, located in Moundsville, West Virginia, is one of the largest conical mounds in the United States. It was built by the Adena culture. Adena culture : The Adena culture was a Native American culture that existed from 1000 BC to 200 BC, in a time known as the Early Woodland period. The Adena culture refers to what were probably a number of related Native American societies sharing a burial complex and ceremonial system. A map showing the extent of the Coles Creek cultural period and some important sites Coles Creek culture : The Coles Creek culture is an indigenous development of the Lower Mississippi Valley that took place between the terminal Woodland period and the later Plaquemine culture period. The period is marked by the increased use of flat - topped platform mounds arranged around central plazas, more complex political institutions, and a subsistence strategy still grounded in the Eastern Agricultural Complex and hunting rather than on the maize plant as would happen in the succeeding Plaquemine Mississippian period. The culture was originally defined by the unique decoration on grog - tempered ceramic ware by James A. Ford after his investigations at the Mazique Archeological Site. He had studied both the Mazique and Coles Creek Sites, and almost went with the Mazique culture, but decided on the less historically involved sites name. It is ancestral to the Plaquemine culture. Hohokam culture The Great House at the Casa Grande Ruins National Monument Hohokam culture : The Hohokam was a culture centered along American Southwest. The early Hohokam founded a series of small villages along the middle Gila River. They raised corn, squash and beans. The communities were located near good arable land, with dry farming common in the earlier years of this period. They were known for their pottery, using the paddle - and - anvil technique. The Classical period of the culture saw the rise in architecture and ceramics. Buildings were grouped into walled compounds, as well as earthen platform mounds. Platform mounds were built along river as well as irrigation canal systems, suggesting these sites were administrative centers allocating water and coordinating canal labor. Polychrome pottery appeared, and inhumation burial replaced cremation. Trade included shells and other exotics. Social and climatic factors led to a decline and abandonment of the area after 1400 CE. Ancestral Puebloan archeological sites The Great Kiva of Chetro Ketl at the Chaco Culture National Historical Park, UNESCO World Heritage Site Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site Taos Pueblo, a UNESCO World Heritage site, is an Ancient Pueblo belonging to a Native American tribe of Pueblo people, marking the cultural development in the region during the Pre-Columbian era. White House Ruins, Canyon de Chelly National Monument Puebloan culture Ancestral Puebloan culture : The Ancestral Puebloan culture covered present - day Four Corners region of the United States, comprising southern Utah, northern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southwestern Colorado. It is believed that the Ancestral Puebloans developed, at least in part, from the Oshara Tradition, who developed from the Picosa culture. They lived in a range of structures that included small family pit houses, larger clan type structures, grand pueblos, and cliff sited dwellings. The Ancestral Puebloans possessed a complex network that stretched across the Colorado Plateau linking hundreds of communities and population centers. The culture is perhaps best known for the stone and earth dwellings built along cliff walls, particularly during the Pueblo II and Pueblo III eras. Three UNESCO World Heritage Sites located in the United States are credited to the Pueblos : Mesa Verde National Park, Chaco Culture National Historical Park and Taos Pueblo. The best - preserved examples of the stone dwellings are in National Parks ( USA ), examples being, Navajo National Monument, Chaco Culture National Historical Park, Mesa Verde National Park, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, Aztec Ruins National Monument, Bandelier National Monument, Hovenweep National Monument, and Canyon de Chelly National Monument. Mississippian culture Monks Mound of Cahokia ( UNESCO World Heritage Site ) in summer. The concrete staircase follows the approximate course of the ancient wooden stairs. An artistic recreation of The Kincaid Site from the prehistoric Mississippian culture as it may have looked at its peak 1050 -- 1400 CE. Engraved stone palette from Moundville, illustrating two horned rattlesnakes, perhaps referring to The Great Serpent of the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex. Mississippian culture Mississippian culture : The Mississippian culture which extended throughout the Ohio and Mississippi valleys and built sites throughout the Southeast, created the largest earthworks in North America north of Mexico, most notably at Cahokia, on a tributary of the Mississippi River in present - day Illinois. The ten - story Monks Mound at Cahokia has a larger circumference than the Pyramid of the Sun at Teotihuacan or the Great Pyramid of Egypt. The 6 square miles ( 16 km ) city complex was based on the culture 's cosmology ; it included more than 100 mounds, positioned to support their knowledge of astronomy ( Cahokia Woodhenge ), and built with knowledge of varying soil types. The society began building at this site about 950 CE, and reached its peak population in 1,250 CE of 20,000 -- 30,000 people, which was not equalled by any city in the present - day United States until after 1800. Cahokia was a major regional chiefdom, with trade and tributary chiefdoms located in a range of areas from bordering the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. Kincaid c. 1050 - 1400 AD, is one of the largest settlements of the Mississippian culture, it was located at the southern tip of present - day U.S. state of Illinois. Kincaid Mounds has been notable for both its significant role in native North American prehistory and for the central role the site has played in the development of modern archaeological techniques. The site had at least 11 substructure platform mounds ( ranking fifth for mound - culture pyramids ). Artifacts from the settlement link its major habitation and the construction of the mounds to the Mississippian period, but it was also occupied earlier during the Woodland period. The Mississippian culture developed the Southeastern Ceremonial Complex, the name which archeologists have given to the regional stylistic similarity of artifacts, iconography, ceremonies and mythology. The rise of the complex culture was based on the people 's adoption of maize agriculture, development of greater population densities, and chiefdom - level complex social organization from 1200 CE to 1650 CE. The Mississippian pottery are some of the finest and most widely spread ceramics north of Mexico. Cahokian pottery was espically fine, with smooth surfaces, very thin walls and distinctive tempering, slips and coloring. Iroquois culture Map of the Five Nations of the Iroquois ( from the Darlington Collection ) Iroquois Culture : The Iroquois League of Nations or `` People of the Long House '', based in present - day upstate and western New York, had a confederacy model from the mid-15th century. It has been suggested that their culture contributed to political thinking during the development of the later United States government. Their system of affiliation was a kind of federation, different from the strong, centralized European monarchies. Leadership was restricted to a group of 50 sachem chiefs, each representing one clan within a tribe. The Oneida and Mohawk people had nine seats each ; the Onondagas held fourteen ; the Cayuga had ten seats ; and the Seneca had eight. Representation was not based on population numbers, as the Seneca tribe greatly outnumbered the others. When a sachem chief died, his successor was chosen by the senior woman of his tribe in consultation with other female members of the clan ; property and hereditary leadership were passed matrilineally. Decisions were not made through voting but through consensus decision making, with each sachem chief holding theoretical veto power. The Onondaga were the `` firekeepers '', responsible for raising topics to be discussed. They occupied one side of a three - sided fire ( the Mohawk and Seneca sat on one side of the fire, the Oneida and Cayuga sat on the third side. ) Elizabeth Tooker, an anthropologist, has said that it was unlikely the US founding fathers were inspired by the confederacy, as it bears little resemblance to the system of governance adopted in the United States. For example, it is based on inherited rather than elected leadership, selected by female members of the tribes, consensus decision - making regardless of population size of the tribes, and a single group capable of bringing matters before the legislative body. Long - distance trading did not prevent warfare and displacement among the indigenous peoples, and their oral histories tell of numerous migrations to the historic territories where Europeans encountered them. The Iroquois invaded and attacked tribes in the Ohio River area of present - day Kentucky and claimed the hunting grounds. Historians have placed these events as occurring as early as the 13th century, or in the 17th century Beaver Wars. Through warfare, the Iroquois drove several tribes to migrate west to what became known as their historically traditional lands west of the Mississippi River. Tribes originating in the Ohio Valley who moved west included the Osage, Kaw, Ponca and Omaha people. By the mid-17th century, they had resettled in their historical lands in present - day Kansas, Nebraska, Arkansas and Oklahoma. The Osage warred with Caddo - speaking Native Americans, displacing them in turn by the mid-18th century and dominating their new historical territories. European exploration and colonization Main articles : Age of Discovery and European colonization of the Americas Discovery of the Mississippi by William Henry Powell ( 1823 -- 1879 ) is a Romantic depiction of 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. Impact on Native populations Main article : Population history of indigenous peoples of the Americas From the 16th through the 19th centuries, the population of Indians sharply declined. Most mainstream scholars believe that, among the various contributing factors, epidemic disease was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the Native Americans because of their lack of immunity to new diseases brought from Europe. It is difficult to estimate the number of pre-Columbian Native Americans who were living in what is today the United States of America. Estimates range from a low of 2.1 million to a high of 18 million ( Dobyns 1983 ). 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. Chicken pox and measles, endemic but rarely fatal among Europeans ( long after being introduced from Asia ), often proved deadly to Native Americans. 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. 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 Sir Jeffrey Amherst, Commander - in - Chief of the Forces of the British Army, wrote praising the use of smallpox - infected blankets to `` extirpate '' the Indian race. Blankets infected with smallpox were given to Native Americans besieging Fort Pitt. The effectiveness of the attempt is unclear. In 1634, Fr. 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. '' Fr. Andrew '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. '' 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. '' 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. 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. Smallpox epidemics in 1780 -- 82 and 1837 -- 38 brought devastation and drastic depopulation among the Plains Indians. 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. Animal introductions 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. 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. 17th century King Philip 's War Main article : King Philip 's War King Philip 's War, also called Metacom 's War or Metacom 's Rebellion, was the last major armed 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. 18th century Natural society Further information : Great Law of Peace 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. American Revolution 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 colonial defeat would result in a halt to further colonial 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 completely 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. 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 The United States was eager to expand, develop farming and settlements in new areas, and satisfy 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. 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. Washington had a six - point plan for civilization which included : impartial justice toward Native Americans regulated buying of Native American lands promotion of commerce promotion of experiments to civilize or improve Native American society presidential authority to give presents punishing those who violated Native American rights. Benjamin Hawkins, seen here on his plantation, teaches Creek Native Americans how to use European technology, painted in 1805 In the late 18th century, reformers starting with Washington and Knox, supported educating native children and adults, in efforts to `` civilize '' or otherwise assimilate Native Americans to 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 on Native American improvement. 19th century Following the US takeover of California, famine, violence, and starvation caused the reduction of the indigenous population of California from 150,000 in 1848 to just 15,000 in 1900. 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. 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. Westward expansion Tecumseh was the Shawnee leader of Tecumseh 's War who attempted to organize an alliance of Native American tribes throughout North America. 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 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. 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. This resulted in the Trail of Tears. Mass grave for the dead Lakota following the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, which took place during the Indian Wars in the 19th century 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. Manifest Destiny had serious consequences for Native Americans, since continental expansion for the United States took place at the cost of their occupied land. 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 ). 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. Notable conflicts in this period include the Dakota War, Great Sioux War, Snake War and Colorado War. 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 do n'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 should n't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth. The Ghost Dance ritual, which the Lakota believed would reunite the living with spirits of the dead, cause the white invaders to vanish, and bring peace, prosperity, and unity to Indian peoples throughout the region Among the most notable events during the wars was the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. 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. On December 29 at Wounded Knee, gunfire erupted, and U.S. soldiers killed up to 300 Indians, mostly old men, women, and children. Civil War For more details on this topic, see Native Americans in the American Civil War. Ely Parker was a Union Civil War General who wrote the terms of surrender between the United States and the Confederate States of America. 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. 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. 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. A few Native American tribes, such as the Creek and the Choctaw, were slaveholders and found a political and economic commonality with the Confederacy. The Choctaw owned over 2,000 slaves. Removals and reservations Main article : Cultural assimilation of Native Americans Further information : List of Indian reservations in the United States Further information : Native American reservation politics 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. The 1864 deportation of the Navajos by the U.S. government occurred when 8,000 Navajos were forced to an internment camp in Bosque Redondo, where, under armed guards, more than 3,500 Navajo and Mescalero Apache men, women, and children died from starvation and disease. Native Americans and U.S. citizenship 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 ''. Factors establishing citizenship included : Treaty provision ( as with the Cherokee ) Registration and land allotment under the Dawes Act of February 8, 1887 Issuance of Patent in Fee simple Adopting Habits of Civilized Life Minor Children Citizenship by Birth Becoming Soldiers and Sailors in the U.S. Armed Forces Marriage to a U.S. citizen 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 ''. Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 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. Education Main article : Indian boarding schools 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. 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. Before the 1930s, schools on the reservations provided no schooling beyond the sixth grade. To obtain more, boarding school was usually necessary. 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 BIA brought in progressive educators to reshape Indian education. The Bureau of Indian Affairs ( 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. 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. 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. 20th century Charles Curtis, of Kaw, Osage, Potawatomi, French and British ancestry from Kansas, was 31st Vice President of the United States, 1929 -- 1933, serving with 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. 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. 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 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. The Act extended citizenship to `` all non-citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States. '' 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. Mid-century, the Indian termination policy and the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 marked a new direction for assimilating Native Americans into urban life. 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. World War II For more details on this topic, see Native Americans and World War II. 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. 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. 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. 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. Self - determination Main articles : Native American self - determination and Native American civil rights 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. 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. 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 in the FBI deaths. 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. 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. Tribal colleges Main article : Tribal colleges and universities 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. 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. 21st century Byron Mallott, an Alaska Native, is the current Democratic lieutenant governor of Alaska. In 2009, an `` apology to Native Peoples of the United States '' was included in the defense appropriations act. It states 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. '' 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. 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 Minneapolis, Denver, Albuquerque, Phoenix, Tucson, Chicago, Oklahoma City, Houston, New York City, Los Angeles, and Rapid City. Many lived in poverty. Racism, unemployment, drugs and gangs were common problems which Indian social service organizations such as the Little Earth housing complex in Minneapolis attempted to address. Grassroots efforts to support urban Indigenous populations have also taken place, as in the case of Bringing the Circle Together in Los Angeles. Demographics Further information : Modern social statistics of Native Americans Historical population The census counted 248,000 Indians in 1890, 332,000 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. American Indian, Inuit, and Aleut % of Population by U.S. State ( 1890 -- 2010 ) State / Territory 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 2000 United States 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 % Alabama 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 % Alaska 16.0 % 15.6 % 15.6 % 14.8 % Arizona 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 % Arkansas 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 % California 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 % Colorado 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 % Connecticut 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 % Delaware 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 % District of Columbia 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 % Florida 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 % Georgia 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 % Hawaii 0.1 % 0.1 % 0.3 % 0.5 % 0.3 % 0.3 % Idaho 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 % Illinois 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 % Indiana 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 % Iowa 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 % Kansas 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 % Kentucky 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 % Louisiana 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 % Maine 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 % Maryland 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 % Massachusetts 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 % Michigan 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 % Minnesota 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 % Mississippi 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 % Missouri 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 % Montana 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 % Nebraska 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 % Nevada 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 % New Hampshire 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 % New Jersey 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 % New Mexico 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 % New York 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 % North Carolina 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 % North Dakota 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 % Ohio 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 % Oklahoma 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 % Oregon 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 % Pennsylvania 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 % Rhode Island 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 % South Carolina 0.0 % 0.0 % 0.0 % 0.0 % 0.1 % 0.1 % 0.1 % 0.2 % 0.2 % 0.3 % 0.4 % South Dakota 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 % Tennessee 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 % Texas 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 % Utah 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 % Vermont 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 % Virginia 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 % Washington 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 % West Virginia 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 % Wisconsin 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 % Wyoming 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 % Puerto Rico 0.4 % 0.5 % Population and distribution The 2010 census permitted respondents to self - identify as being of one or more races. Self - identification dates from the census of 1960 ; prior to that the race of the respondent was determined by opinion of the census taker. The option to select more than one race was introduced in 2000. If American Indian or Alaska Native was selected, the form requested the individual provide the name of the `` enrolled or principal tribe ''. The 2010 Census showed that the U.S. population on April 1, 2010, was 308.7 million. Out of the total U.S. population, 2.9 million people, or 0.9 percent, reported American Indian or Alaska Native alone. In addition, 2.3 million people, or another 0.7 percent, reported American Indian or Alaska Native in combination with one or more other races. Together, these two groups totaled 5.2 million people. Thus, 1.7 percent of all people in the United States identified as American Indian or Alaska Native, either alone or in combination with one or more other races. The definition of American Indian or Alaska Native used in the 2010 census : According to Office of Management and Budget, `` American Indian or Alaska Native '' refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America ( including Central America ) and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment. 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. Urban migration As of 2012, 70 % of American Indians 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, Los Angeles, and Rapid City. 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. Distribution by U.S. state 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. According to 2003 United States Census Bureau estimates, a little over one third of the 2,786,652 Native Americans in the United States live in three states : California at 413,382, Arizona at 294,137 and Oklahoma at 279,559. In 2010, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that about 0.8 % of the U.S. population was of American Indian or Alaska Native descent. This population is unevenly distributed across the country. Below, all fifty states, as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, are listed by the proportion of residents citing American Indian or Alaska Native ancestry, based on the 2010 U.S. Census. Alaska -- 14.8 % 104,871 New Mexico -- 9.4 % 193,222 South Dakota -- 8.8 % 71,817 Oklahoma -- 8.6 % 321,687 Montana -- 6.3 % 62,555 North Dakota -- 5.4 % 36,591 Arizona -- 4.6 % 296,529 Wyoming -- 2.4 % 13,336 Washington -- 1.5 % 103,869 Oregon -- 1.4 % 53,203 Idaho -- 1.4 % 21,441 North Carolina -- 1.3 % 122,110 Utah -- 1.2 % 32,927 Nevada -- 1.2 % 32,062 Nebraska -- 1.2 % 18,427 Minnesota -- 1.1 % 60,916 Colorado -- 1.1 % 56,010 California -- 1.0 % 362,801 Wisconsin -- 1.0 % 54,526 Kansas -- 1.0 % 28,150 Arkansas -- 0.8 % 22,248 Texas -- 0.7 % 170,972 Louisiana -- 0.7 % 30,579 New York -- 0.6 % 106,906 Michigan -- 0.6 % 62,007 Alabama -- 0.6 % 28,218 Maine -- 0.6 % 8,568 Rhode Island -- 0.6 % 6,058 Missouri -- 0.5 % 27,376 Puerto Rico -- 0.5 % 19,839 Mississippi -- 0.5 % 15,030 Delaware -- 0.5 % 4,181 Florida -- 0.4 % 71,458 Virginia -- 0.4 % 29,225 Maryland -- 0.4 % 20,420 South Carolina -- 0.4 % 19,524 Iowa -- 0.4 % 11,084 Vermont -- 0.4 % 2,207 Illinois -- 0.3 % 43,963 Georgia -- 0.3 % 32,151 New Jersey -- 0.3 % 29,026 Tennessee -- 0.3 % 19,994 Massachusetts -- 0.3 % 18,850 Indiana -- 0.3 % 18,462 Connecticut -- 0.3 % 11,256 Hawaii -- 0.3 % 4,164 District of Columbia -- 0.3 % 2,079 Pennsylvania -- 0.2 % 26,843 Ohio -- 0.2 % 25,292 Kentucky -- 0.2 % 10,120 West Virginia -- 0.2 % 3,787 New Hampshire -- 0.2 % 3,150 In 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau estimated that about less than 1.0 % of the U.S. population was of Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander descent. This population is unevenly distributed across twenty - six states. Below, are the twenty - six states that had at least 0.1 %. They are listed by the proportion of residents citing Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander ancestry, based on 2006 estimates : Hawaii -- 8.7 Utah -- 0.7 Alaska -- 0.6 California -- 0.4 Nevada -- 0.4 Washington -- 0.4 Arizona -- 0.2 Oregon -- 0.2 Alabama -- 0.1 Arkansas -- 0.1 Colorado -- 0.1 Florida -- 0.1 Idaho -- 0.1 Kentucky -- 0.1 Maryland -- 0.1 Massachusetts -- 0.1 Missouri -- 0.1 Montana -- 0.1 New Mexico -- 0.1 North Carolina -- 0.1 Oklahoma -- 0.1 South Carolina -- 0.1 Texas -- 0.1 Virginia -- 0.1 West Virginia -- 0.1 Wyoming -- 0.1 Population by tribal grouping Below are numbers for U.S. citizens self - identifying to selected tribal grouping, according to the 2000 U.S. census. Tribal grouping American Indian and Alaska Native alone American Indian and Alaska Native in combination with one or more races American Indian and Alaska Native tribal grouping alone or in any combination One tribal grouping reported More than one tribal grouping reported One tribal grouping reported More than one tribal grouping reported Total 2,423,531 52,425 1,585,396 57,949 4,119,301 Apache 57,060 7,917 24,947 6,909 96,833 Blackfeet 27,104 4,358 41,389 12,899 85,750 Cherokee 281,069 18,793 390,902 38,769 729,533 Cheyenne 11,191 1,365 4,655 993 18,204 Chickasaw 20,887 3,014 12,025 2,425 38,351 Chippewa 105,907 2,730 38,635 2,397 149,669 Choctaw 87,349 9,552 50,123 11,750 158,774 Colville 7,833 193 1,308 59 9,393 Comanche 10,120 1,568 6,120 1,568 19,376 Cree 2,488 724 3,577 945 7,734 Creek 40,223 5,495 21,652 3,940 71,310 Crow 9,117 574 2,812 891 13,394 Delaware ( Lenape ) 8,304 602 6,866 569 16,341 Houma 6,798 79 1,794 42 8,713 Iroquois 45,212 2,318 29,763 3,529 80,822 Kiowa 8,559 1,130 2,119 434 12,242 Latin American Indian 104,354 1,850 73,042 1,694 180,940 Lumbee 55,913 642 4,934 379 57,868 Menominee 7,883 258 1,551 148 9,840 Navajo 269,202 6,789 19,491 2,715 298,197 Osage 7,658 1,354 5,491 1,394 15,897 Ottawa 6,432 623 3,174 448 10,677 Paiute 9,705 1,163 2,315 349 13,532 Pima 8,519 999 1,741 234 11,493 Potawatomi 15,817 592 8,602 584 25,595 Pueblo 59,533 3,527 9,943 1,082 74,085 Puget Sound Salish 11,034 226 3,212 159 14,631 Seminole 12,431 2,982 9,505 2,513 27,431 Shoshone 7,739 714 3,039 534 12,026 Sioux 108,272 4,794 35,179 5,115 153,360 Tohono O'odham 17,466 714 1,748 159 20,087 Ute 7,309 715 1,944 417 10,385 Yakama 8,481 561 1,619 190 10,851 Yaqui 15,224 1,245 5,184 759 22,412 Yuman 7,295 526 1,051 104 8,976 Other specified American Indian tribes 240,521 9,468 100,346 7,323 357,658 American Indian tribe, not specified 109,644 57 86,173 28 195,902 Alaskan Athabaskans 14,520 815 3,218 285 18,838 Aleut 11,941 832 3,850 355 16,978 Eskimo 45,919 1,418 6,919 505 54,761 Tlingit - Haida 14,825 1,059 6,047 434 22,365 Other specified Alaska Native tribes 2,552 435 841 145 3,973 Alaska Native tribe, not specified 6,161 370 2,053 118 8,702 American Indian or Alaska Native tribes, not specified 511,960 ( X ) 544,497 ( X ) 1,056,457 Current legal status Main articles : Tribal sovereignty in the United States and Native American tribe There are 566 federally recognized tribal governments in the United States. These tribes possess the right to form their own governments, to enforce laws ( both civil and criminal ) within their lands, to tax, to establish requirements for membership, to license and regulate activities, to zone, and to exclude persons from tribal territories. Limitations on tribal powers of self - government include the same limitations applicable to states ; for example, neither tribes nor states have the power to make war, engage in foreign relations, or coin money ( this includes paper currency ). Many Native Americans and advocates of Native American rights point out that the U.S. federal government 's claim to recognize the `` sovereignty '' of Native American peoples falls short, given that the United States wishes to govern Native American peoples and treat them as subject to U.S. law. Such advocates contend that full respect for Native American sovereignty would require the U.S. government to deal with Native American peoples in the same manner as any other sovereign nation, handling matters related to relations with Native Americans through the Secretary of State, rather than the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Bureau of Indian Affairs reports on its website that its `` responsibility is the administration and management of 55,700,000 acres ( 225,000 km ) of land held in trust by the United States for American Indians, Indian tribes, and Alaska Natives ''. Many Native Americans and advocates of Native American rights believe that it is condescending for such lands to be considered `` held in trust '' and regulated in any fashion by other than their own tribes, whether the U.S. or Canadian governments, or any other non-Native American authority. As of 2000, the largest groups in the United States by population were Navajo, Cherokee, Choctaw, Sioux, Chippewa, Apache, Blackfeet, Iroquois, and Pueblo. In 2000, eight of ten Americans with Native American ancestry were of mixed ancestry. It is estimated that by 2100 that figure will rise to nine out of ten. In addition, there are a number of tribes that are recognized by individual states, but not by the federal government. The rights and benefits associated with state recognition vary from state to state. Some tribal groups have been unable to document the cultural continuity required for federal recognition. The Muwekma Ohlone of the San Francisco bay area are pursuing litigation in the federal court system to establish recognition. Many of the smaller eastern tribes, long considered remnants of extinct peoples, have been trying to gain official recognition of their tribal status. Several tribes in Virginia and North Carolina have gained state recognition. Federal recognition confers some benefits, including the right to label arts and crafts as Native American and permission to apply for grants that are specifically reserved for Native Americans. But gaining federal recognition as a tribe is extremely difficult ; to be established as a tribal group, members have to submit extensive genealogical proof of tribal descent and continuity of the tribe as a culture. Native peoples are concerned about the effects of abandoned uranium mines on or near their lands. In July 2000, the Washington State Republican Party adopted a resolution recommending that the federal and legislative branches of the U.S. government terminate tribal governments. In 2007, a group of Democratic Party congressmen and congresswomen introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives to `` terminate '' the Cherokee Nation. This was related to their voting to exclude Cherokee Freedmen as members of the tribe unless they had a Cherokee ancestor on the Dawes Rolls, although all Cherokee Freedmen and their descendants had been members since 1866. As of 2004, various Native Americans are wary of attempts by others to gain control of their reservation lands for natural resources, such as coal and uranium in the West. In the state of Virginia, Native Americans face a unique problem. Virginia has no federally recognized tribes but the state has recognized eight. This is related historically to the greater impact of disease and warfare on the Virginia Indian populations, as well as their intermarriage with Europeans and Africans. Some people confused the ancestry with culture, but groups of Virginia Indians maintained their cultural continuity. Most of their early reservations were ended under the pressure of early European settlement. Some historians also note the problems of Virginia Indians in establishing documented continuity of identity, due to the work of Walter Ashby Plecker ( 1912 -- 1946 ). As registrar of the state 's Bureau of Vital Statistics, he applied his own interpretation of the one - drop rule, enacted in law in 1924 as the state 's Racial Integrity Act. It recognized only two races : `` white '' and `` colored ''. Plecker, a segregationist, believed that the state 's Native Americans had been `` mongrelized '' by intermarriage with African Americans ; to him, ancestry determined identity, rather than culture. He thought that some people of partial black ancestry were trying to `` pass '' as Native Americans. Plecker thought that anyone with any African heritage had to be classified as colored, regardless of appearance, amount of European or Native American ancestry, and cultural / community identification. Plecker pressured local governments into reclassifying all Native Americans in the state as `` colored '', and gave them lists of family surnames to examine for reclassification based on his interpretation of data and the law. This led to the state 's destruction of accurate records related to families and communities who identified as Native American ( as in church records and daily life ). By his actions, sometimes different members of the same family were split by being classified as `` white '' or `` colored ''. He did not allow people to enter their primary identification as Native American in state records. In 2009, the Senate Indian Affairs Committee endorsed a bill that would grant federal recognition to tribes in Virginia. To achieve federal recognition and its benefits, tribes must prove continuous existence since 1900. The federal government has maintained this requirement, in part because through participation on councils and committees, federally recognized tribes have been adamant about groups ' satisfying the same requirements as they did. Contemporary issues Main article : Contemporary Native American issues in the United States Native American struggles amid poverty to maintain life on the reservation or in larger society have resulted in a variety of health issues, some related to nutrition and health practices. The community suffers a vulnerability to and disproportionately high rate of alcoholism. It has long been recognized that Native Americans are dying of diabetes, alcoholism, tuberculosis, suicide, and other health conditions at shocking rates. Beyond disturbingly high mortality rates, Native Americans also suffer a significantly lower health status and disproportionate rates of disease compared with all other Americans. -- U.S. Commission on Civil Rights ( September 2004 ) Part of a series on Indigenous rights Rights Ancestral domain Intellectual property Land rights Language Traditional knowledge Treaty rights Governmental organizations AADNC ACHPR Arctic Council Bureau of Indian Affairs CDI Council of Indigenous Peoples FUNAI NCIP UNPFII NGOs and political groups AFN Amazon Watch CAP COICA CONAIE Cultural Survival EZLN fPcN IPACC IPCB IWGIA NARF ONIC Survival International UNPO more... Issues Civilizing mission Manifest Destiny Lands inhabited by indigenous peoples Discovery doctrine Indigenism Legal representation ILO 107 ILO 169 United Nations Declaration Category Societal discrimination and Racism Further information : Stereotypes of Native Americans 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. Affirmative action issues 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 ''. 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 ''. 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. '' 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. Native American mascots in sports Main article : Native American mascot controversy Protest against the name of the Washington Redskins in Minneapolis, November 2014 A student acting as Chief Osceola, the Florida State University mascot American Indian activists in the United States and Canada have criticized the use of Native American mascots in sports, as perpetuating stereotypes. 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. Further information : NCAA Native American mascot decision Among professional teams, only the NBA 's Golden State Warriors discontinued use of Native American - themed logos in 1971. Controversy has remained regarding teams such as the NFL 's Washington Redskins, whose name is considered to be a racial slur, and MLB 's Cleveland Indians, whose usage of a caricature called Chief Wahoo has also faced protest. Historical depictions in art 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. 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. 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. 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 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 ''. 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. Terminology differences Further information : Native American name controversy Common usage in the United States Native Americans are often known as Indians or American Indians. 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, and to avoid negative stereotypes associated with the term Indian. Many indigenous Americans, however, prefer the term American Indian and many tribes include the word Indian in their formal title. Criticism of the neologism Native American comes from diverse sources. Russell Means, an American Indian activist, opposed the term Native American because he believed it was imposed by the government without the consent of American Indians. He has also argued that the use of the word Indian derives not from a confusion with India but from a Spanish expression En Dio, meaning `` in God ''. A 1995 U.S. Census Bureau survey found that more Native Americans in the United States preferred American Indian to Native American. Most American Indians are comfortable with Indian, American Indian, and Native American, and the terms are often used interchangeably. The traditional term is reflected in the name chosen for the National Museum of the American Indian, which opened in 2004 on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Gambling industry Sandia Casino, owned by the Sandia Pueblo of New Mexico Main article : Native American gaming 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. 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. Financial services 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. Crime on reservations Prosecution of serious crime, historically endemic on reservations, was required by the 1885 Major Crimes Act, 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. 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. Navajo country recently reported 225 gangs in its territory. 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. 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. According to Professor N. Bruce Duthu, `` More than 80 percent of Indian victims identify their attacker as non-Indian ''. Trauma Trauma among American Indians can be seen through historical and intergenerational trauma and can be directly related the abuse of alcohol and substances among American Indian populations. Historical Trauma Historical trauma is described as collective emotional and psychological damage throughout a person 's lifetime and across multiple generations. Examples of historical trauma can be seen through the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890, where over 200 unarmed Lakota were killed, and the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887, when American Indians lost four - fifths of their land. Impacts of intergenerational Trauma American Indian youth have higher rates of substance and alcohol abuse deaths than the general population. Many American Indians can trace the beginning of their substance and alcohol abuse to a traumatic event related to their offender 's own substance abuse. A person 's substance abuse can be described as a defense mechanism against the user 's emotions and trauma. 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. Boarding schools were made to `` Kill the Indian, Save the man ''. Shame among American Indians can be attributed to the hundreds of years of discrimination. Solutions American Indians do not view mind, body, and soul as separate from each other or themselves as the Western worldview does. American Indians believe all is connected and related to each other. American Indian psychologists have been asked to use mental health practices that cultivate American Indian values rather than using conventional ways of counseling. The Wellbriety Movement creates a space for American Indians to learn how to reconnect with their culture by using culturally specific principles to become and remain sober. Some examples are burning sage, cedar, and sweetgrass as a means to cleanse physical and spiritual spaces, verbally saying prayers and singing in one 's own tribal language, and participating in tribal drum groups and ceremonies as part of meetings and gatherings. Society, language, and culture Main article : Native American cultures of the United States Three Native American women in Warm Springs Indian Reservation, Wasco County, Oregon. ( 1902 ) Though cultural features, language, clothing, and customs vary enormously from one tribe to another, there are certain elements which are encountered frequently and shared by many tribes. Early European American scholars described the Native Americans as having a society dominated by clans. Early hunter - gatherer tribes made stone tools from around 10,000 years ago ; as the age of metallurgy dawned, newer technologies were used and more effective weapons produced. Prior to contact with Europeans, most tribes used similar weaponry. The most common implements were the bow and arrow, the war club, and the spear. Quality, material, and design varied widely. Native American use of fire both helped provide and prepare for food and altered the landscape of the continent to help the human population flourish. Large mammals like mammoths and mastodons were largely extinct by around 8000 BCE. Native Americans switched to hunting other large game, such as bison. The Great Plains tribes were still hunting the bison when they first encountered the Europeans. The Spanish reintroduction of the horse to North America in the 17th century and Native Americans ' learning to use them greatly altered the Native Americans ' culture, including changing the way in which they hunted large game. Horses became such a valuable, central element of Native lives that they were counted as a measure of wealth. Ethno - linguistic Classification Main articles : Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas and Indigenous languages of the Americas Native Americans were divided into several hundred ethno - linguistic groups. A number of English words have been derived from Native American languages. Language Education Oklahoma Cherokee language immersion school student writing in the Cherokee syllabary. The Cherokee language taught to preschoolers as a first language, at Kituwah Academy To counteract a shift to English, some Native American tribes have initiated language immersion schools for children, where a native Indian 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. 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. 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. 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. There is also a Cherokee language immersion school in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, that educates students from pre-school through eighth grade. Because Oklahoma 's official language is English, Cherokee immersion students are hindered when taking state - mandated tests because they have little competence in English. 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. 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. Ultimately, the school made a C, or a 2.33 grade point average on the state 's A-F report card system. 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. `` 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. '' 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. 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. See also : Massachusett language § Current status Society and art Further information : petroglyph, pictogram, petroform, Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous ceramics of the Americas, and Native American jewelry 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. 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. 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 high - quality pottery and formalized pictorial arts. Navajo spirituality focused on the maintenance of a harmonious relationship with the spirit world, often achieved by ceremonial acts, usually incorporating sandpainting. The colors -- made from sand, charcoal, cornmeal, and pollen -- depicted specific spirits. These vivid, intricate, and colorful sand creations were erased at the end of the ceremony. Agriculture Further information : Native American cuisine Maize grown by Native Americans Chippewa baby waits on a cradleboard while parents tend rice crops ( Minnesota, 1940 ). An early crop the Native Americans grew was squash. Other early crops included cotton, sunflower, pumpkins, tobacco, goosefoot, knotgrass, and sump weed. Agriculture in the southwest started around 4,000 years ago when traders brought cultigens from Mexico. Due to the varying climate, some ingenuity was needed for agriculture to be successful. The climate in the southwest ranged from cool, moist mountains regions, to dry, sandy soil in the desert. Some innovations of the time included irrigation to bring water into the dry regions and the selection of seed based on the traits of the growing plants that bore them. In the southwest, they grew beans that were self - supported, much like the way they are grown today. In the east, however, they were planted next to corn in order for the vines to be able to `` climb '' the cornstalks. The most important crop the Native Americans raised was maize. It was first started in Mesoamerica and spread north. About 2,000 years ago it reached eastern America. This crop was important to the Native Americans because it was part of their everyday diet ; it could be stored in underground pits during the winter, and no part of it was wasted. The husk was made into art crafts, and the cob was used as fuel for fires. By 800 CE the Native Americans had established three main crops -- beans, squash, and corn -- called the three sisters. 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 doing everything, including clearing the land. Clearing the land was an immense chore since the Native Americans rotated fields frequently. There is a tradition that Squanto showed the Pilgrims in New England how to put fish in fields to act like a fertilizer, but the truth of this story is debated. Native Americans did plant beans next to corn ; the beans would replace the nitrogen which the corn took from the ground, as well as using corn stalks for support for climbing. Native Americans used controlled fires to burn weeds and clear fields ; this would put nutrients back into the ground. If this did not work, they would simply abandon the field to let it be fallow, and find a new spot for cultivation. 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. Native Americans 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 mash. It was cooked and eaten that way or baked as corn bread. Religion Further information : Native American religion Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, the patron of ecologists, exiles, and orphans, was canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. Baptism of Pocahontas was painted in 1840. John Gadsby Chapman 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. Traditional Native American ceremonies are still practiced by many tribes and bands, and the older theological belief systems are still held by many of the native people. These spiritualities may accompany adherence to another faith, or can represent a person 's primary religious identity. While much Native American spiritualism exists in a tribal - cultural continuum, and as such can not be easily separated from tribal identity itself, certain other more clearly defined movements have arisen among `` traditional '' Native American practitioners, these being identifiable as `` religions '' in the prototypical sense familiar in the industrialized Western world. Traditional practices of some tribes include the use of sacred 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. The Midewiwin Lodge is a traditional medicine society inspired by the oral traditions 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. 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 ). 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. Gender roles Main articles : Gender roles among the indigenous peoples of North America, Clan Mother, Matriarchy, and Matrilineality Dr. 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 defied colonial or religious expectations of sexuality and gender. For example, joyas, or men who adopted the social and sexual roles of women, were quite common. Whether a particular tribe is predominantly matrilineal or patrilineal, usually 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. 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 recommendation of women elders, who also could disapprove of a chief. In the patrilineal tribes, such as the Omaha, Osage and Ponca, 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. In some tribes, 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 ). In many tribes women 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. In other tribes, the gender roles are not so clear - cut, and are even less so in the modern era. At least several dozen tribes allowed polygyny to sisters, with procedural and economic limits. Apart from making homes, women have many additional tasks that are also essential for the survival of the tribes. Historically they have made weapons and tools, they take care of the roofs of their homes and often help the men hunt and fish. In many tribes, medicine women gather herbs and cure the ill, while in others men may also be healers. Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota girls are encouraged to learn to ride, hunt and fight. Though fighting in war has mostly been left to the boys and men, occasionally women fought as well - both in battles and in defense of the home - especially if the tribe was severely threatened. Sports 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, Joe Hipp, Notah Begay III, Chris Wondolowski, Jacoby Ellsbury, Joba Chamberlain, Kyle Lohse, Sam Bradford, Jack Brisco, Tommy Morrison, Billy Mills, and Shoni Schimmel are well known professional athletes. Ball players from the Choctaw and Lakota tribe as painted by George Catlin in the 1830s Team sports 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 '' ) ; the Onondaga name was dehuntshigwa'es ( `` men hit a rounded object '' ). There are three basic versions, classified as Great Lakes, Iroquoian, and Southern. 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 ). A Jesuit priest referenced stickball in 1729, and George Catlin painted the subject. Women 's basketball Currently in the WNBA, there are 2 women who are of Native ancestry and enrolled in federally recognized tribes. Angel Goodrich, Cherokee, was selected in the third round of the WNBA draft ( 29th pick overall ) by the Tulsa Shock. At the time she was the highest - drafted Native American player in the history of the WNBA. During the 2013 -- 14 off - season, she played for Chevakata Vologda in the Russian Premier League. ( 10 ) In 2014, she completed her second and final season for the Shock. In 2015, she was picked up on waivers by the Seattle Storm Shoni Schimmel, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, is an American professional basketball player. She was an All - American college player at the University of Louisville and a first round draft pick of the WNBA 's Atlanta Dream. She also earned recognition as the 2014 WNBA All - Star Game Most Valuable Player on July 19, 2014, in Phoenix, Arizona. ( 7 ) Individual sports 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. U.S. Olympics Jim Thorpe, a Sauk and Fox Native American, was an all - round 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. '' 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. He could long jump 23 ft 6 in and high - jump 6 ft 5 in. 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 ). 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. Music and art Main articles : Native American music and Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas 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 and / 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, Tori Amos, Redbone ( members are also of Mexican descent ), and CocoRosie. 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, and was the first person of Native American descent to hold the rank. 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. 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, that prohibits 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. '' Native artists such as Jeanne Rorex Bridges ( Cherokee ) who are not enrolled run the risk of fines or imprisonment if they continue to sell their art while affirming their Indian heritage. Traditional economy The Inuit, or Eskimo, prepared and buried large amounts of dried meat and fish. Pacific Northwest tribes crafted seafaring dugouts 40 -- 50 feet ( 12 -- 15 m ) long for fishing. Farmers in the Eastern Woodlands tended fields of maize with hoes and digging sticks, while their neighbors in the Southeast grew tobacco as well as food crops. On the Plains, some tribes engaged in agriculture but also planned buffalo hunts in which herds were driven over bluffs. Dwellers of the Southwest deserts hunted small animals and gathered acorns to grind into flour with which they baked wafer - thin bread on top of heated stones. Some groups on the region 's mesas developed irrigation techniques, and filled storehouses with grain as protection against the area 's frequent droughts. In the early years, as these native peoples encountered European explorers and settlers and engaged in trade, they exchanged food, crafts, and furs for blankets, iron and steel implements, horses, trinkets, firearms, and alcoholic beverages. Contemporary barriers to economic development Makah Native Americans and a whale, pictured in 1910 by Asahel Curtis. ( The photo 's title is The King of the Seas in the Hands of the Makahs. ) 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. According to a 2007 survey by the U.S. Small Business Administration, only 1 % of Native Americans own and operate a business. Social statistics highlight the challenges faced by Native American communities : highest teen suicide rate of all minorities at 18.5 per 100,000, highest rate of teen pregnancy, highest high school drop - out rate at 54 %, lowest per capita income, and unemployment rates between 50 % and 90 %. The barriers to economic development on Native American reservations have been identified by Joseph Kalt and Stephen Cornell 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 ), 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 can not persuade investors to locate on reservations because of intense competition from non-Native American communities The Bureau of Indian Affairs is inept, corrupt, and / 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. ( 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 Tribal cultures get in the way 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 curricula 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 ''. Rez Biz magazine addresses these issues. Lillian Gross, described as a `` Mixed Blood '' by the Smithsonian source, was of Cherokee and European - American heritage. She identified with the Cherokee culture in which she was raised. Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans Interracial relations between Native Americans, Europeans, and Africans is a complex issue that has been mostly neglected with `` few in - depth studies on interracial relationships ''. Some of the first documented cases of European / Native American intermarriage and contact were recorded in Post-Columbian Mexico. One case is that of Gonzalo Guerrero, a European from Spain, who was shipwrecked along the Yucatan Peninsula, and fathered three Mestizo children with a Mayan noblewoman. Another is the case of Hernán Cortés and his mistress La Malinche, who gave birth to another of the first multi-racial people in the Americas. Assimilation Further information : Cultural assimilation of Native Americans The 1725 return of an Osage bride from a trip to Paris, France. The Osage woman was married to a French soldier. European impact was immediate, widespread, and profound already during the early years of colonization and nationhood. 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 ''. Early contact was often charged with tension and emotion, but also had moments of friendship, cooperation, and intimacy. Marriages took place in English, Spanish, and French colonies between Native Americans and Europeans. Given the preponderance of men among the colonists in the early years, generally European men married American Indian women. Five Indians and a Captive, painted by Carl Wimar, 1855 There was fear on both sides, as the different peoples realized how different their societies were. The whites regarded the Indians as `` savage '' because they were not Christian. They were suspicious of cultures which they did not understand. 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 Indians suffered because the Europeans introduced alcohol and the whiskey trade resulted in alcoholism among the people, who were alcohol - intolerant. 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. The U.S. government had two purposes when making land agreements with Native Americans : to open it up more land for white settlement, and to ease tensions 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. 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. 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. Charles Eastman was one of the first Native Americans to become certified as a medical doctor, after he graduated from Boston University. 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 ''. 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. 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 descent 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. European enslavement Main article : Slavery among Native Americans in the United States 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. Scholars estimate tens of thousands of Native Americans may have been enslaved by the Europeans, being sold by Native Americans themselves. Slaves became a caste of people who were foreign to the English ( Native Americans, Africans and their descendants ) and non-Christians. The Virginia General Assembly defined some terms of slavery 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 The slave trade of Native Americans lasted only until around 1730. 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. Native American women were at risk for rape whether they were enslaved or not ; during the early colonial years, settlers were disproportionately male. They turned to Native women for sexual relationships. Both Native American and African enslaved women suffered rape and sexual harassment by male slaveholders and other white men. Native American slavery Further information : Slavery among Native Americans in the United States and Slavery among Indigenous peoples of the Americas Traditions of Native American slavery 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. The conditions of enslaved Native Americans varied among the tribes. In many cases, young enslaved captives were adopted into the tribes to replace warriors killed during warfare or by disease. Other tribes practiced debt slavery or imposed slavery on tribal members who had committed crimes, but this status was only temporary as the enslaved worked off their obligations to the tribal society. Other Native American groups, such as those of the Pacific Northwest, tended to own slaves, with up to a quarter of some tribal populations consisting of slaves. They were typically captured by raids on enemy tribes, or purchased on intertribal slave markets. Slaves would often be killed in potlatches, to signify the owners ' contempt for property. Slave raids, especially among the Haida of Canada and Alaska, would often go far off from the points of origin, with some slave raids going as far south as California. Slavery was a hereditary position -- children of slaves were fated to be slaves themselves. Native American and African relations Further information : Black Indians 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. 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. The `` Catawaba tribe in 1752 showed great anger and bitter resentment when an African American came among them as a trader ''. To gain favor with Europeans, the Cherokee exhibited the strongest color prejudice of all Native Americans. He contends that because of European fears of a unified revolt of Native Americans and African Americans, the colonists encouraged hostility between the ethnic groups : `` Whites sought to convince Native Americans that African Americans worked against their best interests. '' 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. 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. 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. Ras K'Dee, Pomo - Kenyan singer and editor from California `` 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. '' 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. 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. 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. 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 ). European colonists often required the return of runaway slaves to be included as a provision in treaties with American Indians. In 1726, the British Governor of New York exacted a promise from the Iroquois to return all runaway slaves who had joined up with them. In the mid-1760s, the government requested the Huron and Delaware to return runaway slaves, but there was no record of slaves having been returned. Colonists placed ads about runaway slaves. 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. Among the Cherokee, records show that slave holders in the tribe were largely the children of European men that had shown their children the economics of slavery. As European colonists took slaves into frontier areas, there were more opportunities for relationships between African and Native American peoples. Based on the work of geneticists, a PBS series on African Americans explained that while most African Americans are racially mixed, it is relatively rare that they have Native American ancestry. According to the PBS series, the most common `` non-black '' mix is English and Scots - Irish. ( Some critics thought the PBS series did not sufficiently explain the limitations of DNA testing for assessment of heritage. ) Another study suggests that relatively few Native Americans have African - American heritage. A study reported in The American Journal of Human Genetics stated, `` We analyzed the European genetic contribution to 10 populations of African descent in the United States ( Maywood, Illinois ; Detroit ; New York ; Philadelphia ; Pittsburgh ; Baltimore ; Charleston, South Carolina ; New Orleans ; and Houston )... mtDNA haplogroups analysis shows no evidence of a significant maternal Amerindian contribution to any of the 10 populations. '' A few writers persist in the myth that most African Americans have Native American heritage. DNA testing has limitations and should not be depended on by individuals to answer all their questions about heritage. So far, such testing can not distinguish among the many distinct Native American tribes. No tribes accept DNA testing to satisfy their differing qualifications for membership, usually based on documented blood quantum or descent from ancestor ( s ) listed on the Dawes Rolls. Native American adoption of African slavery Further information : Cherokee freedmen controversy Native Americans interacted with enslaved Africans and African Americans on many levels. Over time all the cultures interacted. Native Americans began slowly to adopt white culture. Native Americans in the South shared some experiences with Africans, especially during the period, primarily in the 17th century, when both were enslaved. The colonists along the Atlantic Coast had begun enslaving Native Americans to ensure a source of labor. At one time the slave trade was so extensive that it caused increasing tensions with the various Algonquian tribes, as well as the Iroquois. Based in New York and Pennsylvania, they had threatened to attack colonists on behalf of the related Iroquoian Tuscarora before they migrated out of the South in the early 1700s. In the 1790s, Benjamin Hawkins was assigned as the U.S. agent to the southeastern tribes, who became known as the Five Civilized Tribes for their adoption of numerous Anglo - European practices. He advised the tribes to take up slaveholding to aid them in European - style farming and plantations. He thought their traditional form of slavery, which had looser conditions, was less efficient than chattel slavery. In the 19th century, some members of these tribes who were more closely associated with settlers, began to purchase African - American slaves for workers. They adopted some European - American ways to benefit their people. From the late 1700s to the 1860s, the Five Civilized Tribes were involved in the institution of African slavery as planters. For example, Cherokee leader Joseph Vann owned more than 100 slaves. The proportion of Cherokee families who owned slaves did not exceed ten percent, and was comparable to the percentage among white families across the South, where a slaveholding elite owned most of the laborers. The writer William Loren Katz contends that Native Americans treated their slaves better than did the typical white American in the Deep South. Though less than 3 % of Native Americans owned slaves, bondage created destructive cleavages among those who were slaveholders. Among the Five Civilized Tribes, mixed - race slaveholders were generally part of an elite hierarchy, often based on their mothers ' clan status, as the societies had matrilineal systems. As did Benjamin Hawkins, European fur traders and colonial officials tended to marry high - status women, in strategic alliances seen to benefit both sides. The Choctaw, Creek and Cherokee believed they benefited from stronger alliances with the traders and their societies. The women 's sons gained their status from their mother 's families ; they were part of hereditary leadership lines who exercised power and accumulated personal wealth in their changing Native American societies. The historian Greg O'Brien calls them the Creole generation to show that they were part of a changing society. The chiefs of the tribes believed that some of the new generation of mixed - race, bilingual chiefs would lead their people into the future and be better able to adapt to new conditions influenced by European Americans. Proposals for Indian Removal heightened the tensions of cultural changes, due to the increase in the number of mixed - race Native Americans in the South. Full bloods, who tended to live in areas less affected by colonial encroachment, generally worked to maintain traditional ways, including control of communal lands. While the traditional members often resented the sale of tribal lands to Anglo - Americans, by the 1830s they agreed it was not possible to go to war with the colonists on this issue. Racial identity In the 2010 Census, nearly 3 million people indicated that their race was Native American ( including Alaska Native ). Of these, more than 27 % specifically indicated `` Cherokee '' as their ethnic origin. Many of the First Families of Virginia claim descent from Pocahontas or some other `` Indian princess ''. This phenomenon has been dubbed the `` Cherokee Syndrome ''. Across the US, numerous individuals cultivate an opportunistic ethnic identity as Native American, sometimes through Cherokee heritage groups or Indian Wedding Blessings. Many tribes, especially those in the Eastern United States, are primarily made up of individuals with an unambiguous Native American identity, despite being predominantly of European ancestry. Point in case, more than 75 % of those enrolled in the Cherokee Nation have less than one - quarter Cherokee blood, and the current Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, Bill John Baker, is 1 / 32 Cherokee, amounting to about 3 %. Historically, numerous Native Americans assimilated into colonial and later American society, e.g. through adopting English and converting to Christianity. In many cases, this process occurred through forced assimilation of children sent off to special boarding schools far from their families. Those who could pass for white had the advantage of `` white privilege ''. Today, after generations of racial whitening through hypergamy, many Native Americans are visually indistinguishable from White Americans, unlike mestizos in the United States, who may in fact have little or no non-indigenous ancestry. Native Americans are more likely than any other racial group to practice racial exogamy, resulting in an ever - declining proportion of indigenous blood among those who claim a Native American identity. Some tribes will even resort to disenrollment of tribal members unable to provide scientific `` proof '' of Native ancestry, usually through a Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood. Disenrollment has become a contentious issue in Native American reservation politics. Admixture and Genetics Members of the Creek ( Muscogee ) Nation in Oklahoma around 1877 ; they include men with some European and African ancestry. 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. Bands or entire tribes occasionally split or merged to form more viable groups in reaction to the pressures of climate, disease and warfare. 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. 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. DNA testing is not sufficient to qualify a person for specific tribal membership, as it can not distinguish among Native American tribes. 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. 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. Tribal membership 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 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. Requirements for tribal membership vary widely by tribe. The Cherokee require documented direct genealogical descent from a Native American listed on the early 1906 Dawes Rolls. Tribal rules regarding recognition of members who have heritage from multiple tribes are equally diverse and complex. Tribal membership conflicts have led to a number of legal disputes, court cases, and the formation of activist groups. One example of this are 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. Increased self - identification Since the census of 2000, people may identify as being of more than one race. 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. 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. Genetics Main article : Genetic history of indigenous peoples of the Americas See also : Y - DNA haplogroups in Indigenous peoples of the Americas 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. Autosomal `` atDNA '' markers are also used, but differ from mtDNA or Y - DNA in that they overlap significantly. Autosomal DNA is generally used to measure the average continent - of - ancestry genetic admixture in the entire human genome and related isolated populations. 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. The former is the determinant factor for the number of gene lineages, zygosity mutations and founding haplotypes present in today 's Indigenous Amerindian populations. 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. 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. 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. This suggests that the paleo - Indian migrants into the northern extremes of North America and Greenland were descended from a later, independent migrant population. See also Indigenous peoples of North America portal United States portal Federally recognized tribes Indian Actors Association ( Federally ) unrecognized tribes List of Alaska Native tribal entities List of Indian reservations in the United States List of historical Indian reservations in the United States List of notable Native Americans of the United States List of notable writers from peoples indigenous to the Americas National Park Service Native American Heritage Sites Native American mythology Native Americans in popular culture Outline of United States federal Indian law and policy Suicide among Native Americans in the United States State recognized tribes in the United States Indigenous peoples of the Americas Sexual victimization of native American women Further reading Adams, David Wallace. Education for Extinction : American Indians and the Boarding School Experience 1875 -- 1928, University Press of Kansas, 1975. ISBN 0 - 7006 - 0735 - 8 ( hbk ) ; ISBN 0 - 7006 - 0838 - 9 ( pbk ). Anderson, Owanah. Jamestown Commitment : the Episcopal Church ( i.e. the Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A. ) and the American Indian. Cincinnati, Ohio : Forward Movement Publications, 1988. 170 p. ISBN 0 - 88028 - 082 - 4 Barak, Gregg, Paul Leighton, and Jeanne Flavin. Class, Race, Gender, and Crime : The Social Realities of Justice in America. Lanham, MD : Rowman and Littlefield, 2010. ISBN 978 - 0 - 7425 - 9969 - 7. Bierhorst, John. A Cry from the Earth : Music of North American Indians. ISBN 0 - 941270 - 53 - X. Deloria, Vine. 1969. Custer Died for Your Sins : An Indian Manifesto. New York : Macmillan. Dunbar - Ortiz, Roxanne ( February 2015 ). `` Native Land and African Bodies, the Source of U.S. Capitalism '', in Monthly Review, Volume 66, Number 9. 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University of Nebraska Press ( 1998 ). ISBN 0 - 8032 - 8377 - 6. Pohl, Frances K. ( 2002 ). Framing America : A Social History of American Art. New York : Thames & Hudson. pp. 54 -- 56, 105 -- 106 & 110 -- 111. ISBN 0 - 500 - 23792 - 1. Archived from the original on August 8, 2007. Shanley, Kathryn Winona ( 1997 ). `` The Indians America Loves to Love and Read : American Indian Identity and Cultural Appropriation ''. American Indian Quarterly. 21 ( 4 ) : 675 -- 702. doi : 10.2307 / 1185719. JSTOR 1185719. Archived from the original on 2011 - 03 - 15. Shanley, Kathryn Winona ( 2004 ). `` The Paradox of Native American Indian Intellectualism and Literature ''. Melus. 29. Shohat, Ella ; Stam, Robert ( 1994 ). Unthinking Eurocentrism : Multiculturalism and the Media. New York : Routledge. ISBN 0 - 415 - 06324 - 8. 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( 2004 ). `` The peopling of the New World -- Perspectives from Molecular Anthropology ''. Annual Review of Anthropology. 33 : 551 -- 583. doi : 10.1146 / annurev. anthro. 33.070203. 143932. Jump up ^ A. Torroni ; et al. ( 1992 ). `` Native American Mitochondrial DNA Analysis Indicates That the Amerind and the Nadene Populations Were Founded by Two Independent Migrations ''. Genetics. 130 ( 1 ) : 153 -- 162. PMC 1204788. PMID 1346260. External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to Native Americans in the United States. 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Question: name one indian tribe in the united states
Answer: the Iroquois