Native American History

For Indigenous people, the small, cylindrical beads crafted from purple and white shells served many purposes—just not as money.

Since the arrival of European settlers, leadership for America’s Indigenous peoples has disproportionately involved fighting to exist.

After centuries of devastating government policies, American Indians had someone in the White House willing to return tribal land, listen to grievances—and support their autonomy.

When wealthy Native people died during the Osage Reign of Terror, it was often their white spouses and court-appointed guardians who stood to profit most.

After the Japanese invaded the Aleutian Islands, Indigenous volunteers helped form the Alaska Territorial Guard.

Sequoyah spent 12 years working on a writing system for his nation’s language.

The American Indian Movement (AIM) is a grassroots movement for Indigenous rights, founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The group has organized many high-profile protests and occupations, and was a driving force behind the Native American civil rights movement of the 1970s.

There are more than nine million Native Americans living in the United States, representing hundreds of tribal nations with diverse languages, cultures and traditions.

White settlers feared the Lakota's Ghost Dance presaged an armed uprising. But US troops carried out the bloodbath.

He helped establish national parks, forests and game preserves. But much of that land had been stewarded by Indigenous people for generations.

Lincoln signed laws that gave away millions of acres of tribal land. And he approved the mass execution of 38 Dakota Sioux warriors.

The sport, which dates to 1100, was a social event and sometimes played to settle disputes.

In the early 1920s, 25-year-old Ada Blackjack survived two years on the frigid Wrangel Island after a failed expedition to claim the island for Canada.

In the story of the Great Law of Peace, Hiawatha and the Peacemaker convince leaders of the Five Nations to literally bury the hatchet.

The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 drove out the Spanish for 12 years—and saved many Indigenous cultures from being wiped out.

Lozen fought against Mexican and American forces for 30 years, earning the nickname 'Apache Joan of Arc.'

Native American riveting gangs worked on the 'high steel' for iconic structures like the Chrysler Building, Empire State Building, Rockefeller Plaza and more.

Vice President Charles Curtis, a member of the Kaw Nation who served under Herbert Hoover, supported assimilation policies.

For centuries, Indigenous people’s diets were totally based on what could be harvested locally. Then white settlers arrived from Europe.

While Mount Rushmore is considered a treasured destination for some Americans, to Native Americans, it can represent a stinging legacy.

The constitutional framers may have viewed Indigenous people of the Iroquois Confederacy as inferior, but that didn't stop them from admiring their federalist principles.

Horses were first introduced to Native American tribes via European explorers. For the buffalo-hunting Plains Indians, the swift, strong animals quickly became prized.

Indigenous people routinely burned land to drive prey, clear underbrush and provide pastures.

One settlement in modern-day Illinois hosted a population of around 20,000, while another featured multiple-story buildings.

The legendary medicine man and guerrilla warrior was so expert at eluding the enemy, he was considered to be protected by supernatural powers.

From kayaks to contraceptives to pain relievers, Native Americans from a range of tribal nations developed key innovations long before Columbus reached the Americas.

Severe exposure, starvation and disease ravaged tribes during their forced migration to present-day Oklahoma.

A proclamation by King George III set the stage for Native American rights—and the eventual loss of most tribal lands.

The executive order acknowledged state-sponsored violence and discrimination against Native peoples as part of 'California's dark history.'

Fleming Begaye, Sr. was deployed to the Pacific Theater.

There's a long history of Native bones being stolen by individuals and institutions.

At the turn of the century, photographer Edward Curtis spent 30 years documenting more than 80 Native American tribes.

As explorers sought to colonize their land, Native Americans responded in various stages, from cooperation to indignation to revolt.

Native Americans won U.S. citizenship in 1924, but the struggle for voting rights stretched on for much longer.

Lori Ann Piestewa was the first woman to die on the front lines in Iraq and the first American Indian woman to die serving the U.S. Armed Forces.

Crazy Horse was a Lakota leader and warrior who clashed with the U.S. federal government.

In the late 1880s, Weldon was vilified as a harpy who was in love with Sitting Bull. Both she and the Lakota leader would meet tragic fates.

Once they returned home, Native American children struggled to relate to their families after being taught that it was wrong to speak their language or practice their religion.

By the close of the Indian Wars in the late 19th century, fewer than 238,000 Indigenous people remained of the estimated 5 million-plus living in North America before European contact.

Indian reservations were created by the 1851 Indian Appropriations Act as a means for minimizing conflict and encouraging cultural change among Native tribes.

Early American plays portrayed her as a mythical 'Indian princess.'

They resisted government attacks to take their children—and paid the price.

A 15-year-old ban looks likely to fall, but misgivings will linger.

Native American tribes are still seeking the return of their children.

As detailed in <em>Killers of the Flower Moon</em>, the Osage murders were among the most chilling conspiracies in US history—and the FBI’s first major homicide case.

Four centuries after Pocahontas’ death, unlearn everything you thought you knew about this Native American icon.

Susan La Flesche shattered not just one barrier, but two, to become the first Native American woman doctor in the United States in the 1880s.

Check out seven fascinating facts about Geronimo’s life and legend.

Check out seven facts about this infamous chapter in American history.

Get the facts about one of the most legendary Native Americans of the 19th century.

In 1969, a group of rebel activists took over America’s most notorious prison for more than 19 months.

An overheard conversation between three Choctaw Indian soldiers serving in World War I led to a code strategy that confounded enemy forces.

10 surprising facts about the imperial war for colonial domination between Great Britain and France.

It's been overshadowed by other events, but King George III’s decree—which banned colonial settlement west of the Appalachians—was the first in a series of British actions that led to the American Revolution.

Witness to some of the most consequential military interactions between Plains Indians and the US government in the latter part of the 19th century, Black Elk wrote a vivid chronicle of Lakota Sioux history and spiritual traditions.

Sacagawea was a Shoshone Indian woman who accompanied the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804-06, exploring the lands procured in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

When the first European settlers arrived in the region around Narragansett Bay (present-day Rhode Island) around 1635, they encountered a number of Indigenous peoples, including the Algonquian-speaking Narragansett.

The Indian Wars were a series of battles waged for nearly 200 years by European settlers and the U.S. government against Native Americans, primarily over land.

Native Americans, also known as American Indians and Indigenous Americans, are the indigenous peoples of the United States. By the time European adventurers arrived in the 15th century A.D., scholars estimate that more than 50 million Native Americans were already living in the Americas — 10 million in the area that would become the United States.

The Battle of the Little Bighorn, also called Custer’s Last Stand, marked the most decisive Native American victory and the worst U.S. Army defeat in the long Plains Indian War. It was fought on June 25, 1876 near the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory.

The Trail of Tears was the deadly route used by Native Americans when forced off their ancestral lands and into Oklahoma by the Indian Removal Act of 1830.

Tecumseh was a Shawnee chief who organized a Native American confederacy to create a free Indian state and stop white settlement in the Great Lakes region.

Sitting Bull (1831-1890) was the Native American chief under whom the Lakota tribes united in their struggle for survival on the North American Great Plains.

King Philip’s War, a failed effort by Native Americans of New England to drive out English colonists, was led by Wampanoag chief Metacom (aka King Philip).

The French and Indian War, or Seven Years War, a conflict primarily fought between Britain and France over New World territory, ended with a British victory.

The Battle of Timbers, on August 20, 1794, was the last major conflict of the Northwest Territory Indian War between Native Americans and the United States.

Apache chief Cochise (?-1874) was a prominent leader of the Chiricahua Indians, feared for his settlement raids during the 1800s

Wounded Knee in South Dakota was the site of an 1890 Indian massacre by U.S. Army troops, and a deadly 1973 occupation by Native American activists.

The Battle of Quebec in 1759 was a skirmish fought by British troops invading Quebec. By scaling the cliffs around the city, the British defeated French defenses.

Pocahontas, born around 1595, was the daughter of the powerful Chief Powhatan, the ruler of the Powhatan tribal nation. When European settlers arrived on Powhatan land to begin the colony of Jamestown, Pocahontas became embroiled in a series of events that permanently linked her to America’s colonial heritage.

Apache chief Geronimo (1829-1909) led his followers on a series of escapes in the mid-1870s that bolstered his legend and embarrassed the U.S. government. He surrendered to General Nelson Miles in 1886, and remained a celebrity in captivity until his death at Oklahoma’s Fort Sill.

In 1763, at the end of the French and Indian War, the British issued a proclamation, mainly intended to conciliate the Indians by checking the encroachment of settlers on their lands.