NATIVE AMERICAN INDIANS


THE AMERICAN INDIANS

The history of the Native American Indians is a fascinating subject. Did they originate here, or did they migrate with the seafarers of Phoenicia, or from Siberia across Beringia, a land mass once connecting Siberia with Alaska, or perhaps a combination of the above? Surviving first as big-game hunters, the Indians became agricultural, adapting to climate changes and the discovery of the plant maize (corn). The Indians settled in different regions in the country and formed tribes with distinct Indian cultures.

The following table shows American Indian tribes of both historical and current interest.
The table primarily lists the original geographic location of the tribe:

MAJOR AMERICAN INDIAN TRIBES OF THE USA
Southeast	Northeast	Great Lakes	Great Plains	California/ Intermountain	Northwest/ Alaska	Southwest
Cherokee	Algonquin	Chippewa	Sioux	Paiute	Spokane	Navajo
Seminole	Iriquois	Fox	Blackfeet	Shoshone	Eskimo	Apache
Catawba	Narragansett	Potawatomi	Cheyenne	Cahuilla	Aleut	Pueblo
Chickasaw	Pequot	Huron	Comanche	Chumash	Athabascan	Chemihuevi
Choctaw	Wampanoag	Menominee	Arapoho	Costanoan	Colville	Hopi
Creek	Abenaki	Miami	Dakota	Diegueno	Crow	Mojave
Houma	Delaware	Oneida	Kiowa	Hupa	Nez Perce	Pima
Lumbee	Mohegan	Onondaga	Osage	Luiseno	Tlingit	Yaqui
Shawnee	Penobscot	Ottawa	Pawnee	Pomo	Yakama	Yuma
Timucuan	Powhatan	Winnebago	Wichita	Ute	Puget Sound Salish	Tohono O'odham

Native American Indians welcomed us to these shores in Florida and Massachusetts, and eventually the entire East coast. The first Mass of Thanksgiving on American soil was actually celebrated by the Spanish with the Timucuan Indians from Seloy village in attendance on September 8, 1565 in St. Augustine, Florida.

The Pilgrims, who sought religious freedom and crossed the Atlantic in the Mayflower in 1620, were treated kindly by the Wampanoag tribe in Massachusetts. Squanto and Samosett showed the Pilgrims how to plant corn, beans, and squash, and where to hunt and fish. The image of the first Thanksgiving at Plymouth in 1621 with the Pilgrims and Squanto, Massasoit and the Wampanoag is forever etched upon the American conscience.

The Pilgrims and the Puritans in Massachusetts, Roger Williams and the Baptists in Rhode Island, Leonard Calvert and the Catholics in Mary Land, and William Penn and the Quakers began their religious settlements buying the land and treating the Indians with mutual respect.



However this harmonious relationship was short-lived.

First, Native Americans had no immunologic protection against such European diseases as smallpox, typhus, and measles. For those in frequent contact with European settlers, the effects were devastating: it is estimated that 95% of native Americans, perhaps numbering in the millions, died during the first century of contact with the Europeans.

Native Americans had different spiritual beliefs than Europeans. They saw the land as a living being, as a mother who nurtured them. The thought of buying and selling land was unthinkable to them. The Indians saw the offers from Europeans for land to build and farm as joining an existing relationship, not to transfer ownership. Misperception ensued.

Furthermore, a few tribes resented the attempts of the Europeans to convert them to Christianity. Atrocities were committed by both sides, as noted in the following three examples. Five Franciscans who attempted to introduce monogamous marriage to the Guale Indians were martyred in Darien, Georgia in September 1597. Five hundred Pequot Indian men, women, and children were burned alive in May 1637 at Mystic River, Connecticut by a vengeful Puritan militia intent on doing God's will. Isaac Jogues and seven Jesuits were martyred by the Mohawks at Auriesville, New York in October 1646.

What began peacefully ended in aggression and conflict.

European settlers subsequently drove the Indians from their lands as settlers moved westward. Whether through intimidation, war, treachery, or outright fraud, the Native Americans were systematically dispossessed of their lands.

The peak of disenfranchisement occurred with the massacre of Shawnee Indians at Prophetstown, Indiana in 1811 by William Henry Harrison and the enforcement of President Andrew Jackson's Indian Removal Act of 1830. All five of the "Civilized Tribes" were driven from their lands. These acts left the once proud and resourceful Indians a dispirited, heart-broken race. The Choctaws in Mississippi and Alabama were the first to be resettled in 1832, followed by the Creeks (1836) and the Chickasaws (1837). But it was the resettlement of Cherokees by Jackson's Federal troops in 1838-1839 from Georgia to lands west of the Mississippi that left 5000 Cherokees dead on the Trail of Tears.

The only tribe to maintain presence in their native territory were the Seminoles of Florida.

The Indians of the Great Plains and those resettled from the East faced a similar fate from the Western expansion of the Nation. The Lewis and Clark Expedition from 1804 made it to the Pacific Ocean because of the hospitality of the Mandan Indians and their Shoshone guide Sacajawea.

Once again, this kindness was not returned.
Federal agents would sign treaties such as the Fort Laramie treaties of 1851, granting extensive territory to the Indians, only to have other Federal agents break the treaties in support of the Homestead Act of 1862, which granted land to predominantly white settlers from the East. Using justified resistance as an excuse, Federal troops ruthlessly drove the Nez Perce, Crows, Apache, Sioux, and other Plains Indians from their lands. The final defeat occurred at Wounded Knee in 1890, with the death of Sitting Bull, Big Foot, and a band of Lakotas.

The ultimate absurdity occurred in 1924 when the American Indians, the natives of America,
were granted citizenship by the very people that drove them off their lands.




The Navajo Nation played an invaluable role in the Pacific theater during World War ll. When the Japanese had broken American codes and launched the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the U. S. Marines turned to the Navajo nation to develop a code based on their language, a code which the Japanese never could decipher. The Navajo code talkers were instrumental to our victory in Iwo Jima in March of 1945.

Fortunately, during the latter half of the twentieth century, beginning with President Eisenhower, long-overdue respect and concessions have been given to our Native Americans.

A Franciscan priest founded the Southwest Indian Foundation in Gallup, New Mexico in 1968. A memorial to the Navajo Code Talkers has been completed and is situated in the Gallup Cultural Center.

There has been a fluorishing of the Native American population, which has seen a dramatic increase over the past few years. According to the 2000 U. S. Census, the Native American population has risen to 2,475,956 American Indian and Alaskan Natives! An additional 1,643,345 reported American Indian and at least one other race.

Most American Indians live in the West. The Census Bureau notes that 25% of the total Native American population live in California and Oklahoma. The five states with the largest American Indian population are California, Oklahoma, Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico.

The following chart lists the Top 25 American Indian Tribes by population in the year 2000. These are the original U. S. Census Bureau figures, which indicate those listing one tribe only.

2000 TOP 25 AMERICAN INDIAN TRIBES
Rank	Tribe	Population
1	Cherokee	281,069
2	Navajo	269,202
3	Sioux	108,272
4	Chippewa	105,907
5	Aztec/Latin American	104,354
6	Choctaw	87,349
7	Pueblo	59,533
8	Apache	57,060
9	Lumbee	51,913
10	Alaskan Eskimo	45,919
11	Iroquois	45,212
12	Creek	40,223
13	Blackfeet	27,104
14	Chickasaw	20,887
15	Tohono O'odham	17,466
16	Potawatomi	15,817
17	Yaqui	15,224
18	Alaskan Tlingit	14,825
19	Alaskan Athabascans	14,520
20	Seminole	12,431
21	Alaskan Aleut	11,941
22	Cheyenne	11,191
23	Puget Sound Salish	11,034
24	Comanche	10,120
25	Paiute	9,705

REFERENCES
1 Doyle RC. American History. Class Lectures & Notes, Franciscan University, Steubenville, Ohio, 2001.
2 Berkin C, Miller CL, Cherny RW, Gormly JL. Making America. Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1999.
3 Waldman C, Braun M. Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. Checkmark, New York, 2006.
4 2000 United States Census.
5 Southwest Indian Foundation, Gallup, New Mexico.

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