Native America

There are many stories about the first people who lived on the North American continent. One tells of the Great Spirit who collected dust from the four winds to create the Comanche people. The Hopi people tell of two brothers who slashed open great swaths into the ground and sowed powerful stalks of cane so the ancient people living beneath the earth could climb above ground.

Visit archeological landscapes associated with indigenous peoples of the United States, including Native Americans, Native Alaskans, and Native Hawaiians.

National History Day: Teaching the Truth About Native America. In July 2015, a group of Sigangu youth from the Rosebud Reservation stood at the edge of a battlefield overlooking the Little Bighorn River, ignoring the heat. Their attention was fully focused on their elders, who were telling them a story they had heard many times before. But this time they were standing on sacred ground.

The Dawes Act had a major impact on Native Americans in the age of homesteading. How did it affect Native Americans and why was it put in place? Read this article to find out.

Birch canoes were an integral part of the fur trade. The technology was born of the boreal forest and developed by the Anishinaabe and other Indigenous people to navigate the area's many rivers and lakes. This is the process used for hundreds of years.

Boarding Schools left a dark legacy over many tribes in North America. Indian children faced assimilation, abuse, discrimination and ethnocide on a scale never seen. Regardless of the efforts to “civilize” Indian children, the spirit of the tribes would not be broken.

There's no place like home! To Native Americans suffering in barren refugee camps in eastern Kansas during the Civil War, thoughts of home must have crossed their minds as they longed for the warmth and security of a home in Indian Territory (Oklahoma). While some could remember when home was elsewhere, after more than two decades, many had come to regard Indian Territory as home.

Indian country was never the same following the War of 1812. If Native aspirations were to maintain their land base and relative autonomy, then the war was most of all a loss for Native peoples throughout eastern North America. This is most clearly evident in the Great Lakes region.

This historical background information explains early villages, early explorers, Sacagawea, oral history, education and societies, and tribal origins of the Hidatsa and Mandan tribes before 1845. This is before the tribe moved to Like-A-Fishhook Village.

This historical background information explains the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nation (MHA), pre and post Garrison Dam, health, education in boarding schools, impact of the schools, treating historical trauma, education today, current culture, and native spirituality today of the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara tribes after 1845.

Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin (Metis/Turtle Mountain Chippewa) was born in Pembina, North Dakota. Her father, J.B. Bottineau, was a lawyer who worked as an advocate for the Ojibwa/Chippewa Nation in Minnesota and North Dakota. She and her father moved to Washington, DC in the early 1890s to defend the treaty rights of the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Nation. There, they became part of an established community of professional Native Americans who lived and worked in the capital.

Zitkala-Ša (“Red Bird”) was born on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota on February 22, 1876. Until her death on January 26, 1928 Zitkala-Ša worked for improvements in education, health care, voting rights, and legal recognition of Native Americans as well as the preservation of Native American culture.

Sacagawea was either 16 or 17 years old when she joined the Corps of Discovery. She met Lewis and Clark while she was living among the Mandan and Hidatsa in North Dakota, though she was a Lemhi Shoshone from Idaho. She had been taken during a raid by the Hidatsa when she was either 11 or 12, and had lived at the Awatixa (Sakakawea) Village.

Michikinikwa or Little Turtle was born in 1752 near Fort Wayne in Little Turtle Village. As a young warrior, he participated in defense of his village in 1780. He later led a small confederation of Native American tribes in defeating federal army forces in 1790 and 1791. Michikinikwa urged people to seek peace prior to the 1794 Battle of Fallen Timbers, where his forces were defeated by Anthony Wayne. He later died in Fort Wayne on July 14, 1812.

During the 1800s, Whittlesey did early research documenting Midwest geology as well as Ohio’s Native American earthworks and Western Reserve history.

In 1925, Anderson ran for the Michigan House of Representatives, and won. She was the first woman elected to the Michigan House of Representatives and the first Native American woman to serve in a state legislature.

The first American Indian to receive a medical degree at a time when even the most privileged women faced discrimination from the medical community. She worked tirelessly to help improve the health and welfare of her people and built the first hospital on a reservation without any government funding.

Ihanktonwan Nakota (Yankton Sioux) Chief Struck By The Ree played an influential role in saving the pipestone quarries in the face of rapid change and loss. His lifelong attempts to cultivate peace during times of violence and distrust were honored by three U.S. presidents. Learn more about this man who is central to the history of Pipestone National Monument.

Quarrier. Ranger. Pipemaker. Alice Derby-Erickson has fulfilled many roles at Pipestone National Monument. A member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota Nation, Alice wants people to understand the importance of this place, and to appreciate the traditions that have persisted for thousands of years.

Oglala Lakota holy man Black Elk (1863-1950) made a lasting impact on the global understanding of 19th Century Plains Indian cultures and religions. Involved in some of the most notable events in the American West, Black Elk continues to be celebrated for his vision and his words.

Remember and commemorate the survival of the Cherokee people, forcefully removed from their homelands in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee to live in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. They traveled by foot, horse, wagon, or steamboat in 1838-1839. The National Historic Trail traverses 9 states and is administered by the National Trails Office Regions 6|7|8 in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The Council of 1865 at Fort Smith was a meeting of different tribal and U.S. Government representatives.

The Land Bridge on the Columbia River features three overlooks across spectacular vistas of land, river, and ocean. The site was built to honor the Chinookan people, who lived and traded along the Columbia River. Artwork at these overlooks honor the traditions of these people and tell the story of river, land and people along.

Here, near the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers, Nez Perce people lived and fished long before Lewis and Clark arrived in 1805. Today, the Listening Circle honors native traditions in a landscape that today remains similar to what the explorers described in their journals. Visitors will experience the Listening Circle and focus their attention on the breeze through the trees, the gentle sound of the water.

The Sacajawea Interpretive, Cultural & Educational Center is dedicated to honoring and providing education about America’s great historical heroine, Sacajawea (a member of the Agaidika (Salmon Eater) Shoshone-Bannock Tribes) and her role in the Corps of Discovery. Cradled in the Lemhi River Valley between the Salmon River and the Beaverhead Mountains, the Center lies in the heart of Sacajawea’s homeland.

Ancient civilizations are perhaps the most fascinating groups of people to study throughout human history. It is jarring to imagine how people could co-exist in such large numbers during an era before modern medicine, advanced irrigation, and an overall staggering amount of danger that lurked everywhere back then. It is inspiring that people could put aside their differences and come together to build something greater than themselves.

Confluence connects you to the history, living cultures, and ecology of the Columbia River system through Indigenous voices. We are a community-supported nonprofit that works through six art landscapes, educational programs, and public gatherings in collaboration with northwest tribes, communities, and the celebrated artist Maya Lin.

Lewis and Clark first passed what is now Confluence Story Circles at Sacajawea State Park on October 16, 1805. Because of its significance as a well-established gathering place for Native people, the explorers knew where they were for the first time since entering uncharted territory. Maya Lin has designed seven story circles that explore the Native cultures, language, flora and fauna, geology, and natural history of the site.

Three detachments of Cherokee, totaling about 2,800 people, traveled by river past this location to Indian Territory. The first of these groups led by Lieutenant Edward Deas left on June 6, 1838 by steamboat and barge from Ross Landing, present-day Chattanooga, Tennessee. They followed the Tennessee River, Ohio River, Mississippi River and the Arkansas River and arrived near Fort Coffee on June 19, 1838.

"Tamástslikt " (pronounced "tuh-MUST-slickt") is from the Walla Walla Indian language, meaning "interpreting our own story." This museum and research facility is the only American Indian owned and operated interpretive center on the Oregon Trail. Its permanent exhibits explore the past, present, and future of the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla people (the Confederated Tribes.)