History of Native Americans

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Perspective

The history of Native Americans is about the indigenous peoples of the United States. There are 574 federally-recognized tribes living within the United States, and about half of them live on Indian reservations.

The ancestors of living Native Americans arrived in what is now the United States at least 15,000 years ago, and probably much earlier. They came from Asia, via the land strait that then spanned the Bering Strait. This migration gave rise to a vast array of societies and cultures.

Starting with the arrival of Columbus in 1492, Europeans brought a host of new diseases. This resulted in a precipitous decline in the Native American population from some 115 million at the time of contact to just several millions when the Pilgrims arrived 100 years later. It caused colonial settlers to wage continuous war and perpetrate massacres against many Native American peoples. Finally, they removed them from their ancestral lands to the inhospitable lands of “Indian Territory”, and subjected them to lopsided treaties and discriminatory government policies through modern times.

sample map

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Trail of Tears

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