LibGuides: Native American Heritage: History

History

There have been many names given to the describe the people who have occupied this land long before Columbus "found" it. The debate has been ongoing and the political correctness has changed over the years.

United States

"Indian" and "American Indian" (since 1492)
- Europeans at the time of Christopher Columbus's voyage often referred to all of South and East Asia as "India" or "the Indias/Indies"
"Native American" (since the 1960s)
- The use of Native American refers to peoples indigenous to the Americas came into common use during the civil rights era of the 1960s and 1970s
"Indigenous" (1980s)
- According to The American Heritage Dictionary, "indigenous specifies that something or someone is native rather than coming or being brought in from elsewhere: an indigenous crop; the Ainu, a people indigenous to the northernmost islands of Japan"
"Aboriginal" and "Aborigine"
- Until about 1910, these terms were used in English to refer to various indigenous peoples
"Alaska Native"
- "Alaska Native" refers to the indigenous peoples in Alaska, including the Aleut, Athabascan, Alutiiq, Cup'ik, Haida, Inuit, Iñupiat, Tlingit and Yup'ik peoples
"Amerind" or "Amerindian"
- The term "Amerind"/"Amerindian" is a portmanteau of "American Indian", though it can also be parsed as a blend of "American" and "Indigenous". It was coined in 1902 by the American Anthropological Association.

Canada

"Canadian Indians" (1700s–late 20th century)
- The Canadian Indian Act, in defining the rights of people of recognized First Nations, refers to them as "Indians"
"Aboriginal peoples" (since 1900) and "Indigenous peoples"
- In Canada, the term "Aboriginal peoples in Canada" is used for all indigenous peoples within the country, including the Inuit and First Nations, as well as the Métis
"First Nations" (since the 1980s)
- "First Nations" came into common usage in the 1980s to replace the term "Indian band"
- The term came into common usage in the 1970s to avoid using the word “Indian”, which some people considered offensive.
"Native Canadians"
- Generally used in conversation or informal writing
"Inuit" (since 1977)
- As a result of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference meeting in Barrow, Alaska, in 1977, the Canadian government has replaced the term Eskimo with Inuit

OFFICIAL INDIAN WARS OF THE UNITED STATES (1790-1891)

Miami, January 1790 - August 1795

Tippecanoe, 21 September - 18 November 1811

Creeks, 27 July 1813- 9 August 1814 and February 1836 - July 1837

Seminoles, 20 November 1817 - 31 October 1818, 28 December 1835 - 14 August 1842 and 15 December 1855 - May 1858

Black Hawk, 26 April - 30 September 1832

Comanches, 1867-1875

Modocs, 1872-1873

Apaches, 1873 and 1885-1886

Little Big Horn, 1876-1877

Nez Perces, 1877

Bannocks, 1878

Cheyennes, 1878-1879

Utes, September 1879-November 1880

Pine Ridge. November 1890- January 1891

For a detailed description of each event please visit the U.S. Army Center of Military History

History Study Center

Use this database to find lots of study units on an array of topics. Each unit has primary sources, references, images, articles and other media to help support your topic.

Here are some to consider:

Natives and Settlers in colonial America
- "A period of uneasy cooperation between European settlers and Native Americans was shattered in 1622 when Powhatan tribesmen massacred colonists at Jamestown, Virginia, after colonists tried to encroach onto very fertile lands belonging to the Native Americans..."
The Subordination of American Indians and the Dispersal of the Tribes
- "From the early seventeenth century, when the first white settlers arrived on the shores of the previously undiscovered lands of America, relations between Native Indians and Westerners were strained. Western presence gradually began to interfere with native culture and practices as traders sought to exploit their resources and missionaries sought to evangelise them...."

Native America by Michael Leroy Oberg This history of Native Americans, from the period of first contact to the present day, offers an important variation to existing studies by placing the lives and experiences of Native American communities at the center of the narrative. Presents an innovative approach to Native American history by placing individual native communities and their experiences at the center of the study Following a first chapter that deals with creation myths, the remainder of the narrative is structured chronologically, covering over 600 years from the point of first contact to the present day Illustrates the great diversity in American Indian culture and emphasizes the importance of Native Americans in the history of North America Provides an excellent survey for courses in Native American history Includes maps, photographs, a timeline, questions for discussion, and "A Closer Focus" textboxes that provide biographies of individuals and that elaborate on the text,  exposing students to issues of race, class, and gender
Call Number: E77 .O24 2010
ISBN: 9781405160575
Publication Date: 2010-02-01
North American Indians: a Very Short Introduction by Theda Perdue; Michael D. Green When Europeans first arrived in North America, between five and eight million indigenous people were already living there. But how did they come to be here? What were their agricultural, spiritual, and hunting practices? How did their societies evolve and what challenges do they face today? Eminent historians Theda Perdue and Michael Green begin by describing how nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers followed the bison and woolly mammoth over the Bering land mass between Asia and what is now Alaska between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago, settling throughout North America. They describe hunting practices among different tribes, how some made the gradual transition to more settled, agricultural ways of life, the role of kinship and cooperation in Native societies, their varied burial rites and spiritual practices, and many other features of Native American life. Throughout the book, Perdue and Green stress the great diversity of indigenous peoples in America, who spoke more than 400 different languages before the arrival of Europeans and whose ways of life varied according to the environments they settled in and adapted to so successfully. Most importantly, the authors stress how Native Americans have struggled to maintain their sovereignty--first with European powers and then with the United States--in order to retain their lands, govern themselves, support their people, and pursue practices that have made their lives meaningful. Going beyond the stereotypes that so often distort our views of Native Americans, this Very Short Introduction offers a historically accurate, deeply engaging, and often inspiring account of the wide array of Native peoples in America. About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
Call Number: E77 .P425 2010
ISBN: 9780195307542
Publication Date: 2010-08-16
An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz 2015 Recipient of the American Book Award The first history of the United States told from the perspective of indigenous peoples Today in the United States, there are more than five hundred federally recognized Indigenous nations comprising nearly three million people, descendants of the fifteen million Native people who once inhabited this land. The centuries-long genocidal program of the US settler-colonial regimen has largely been omitted from history. Now, for the first time, acclaimed historian and activist Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz offers a history of the United States told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples and reveals how Native Americans, for centuries, actively resisted expansion of the US empire. In An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, Dunbar-Ortiz adroitly challenges the founding myth of the United States and shows how policy against the Indigenous peoples was colonialist and designed to seize the territories of the original inhabitants, displacing or eliminating them. And as Dunbar-Ortiz reveals, this policy was praised in popular culture, through writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman, and in the highest offices of government and the military. Shockingly, as the genocidal policy reached its zenith under President Andrew Jackson, its ruthlessness was best articulated by US Army general Thomas S. Jesup, who, in 1836, wrote of the Seminoles- "The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them." Spanning more than four hundred years, this classic bottom-up peoples' history radically reframes US history and explodes the silences that have haunted our national narrative. From the Hardcover edition.
Call Number: E76.8 .D86 2014
ISBN: 9780807057834
Publication Date: 2015-08-11
First Americans by Kenneth W. Townsend; Mark A. Nicholas Tells the complete story of Native American history, including the native perspective.   First Americans provides a history of Native Americans, from their earliest appearance in North America to the present, that covers the complexity and diversity of their past. The text demonstrates Native Americans' participation in determining their own future and helps students place Native American history in context with national and international developments.     Present throughout the text is the "native voice," giving American Indians' perspectives on historical developments. The text also enforces the reality that native people retain a presence in the U.S. today as a growing population with a rich diversity of roles, ideas, and contributions.   A better teaching and learning experience This program will provide a better teaching and learning experience--for you and your students. Here's how: Improve Critical Thinking - To enhance student comprehension, each chapter includes features such as Chronologies, Key Questions, Review Questions, and Recommended Readings. Engage Students - Special features are included to highlight the native voice and support the themes presented. Support Instructors - Instructor's Resource Center, Instructor's Manual, Test Bank, MyTest, and PowerPoint presentations are available to be packaged with this text.   For the combined volume of this text, search ISBN-10: 0132069482 For volume two of this text, search ISBN-10: 0205055877    
Call Number: E77 .T69 2013
ISBN: 9780205055760
Publication Date: 2012-01-09

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee by David Treuer
Call Number: E77 .T797 2019
ISBN: 9781594633157
Publication Date: 2019-01-22
Beginning with the tribes' devastating loss of land and the forced assimilation of their children at government-run boarding schools, he shows how the period of greatest adversity also helped to incubate a unifying Native identity. He traces how conscription in the US military and the pull of urban life brought Indians into the mainstream and modern times, even as it steered the emerging shape of their self-rule and spawned a new generation of resistance. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is an essential, intimate history - and counter-narrative - of a resilient people in a transformative era.

There are many places you can go to learn more! Check out some of the links below for more information

Omaha Indian Music

Presented here are selections from the American Folklife Center's collections documenting Omaha music traditions

History of Survivance: Upper Midwest 19th-Century Native American Narratives

The following is an exhibit of resources that can be found within the Digital Public Library of America retold through the lens of Native American survivance in the Minnesota region

Federally Recognized Indian Tribes and Resources for Native Americans

Federally recognized tribes, cultural resources, housing resources, and legal resources for Native Americans

Native American Cultures

The history of the nomadic people of present day Canada and United States

Tribal Nations & the United States: An Introduction

The guide "Tribal Nations and the United States: An Introduction" developed by the National Congress of American Indians seeks to provide a basic overview of the history and underlying principles of tribal governance