Crash Course in Native American History

Think pueblos. Permanent homes made from stone and mud. Almost apartment-like. Cities of 12,000+ people were not uncommon

• Navajos and Apaches were nomadic hunters and gatherers

Sedentary (live in one place)

Settled the region approx 7000 BCE. Anasazis started farming corn around 2000 BCE

• Huge irrigation system about the size of Arizona→ could plant beans and squash

Traded turquoise with other tribes in CA, Central America, the Rocky Mts for seashells, exoctic birds, minerals/ores

Tribe was the larger political organization, but they also organized into smaller political units (bands) for day to day decisions

By the the time the Spanish arrived; most of the Southwest tribes’ numbers had been seriously reduced by some ecological disaster (archaeologists think severe drought)

Encompassses the tribes in the Pacific Northwest, Colorado, California, and the Great Basin. So it is really hard to generalize! (over 100 tribes in CA alone!)

Food source is mostly hunting, gathering, and fishing. Tribes traded with each other, so villages could be sedentary

• Salmon fishing in the Northwest

• Many tribes live along rivers for access to fish and because of arid nature of the West

Acorns used as currency in some places

Trade with tribes as far away as the Plains

Large villages (population in the thousands). Broke off into tribelets (10-12 people) for hunting and gathering purposes

Slavery practiced in some tribes (not African slaves. These would have been war captives).

Settled in the Northeast around 200 to 500 CE

Iroquois are the most prominent tribe in the region

Farming: corn, squash, and beans

• Sedentary villages; some larger with a few thousand people, but mostly smaller villages where people lived close to their crops

• As a result of extensive agriculture; this region is the most “urban” in regards to large numbers of Native Americans living close together.

Mound building: tribes buried their dead underground and covered the graves with mounded dirt. Google this for pictures!

Long Houses: Typical homes for this region. Google it for pictures. These are 100 foot long homes housing the extended family.

Trade: Cash crops for large shells, pearls, copper, and silver from the Plains Indians

Intertribal warfare was prevalent until the Iroquois and five other tribes founded the Iroquois Confederacy. The goal was to promote diplomacy and peace between the tribes by creating a council to work out their problems as an alternative to warfare. The US government was influenced by this confederacy because it practiced federalism and elected leaders. Historians consider this to be the first democracy here in the Americas. 400 years before the United States was founded!

Mississippi River Civilization

• Another ancient civilization around 1000 CE

• Mound Builders

• Capital City near St. Louis called Cahokia with a population of 40,000 → largest city in north America until Philadelphia 500 years later.

• Major trading center with the peoples of Central and South America

• 1250 CE Civilization collapsed probably due to overhunting/deforestation

Home of the Five Civilized Tribes: Cherokee,Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, and Seminoles

Farmers: corn, squash, beans, tobacco, sunflowers

We’ll talk more about these when we learn about Indian Removal

Political organization: Chiefdoms

Not all plains Indians are nomadic and following the buffalo. Some farming tribes near rivers.

• Farming when people originally arrived in 900 CE, but then hunting became more predominant when drought struck around the 1300s

• Some tribes were farmers for part of the year and nomadic the other part. Had a summer and winter home.

Horses

• Did not arrive until 1519 CE with the Spanish Conquistador Cortes

  • 1600s some tribes like Lakota and Cheyenne gave up agriculture because horses were widely available

• Until then, Plains Indians hunted on foot

• Hunted mammoth (until extinct), buffalo

Political Organization in bands. People living together, but populations were fluid and so the political structure was non existent. It’s not like the movies where each tribe had a chief. How many horses you owned usually meant you had more political power. Horse stealing from other tribes became a way to gain glory and wealth for yourself.

• So you can imagine the conflict that arose between the tribes themselves and then the Europeans who will come later