History of the Indians of North America

Image: Pinterest

Before the arrival of Europeans in America there were around 500 towns different that inhabited the north of the American continent, a civilization with common ties that extended from ocean to ocean with different forms and styles of life, traditions and cultures. Next, in this lesson from unPROFESOR.com, we are going to discuss the history of the Indians of North America to better understand these indigenous cultures that inhabited these lands.

Index

1. Arrival of these peoples to the continent
2. Native populations of North America
3. Arrival of Europeans North America

The settlement of all America is very likely to take place in several successive waves and by different human groups. In the case of the north of the continent, in the last ice age, the concentration of ice in large continental plates lowered the level of the oceans. In areas of the planet land connections were created, as is the case in the northern extremes of Asia and America.

The descent of the waters left in the Bering Strait a wide land bridge, known ‘Beringia Bridge’, 1,500 kilometers wide, which linked Siberia with Alaska 40,000 years ago. This allowed the transit of human beings between the continents for about 19,000 years.

The Asian populations that entered continued south, from Alaska to Canada, down the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains, following east, northeast and southeast, reaching the banks of the Mississippi River as far as Florida and, in general, all of South America. North

In this other article we will discover the ancient civilizations of North America.

Image: Pinterest

When studying the history of the North American Indians, it should be noted that these groups of settlers were adopting over the years a own lifestyle adapted to resources and demands of the environment where they were integrated.

According to the ecosystems in which they developed, some were nomads and were dedicated to hunting, with more bellicose cultures. Others worked agriculture, generating more developed cultures than is thought, although not as much as in other areas of the American continent.

In general, ten native cultural areas are usually distinguished in North America: Arctic, Subarctic, Forests Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, California, Pacific Northwest Coast, Plateau, Great Basin, and Plains Centrals.

Therefore we can distinguish the following populations:

• In the arctic zone there are inhabitants since 2000 BC. In Alaska, the Eskimos stand out o inuit and the yupiks, They developed a technique and culture to survive the cold climate and the scarcity of resources. Of this contingent, some migrate from Alaska, through Canada, to Greenland, creating the culture Thule. For this reason, traditional Inuit languages ​​have similar features from Alaska to Greenland.
• In the subarctic zone, stretching from Hudson Bay, through the Northwest Territories, to the Labrador Peninsula and northern Québec, inhabited the indigenous nations and tribes of the caribou culture, dedicated to hunting this species and to a lesser extent to agriculture. Within these two major linguistic families stand out: the algonquians, to the east, with ottawas, naskapis, crees, montagnais, ojibwas, etc., and the athabascos, further south and west, with ingalik, yellowknive, dogrib, chipewyan, beaver, kutchin, kaska, etc.
• In the Northeast forests, in the temperate regions of the eastern United States and Canada, there were scattered populations of deer hunters; and in the Midwest, the adenas, hunting and gathering in the Ohio River Valley since the 11th century BC. Take over the hopewells, between the 3rd and 6th centuries BC. We must also highlight the mississippian cultures, that lived from the intensive agriculture of corn, and that flourished between the years 800 and 1500. They came to build cities like that of Cahokia, the largest and most prosperous in archaic North America, which may have had as many as 40,000 inhabitants.
• The peoples of the Eastern Forests, heirs of the above, include those of the Iroquois confederation (like mohawks or wyandots), to those of Algonquian language (delawares, shawnis, mohicanos, ojibwas, fox, shinnecocks, potawatomis and illinois) and those of the family sioux linguistics (like iowas and winnebagos).
• The Southeast area It covers the area north of the Gulf of Mexico and south of the Midwest, from the Atlantic coast west to Texas. The mild and humid climate gave rise to these peoples surviving thanks to hunting and fishing and some even to agriculture. These peoples were more sedentary and with more developed social structures. Among them stand out the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Creek. In Florida and part of the coastal strip of the Gulf of Mexico: timucua, calusa, tunicu, atakapa, chitimacha, natchez and seminolas.
• In the area of Southwest, encompassing present-day Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Nevada, Texas, southern Colorado, and northern bordering Mexico, we found populations focused mainly on hunting, when the climate became warmer and drier between the year 8000 and the 300 a. C. Among the peoples of these areas, ancestral cultures such as that of the mogollon, hohokam Y anasazi. In the western sector of the Southwest, peoples with languages ​​of the family developed yuma, Like the mojave, who lived in the lower part of the Colorado River; the havasupai, from the Cataract Canyon, a branch of the Grand Canyon; the hopis, from Arizona; and ethnicity tarahumara, from Chihuahua. In Arizona and New Mexico both stand out apaches What Navajos. The former come into conflict with the Spanish and were not subdued and established in reserves until 1871. The Navajos came from Canada, and settled in the southwestern United States in the 13th century.
• On California we find a large number of tribes, such as klamaths, Modocs and Yuroks in northwest; knobs, maidus, miwoks, patwins and wintuns, in the center, and the so-called ‘mission tribes’ in the south, whose names were imposed by the Europeans in the Spanish missions that tried to convert them to Christianity: diegueños, luiseños, ignacianos, gabrielinos, etc.
• In the Pacific Northwest coast, from Alaska to California, Chinook, Salish, Makah, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Haida, Kwakiutl, and Nutka.
• To the west were the inhabitants of the Plateau, an area that ran from the mountains of Idaho, eastern Oregon and Washington, western Montana, and bordering Canada. These peoples include the nezpercés, walla-wallas, yakimas, umatillas, flatheads, spokanes, okanagones, cayuses and kutenais.
• The area of ​​the Great Basin, that covers much of Nevada and some territories of Utah, Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming and California, is a mountainous and arid terrain, and among the Indians of this area the shoshonis, paiutes and utes.
• In the great meadows of the Central Plains, from central Canada to the border of Mexico, and in the east-west, from the Mississippi Valley, in the Midwest, to the first foothills of the Rocky Mountains, the populations that are dedicated to hunting the bison develop, with a character eminently nomadic. These have the typical features that are known from North American Indians. Within these towns the Lakotas or Sioux. Those who most opposed these were the crows. Other tribes in the area were the arapajoes,assiniboines (relatives and allies of the Lakota) and the shoshoni-bannocks, allies of the crows. They also highlighted black feet, buffalo hunters, as were the pawnis.

Image: Culturarte History

The arrival of Europeans to this area of ​​America will completely change the lives of Native Americans. From the seventeenth century, the settlements will be more and more numerous and will gradually displace the Indians from their territories.

In the british colonial times, Relations between Europeans and indigenous tribes are established in treaties and agreements with indigenous people, with the aim of establishing good coexistence. With the Independence of the USA, this policy of agreements is followed, which is reflected in the Constitution, which establishes that the Indian communities are separate political entities, external to the United States, and therefore their members were not citizens of that country.

The period of the treaties with indigenous tribes ends in 1871, when the American Congress declares that the Indian nations are not foreign states and therefore Therefore, treaties would no longer be concluded with them, but the power to legislate on they. By this time the process of removal and relocation of tribes to remote areas had been completed, and the latest treaties that the tribes were forced to sign reduced the extent of their reservations, which had been established in previous agreements.

If you want to read more articles similar to History of the Indians of North America, we recommend that you enter our category of Story.