Indigenous People of the Americas

Long before Europeans arrived, millions of Indigenous people lived across North America. They belonged to many different nations and communities, each with its own language, traditions, government, and way of life.

The ancestors of Indigenous peoples had already been living in the Americas for thousands of years before the societies described in this article developed. Scientists have found evidence that some of the earliest people came from northeast Asia through a region called Beringia, which connected present-day Siberia and Alaska when sea levels were lower during the Ice Age. People may have traveled across this land and along the Pacific coast over a long period of time. Scientists continue to study exactly when and how these migrations happened.

The environment influenced how people found food, built homes, traveled, and made clothing and tools. But the environment did not determine everything about a culture. Indigenous peoples developed knowledge, technologies, trade networks, governments, and traditions over thousands of years.

Geographers sometimes group Indigenous peoples into cultural regions to help study similarities among communities. These regions are useful for learning, but they do not mean that everyone within a region lived in exactly the same way.

The Arctic stretches across the far north, including parts of present-day Alaska and Canada. The climate is extremely cold, and trees are scarce in many areas. Indigenous peoples of the Arctic include Inuit and Yupik communities.

People developed ways to live successfully in this challenging environment. They hunted animals such as seals, walruses, whales, and caribou and caught fish. Animal skins provided warm clothing, while bone, stone, wood, and other available materials were used to make tools.

South of the Arctic lies the Subarctic, a huge region of forests, lakes, and rivers. Peoples such as the Cree, Dene, and other nations hunted, fished, and gathered plants. Many communities moved during different seasons to follow food sources.

The Northeast included forests, rivers, and the Great Lakes. Indigenous nations of this region included the Haudenosaunee, also known historically as the Iroquois Confederacy, as well as Algonquian-speaking peoples such as the Ojibwe.

Many communities combined farming, hunting, fishing, and gathering. Some Haudenosaunee communities grew corn, beans, and squash and lived in villages with longhouses. Several families could live in a single longhouse.

Around the Great Lakes, wild rice became an important food for many Ojibwe communities. People often gathered the rice from shallow lakes and waterways while traveling in canoes. In many communities, women played an important role in harvesting and processing wild rice.

Rivers and lakes also supported travel and trade. Canoes allowed people to move goods and communicate with other communities across long distances.

The Southeast had a generally warm climate, forests, rivers, and fertile land. Nations such as the Cherokee, Muscogee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole lived in parts of this region.

Agriculture was important to many southeastern communities. Farmers grew crops such as corn, beans, squash, and sunflowers. People also hunted deer, caught fish, and gathered wild plants.

Some southeastern peoples lived in large towns with organized political and religious centers. Earlier Mississippian societies built large earthen mounds, some of which supported important buildings or gathering places.

These communities were not isolated. Trade networks connected people across the Southeast and with other parts of North America.

The Great Plains stretch across the center of North America and include wide areas of grassland. More than 30 different Indigenous nations lived in this region, including the Lakota, Cheyenne, Comanche, Pawnee, and many others.

Bison were important to many Plains peoples. They provided meat for food and hides and bones that could be made into clothing, shelter, containers, and tools.

However, not all Plains peoples lived the same way. Some communities farmed and lived in permanent or semipermanent villages. Others moved across large areas to hunt bison and other animals.

After horses spread onto the Great Plains following their introduction by the Spanish, horses changed life for many Plains nations. They made travel and bison hunting easier and became important to trade and warfare.

Some mobile Plains peoples used tipis because they could be taken down, transported, and rebuilt. But tipis were not the homes of all Indigenous peoples, and even within the Plains, some communities lived in earth lodges or other types of houses.

The Southwest includes deserts, plateaus, mountains, and river valleys in parts of what are now Arizona, New Mexico, and surrounding states. Indigenous peoples of the region include Pueblo peoples, the Diné, or Navajo, the Apache, and many others.

Water could be limited, so communities developed ways to farm in dry conditions. Pueblo peoples grew crops such as corn, beans, and squash and built communities using stone and adobe, a building material made partly from earth.

Different nations had different ways of life. Some lived mainly in farming communities, while others combined farming, hunting, herding, trading, and seasonal movement.

The Southwest also had extensive trade networks. Goods and ideas traveled between communities and across long distances.

The Great Basin lies between major mountain ranges in what are now states such as Nevada and Utah and parts of surrounding states. It is a dry region with mountains, valleys, and deserts.

Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin include Shoshone, Paiute, Ute, Goshute, and Washoe communities. People developed detailed knowledge of when and where different foods could be found. They gathered seeds, roots, berries, and pine nuts and hunted animals.

Because useful resources were spread across the region, some communities moved seasonally to different locations. These movements were carefully connected to knowledge about plants, animals, water, and the changing seasons.

Great Basin peoples also participated in trade. Archaeologists have found materials from distant areas, showing that communities were connected to people beyond their immediate homelands.

The Northwest Coast includes the Pacific coastline of what are now parts of Alaska, Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, and nearby areas. The region has forests, rivers, islands, and abundant ocean resources.

Nations such as the Tlingit, Haida, Coast Salish peoples, and many others developed communities closely connected to the sea and forests.

Salmon was especially important in many areas. People also caught other fish and hunted marine animals. Cedar trees provided material for houses, canoes, baskets, clothing, tools, and artwork.

Many communities built large wooden houses and lived in permanent villages. Skilled artists carved wood into masks, containers, house posts, and monumental poles. Some communities used carved poles to record family histories, important events, or relationships among clans.

Large canoes made travel, fishing, trade, and communication possible along the coast.

Before European colonization, California was home to an especially large number of Indigenous nations and languages. California's mountains, valleys, deserts, forests, rivers, and coastline created many different environments, so ways of life varied greatly from one area to another.

Communities included the Chumash, Pomo, Miwok, Yurok, Tongva, Kumeyaay, and many others.

Many California peoples gathered acorns, which could be processed into an important food. Communities also gathered seeds and plants, hunted animals, and caught fish and shellfish depending on where they lived.

People carefully managed local environments. In some places, Indigenous communities used controlled burning and other practices to encourage the growth of useful plants, improve habitats, and reduce thick vegetation.

California peoples also developed strong traditions of basket making, woodworking, fishing, trade, and storytelling. Because hundreds of communities lived across a geographically varied region, there was never one single “California Native American culture.”

Indigenous peoples across North America developed many different ways of meeting their needs and organizing their communities.

Some farmed while others depended more heavily on hunting, fishing, and gathering. Some lived in permanent towns, while others moved during different seasons. Homes included longhouses, adobe buildings, earth lodges, wooden plank houses, tipis, and many other forms.

This diversity is important. It would be inaccurate to say that all Native Americans were hunters, lived in tipis, or followed the same traditions.

Indigenous peoples developed cultures that were connected to their environments but also shaped by their own knowledge, choices, traditions, governments, and relationships with other communities. Their nations and cultures did not disappear with European arrival. Indigenous peoples and sovereign Native nations continue to be part of the United States today.