Notable Native Americans
This Shoshone woman guided the Lewis and Clark expedition through the Northwest Territories.
Sacajawea
For much of the journey, Sacajawea carried her infant son Jean-Baptiste Charbonneau with her. The expedition leaders nicknamed him “Little Pompey.”
Indigenous to the southeastern woodlands of the United States, these people were relocated along what became known as the Trail of Tears.
Cherokee
This was the original location of the Plymouth Bay Colony, with the state taking its name from an Algonquin word meaning “great hill, small place.”
Massachusetts
Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic for the first time this year, marking the start of European settlement of the western hemisphere
1492
The Native Americans who practiced agriculture often utilized this efficient method of using fire to clear brush land for planting.
slash-and-burn agriculture
This is a vertical carving of symbols or figures from the trunks of large trees by Native Americans in the northwestern United States
She was born to the chief of the Powhatan people and later married the first governor of the newly established Virginia Colony, John Rolfe
Pocahontas
This nation from the American Southwest developed a unique code language used by the U.S. Marines to transmit secure messages during World War II.
Navajo
Now one of the most densely populated locations in the western hemisphere, this borough of New York City takes its name from a Lenape word meaning “thicket containing wood to make bows.”
Manhattan
President Andrew Jackson relocated many of the Creek and Cherokee natives westward along a route that now has this infamous name.
the Trail of Tears
Nomadic people like the bison hunters of the Great Plains were said to follow this lifestyle, living off what meat and plants they could find in nature
hunter-gatherer
It was a string or mat of purple and white shells that could record events or be used as currency.
wampum
Belts of wampum were exchanged with European colonists at important occasions, such as the sale of Pennsylvania to William Penn, and to George Washington at the signing of a treaty in 1789.
Born into the Shawnee tribe, he united many tribes in the Great Lakes region to fight against the United States during the War of 1812.
Tecumseh
This confederacy of tribes from the Great Lakes region called themselves “Haudenosaunee,” or “people of the longhouse.” It was made up of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca tribes, with the Tuscarora joining in 1722.
Iroquois
This state with a panhandle north of Texas gets its name from a Choctaw word meaning “red people.”
Oklahoma
This war saw Native Americans fighting for either the French or the British in the hopes of securing their homeland from the other’s encroachment.
the French and Indian War
Famous for being the sites of high-status burials, these earthen structures were constructed by many tribes across the Midwest
Mound
Some of the most famous examples of this Native American rock art were created by the ancestors of the Pueblo people in the American southwest
petroglyphs
Created from about 3000 BC to 1880 AD, many petroglyph sites are likely yet to be discovered
He was a Lakota chief who led resistance to American expansion in the Dakota Territories and defeated Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn.
Sitting Bull
This tribe from Florida first met Europeans in the early 1500s and resisted colonial domination until the 1850s. Many hundreds escaped deep into the Everglades and never officially surrendered.
Seminole
This Midwestern state means “beautiful river” in Iroquois, referring to the Mississippi tributary of the same name
Ohio
It was possibly the largest city built in what is now the contiguous United States, hundreds of years before European contact.
Cahokia
Many of the farming cultures of North America built communal structures that housed multiple families and could be efficiently heated from a single central fire, called this
Longhouse
Leaders of many Plains Indian nations wore these, earning the right to do so through selfless acts of courage and honor.
feather headdress or war bonnet
The act of wearing a feather headdress as part of a costume by those who have not earned the right is so offensive to Native people that the United States has banned the collection of eagle feathers for everyone except members of a federally recognized Native American tribe.
He was a medicine man and warrior chief of the Apache who led numerous raids on United States military outposts after the Mexican-American War.
Geronimo
This Native tribe lived along the east coast, including what is now New York City, New Jersey, and Philadelphia
Lenni Lenape
These states, both North and South, get their name from a Sioux word meaning “allies,” referring to a confederation of tribes that formed there.
the Dakotas
This conflict in the 1670s saw a great chief of the Narragansett, Metacomet, unite his people in an attempt to eliminate British colonization
King Phillip’s War
This was the term for the paramount leader of a Native tribe in the eastern United States.
sachem or sagamore
This Ojibwe woman is a prolific author, and in 2021, she won the Pulitzer Prize for her book The Night Watchman
Louise Erdrich