NATIVE AMERICAN INDIAN TRIBES:

Everybody knows who Christopher Columbus was, but very few know the name of the first Native who welcomed Columbus. to the Americas. The main objective of the "Amauta" Series is to educate people about the little known history of the America's Indigenous people.

The President of the United States, George W. Bush said:
"The strength of our Nation comes from its people.  As the early inhabitants of this great land, the native peoples of North America played a unique role in the shaping of our Nation's history and culture...I call on all Americans to learn more about the history and heritage of the Native peoples of this great land.  Such actions reaffirm our appreciation and respect for their traditions and way of life and can help to preserve an important part of our culture for generations yet to come."

President of USA George W. Bush on November 19, 2001
National American Indian Heritage Month Proclamation

The President of the United States, William J. Clinton said:
"So much of who we are today comes from who you have been for long time. Long before others came to the shores there were powerful and sophisticated cultures and societies here--yours. Because of your ancestors, democracy existed here long before the Constitution was drafted and ratified...I believe in your rich heritage and in our common destiny.  What you have done to retain your identity, your dignity and your faith in the face of often immeasurable obstacles is profoundly moving--an example of the enduring strength of the human spirit.""

President of USA Williams J. Clinton on April 29, 1994
From the Book: Native Time written by Lee Francis, pp. 328-329

USA SENATE RESOLUTION/76
ABOUT THE IROQUOIS CONSTITUTION
NATIVE AMERICAN POLITICAL SYSTEM AND THE EVOLUTION OF DEMOCRACY
THE GREAT BINDING LAW, GAYANASHAGOWA
TESTIMONY OF JOSEPH DE LA CRUZ, CHAIRMAN, QUINAULT INDIAN NATION
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA, SENATE RESOLUTION 177
NATIONAL NATIVE AMERICAN INDIAN MONTH PROCLAMATION IN 2000
NATIONAL NATIVE AMERICAN INDIAN MONTH PROCLAMATION IN 2001
TREATIES AND DOCUMENTS FROM 1778-1971

NORTH AMERICAN MAIN CULTURES:

TIMELINE from PBS - The West (Before Columbus to 1500)

TIMELINE OF ANCIENT AMERICA CHART

CANADA FIRST NATIONS: The histories of the First Nations peoples are fundamentally connected to the physical identity of Canada. The vastness and variety of Canada's climates, ecology, vegetation, fauna, and landforms separate, join, and define ancient peoples, as implicitly as cultural or linguistic divisions. Canada is surrounded north, east, and west with coastline and since the last ice age Canada has consisted of several distinct forest regions. Adaptability is the essential component for survival within these demanding environments. Historic geographical models and population estimates are supplemented by oral histories, archaeological and anthropological evidence to derive knowledge of First Nations dwellings, food sources, and technology. Understanding how a people survived within their environment provides a greater insight into their history.

MOUNDS BUILDERS CULTURE: Mound Builders, were people who built mounds in E central North America, concentrating in the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys, from the early 6th cent. to historic times. Probably ancestors of Native Americans found in that region by Europeans, they were politically diverse and developed distinct cultures. Artifacts indicate fine stone carving, pottery making, and weaving, as well as widespread trade in copper, mica, and obsidian. The mounds vary in size (1–100 acres/0.4–40 hectares), shape (geometric or animal effigy, e.g., Serpent Mound in Ohio), and purpose (burial, fortress, or totem.

ANAZASI CULTURE: A·na·sa·zi (ä´ne-sä¹zê) noun plural Anasazi were a group of Native American people inhabiting southern Colorado and Utah and northern New Mexico and Arizona from about A.D. 100 and whose descendants are the present-day Pueblo peoples. Anasazi culture includes an early Basket Maker phase and a later Pueblo phase marked by the construction of cliff dwellings and by expert craftsmanship in weaving and pottery.

HOHOKAM CULTURE: Hohokam, was an ancient agricultural culture of S Arizona (c.300–1200 A.D.). The Hohokam are noted for their extensive irrigation systems but also built sunken ball-courts, pyramidal mounds, and other structures similar to those of central Mexico. Most archaeologists believe that Hohokam culture evolved from local antecedents, although they did trade with more southerly groups. Their fate and possible ancestry of the Pima and Tohono O'Odham (Papago) is widely disputed

MOGOLLON CULTURE: Mogollon (mo´ge-yon¹) noun. A Native American culture flourishing from the 2nd century B.C. to the 13th century A.D. in southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico, especially noted for its development of pottery.

FREMONT CULTURE: Fremont is the name given to diverse groups of Native Americans that inhabited the western Colorado Plateau and the eastern Great Basin from 400 A.D. to 1350 A.D. Fremont Indians lived along streambeds and raised their families in this desolate land several hundred years longer than the descendents of European emigrants have lived in America. The barren, semi-arid land where the Fremont Indians lived contains areas of spectacular beauty.

SALADO INDIANS: The Salado Culture represents a mixture of Mogollon, Hohokam and Anasazi peoples. The Hohokam and Mogollon had already been interacting in this area for some time, but it was not until the first influx of Anasazi peoples, probably originating from the Little Colorado area, that this mixture of peoples began to develop its own distinct character. This occured around 1100 AD, and is evidenced in the appearance at this time of black-on-white pottery types.

500 NATIONS: (Indian Tribes Map) The first people to discover the New World, or Western Hemisphere, are believed to have walked across a “land bridge” from Siberia to Alaska, an isthmus since broken by the Bering Strait. From Alaska, these ancestors of the Native Americans spread through what became known as North, Central, and South America. Anthropologists have placed these crossings at between 18,000 and 14,000 B.C., but evidence found in 1967 near Puebla, Mex., indicates people may have reached there as early as 35,000-40,000 years ago. There were more 500 Indian Nations in North America before Columbus. Excellent Pictures on North American Cultures. Collection of Native American Pictures.

A MAP OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIAN CULTURES


At first, these people were hunters, using flint weapons and tools. In Mexico, about 7000-6000 B.C., they founded farming cultures and developed crops, such as corn and squash. Eventually, they created complex civilizations—the Olmec, Toltec, Aztec, and Maya and, in South America, the Inca. Carbon-14 tests show that humans lived about 8000 B.C. near what are now Front Royal, VA, Kanawha, WV, and Dutchess Quarry, NY. The Hopewell Culture, based on farming, flourished about 1000 B.C.; remains of it are seen today in large mounds in Ohio and other states.

On the other hand, Native Americans believe on the Creation of the World and the Indian people.  Many not different stories of the creation of Indian people are handle down to the new generations.  Native Americans do not believe in the Bering Strait theory and even some of us consider that theory very offensive. 

Norsemen (Norwegian Vikings sailing out of Iceland and Greenland) are credited by most scholars with being the first Europeans to discover America, with at least 5 voyages occurring about A.D. 1000 to areas they called Helluland, Markland, Vinland—possibly what are known today as Labrador, Nova Scotia or Newfoundland, and New England.
Indian Tribes in United States and Canada

HAWAIIAN NATIVE PEOPLE: To understand Hawaiian native history and culture, one must understand the greater Polynesian phenomenon. Hawaii is the apex of the Polynesian Triangle, a region of the Pacific Ocean anchored by three island groups: Hawaii, Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and Aotearoa (New Zealand). The many island cultures within the Polynesian Triangle share similar languages derived from a proto-Malayo-Polynesian language used in Southeast Asia 5000 years ago. Polynesians also share fundamentally similar cultural traditions, arts, religion, sciences. Anthropologists believe that all Polynesians have a common connection to a single proto-culture established in the South Pacific by migrant Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian) people.

A SHORT HISTORY ON NATIVE AMERICANS AND THEIR ENCOUNTER WITH EUROPEANS:

TIMELINE from PBS - The West (From 1500 to 1650)

EUROPEAN CONTACT AND IMPACT
It is estimated that at the time of first European contact, North and South America was inhabited by more than 90 million people (some said 120 million): about 10 million in America north of present-day Mexico; 30 million in Mexico; 11 million in Central America; 445,000 in the Caribbean islands; 30 million in the South American Andean region; and 9 million in the remainder of South America. These population figures are a rough estimate (some authorities cite much lower figures); exact figures are impossible to ascertain. When colonists began keeping records, the Native American populations had been drastically reduced by war, famine, forced labor, and epidemics of diseases introduced through contact with Europeans.

As early Europeans first stepped ashore in what they considered the “New World”—whether in San Salvador (West Indies), Roanoke Island (North Carolina), or Chaleur Bay (New Brunswick)—they usually were welcomed by the peoples indigenous to the Americas. Native Americans seemed to regard their lighter-complexioned visitors as something of a marvel, not only for their dress, beards, and winged ships but even more for their technology—steel knives and swords, fire-belching arquebus (a portable firearm of the 15th and 16th centuries) and cannon, mirrors, hawkbells and earrings, copper and brass kettles, and other items unusual to the way of life of Native Americans.

RELATION WITH THE COLONIAL POWERS
“We came here to serve God, and also to get rich,” announced a member of the entourage of Spanish explorer and conqueror Hernán Cortés. Both agendas of 16th-century Spaniards, the commercial and the religious, needed the Native Americans themselves in order to be successful. The Spanish conquistadors and other adventurers wanted the land and labor of the Native Americans; the priests and friars laid claim to their souls. Ultimately, both programs were destructive to many indigenous peoples of the Americas. The first robbed them of their freedom and, in many cases, their lives; the second deprived them of their culture.

Contrary to many stereotypes, however, many 16th-century Spaniards agonized over the ethics of conquest. Important Spanish jurists and humanists argued at length over the legality of depriving the Native Americans of their land and coercing them to submit to Spanish authority. For the Native Americans, however, these ethical debates did little good.

THE RAVAGES OF DISEASES
In 1492 the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and Andean South America were among the most densely populated regions of the hemisphere. Yet, within a span of several generations, each experienced a cataclysmic population decline. The culprit, to a large extent, was microbial infection: European-brought diseases such as smallpox, pulmonary ailments, and gastrointestinal disorders, all of which had been unknown in the Americas during the pre-Columbian period. Native Americans were immunologically vulnerable to this invisible conqueror.

The destruction was especially visible in Latin America, where great masses of susceptible individuals were congregated in cities such as Tenochtitlán and Cuzco, not to mention the innumerable towns and villages dotting the countryside. More than anything else, it was the appalling magnitude of these deaths from disease that prompted the vigorous Spanish debate over the morality of conquest.

As the indigenous population in the Caribbean plummeted, Spaniards resorted to slave raids on the mainland of what is now Florida to bolster the work force. When the time came that this, too, proved insufficient, they took to importing West Africans to work the cane fields and silver mines.

Those Native Americans who did survive were often assigned, as an entire village or community to a planter or mine operator to whom they would owe all their services. The encomienda system, as it came to be known, amounted to virtual slavery. This, too, broke the spirit and health of the indigenous peoples, making them all the more vulnerable to the diseases brought by the Europeans.

Death from microbial infection was probably not as extensive in the Canadian forest, where most of the indigenous peoples lived as migratory hunter-gatherers. Village farmers, such as the Huron north of Lake Ontario, did, however, suffer serious depopulation in waves of epidemics that may have been triggered by Jesuit priests and their lay assistants, who had established missions in the area.

NATIVE NORTH AMERICANS TODAY
Statistics of health, education, unemployment rates, and income levels continue to show Native Americans as disadvantaged compared to the general population of North America. In the 1980s U.S. government policies have led to budget cuts for social and welfare services on the reservations. However, according to the United States Census Bureau, the Native American population in the United States rose more than 20 percent between 1980 and 1990. Pride in Native American heritage has survived as well. On many reservations, tribal languages and religious ceremonies are enjoying renewed vigor. Traditional arts and crafts, such as Pueblo pottery and Navajo weaving, continue to be practiced, and some contemporary Native American artists of North America, such as Fritz Scholder and R. C. Gorman, have successfully adapted European styles to their paintings and prints of Native American subjects. The strength of the Native American narrative tradition can be felt in the poetry and novels of the Native American writer N. Scott Momaday, who won a Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his House Made of Dawn (1969). Other prestigious contemporary Native American writers of North America include Vine Deloria, best known for his indictment of U.S. policy toward Native Americans in Custer Died for Your Sins (1969) and Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties (1974); novelists James Welch and Leslie Marmon Silko; and William Least Heat-Moon, author of the widely popular Blue Highways: A Journey into America (1983), an account of his travels in the United States.
Statistics on Native Americans in USA, Census 2000

GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT NATIVE AMERICANS OR INDIANS OF THE AMERICAS TODAY:

Estimate Numbers of Native Americans or Indians: 40 to 70 million. 

Numbers of Native Americans in United States and Canada:  2,475,956 (USA) 799,000 (Canada)

- Indian Tribes in United States and Canada
- We the People, Native American - U.S. Census 2000
- American Indian and Alaskan Natives Population Report
- Canada First Nations Report on Population 2001
- Native American Population in Utah
- Excellent Link in the Native American Census
- Tribal Government Liaison Handbook on the Census 2000


Numbers of Native Americans or Indians in Latin America: 39,442,000 million
(Countries with more than a million): Mexico (12m.), Peru (10.2m.), Bolivia (4.2m.), Guatemala (4.2m.), Ecuador (3.34m.), Chile (1m.).
(Countries with less than a million): Argentina (398t.), Belize (30t.), Brazil (243t.), Colombia (547t.), Costa Rica (32t.), El Salvador (300t.), Guyana (28t.), Honduras (245t.), Nicaragua (152t.), Panama (126t.), Paraguay (67t.), Surinam (10t.), and Venezuela (331t.) (t.=thousand).
- Indian Tribes in Latin America
- Latin American Indian Population - Up date

Problems with Statistics regarding Native Americans or Indians: In some countries in Latin America, there are no census data for Native people, in others, the census include complex criteria to determine who is Native. Until few years ago, some countries denied the existence of Native people in their territories and in many cases, Native people denied their origin due to the pressure of  society who consider them "uncivilized". In my opinion the estimated numbers are very low, in one of my presentations, I further explain my position. Source: America Indigena (1-2-1992)
- Latin American Indian Population - Up date
- A Paper About Latin American Indian Populations (Spanish)
- Indians in Latina America, Population (Spanish)

Links on Important Documents:

RELATION OF THE INDIES
LETTER OF LOPE DE AGUIRRE
LETTER KING FERDINAND
SPANISH REQUIREMENT
UN INDIGENOUS RIGHTS
APOLOGY TO NATIVES
US INDIAN TREATIES
US INDIAN LAND CESSION
SEATTLE DECLARATION
INDIGENOUS RIGHTS (1995)
SPAIN KING PHILIP II
LAW OF THE INDIES
COLUMBUS MONUMENTS
RESOLUTIONS