All about the ancient tribes
Before Europeans arrived in North America, Native American groups developed into distinct and complex societies in response to the unique environments they inhabited.
There were many different Native American tribes and those with similar characteristics formed a main tribe or nation. Each had its own language, religion and customs. However, the coming of the Europeans and the removal of their land led to conflict both between the different tribes and between the Indians and whites.
It was established to address the problems facing Native Americans, such as ways to improve health, education, civil rights, and local government. The Society of American Indians was the first pan-Indian reform organization in the U.S. during the Progressive Era.
Most tribes were domestic, but the Lakota followed the buffalo as nomads. Most engaged in war, but the Apache were particularly feared, while the Hopis were pacifistic. Most societies were ruled by men, but the Iroquois women chose the leaders. Native Americans lived in wigwams, hogans, igloos, tepees, and longhouses.
Many Native Americans were enslaved and/or subjected to forced labor (the encomienda system). Traditional tribal economies changed as a result of increased trade with Europeans. The introduction of new crops and livestock into Native American societies changed settlement patterns.
The Native Americans throughout North America had a number of similarities. Each group or nation spoke the same language, and almost all were organized around an extended clan or family. They usually descended from one individual. Native Americans believed that people should live in harmony with nature.
is that nation is an historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, ethnicity and/or psychological make-up manifested in a common culture or nation can be damnation while tribe is a socially, ethnically, and politically cohesive group of people.
The Society was one of the first proponents of an “American Indian Day.” It was at the forefront of the fight for Indian citizenship and opening the U.S. Court of Claims to all tribes and bands in United States. The Indian Citizenship Law, signed on June 2, 1924, was a major achievement for the Society.
How did Native Americans increase their participation into the U.S. political process? In 1924, the Snyder Act granted citizenship to all Native Americans, but they remained second-class citizens. In 1934, the Indian Reorganization Act moved official policy away from assimilation and toward Native American autonomy.
The consensus, however, is that whenever possible, Native people prefer to be called by their specific tribal name. In the United States, Native American has been widely used but is falling out of favor with some groups, and the terms American Indian or Indigenous American are preferred by many Native people.
As a result, Native Americans have made many valuable contributions to American culture, particularly in the areas of language, art, food, and government. The early settlers borrowed words from several different Native American languages to name the new places and new objects that they had found in their new land.
Different tribes and peoples built different types of homes. What kinds of homes they lived in depended on the materials that they had available where they lived. It also depended on the kind of lifestyle that they lived as well as the environment.
Native Americans resisted change brought by contact with Europeans in the same period by waging war with the Europeans in order to preserve their culture. Some Native Americans also resisted change by refusing to convert to Christianity and instead kept their traditional religion.
As native population migrated and settled across the vast expanse of North America over time, they developed distinct and increasingly complex societies by adapting to and transforming their diverse environments.