59 Fun Facts About Native American History

As of 2020, how many tribal governments held federal recognition in the United States?

The count reached 574 in December 2019, when the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians gained recognition through that year's defense authorization act.

Roughly how many people reported Cherokee ancestry in the 2020 US census?

The 2020 census counted about 1.45 million people reporting Cherokee ancestry alone or in combination, the largest tribal grouping; the Navajo lead only when single-race respondents are counted.

The Navajo Nation occupies parts of Arizona, New Mexico and which third state?

Utah holds the reservation's northern strip around Monument Valley and Montezuma Creek; the 1868 treaty signed at Bosque Redondo created the reservation, whose capital is Window Rock, Arizona.

The pre-Columbian city of Cahokia sat across the Mississippi from which modern city?

Cahokia lies across the Mississippi from St. Louis, Missouri; it peaked around 1100 CE with a population estimated at 10,000 to 20,000, and its Monks Mound is the largest earthen structure north of Mexico.

Colorado's Mesa Verde takes its name from Spanish words meaning what?

Mesa Verde means 'green table' in Spanish, for the juniper-covered plateau; the park, created in 1906, protects about 600 cliff dwellings, of which Cliff Palace is the best known.

What outsider name for Ancestral Puebloans is shunned since it can mean 'ancient enemies'?

Anasazi comes from a Navajo word usually rendered 'ancient enemies' or 'enemy ancestors', so 'Ancestral Puebloans' replaced it in archaeological usage from the 1990s; their kivas, sunken ceremonial rooms, spanned the Four Corners region.

The Haudenosaunee were the Five Nations until 1722, when which people joined to make six?

The Tuscarora, driven from North Carolina after the 1711-1713 Tuscarora War, were admitted as the sixth nation; the original five were the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca.

According to Haudenosaunee oral history, the confederacy was founded under a constitution called what?

The Great Law of Peace (Gayanashagowa) is the oral constitution the Peacemaker and Hiawatha brought to the five nations; proposed founding dates range from 1142 to the mid-1500s.

Sequoyah, a silversmith of the Cherokee Nation, completed which invention in 1821?

The Cherokee Nation adopted it in 1825 and reached near-total literacy within 25 years, higher than surrounding settlers; the Cherokee Phoenix became North America's first bilingual newspaper.

The Indian Removal Act, which led to the Trail of Tears, was signed into law in which year?

Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act on 28 May 1830, over the objections of Tennessee congressman Davy Crockett; it authorised exchanging eastern tribal lands for land west of the Mississippi.

Which of these was NOT one of the 'Five Civilized Tribes' removed on the Trail of Tears?

The Comanche were Plains people of Texas and Oklahoma, never among the five; the Five Civilized Tribes were the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole, roughly 60,000 of whom were forced west.

The 1838 Cherokee removal was hastened by the discovery of what near Dahlonega, Georgia?

Gold was found near Dahlonega in 1828, setting off the Georgia Gold Rush and sharpening the state's push to seize Cherokee land; the Cherokee were marched west in 1838.

Present-day Oklahoma was designated as what before it became a state in 1907?

Indian Territory was the land set aside west of Arkansas for removed eastern nations from the 1830s; its western half became Oklahoma Territory in 1890, and the two merged into the state of Oklahoma in 1907.

Squanto, who taught the Pilgrims to plant and fertilise crops, learned English how?

Thomas Hunt trafficked him to Málaga in 1614; he returned in 1619 to find his Patuxet village wiped out by epidemic.

Pocahontas married which Jamestown tobacco planter in 1614?

John Rolfe, who pioneered Virginia's export tobacco, married her in April 1614; baptised as Rebecca, she died at Gravesend, England, in 1617 aged about 21, and the John Smith romance is a later invention.

Sacagawea gave birth during the Lewis and Clark expedition to a son nicknamed what by the captains?

Clark nicknamed the baby Pomp, or Pompy; Jean Baptiste Charbonneau was born at Fort Mandan in February 1805 and travelled the whole route in a cradleboard, and Clark named Pompeys Pillar after him.

Sacagawea was taken from her Lemhi Shoshone people at about age 12 in a raid by which tribe?

A Hidatsa war party seized her around 1800 near the Three Forks of the Missouri and took her to their villages on the Knife River, where the trapper Toussaint Charbonneau later took her as a wife.

The Shawnee leader Tecumseh, who built a pan-tribal confederacy, was killed in 1813 fighting where?

Tecumseh fell at the Battle of the Thames, near Moraviantown in present-day Ontario, on 5 October 1813; his brother Tenskwatawa, 'the Prophet', had lost Prophetstown at Tippecanoe in 1811.

Custer's 7th Cavalry was defeated at the Little Bighorn in June 1876 in which present-day state?

The battlefield lies on the Crow reservation in southeastern Montana, near Crow Agency; the Lakota call it the Greasy Grass, and 268 soldiers died, including Custer, two brothers, a nephew and a brother-in-law.

Before Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull had a vision of soldiers 'as thick as grasshoppers' doing what?

At a Sun Dance weeks before the battle, Sitting Bull saw soldiers falling upside down into the camp, read as a promised victory; he later toured with Buffalo Bill and was killed by agency police at Standing Rock in 1890.

Chief Joseph led his Nez Perce band on a months-long flight in 1877 toward asylum in which country?

Canada was the goal: after about 1,170 miles the Nez Perce were cornered at the Bear Paw Mountains, roughly 40 miles short of the border, where Sitting Bull's Lakota had already found refuge.

Geronimo, who surrendered for the last time in 1886, belonged to which people?

Geronimo was a Bedonkohe Apache medicine man and raid leader rather than a chief; he died a prisoner of war at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 1909, four years after riding in Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade.

The Wounded Knee Massacre of December 29, 1890 took place on which reservation in South Dakota?

On the Pine Ridge reservation, along Wounded Knee Creek, the 7th Cavalry killed between 250 and 300 Lakota; the Army awarded 20 Medals of Honor for the action, and Congress expressed 'deep regret' in a 1990 resolution.

The Army's fear that triggered Wounded Knee centred on which religious movement?

The Ghost Dance, spread by the Paiute prophet Wovoka, promised the return of the buffalo and the dead; Sitting Bull was killed two weeks before the massacre during an arrest meant to stop him joining it.

In which year was the Indian Citizenship Act, granting citizenship to all US-born Native Americans, signed?

Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act on 2 June 1924; several states kept barring Native voting for decades, with Arizona and New Mexico holding out until court rulings in 1948.

Jim Thorpe, of the Sac and Fox Nation, won gold in which two events at the 1912 Olympics?

Thorpe won both the pentathlon and the decathlon at Stockholm 1912 but was stripped of the medals for having played semi-pro baseball; the IOC restored them in 1983 and named him sole champion in 2022.

Jim Thorpe attended which Pennsylvania boarding institution, starring in football under Pop Warner?

Carlisle Indian Industrial School, founded by Richard Henry Pratt in 1879, was the flagship of a federal boarding-school system whose stated aim was to 'kill the Indian and save the man'; Thorpe starred there under Pop Warner.

The most famous code talkers of World War II were recruited for which branch of the US military?

The Marine Corps recruited the Navajo code talkers after civil engineer Philip Johnston proposed using their language; the first 29 reached boot camp in May 1942, and the Japanese never broke the code.

Because their language had no word for submarine, the code talkers rendered it as what?

Submarine became besh-lo, 'iron fish', in the Navajo code; at Iwo Jima six Navajo talkers worked round the clock for two days, and the signal officer said the island would not have been taken without them.

Native code talking was first used by the US military in which war, with Choctaw and Cherokee speakers?

Choctaw soldiers of the 36th Division first relayed orders in their own language in October 1918, near the end of World War I; in the next war the Army fielded Hopi, Meskwaki and other talkers.

Wilma Mankiller became the first woman to hold which office in 1985?

Mankiller became Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation in December 1985 when Ross Swimmer resigned, then won election in 1987 and 1991; she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998.

Charles Curtis, a citizen of the Kaw Nation, served as vice president under which president?

Herbert Hoover took Curtis, his rival for the 1928 nomination, as running mate; Curtis had been Senate Majority Leader since 1925 and became the first person of Native descent to hold the vice-presidency.

Deb Haaland became the first Native American Cabinet secretary in 2021, heading which department?

The Interior Department oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs; she and Sharice Davids had been the first two Native women elected to Congress in 2018.

The 'Three Sisters' of Native American agriculture are maize, beans and what?

The beans climb the corn and fix nitrogen while the squash leaves shade the soil; the crops were first domesticated in Mesoamerica.

Which sport, the oldest organised in North America, originated with Indigenous peoples?

Lacrosse descends from stickball games the Haudenosaunee and other eastern nations played long before European contact; today's Haudenosaunee Nationals compete under their own flag in World Lacrosse events.

Wampum beads used by the peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands were made from what?

The beads were cut from shells: white from the channeled whelk and purple from the quahog clam; belts such as the Two Row wampum recorded treaties.

Totem poles of the Pacific Northwest coast are typically carved from which tree?

Western red cedar is soft, rot-resistant and grows tall and straight along the coast, so Haida, Tlingit and Kwakwaka'wakw carvers favoured it; the poles record lineage and crests, not gods.

The word 'powwow' comes from a Narragansett word meaning what?

Narragansett 'powwaw' meant a spiritual leader or healer, 'one who dreams'; English settlers extended it to the gatherings such figures led, and a modern powwow opens with the Grand Entry and a flag song.

Kachina spirit beings, and the carved dolls representing them, belong to the religion of which group?

Hopi, Zuni and other Pueblo communities practise kachina rites; the dolls are given to those responsible for their care, traditionally women and girls.

Per the 2010 census, roughly what share of Native Americans lived outside reservations?

About 78% lived off reservations in 2010, with only around 22% on reservations or other trust land; cities with large Native populations include Minneapolis, Phoenix, Tucson, Oklahoma City, Los Angeles and New York.

The 1988 federal law that lets tribes operate casinos on sovereign reservation land is called what?

The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, signed by Ronald Reagan in October 1988, created the National Indian Gaming Commission and a three-class system in which casino-style Class III gaming requires a tribal-state compact.

Which name, meaning 'the people', do the Navajo use for themselves?

Diné means 'the people' in the Navajo language, which belongs to the Athabaskan family; 'Navajo' itself came from a Tewa word adopted by Spanish colonists.

Who edited the Cherokee Phoenix from its launch in 1828?

Elias Boudinot, a Cherokee educated at a mission school in Connecticut, edited the Phoenix from its first issue in February 1828 until 1832; it printed side by side in English and Cherokee.

On which day is Indigenous Peoples' Day observed in the United States?

It falls on the second Monday in October, the same day as the federal Columbus Day holiday, which the Uniform Monday Holiday Act moved off 12 October from 1971.

Which California city was the first in the US to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples' Day, in 1992?

Berkeley's city council made the change in 1992, the 500th anniversary of Columbus's landing; the idea had first been raised at a 1977 United Nations conference on discrimination against Indigenous peoples.

In which Swiss city was Indigenous Peoples' Day first proposed, at a 1977 conference?

The 1977 International NGO Conference on Discrimination against Indigenous Populations in the Americas met at the UN offices in Geneva; it took until 1992 for a US city to act on the proposal.

Who was the first US president to formally commemorate Indigenous Peoples' Day by proclamation, in 2021?

Joe Biden issued the first presidential proclamation of Indigenous Peoples' Day on 8 October 2021, alongside the traditional Columbus Day proclamation, and repeated it each year of his term.

Which state replaced Columbus Day with Native American Day in 1990?

South Dakota replaced Columbus Day with Native American Day in 1990, the 'Year of Reconciliation' declared by Governor George Mickelson a century after Wounded Knee.

What name does Hawaii give to its October holiday in place of Columbus Day?

Hawaii designates the day Discoverers' Day, honouring the Polynesian navigators who reached the islands centuries before any European; it has not been a paid state holiday since 1988.

On which date does the United Nations mark the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples?

The UN chose 9 August, the date of the first meeting of its Working Group on Indigenous Populations in 1982; the 21 June and 19 April options are other countries' national observances.

Which state was the first to make Columbus Day an official holiday, in 1907?

Colorado acted in 1907 at the urging of Italian-born publisher Angelo Noce; New York's Tammany Society had held the first celebration in 1792, and Benjamin Harrison proclaimed a one-time national observance in 1892.

Which Mound Builder earthwork in Louisiana dates to about 3500 BCE, among the oldest in North America?

Watson Brake, near Monroe in northeastern Louisiana, is an oval of 11 mounds built from about 3500 BCE by hunter-gatherers; nearby Poverty Point followed roughly two millennia later, around 1700 BCE.

Which Woodland-period tradition linked the Eastern Woodlands with the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico?

The Hopewell tradition, centred on the Ohio Valley from about 100 BCE to 500 CE, ran an exchange network that brought Great Lakes copper, Appalachian mica and even Yellowstone obsidian to its earthworks.

The 1998 film Smoke Signals, the first feature produced and directed by Native Americans, is set on which reservation?

The story follows Victor and Thomas from the Coeur d'Alene reservation in Idaho to Arizona; Chris Eyre directed and Sherman Alexie wrote it, and it won the Audience Award at Sundance in 1998.

Lakota runner Billy Mills won Olympic gold in the 10,000 metres at which Games?

Mills, a 26-year-old lieutenant, came from behind in the last 100 metres to win the 10,000 metres at Tokyo in October 1964 in 28:24.4, an Olympic record; no American had won the event before him.

In which event did Hopi runner Louis Tewanima finish ninth at the 1908 Olympics?

Tewanima ran the 1908 London marathon, finishing ninth; four years later, as Jim Thorpe's teammate, he took silver in the 10,000 metres at Stockholm.

In the first century after European contact, populations in some Native regions fell by what share?

Estimates put the decline at 90 percent or more in the hardest-hit regions, such as central Mexico and the Caribbean; smallpox was especially devastating to peoples with no prior exposure to it.

What is the name of the land bridge between Siberia and Alaska crossed by the Paleo-Indians?

Beringia, the land exposed when Ice Age sea levels fell, linked Siberia and Alaska; the 'Beringian standstill' hypothesis holds that a founding population lived there for thousands of years before spreading south.

The US census counts Native Hawaiians separately from Native Americans, classifying them as what?

About 714,847 Americans reported Native Hawaiian ancestry in 2022 estimates.