Karen Hill

In 1834, rebel Seminole leader Osceola used these words to rally his people to fight to stay in their homeland: The government agent tells us we must go away from the lands we live on, our homes, and the graves of our Fathers, and go over the big river the Mississippi among the bad Indians. … Read more

In the late nineteenth century, whites introduced the sewing machine to the Seminole, an event that sparked an entirely new art form. Seminole women took to patchworking long horizontal bands of cloth. They then sewed these bands together to make brilliantly patterned shirts and skirts. Although most Seminole now dress in the same type of … Read more

When Indian Territory became part of Oklahoma, the United States declared that the Indian nations there no longer existed. The government wanted the Indians to blend into white society and forget their ancestors’ ways. Many Indians did come to live much like their white neighbors, but they never forgot they were Indians. They retained their … Read more

The Great Plains are a vast area of flat, grassy land in the center of North America. East to west, the plains stretch from the Mississippi River Valley to the Rocky Mountains. North to south, they extend from the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba down to central Texas.

As Americans flooded into tribes’ traditional homelands, many Native Americans lost their lands and were forced to move west. One example were the Wyandot, a branch of the Huron tribe. In the early nineteenth century, they were living in Ohio and Michigan. In 1843 the United States moved them to present-day Kansas so their lands … Read more

The Native Americans groups such as the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Apache that we most associate with the Great Plains started to arrive there in about 1650. They came to the Plains from the east and north after being pushed out of their lands by other Native Americans who had been forced from their own territories … Read more

In 1755, during a war between the Cherokee and Creek, a woman named Nanye’hi followed her husband into battle to provide him with ammunition and encouragement. During the battle, her husband was shot. Without a moment’s thought, Nanye’hi reached over his body, snatched his weapon, and took his place in the fight as she sang … Read more

Throughout the Southeast, Native Americans used the same materials, wood, mud, and dried grass, to build their houses. The type of dwelling, however, varied from tribe to tribe depending on the environment. Tribes such as the Choctaw and Cherokee lived in areas that were very hot in the summer, but that could be cold and … Read more

The houses in southeastern Native American villages were built around a courtyard that was big enough to hold all the village residents and their guests during the Green Corn Ceremony and other important events. By the courtyard was a council house, where the wise old men and distinguished warriors who ruled the village could meet. … Read more

In the early eighteenth century, the English established the colony of South Carolina on the territory of the Yamasee tribe. The colonists treated the Indians terribly. They stole their land and captured many Yamasee and sent them to the West Indies where they were sold as slaves. By 1715, the Yamasee had had enough. They … Read more

Born in about 1770, Sequoyah (also known as George Gist) was a Cherokee man who invented a way of writing down the Cherokee’s spoken language. The task was very difficult: He worked for years alone in a cabin, making marks on scraps of paper and wood chips. Many of his friends made fun of him. … Read more

Southeast Native Americans ate meat, fish, and wild plants aside from the food sourced from farming. Men hunted animals that lived in the forests that covered much of the Southeast. Using spears or bows and arrows, they stalked large game, such as deer and bear. For hunting rabbits, squirrels, and other small animals, they usually … Read more

For more than 4,000 years, Catawba women have made beautiful pottery using the same technique. A potter first shapes a ball of clay into a pancakelike base. She then rolls more clay into tubes, which she coils around the base and flattens out to form the pot’s walls. After the pot dries, its surface is … Read more

The Green Corn Ceremony was a great festival held by most Southeast tribes to celebrate the ripening of the year’s corn crop. In late summer, leaders from the host village sent out the word of when and where the ceremony would be held. Friends and relatives from neighboring villages would then gather, helping each other … Read more

The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, Choctaw, and Seminole were called the Five Civilized Tribes by non-Indians. During the eighteenth century, these large tribes quickly developed friendly relationships with European trading partners. In time, many traders married into their tribes and introduced the Indians to white ways and values. Because the tribes adopted some of these customs, … Read more

Southeastern Native American tribes grew many crops, including beans, potatoes, peas, and pumpkins, but the most important was corn. Women knew how to cook dozens of delicious dishes, from corn mush to corn bread, from this staple food. By drying much of their crop, they also made sure that their families would have plenty of … Read more

Hundreds of years before psychiatrists began analyzing their patient’s dreams, the Huron people believed that nightmares held hidden clues to a person’s innermost desires. Once a year, they held a ceremony called Ononharoia (meaning “upsetting the brain”) to examine their dreams. The ceremony began on a winter night. In the cold and dark, everyone troubled … Read more

After a heavy winter snow, Seneca men often gathered to play their favorite sport, snowsnakes. A snowsnake was a long wooden pole polished to a slippery finish with beeswax. In the game, the players took turns sliding their “snakes” along a shallow ditch dug into the snow. The winner was the player whose snowsnake traveled … Read more

In the winter, the Cherokee enjoyed a rowdy ceremony called the Booger Dance. After guests arrived at the host’s home, four masked dancers ran into the house. The dancers, called boogers, made crude noises and chased women around the room, all for the amusement of the audience. The masks of the boogers had grotesque features … Read more

The mystery of Roanoke began in 1590 when colony leader John White, returning from a three-year trip to England for supplies, found the settlement deserted. All of the colonists had seemingly disappeared. According to some theories, though, the Roanoke colonists were not lost, but found, by Indians. Some scholars believe that nearby Indians grew tired … Read more

In the 1970s, a young Menominee woman named Ada Deer decided to take on the U.S. government to save her tribe’s land. In 1970, the Menominee had become the first tribe to lose its reservation due to a government policy known as termination. The goal of termination was to dissolve reservations so that the government … Read more

Today, Native Americans live throughout the Northeast. Some make their home in tribal communities on reservations, such as the Penobscot Reservation in Maine and the Mashantucket Pequot Reservation in Connecticut. Most, however, live in towns and cities where the majority of residents are non-Indians. With a Native American population of 63,000, New York is the … Read more

Many of the first huge skyscrapers in the United States and Canada were built by Mohawk Indians. Mohawk men were first hired as steelworkers in 1886 during the construction of a bridge across the St. Lawrence River. Because of their fearlessness in climbing the high beams, construction companies soon sought out Mohawk workers to work … Read more

The center of the Southeast, including what are now the states of Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, was the home of many large Indian groups, such as the Cherokee, the Chickasaw, the Choctaw, and the Creek confederacy of tribes. To their east lived the Tuscarora of present-day North Carolina, the Catawba and the Yamasee of … Read more

The Southeast had plenty of fertile land, so the Native Americans there became expert farmers. Both men and women prepared the fields and brought in the harvest. But most of the planting and the day-to-day tending was the responsibility of women. By growing vegetables, they could feed many people, but they had to stay near … Read more

The French and Indian War was the last and most important in a series of wars fought between France and England in the eighteenth century. Both countries claimed some of the same lands in the Northeast, so they went to war to determine who would control the area. Although Indians had lived on these lands … Read more

In the late 1600s, the French tried to build an allegiance with the powerful Iroquois. Part of their effort was to send Catholic priests of the Jesuit order to live among the Mohawk. The Jesuits wanted to convert the Indians to Christianity. Most Mohawk people were leery of the priests, whom they called Black Robes … Read more

After the American Revolution, thousands of American settlers flooded into the Ohio River Valley, pushing tribes such as the Shawnee, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi out of their lands. Tecumseh was a Shawnee leader who believed these tribes needed to band together to fight the American intruders. He was inspired by the beliefs of his younger brother, … Read more

Many Native Americans stayed neutral in the American Revolution, because they disliked both the English and the American colonists rebelling against them. However, some groups, such as the six Iroquois tribes, took sides. When the war began in 1776, the influential Mohawk chief Joseph Brant allied his people with the English. The Onondaga, Seneca, and … Read more

During the French and Indian War, a group of Great Lakes Indians led by the Ottawa leader Pontiac began attacking British forts in their territory. In one of the most notorious events of Pontiac’s War, the Ojibwa staged a surprise raid on Fort Michilimackinac on present-day Mackinac Island, Michigan. With the permission of the British, … Read more

When Dutch traders built a post at New Amsterdam (now New York City), they did give the Lenape Indians some beads and other trinkets worth about $24. The Lenape, however, did not consider this payment for their land. Like other Indian people, they did not think of land as something that could be bought and … Read more

Wampum were small purple or white beads made from shells. These beads had great value to Indian tribes throughout the Northeast, particularly the Iroquois. The Iroquois believed that holding strings of wampum could give comfort to people grieving the loss of a loved one. They also wove wampum beads together to form belts to commemorate … Read more

One of the most brutal conflicts in, colonial America was the Pequot War (1636-37), during which the English killed hundreds of Pequot Indians, a small tribe in present-day Connecticut. The war nearly destroyed the Pequots. The few survivors tried to keep the tribe alive, but as time passed their population dwindled. By 1930, the two … Read more

In 1643 the powerful Iroquois tribes became the allies of the Dutch (the people of the Netherlands). They promised to give the Dutch furs in exchange for guns, an arrangement that spelled doom for many of the Iroquois’ enemies. In the next decade, they would battle the Petun, the Neutral, and the Erie, but their … Read more

When the fur trade began, European traders most wanted lush pelts of mink, sable, black fox, and ermine, which were used to trim expensive coats worn by the wealthy. By about 1600, though, the fur most in demand was that of the beaver, an animal nearly extinct in Europe. Felt hats were then a very … Read more

Some of the trade goods Native Americans received from Europeans made their work easier and their lives more comfortable. But the fur trade’s bad effects far outweighed the good. As Native Americans became involved in the fur trade, their way of life, if not their lives themselves, were often threatened. One tragic effect of the … Read more

Beginning in the late 1500s, traders from France, England, and the Netherlands flocked to North America to trade with Indians for animal furs. Europeans wanted furs to make warm winter clothing. The demand was so great that European traders could make a fortune by filling their ships with furs and reselling them in Europe. Northeastern … Read more

King Philip’s War was the name the English gave to a series of attacks the Wampanoag and Narragansett Indians made on the Plymouth Colony in 1675. The attacks were led by Metacom, the sachem (leader) of the Wampanoags and son of Massasoit. Unlike his father, Metacom did not trust the English, especially after his brother … Read more

Massasoit, the chief of the Wampanoag, and about 90 of his warriors joined the Pilgrims at Plymouth for a thanksgiving feast in the autumn of 1621. Following Native American tradition, the celebration was held to thank God for a plentiful harvest. The Pilgrims owed their Wampanoag guests a great debt because the Wampanoag had taught … Read more

Pocahontas likely did not save the life of Captain John Smith. This famous legend was written by John Smith himself, whose stories about his dramatic adventures were usually exaggerated, if not completely made up. According to Smith, who was a Jamestown leader, a group of Powhatan’s warriors took him captive in December 1607. They brought … Read more

Born in about 1596, Pocahontas was the favorite daughter of Powhatan, a powerful Indian leader who ruled about 30 tribes in what is now Virginia. When the English built Jamestown on her father’s lands, she was probably about 11 years old. Like many of the Powhatan Indians, she took an interest in the English and … Read more

Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa rallied many Native Americans to their cause. But while Tecumseh was journeying through the Southeast looking for more support, the confederacy was dealt a serious blow. Troops led by William Henry Harrison attacked and destroyed Tippecanoe, the town that served as Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa’s headquarters. Tecumseh’s forces continued to fight until October … Read more

In 1497, only five years after Christopher Columbus’s voyage to North America, John Cabot, an Italian-born explorer heading an English expedition, sailed to what is now Newfoundland in northeastern Canada. During a second voyage, the next year, he probably came upon Indians of the Beothuk tribe. Cabot was soon followed to the Northeast by a … Read more

During some curing rituals, Iroquois medicine men danced while wearing carved wooden masks called False Faces. Many of these masks featured deep-set eyes, a crooked nose, and a huge mouth twisted into a grimace. Healers wore these False Faces to honor Shagodyowehgowah. According to the Iroquois’ ancient stories, he was a giant who challenged the … Read more

Corn, beans, and squash, the foods the Iroquois relied on most were known as the Three Sisters. Like the northeastern Algonquian tribes, the Iroquois had many food sources, including wild plants, game animals, and fish, but their most important source of food was the crops they cultivated. The Three Sisters were thought to be gifts … Read more

Local problems and disputes were usually settled by village councils. In these councils, each clan was represented by several men. These leaders were chosen by the clan’s most prominent women, known as clan mothers. Although these women could not speak in council, they wielded the real power. Before councils were held, clan mothers met and … Read more

A clan was a group of relatives who all shared the same ancestor. In each village lived people from several different clans. The clans were named after animals the Iroquois valued, the bear, deer, beaver, turtle, wolf, and hawk. A carved image of one of these animals was often placed above a longhouse entrance to … Read more

Hodenosaunee, meaning “People of the Longhouse,” is the name that the Iroquois traditionally used to refer to themselves. The Iroquois believed that their confederacy was like a longhouse. Just as several families dwelled in harmony side by side in the same longhouse, the Iroquois lived peacefully in adjoining nations within the same realm. The confederacy-longhouse … Read more

The Iroquois Confederacy was governed by the Grand Council, which was composed of 49 men with representatives from every tribe. Each council member was given a title, which was the name of one of the 50 leaders who attended the first council. One name, however, was never assigned, that of the great Hiawatha. By refusing … Read more

A longhouse was the traditional Native American Iroquois dwelling. This enormous barn-shaped structure was made from a frame of saplings covered with bark shingles. Several long-houses were built near one another to form small villages. A longhouse was usually about 18 feet wide but could range from 40 to 200 feet long, depending on how … Read more

Although the members of the Iroquois Confederacy pledged not to war with one another, they were often ferocious in battles with other tribes. The Iroquois often fought against neighboring Algonquian and Iroquoian tribes, especially the Huron, whom they considered their greatest enemy. Successful warriors brought captives taken in battle back to their village. A captive’s … Read more

According to Iroquois legend, Hiawatha was an Onondaga man who refused to take revenge on those who murdered his wife and children. He instead looked for comfort in the words of a prophet the Iroquois now call the Peacemaker. The Peacemaker instructed Hiawatha in the Great Law, a set of rules for settling disputes without … Read more

In about 1400, five great tribes, the Cayuga, Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, and Seneca, banded together to form the Iroquois Confederacy. The confederacy was also called the Iroquois League or the Five Nations. A sixth tribe, the Tuscarora, joined the confederacy in 1722. The Tuscarora were a Iroquoian tribe from what is now North and South … Read more

The northeastern Iroquoian tribes lived in what is now central and western New York State and southern Ontario, Canada. These lands were sandwiched between the territory of the Great Lakes Algonquian tribes and that of the Algonquian tribes along the northern Atlantic Coast. Before contact with whites, there were about 12 Iroquoian tribes in the … Read more

The most distinguished healers among the Ojibwa tribe were the members of the Grand Medicine Society, or Midewiwin. To enter the society, men and women had to undergo a lengthy initiation, during which they learned about herbal medicines and were trained in the special songs and ceremonies of the Midewiwin. Achieving all four ranks of … Read more

Many Native American Algonquian tribes favored the type of house known as a wigwam. It was constructed from a frame of saplings bent to form a dome. Over this frame, wigwam builders tied mats of woven grass or reeds or sheets of tree bark. Wigwams were easy to set up and easy to take down, … Read more

Most of the Algonquian lived in a region full of rich, well-watered land, ideal for growing crops, such as beans and squash. Corn was especially important to the Algonquian living along the mid- and southern Atlantic Coast. This one crop made up almost half of their diet. With much of their lands covered by rich … Read more

Many Great Lakes Native American tribes ate the delicious rice that grew wild in their marshlands. But this food was most important to the Menominee, whose very name meant “wild rice people.” Every year, late in the summer, the Menominee took a fleet of canoes through marshes where rice stalks grew up high above the … Read more

The Maya performed many rituals and ceremonies to keep their gods happy. Some involved the shedding of human blood. Captives taken in war were sometimes killed to please the gods. But even powerful people, such as rulers and religious leaders, were expected to make blood sacrifices. Commonly, they drew their own blood by piercing their … Read more

A dugout was a type of canoe used by many Algonquian tribes. To make a dugout, a canoe-maker started by chopping down a cedar or an elm tree and setting the middle of the trunk on fire. Once the trunk was charred and the flame extinguished, the burned wood in the center would be dug … Read more

The Algonquian sought out spots near the water so that they would always be near fish or other water creatures to eat. Tribes on lakes and rivers invented all types of hooks, spears, and nets to catch fish. Those living on the Atlantic shore also gathered oysters, clams, and shellfish. The Wampanoag of present-day Massachusetts, … Read more

The northeastern Algonquian were clustered in two areas. One group lived near the Great Lakes in what is now the north-central United States and south-central Canada. The Great Lakes Algonquian tribes included the Ojibwa (also called the Chippewa), the Menominee, and the Potawatomi. Other Algonquian lived along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean from present-day … Read more

Before non-Natives arrived in North America, the woodlands of the Northeast were the home of some 50 tribes. Anthropologists group most of these peoples as either Algonquian or Iroquoian. The tribes in each group were distant relatives of one another. They also spoke similar languages and shared many of the same customs and ways.

Not all the Aztec were killed by the Spanish. Many Aztec died during the Spanish invasion, and still others were killed in the years that followed by non-Native diseases introduced to them by the Spanish. Those who survived were subjugated by the strangers in their land. Over time, the Spanish forced their children and their … Read more

For the ten years prior to Hernan Cortes’s arrival, odd happenings had haunted the Aztec. Elders had peculiar and upsetting dreams. Lightning struck a temple honoring the god of fire. The waters of the lake surrounding Tenochtitlan turned rough unexpectedly. Religious leaders feared these were omens of impending disaster. When Cortes arrived in their lands, … Read more

Hernando Cortes, a Spanish explorer, arrived at the coast of present-day Mexico in 1519 with an army of about 350 soldiers. Cortes was searching for a great city rumored to be full of riches. As they moved inland, Cortes and his men battled some of the Natives they met, but they were able to persuade … Read more

Quezalcoatl was an honored god of the Toltec and became an important deity for the Aztec as well. To the Aztec, he was the god of corn and of the arts. According to their legends, Quezalcoatl once had been a man. After angering the gods, the human QuezalcOatl had been exiled from the Aztec world, … Read more

Always in fear of droughts that would dry up their food supply, the Aztec people felt their future was uncertain. They believed that the only way to guarantee their survival was to please the gods they worshiped by offering them human sacrifices. During the dedications of temples and other ceremonies, tens of thousands of captives … Read more

According to the Aztec legend, the god Huitzilopochtli led the Aztec to the place where Tenochtitlan would be built. At the site, they found an eagle seated on a cactus holding a serpent in its beak. This image now appears in the center of the Mexican flag. The legend also lives on in the name … Read more

Tribute was food and goods the Aztec ruler demanded from the people he conquered. By collecting tribute, the Aztec Empire financed the splendors of Tenochtitlan and the nobility’s lavish way of life. At the empire’s height, tribute was collected from 489 cities. Farmers were required to give up a certain percentage of their crop. Craftspeople … Read more

By the sixteenth century, Tenochtitlan had a population of about 400,000, making it the largest Indian city ever built in Mesoamerica. The city was originally established on a small island. As Tenochtitlan grew in size, its inhabitants took over a neighboring island, Tlatelolco, and built bridges to make it accessible to Tenochtitlan. In an even … Read more

The Aztec created perhaps Mesoamerica’s greatest ancient empire. When their ancestors first came to central Mexico, however, they were little more than barbaric hunters. Early on, these people were under the control of more powerful Chichimeca tribes, for whom they sometimes served as warriors in exchange for pay. To escape from the demands of these … Read more

While the Maya civilization was in decline, the Toltec came to power in what is now central Mexico. United under the leader Mixcoatl, they established a vast empire in the region. A warlike people, the Toltec not only dominated other groups, they also set about building a great civilization. Led by Mixcoatl’s son, Topiltzin, Toltec … Read more

At their most prosperous, the Maya’s cities featured more than 400 ball courts. These playing fields were the site of spirited and often violent games. Like basketball, a team scored when one of its players made a rubber ball fall through a hoop. Like soccer, though, players could not throw the ball with their hands, … Read more

In about 900, the Maya civilization began to decline. The reason for this decline is not clear. The Maya may have overfarmed the land, leaving the soil barren. They may also have fallen victim to epidemics or been ruined by constant warfare. The descendants of the Maya lived on, but with little of their former … Read more

The Mound Builders didn’t come into contact with European settlers. By the eighteenth century, when whites began crossing the Appalachians into the Mississippians’ lands, their villages were gone. We can only guess at the Mound Builders’ fate. Their great settlements may have been laid low by widespread disease or by other Native American invaders. Changes … Read more

The Maya had 4 Gods that they worshiped. Itzamna: The lord of the heavens and the god of learning and writing. ltzamna was often depicted in Maya art as a two-headed serpent. Ix Chel: The wife of Itzamna and the goddess of medicine and childbirth. All other gods were the children of lx Chel and … Read more

Possibly the Maya’s most spectacular achievement was their calendar. Based on their sophisticated astronomical research, their calendar was very complicated and very precise. In fact, it was more accurate than the Gregorian calendar we use today. The Maya calendar was closely tied to their religious beliefs. They thought that an understanding of time was necessary … Read more

The Maya were amazing astronomers. From observatories atop their great pyramids, they charted the path of Venus and calculated solar and lunar eclipses with an accuracy that would not be matched for many centuries. They were equally skilled as mathematicians. Maya scholars developed a number system that used only three symbols: a line for five, … Read more

The Popul Vuh is a sacred book that tells the story of how the Maya were created. According to the Popul Vuh, the gods first made people from mud. Their bodies were too soft and flexible, so the gods destroyed them. Next, they made humans from wood. Their bodies were too hard and stiff, so … Read more

Until recently, scholars thought that the Maya were peaceful. But new research into the records the Maya left behind suggests that they were often at war, often among themselves. At their height, the Maya lived in about 100 separate cities, each with its own ruler. These cities were often trading partners, but just as frequently … Read more

The Maya developed one of the most advanced ancient civilizations in Mesoamerica. At its height from 300 to 800, Maya cities spread over what is now southern Mexico and portions of Belize and Guatemala. The Maya had much in common with the Olmec. Their skilled farmers grew enough food that many of their people could … Read more

Unlike most Native American groups, the Maya developed a form of writing to record their history and their religious beliefs. The Maya wrote in hieroglyphs, pictures that symbolized things, ideas, or sounds in their spoken language. They used these symbols to write on stelae (stone tablets) and in codices, books made of long strips of … Read more

Among the greatest achievements of Olmec art are the great sculptures found at the site of San Lorenzo. Carved from giant blocks of basalt (a volcanic rock), these works depict enormous human heads wearing tight-fitting helmets and probably were meant to be portraits of specific Olmec rulers. Each sculpture measures as tall as five feet … Read more

Teotihuacan was a city that grew up near what is now Mexico City. Between 300 and 900, Teotihuacan was the largest urban area in Mesoamerica. Laid out on an enormous grid, the city featured great open plazas, temples, and palaces. Rising high above the city was the Pyramid of the Sun. Constructed in about 125, … Read more

Olmec artists crafted beautiful ornaments from obsidian and mica. Although they did not have metal tools, they also carved sculptures from granite and jade. Many of these works depicted supernatural beings in the form of alligators, toads, and snakes. The were-jaguar, whose face had features of both a jaguar and a human being, was the … Read more

The Olmec lived primarily along the Gulf Coast east of what is now Mexico City. They built small urban areas, such as those at sites now known as San Lorenzo and La Venta. There, people gathered to trade and attend religious ceremonies. These urban centers featured great public buildings constructed by huge teams of workers. … Read more

The area known as Mesoamerica was the first place in the Americas where Native Americans learned to grow their own food. The most important crop was corn, which grew wild in Mesoamerica. These wild corn plants, however, were scrawny, the ears were small, and the corn kernels were tough. It took thousands of years of … Read more

The Olmec established the first great civilization in Mesoamerica, which flourished from about 1200 to 400 B.C. It is sometimes called the mother civilization because it had such a great influence on the cultures of later Mesoamerican people, including the Maya and the Aztec. Like the Olmec, these later groups were organized into social classes, … Read more

When Native Americans could grow large amounts of corn, they no longer had to spend every moment trying to find food. They were free to put time into other pursuits. Eventually they developed complicated religious rituals and became skilled craftspeople. Becoming farmers also meant that Native Americans had to live in large, permanent settlements to … Read more