Updated November 22, 2019
By Daniel Francis
The United States Bureau of Indian Affairs has 565 registered tribes in its service. Native American populations are described as a people, a nation and then a tribe within a nation. The tribes known in the 18th century and recognized by the new nation of the United States were mostly the same as in the 16th Century when European colonization began.
Northeast
The Algonquin and Iroquois nations were the largest people east of the Mississippi River in the 16th Century. In New England, the Massachuset, Narraganset and Wamaponag tribes were the first natives to meet the English settlers. Surrounding the Great Lakes were the populations of the Erie, Huron, Miami, Potawatomi, Sauk and Winnebago tribes. In the Midwestern plains were the Illinois, Shawnee and Kickapoo. Along the Atlantic Ocean were the Delaware, Tuscarota and Powhatan tribes.
Southeast
The Cherokee tribes lived in the fertile hills of what later became Kentucky and Tennessee. The Mobilian tribes stretched across Arkansas, Alabama, Mississippi and the Carolinas. Chickasaw and Chocktow tribes populated what became the states of Arkansas and Louisiana. The Caddo and Natchez tribes lived on both sides of the Mississippi River, stretching from the delta west to the green areas of eastern Texas. The Seminoles dominated the Floridian peninsula. Other tribes of Florida were the Timucuan, Calusa and Tequesta.
The Plains
The main tribes of the plains were Sioux, Cheyenne and Apache. Other tribes included the Hidatsa, Blackfoot, Cheyenne, Pawnee, Shoshone, Mandan and Wichita. The Comanche resided in the southern plains in what became Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. The Comanche were the dominant tribe for trade in the region. Some tribes from other regions could be found in the Plains, such as Shawnee, Illinois, Iowa and Iroquois.
Southwest
In the desert Southwest, in the areas that became Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and the southeastern area of California, there were fewer tribes due to the harsh living conditions in the Sonoran desert. The Havasupai people lived around the Grand Canyon. The Hualapai lived in the high desert of northern Arizona. The Yavapai lived in central Arizona. The Mojave lived around the Colorado River along the border area between the states of Arizona and California in the harsh Mojave desert. The Yuma also lived in the same area as the Mojave.
West Coast
Athabascan, Algonkin, Shoshone, Yukian, Hokan and the Penutian tribes were in what became the state of California. Other tribes along the coast of the Pacific Ocean, from northern California north to Canada, were the Chinook, Hoh, Hopi, Puyallup, Skokomish, Skagit, Aleut and Yakima.
Great Basin
The Great Basin is the high plateau west of the major ranges of the Rocky Mountains in what became central and northern Nevada, western Utah, Idaho and parts of eastern Oregon and Washington State. The tribes of the Great Basin area were the Western Shoshone, the Goshute, the Ute, the Paiute and the Washoe.
FAQs
The People.
European colonists initially encountered Native Americans in three distinct regions. Eastern Woodland tribes included the Five Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, Abenakis, Shawnees, Delawares, Micmacs, Mahicans, and Pequots.
How many Native Americans were there in the 1500s? ›
Indians has enabled new tribe-by-tribe estimates of North American Indian population size. Collectively these data suggest that population numbered about 1,894,350 at about A.D. 1500. Epidemics and other factors reduced this number to only 530,000 by 1900.
How many Native American tribes were there before 1492? ›
According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, there are 574 nationally recognized Native American tribes. However, during the Pre-Columbian era, there were thought to be over 1,000 Native American civilizations, all residing within what we would consider the United States today.
What happened to the population of Native Americans from 1500 to 1600? ›
Between 1492 and 1600, 90% of the indigenous populations in the Americas had died. That means about 55 million people perished because of violence and never-before-seen pathogens like smallpox, measles, and influenza.
What Native American tribes were in 1620? ›
When the Pilgrims set sail for America, southeastern New England was populated by a number of tribes, among them, the Wampanoags, Narragansetts and the Pequot, all of whom had established territories, as well as political and trade relations with one another.
What Native American tribes existed in the north eastern territories in the 1600 to 1700s? ›
The Five Tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy lived south of the St. Lawrence River and Lake Erie, for the most part in the present-day state of New York. The alliance comprised the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca peoples; the Tuscarora joined the confederacy later.
How many Native Americans were there in 1600? ›
A 2019 study estimates the pre-Columbian Indigenous population contained more than 60 million people, but dropped to 6 million by 1600, based on a drop in atmospheric CO 2 during that period.
How many Native Americans were there in the 16th century? ›
Denevan further estimates that the First Peoples of the Americas suffered a death toll of 89%, striking their numbers from 53.9 million to 5.6 million by the sixteenth century, as a result of disease, warfare, and the experience of slavery (Denevan: Pristine Landscape).
Why did many Native Americans eventually died after the 1500s? ›
The 'Great Dying' was triggered by the arrival of Europeans and the introduction of new pathogens to the continent. Together, with warfare and slavery, there was an epidemic of diseases such as smallpox, measles, influenza and cholera.
What disease killed most natives? ›
The first case of smallpox was reported in 1520 and this disease continued to re-infect Native American communities for hundreds of years. It is estimated that some tribes lost 50% of their populations due to smallpox.
So to give you a straight answer, yes – Mexican tribes are Native to the Americas, but the governments of the US and Mexico define their citizenry according to their country of residence.
Where did Native American DNA come from? ›
The First Amerindian Natives are postulated to have come from Asia through the Bering land bridge between 30,000–12,000 years before the present (BP). These conclusions have been based on cultural, morphological and genetic similarities between American and Asian populations.
What was the biggest killer of the native population in the Americas? ›
They had never experienced smallpox, measles or flu before, and the viruses tore through the continent, killing an estimated 90% of Native Americans. Smallpox is believed to have arrived in the Americas in 1520 on a Spanish ship sailing from Cuba, carried by an infected African slave.
Why were Native Americans called Indians? ›
American Indians - Native Americans
The term "Indian," in reference to the original inhabitants of the American continent, is said to derive from Christopher Columbus, a 15th century boat-person. Some say he used the term because he was convinced he had arrived in "the Indies" (Asia), his intended destination.
How many natives were killed by colonizers in America? ›
According to geographers from University College London, the colonization of the Americas by Europeans killed so many people, approximately 55 million or 90% of the local populations, it resulted in climate change and global cooling.
Who were the first Native American tribes? ›
These people, the first North Americans, were known collectively as Clovis people. Their journey was made possible, according to archaeologists far and wide, by a corridor that had opened up between giant ice sheets covering what is now Alaska and Alberta.
Who were the first Indian tribes? ›
Tribes included the Karok, Maidu, Cahuilleno, Mojave, Yokuts, Pomo, Paiute, and Modoc.
Who were the Powhatan Indians in the 1600s? ›
At the time English colonists arrived in the spring of 1607, coastal Virginia was inhabited by the Powhatan Indians, an Algonquian-speaking people. The Powhatans were comprised of 30-some tribal groups, with a total population of about 14,000, under the control of Wahunsonaco*ck, sometimes called “Powhatan.”
