Today, the Illinois Indians are known primarily as the Indian nation whose name is used for both a state and a river. Their aboriginal territory was extensive and was situated south of the Great Lakes and east of the Mississippi River. The southern border of their territory was on the Ohio River and the northern … Continued
The popular media and sometimes history book view of the Northern Plains Indians of the nineteenth century envisions a male warrior, mounted on a horse, wearing a long war bonnet. There are many things wrong with this stereotype, but what is usually missing from the non-Indian descriptions of Northern Plains Indian warfare is the fact … Continued
Like most of the Indian nations that are currently associated with the Northern Great Plains, the Assiniboine migrated out on the Plains after the European invasion and its fur trade began pushing Native peoples to the west. The Assiniboine spoke a Siouan language and at one time they had been a part of the Yanktonai … Continued
While the Indian nations in what is now Maine may have had some limited contact with Europeans as early as 1480, regular contact began in the sixteenth century and intensified during the first half of the seventeenth century. During this time, the Indians began to incorporate aspects of European culture, such as trade goods, into … Continued
While the Indian nations of the American Southeast were an agricultural people, they used hunting to supplement their diet. Just as these nations held their agricultural lands in common, so too were hunting territories held in common. While agricultural lands were assigned to clans or family lineages, there was no assignment of use rights for … Continued
By the beginning of the seventeenth century, the French and English were turning from the exploration of what is now Maine to establishing colonies and converting the Indians to Christianity. The Europeans assumed that Christianity gave them superior rights to both land and resources. The idea that the Native peoples of Maine might any rights … Continued
The Huron, an Iroquoian-speaking people whose traditional homeland was north of the Great Lakes, were a confederacy of four major tribes: Bear, Rock, Barking Dogs, and White Thorns (also known as Canoes). The people called their confederacy Wendat or People of the Peninsula. They were given the name Huron by the French. The first contact between … Continued
Just fifty years ago—1966—American Indian affairs in the United States was still being guided in part by a philosophy of termination: that is, dissolving American Indian governments and making Indians assimilate into the larger non-Indian culture. American Indians for the most part weren’t cooperating with this termination philosophy and still insisted that they had a … Continued
In 1966, the American federal government was beginning to wind down its policies intended to end federal involvement with Indian tribes, due to resistance from the tribes. Briefly described below are some events involving federal government policies and American Indians. Commissioner of Indian Affairs In the federal bureaucracy, Indian Affairs are administered by the … Continued
More than a thousand years ago, the Norse—commonly called Vikings—had expanded their settlements west from Scandinavia into Britain, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, and North America. Both Ireland and Britain were, of course, occupied by farming peoples and the establishment of Norse settlements required the force of arms. Iceland was uninhabited (though some sources indicate that there … Continued
