60 Fun Facts About Native American History

How many federally recognised tribal governments are there in the United States?

There are also 326 Indian reservations; Virginia had no federally recognised tribes at all until 2017.

Roughly how many people reported Cherokee ancestry in the US census, the largest self-reported tribe?

About 1.45 million people report Cherokee ancestry; the Navajo are the largest if only single-race respondents are counted.

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

It is bigger than ten US states, with its capital at Window Rock, Arizona; the 1868 Treaty of Bosque Redondo established it.

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

Its 120 mounds make it the largest earthen construction north of Mexico and one of the 26 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the US.

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

The park, created in 1906, holds more than 5,000 sites including 600 cliff dwellings; Cliff Palace is the most famous.

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

The culture spanned the Four Corners region, and its kivas, sunken ceremonial rooms, are still used by modern Pueblo peoples.

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

The original five, east to west, were the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca; the name means 'people of the longhouse'.

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

The Great Peacemaker, Hiawatha and Jigonhsasee are credited with founding it sometime between 1142 and 1660.

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?

President Andrew Jackson pushed it through over the objections of Tennessee congressman Davy Crockett.

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

The five were the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole; roughly 60,000 people were forced west to Indian Territory.

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

The Choctaw had gone first in 1831 and served as the model for every later removal.

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

The states with the highest share of Native Americans today are Alaska, Oklahoma, Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.

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?

Baptised as Rebecca, she died at Gravesend in England in 1617 aged about 21; the popular John Smith romance is a later invention.

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

Jean Baptiste Charbonneau was born at Fort Mandan in February 1805 and travelled the whole way in a cradleboard on her back.

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

She was held near present-day Washburn, North Dakota, and later married the French-Canadian trapper Toussaint Charbonneau.

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

His brother Tenskwatawa, 'the Prophet', had lost Prophetstown at Tippecanoe two years earlier.

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

The Lakota call it the Battle of the Greasy Grass; 268 US soldiers died, including Custer, two of his brothers, a nephew and a brother-in-law.

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

The Hunkpapa leader later toured with Buffalo Bill's Wild West and was killed by agency police at Standing Rock in 1890.

The Oglala Lakota war leader Crazy Horse is notable for lifelong avoidance of what?

No authenticated photo of him exists; he died of a bayonet wound at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, in 1877 after surrendering.

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

They were cornered in northern Montana just short of the border, where Sitting Bull's Lakota had already taken refuge.

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

He was a shaman and raid leader rather than a chief; he died a prisoner of war at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 1909 after appearing in Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade.

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

Between 250 and 300 Lakota were killed by the 7th Cavalry; the Army awarded 19 Medals of Honor for it, a decision still contested.

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

Settlers called it the Messiah War; Sitting Bull was killed two weeks earlier 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?

President Coolidge signed it on June 2; some states still barred Native voting for decades afterward.

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

He 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?

The federal boarding-school system's stated aim was to 'Kill the Indian, Save the man'.

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

Civil engineer Philip Johnston proposed using the Navajo language; the first 29 recruits went to boot camp in May 1942 and the code was never broken.

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

At Iwo Jima six Navajo talkers worked round the clock for two days; 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?

In World War II the Army also fielded Comanche, Hopi, Meskwaki, Lakota and other speakers in Europe and North Africa.

Wilma Mankiller made history in 1985 as the first woman elected to what office?

She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1998 and appears on a US quarter in the American Women series.

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

He was also the first Native American in Congress and became Senate Majority Leader before the 1928 ticket.

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?

World Lacrosse is the only international sports body that recognises Native nations as sovereign competitors, and the Haudenosaunee field their own team.

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

The white and purple beads came from the quahog clam and later the channeled whelk; belts like the Two Row recorded treaties.

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

They record family lineage and legends and, contrary to common belief, were never objects of worship.

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

A modern powwow opens with the Grand Entry led by the head dancers, followed by a flag song and a veterans' 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?

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?

Even so, only about 40% of federally recognised tribes run casinos.

The largest reservation's council twice rejected renaming the nation using its people's own name. What is that name?

Diné is the people's own name; opponents argued in 1994 that it recalled the suffering before the Long Walk and that Navajo was the name for the future.

The Cherokee Phoenix, launched in 1828, holds what distinction among North American newspapers?

It was made possible by Sequoyah's syllabary, which was also being used for pamphlets, schoolbooks and legal documents by then.

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

It is a counter-celebration held on the same day as the federal Columbus Day holiday, which the Uniform Monday Holiday Act moved off October 12 in 1971.

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

The date marked the 500th anniversary of Columbus's landing. The idea had first been floated at a 1977 UN-linked conference in Geneva, fifteen years earlier.

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

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?

He issued the proclamation alongside the traditional Columbus Day one, and repeated it in the following years.

Which state officially celebrates Native American Day in place of Columbus Day?

At least 14 states no longer observe Columbus Day, and Hawaii marks Discoverers' Day instead.

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

It honours the Polynesian navigators who reached the islands centuries before any European.

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

Canada holds National Indigenous Peoples Day on 21 June and Brazil marks its own on 19 April.

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

The first Columbus Day celebration had been held by New York's Tammany Society in 1792, and Benjamin Harrison called a one-time national observance in 1892 after Italian immigrants were lynched in New Orleans.

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

Nearby Poverty Point followed around 2200 BCE, during the Archaic stage of hunter-gatherer societies.

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

By 1000 BCE, Native societies had developed advanced social structures and long-distance trade networks.

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

It won the Audience Award at Sundance and featured an exclusively Native American cast.

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

A US Marine Corps officer, he remains the only American ever to win gold in the event.

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

Four years later, as Jim Thorpe's Carlisle teammate, he took silver in the 10,000 metres in Stockholm.

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

Smallpox was especially devastating to peoples who had no immunity to European diseases.

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

One leading theory holds that a small founding population paused there for 15,000 to 20,000 years before moving on.

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.