60 free Native American History trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
52 free Native American history trivia questions with answers. Native American history stretches from a Mississippian city bigger than medieval London to a Kaw Nation citizen serving as vice president, with a Cherokee silversmith who invented an alphabet, Navajo Marines whose code was never broken and a Sac and Fox athlete the King of Sweden called the greatest in the world along the way. This quiz spans it all: how many federally recognised tribes there are and which are the largest, Cahokia and Mesa Verde, the Haudenosaunee confederacy, Squanto, Pocahontas and Sacagawea, Tecumseh, the Trail of Tears, Sequoyah's syllabary, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and Little Bighorn, Chief Joseph and Geronimo, Wounded Knee, the 1924 Citizenship Act, Jim Thorpe, the code talkers, Wilma Mankiller, Charles Curtis and Deb Haaland, plus lacrosse, the Three Sisters, wampum, totem poles and powwows. It also covers Indigenous Peoples' Day itself: when it falls, the city that started it in 1992, the states that have adopted it and the first president to proclaim it. Written to be respectful and accurate rather than nostalgic. Every answer was checked against a documented source and the citation sits under each explanation.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many federally recognised tribal governments are there in the United States?
574
There are also 326 Indian reservations; Virginia had no federally recognised tribes at all until 2017.
Q 02Roughly how many people reported Cherokee ancestry in the US census, the largest self-reported tribe?
About 1.45 million
About 1.45 million people report Cherokee ancestry; the Navajo are the largest if only single-race respondents are counted.
Q 03The Navajo Nation occupies parts of Arizona, New Mexico and which third state?
Utah
It is bigger than ten US states, with its capital at Window Rock, Arizona; the 1868 Treaty of Bosque Redondo established it.
Q 04The pre-Columbian city of Cahokia sat across the Mississippi from which modern city?
St. Louis
Its 120 mounds make it the largest earthen construction north of Mexico and one of the 26 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the US.
Q 05Colorado's Mesa Verde takes its name from Spanish words meaning what?
Green table
The park, created in 1906, holds more than 5,000 sites including 600 cliff dwellings; Cliff Palace is the most famous.
Q 06What outsider name for Ancestral Puebloans is shunned since it can mean 'ancient enemies'?
Anasazi
The culture spanned the Four Corners region, and its kivas, sunken ceremonial rooms, are still used by modern Pueblo peoples.
Q 07The Haudenosaunee were the Five Nations until 1722, when which people joined to make six?
Tuscarora
The original five, east to west, were the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca; the name means 'people of the longhouse'.
Q 08According to Haudenosaunee oral history, the confederacy was founded under a constitution called what?
The Great Law of Peace
The Great Peacemaker, Hiawatha and Jigonhsasee are credited with founding it sometime between 1142 and 1660.
Q 09Sequoyah, a silversmith of the Cherokee Nation, completed which invention in 1821?
A syllabary for writing his language
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.
Q 10The Indian Removal Act, which led to the Trail of Tears, was signed into law in which year?
1830
President Andrew Jackson pushed it through over the objections of Tennessee congressman Davy Crockett.
Q 11Which of these was NOT one of the 'Five Civilized Tribes' removed on the Trail of Tears?
Comanche
The five were the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole; roughly 60,000 people were forced west to Indian Territory.
Q 12The 1838 Cherokee removal was hastened by the discovery of what near Dahlonega, Georgia?
Gold
The Choctaw had gone first in 1831 and served as the model for every later removal.
Q 13Present-day Oklahoma was designated as what before it became a state in 1907?
Indian Territory
The states with the highest share of Native Americans today are Alaska, Oklahoma, Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.
Q 21The Oglala Lakota war leader Crazy Horse is notable for lifelong avoidance of what?
Being photographed
No authenticated photo of him exists; he died of a bayonet wound at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, in 1877 after surrendering.
Q 22Chief Joseph led his Nez Perce band on a months-long flight in 1877 toward asylum in which country?
Canada
They were cornered in northern Montana just short of the border, where Sitting Bull's Lakota had already taken refuge.
Q 23Geronimo, who surrendered for the last time in 1886, belonged to which people?
Apache
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.
Q 14Squanto, who taught the Pilgrims to plant and fertilise crops, learned English how?
He was kidnapped and sold in Spain
Thomas Hunt trafficked him to Málaga in 1614; he returned in 1619 to find his Patuxet village wiped out by epidemic.
Q 15Pocahontas married which Jamestown tobacco planter in 1614?
John Rolfe
Baptised as Rebecca, she died at Gravesend in England in 1617 aged about 21; the popular John Smith romance is a later invention.
Q 16Sacagawea gave birth during the Lewis and Clark expedition to a son nicknamed what by the captains?
Pomp
Jean Baptiste Charbonneau was born at Fort Mandan in February 1805 and travelled the whole way in a cradleboard on her back.
Q 17Sacagawea was taken from her Lemhi Shoshone people at about age 12 in a raid by which tribe?
Hidatsa
She was held near present-day Washburn, North Dakota, and later married the French-Canadian trapper Toussaint Charbonneau.
Q 18The Shawnee leader Tecumseh, who built a pan-tribal confederacy, was killed in 1813 fighting where?
Thames
His brother Tenskwatawa, 'the Prophet', had lost Prophetstown at Tippecanoe two years earlier.
Q 19Custer's 7th Cavalry was defeated at the Little Bighorn in June 1876 in which present-day state?
Montana
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.
Q 20Before Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull had a vision of soldiers 'as thick as grasshoppers' doing what?
Falling upside down into the camp
The Hunkpapa leader later toured with Buffalo Bill's Wild West and was killed by agency police at Standing Rock in 1890.
Q 24The Wounded Knee Massacre of December 29, 1890 took place on which reservation in South Dakota?
Pine Ridge
Between 250 and 300 Lakota were killed by the 7th Cavalry; the Army awarded 19 Medals of Honor for it, a decision still contested.
Q 25The Army's fear that triggered Wounded Knee centred on which religious movement?
The Ghost Dance
Settlers called it the Messiah War; Sitting Bull was killed two weeks earlier during an arrest meant to stop him joining it.
Q 26In which year was the Indian Citizenship Act, granting citizenship to all US-born Native Americans, signed?
1924
President Coolidge signed it on June 2; some states still barred Native voting for decades afterward.
Q 27Jim Thorpe, of the Sac and Fox Nation, won gold in which two events at the 1912 Olympics?
Pentathlon and decathlon
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.
Q 28Jim Thorpe attended which Pennsylvania boarding institution, starring in football under Pop Warner?
Carlisle Indian Industrial School
The federal boarding-school system's stated aim was to 'Kill the Indian, Save the man'.
Q 29The most famous code talkers of World War II were recruited for which branch of the US military?
The Marine Corps
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.
Q 30Because their language had no word for submarine, the code talkers rendered it as what?
Iron fish
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.