There are many American Indian tribes and although the vast majority of them have been disappearing, there are still more than 570 tribes today, of which more than half live on reservations. Let’s know a little more about them and what are the main American tribes.
What are the major American Indian tribes?
Many centuries ago , in another geological age and long before the ” Wild West ” arrived, the American and Asian continents were not separated by sea, as they are today between Alaska and Siberia . Instead , they were linked by a strip of land called Beringia.
Today Beringia no longer exists, it is a submerged land, and the stretch of sea that separates America and Asia is called the Bering Strait. Throughout that land the ancestors of the Indians came to America, who left Mongolia 20 thousand years ago , giving rise to the indigenous peoples.
The real name of the American Indians
It is not correct to call these peoples American Indians and the mistake was made by Christopher Columbus who, when in 1492 he touched the coasts of the American continent, Columbus was convinced that he had reached the Indies , the true destination of his trip. Therefore he called the populations of these places “Indian.” When it became clear that, instead of the Indies, he had discovered a new continent, America, the mistake was already made.
The correct name for the populations that inhabited the continent before the arrival of Columbus and the European conquerors is Native Americans. Instead, “red Indians” refers to the color of your complexion and is as much a misnomer as “Indians.”
In his day the Indian tribes spread throughout the United States and Canada, but after the arrival of the Europeans and their many confrontations and battles they began to disappear. The European “invaders” did not hesitate to annihilate the majority of Native American tribes from the coasts of South America and especially the entire northern area where they settled, causing that with time and the passage of centuries , the vast majority of the remaining American tribes have settled on reservations.
Let’s now see what some of the most famous Native American tribes were and still are :
- Cherokees : Perhaps the most famous of the Native American tribes because it was also the most numerous with a population of millions that lived in the Great Lakes and Appalachian area and even extended their presence to Alabama, Mississippi and Florida. They were hunters and farmers and considered cougars and owls special.
- Sioux : The second best-known tribe among the Native American tribes that were also the ones that presented the best resistance to the European invasion. In this tribe we also find some of the most charismatic leaders among Native Americans, such as Sitting Bull or Crazy Horse .
- Arapahoes : Another of the great tribes that spread throughout the Great Plains, being also one of the native tribes that most resisted European occupation for which they were quite feared. They were also great hunters, especially buffalo.
- Comanches : Despite being great warriors, they were also one of the friendliest tribes made up of great horsemen. Their resistance was based many times on dialogue to be able to live respecting the territories. However that did not prevent from time to time they had clashes mainly with neighboring tribes.
- Apaches : Also well known are the Apaches who were very fierce warriors from the deserts of Texas and New Mexico, with chiefs like Cochise or Geronimo.
- Seminole: They were located in present-day Alabama, Georgia and Florida. Their main activity was hunting and fishing for wild animals, in addition to cultivating the land with beans and rice.
These are the main Native American tribes, although there were many others such as the Chippewa or Ojibwa who were originally from Canada, and who came to Minnesota and Michigan or the Iroquois who lived in the northeast of what is now the United States and who called themselves Kanonsionni , which means « people from the Longhouse ‘, that is, people from the shelter where they lived.
There were also the Mohave , who spoke the Yuman language, and of course, the Navajos , a semi-nomadic people that spread between Utah and Colorado.