Native Americans

In the United States, Native Americans also known as American Indians or just simply Indians are considered to be people whose pre-Columbian ancestors were indigenous to the lands within the nation's modern boundaries. These peoples were composed of numerous distinct tribes, bands, and ethnic groups, and many of these groups survive intact today as partially sovereign nations.

The terms Native Americans use to refer to themselves vary regionally and generationally, with many older Native Americans self-identifying as "Indians" or "American Indians", while younger Native Americans often identify ...more

Most Read This Week Tagged "Native Americans"

Shadow of the Solstice: A Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito Novel

The Way of the Bear (Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito #26)

By the Fire We Carry: The Generations-Long Fight for Justice on Native Land

Lost Birds (Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito, #27)

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Native Americans Books

Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants

Firekeeper’s Daughter (Firekeeper's Daughter, #1)

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (ReVisioning American History, #3)

Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux

Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West

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Lists

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer

Read-Alikes: If You Liked "Killers of the Flower Moon..."

53 books — 14 voters

California's Ancient Past by Jeanne E. Arnold

Contemporary Issues in California Archaeology by Terry L. Jones

First Coastal Californians by Lynn H. Gamble

California's Channel Islands by Christopher S. Jazwa

California Archaeology

39 books — 1 voter

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown

Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen

Native American Heritage Reads

217 books — 16 voters

The Six Pillars Of Effective Leadership by Jim Carlough

Phantasms of the Living (Cambridge Library Collection - Spiri... by Edmund Gurney

Nonfiction Books Published in the 19th Century

235 books — 27 voters

The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

History of Alabama by Albert James Pickett

Land of the Spotted Eagle by Luther Standing Bear

The Cassie Edwards Library of Plagiarism

66 books — 3 voters

The Ghost-Dance Religion and Wounded Knee by James Mooney

The Ghost Dance

9 books — 3 voters

Related Genres

United States
North America
First Nations

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Quotes Tagged “Native Americans”

“ A Swedish minister having assembled the chiefs of the Susquehanna Indians, made a sermon to them, acquainting them with the principal historical facts on which our religion is founded — such as the fall of our first parents by eating an apple, the coming of Christ to repair the mischief, his miracles and suffering, etc. When he had finished an Indian orator stood up to thank him. ‘What you have told us,’ says he, ‘is all very good. It is indeed bad to eat apples. It is better to make them all i A Swedish minister having assembled the chiefs of the Susquehanna Indians, made a sermon to them, acquainting them with the principal historical facts on which our religion is founded — such as the fall of our first parents by eating an apple, the coming of Christ to repair the mischief, his miracles and suffering, etc. When he had finished an Indian orator stood up to thank him. ‘What you have told us,’ says he, ‘is all very good. It is indeed bad to eat apples. It is better to make them all into cider. We are much obliged by your kindness in coming so far to tell us those things which you have heard from your mothers. In return, I will tell you some of those we have heard from ours. ‘In the beginning, our fathers had only the flesh of animals to subsist on, and if their hunting was unsuccessful they were starving. Two of our young hunters, having killed a deer, made a fire in the woods to boil some parts of it. When they were about to satisfy their hunger, they beheld a beautiful young woman descend from the clouds and seat herself on that hill which you see yonder among the Blue Mountains. ‘They said to each other, “It is a spirit that perhaps has smelt our broiling venison and wishes to eat of it; let us offer some to her.” They presented her with the tongue; she was pleased with the taste of it and said: “Your kindness shall be rewarded; come to this place after thirteen moons, and you will find something that will be of great benefit in nourishing you and your children to the latest generations.” They did so, and to their surprise found plants they had never seen before, but which from that ancient time have been constantly cultivated among us to our great advantage. Where her right hand had touched the ground they found maize; where her left had touched it they found kidney-beans; and where her backside had sat on it they found tobacco.’ The good missionary, disgusted with this idle tale, said: ‘What I delivered to you were sacred truths; but what you tell me is mere fable, fiction, and falsehood.’ The Indian, offended, replied: ‘My brother, it seems your friends have not done you justice in your education; they have not well instructed you in the rules of common civility. You saw that we, who understand and practise those rules, believed all your stories; why do you refuse to believe ours? ...more ”
― Benjamin Franklin, Remarks Concerning the Savages

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“ My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain...There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory. ”
― Chief Seattle, Chief Seattle's Speech (1854)

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