Indian Tribes in United States of America

Historical map of the United States of America, showing the Indian tribes at the time of European colonization. Source: McConnell's Historical Maps of the United States, 1919. Text that accompanies this map:

«The closing of the overland route to Asia by the Turks aroused the people to the necessity of a route by sea and a belief that the world is round suggested western voyage to India. But between Europe and India, all unknown and undeveloped, lay the two Americas, occupied by savage tribes, who were skilled in the warfare of the woods and ready to contest with all their might any attempt to set foot upon their territory. Yet the central belt of this broad land that stretched from the 26th parallel to the 49th and through fifty degrees of longitude, had the soil and climate which have later made possible the cotton of Texas, the corn of Indiana, the wheat of Minnesota, the Maine potato, and the olive groves of California.»

By the 17th century, when European settlers began to arrive in North America, the continent was richly populated with hundreds of thousands of Native American communities, each nation with its own distinct culture. Among them, Apaches, Comanches, Pueblos, Navajos, Dakotas, Cherokees, Seminoles, Sioux, Algonquins and many more. The centuries that followed the arrival of Europeans were years of enormous upheaval, as the expansion of settler territory and the founding and growth of the United States resulted in Native American communities being moved, renamed, combined, dispersed, and, in some cases, destroyed. Today, the U.S. government recognizes 574 American Indian tribes and Alaska Native entities.