230 articles
Calusa
The Calusa were a non-agricultural Native American people of southwest Florida whose kingdom, ruled from the capital Mound Key, was the most powerful polity in the region at Spanish contact.
Cañari
The Cañari (Kañari) are an indigenous people of the southern Ecuadorian Andes whose pre-Inca culture flourished from about 500 BC to 1460 AD, known above all for ceramics.
Catawba people
Catawba people (Ye Iswa, "people of the river"): Piedmont Native American nation of the Catawba River valley; only federally recognized tribe in South Carolina, restored in 1993 with a $50 million settlement, over 3,300 citizens.
Cayuga people
Cayuga people (Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ', People of the Great Swamp), one of five original Haudenosaunee nations of the Finger Lakes, New York; displaced by the 1779 Sullivan-Clinton campaign, party to the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua, with communities in New York, Ontario, and Oklahoma.
Chamorro people
Chamorro (CHamoru) people: indigenous people of Guam and the Mariana Islands, settled from Island Southeast Asia about 3,600 years ago, decimated under Spanish rule from 1668, now a U.S. territory population.
Cherokee
The Cherokee (ᏣᎳᎩ) are an Iroquoian-speaking Native American people of the southeastern United States. Three federally recognized tribes survive, led by the Cherokee Nation in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, with over 470,000 citizens, a 7,000-square-mile Oklahoma reservation, and the 1838 Trail of Tears removal in its history.
Cherokee Nation
Cherokee Nation (ᏣᎳᎩ ᎠᏰᎵ), the largest of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes, is a sovereign tribal government in northeastern Oklahoma with over 450,000 citizens, Dawes Rolls-based citizenship, a 14-county reservation, and a constitutional government under a 1976 constitution.
Cheyenne
The Cheyenne (Tsitsistas/Suhtai) are a Central Algonquian-speaking Plains Indian people of Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, and Kansas, now the Northern Cheyenne Tribe of Montana and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma.
Chickasaw
The Chickasaw are a Muskogean-speaking Native American people of the Southeast, historically of northern Mississippi and adjacent states, now the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma; smallest of the Five Civilized Tribes, removed in 1837.
Chief Joseph
Chief Joseph (Hinmatóowyalahtq̓it, ca. 1840–1904) led the non-treaty Nez Perce Wallowa band; his 1877 surrender message "I will fight no more forever" at Bear Paw is the best-known but textually contested Native American speech.
Chief Seattle
Chief Seattle (Si'ahl, c. 1780s-1866), Duwamish and Suquamish leader and namesake of Seattle, Washington, signed the 1855 Point Elliott Treaty; the famous environmental speech attributed to him is largely a later fabrication.
Chiricahua
The Chiricahua, an Apache division of southern Arizona, New Mexico, and northern Mexico, fought the U.S. Army from 1861 to Geronimo's 1886 surrender, then endured 27 years of exile; descendants form the Fort Sill Apache Tribe and part of the Mescalero Apache Tribe.
Chitimacha
Chitimacha (Sitimaxa): federally recognized Louisiana tribe near Charenton, St. Mary Parish; language isolate revived from Swadesh recordings; ~1,300 members, 963 acres, river cane basketry.
Choctaw
The Choctaw (Chahta), a Muskogean-speaking people of Mississippi and nearby states, were the first tribe removed under the 1830 Indian Removal Act via the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek; today the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and Mississippi Band remain federally recognized.
Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma
The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, headquartered in Durant, is the third-largest federally recognized U.S. tribe with over 230,000 citizens, a 10,864-square-mile southeastern Oklahoma reservation, a three-branch government under its 1984 constitution, and a $4.1 billion 2023 economic impact.
Chumash people
Chumash: Indigenous people of California's central and southern coast and northern Channel Islands, from Malibu to Paso Robles. Known for the tomol plank canoe, shell bead money, the 1824 revolt, and the federally recognized Santa Ynez Band.
Classification of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas
Classification of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, also called classification of Native Americans, is how states and censuses define and count Indigenous populations across the Americas.
Coeur d'Alene people
Coeur d'Alene people, also called Schitsu'umsh ("Those who were found here"), a Salish-speaking federally recognized tribe of north Idaho with a 1873-established reservation at Plummer, about 2,190 members, and a $330 million annual economic footprint.
Colville Indian Reservation
Colville Indian Reservation: north-central Washington reservation created by executive orders of April 9 and July 2, 1872 under President Grant; home of the twelve-band Confederated Tribes, 1.4 million acres, enrollment 9,045, halved by the 1892 North Half cession.
Comanche
The Comanche (Nʉmʉnʉʉ, The People) are a Southern Plains Native American nation of Shoshone origin, famed as horse-mounted bison hunters and the dominant power of Comanchería, now the Comanche Nation of Lawton, Oklahoma, with about 17,000 enrolled members.
Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador
The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, CONAIE, is Ecuador's national umbrella organization of indigenous peoples, founded in 1986 and known for the 1990 indigenous uprising.
Cree
Cree, a group of Indigenous First Nations peoples in Canada (Eeyou Istchee in James Bay); speakers of Cree languages, the most commonly spoken First Nations languages in Canada; party to numbered treaties including Treaties 4, 5, and 6.
Croatan
Croatan (Croatoan): Carolina Algonquian people of Hatteras Island, their principal town whose name was carved at the abandoned Roanoke colony in 1590, and the 1885–1953 designation of today's Lumbee Tribe.
Crow people
The Crow people (Apsáalooke, children of the large-beaked bird) are a Siouan-speaking Northern Plains nation, a Hidatsa offshoot on the Yellowstone River, whose Montana reservation of about 2.3 million acres is the state's largest.
Cultural assimilation of Native Americans
Cultural assimilation of Native Americans: US federal policy via the 1887 Dawes Act land allotment and boarding schools from Carlisle (1879), reversed by ICWA 1978 and Native American Languages Act 1990.
Dakota people
Dakota people, an 'ally'-named Native American people of the Oceti Sakowin (Sioux) centered on Mni Sota/Minnesota; four Santee bands, 1851 cession of 24 million acres, 1862 war and Mankato hangings, four Minnesota nations today.
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
UNDRIP (A/RES/61/295) is the UN General Assembly declaration adopted 13 September 2007 by 143 votes to 4, setting out indigenous peoples' rights to self-determination, lands, and free, prior and informed consent; non-binding but politically and morally influential.
Dene
Dene: Indigenous Athabaskan-speaking peoples of Canada's western subarctic and Denendeh, part of the Na-Dené family, with modern land claim treaties (Sahtu 1994, Tłı̨chǫ 2005) and the proposed Dené-Yeniseian link to Siberia's Ket.
Eddie Mabo
Eddie Koiki Mabo (29 June 1936 – 21 January 1992), Meriam man of Mer (Murray Island), led the Mabo v Queensland (No 2) case in which the High Court overturned terra nullius and recognised native title.
Elisabeth Elliot
Elisabeth Elliot (1926-2015), American missionary, author of Through Gates of Splendor and Passion and Purity, widow of martyred missionary Jim Elliot, who lived among the Waorani who killed him and hosted Gateway to Joy radio.