230 articles
Sámi people
Sámi people, Indigenous people of Sápmi across Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia's Kola Peninsula, numbering about 75,000–100,000, speaking nine Finno-Ugric languages, with reindeer herding as the defining traditional livelihood and Sámi Parliaments in three Nordic states.
San people
The San are the indigenous hunter-gatherer peoples of southern Africa, also once called Bushmen, known for click languages, ancient rock art, and marginalized modern livelihoods across South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.
Sauk people
The Sauk, historically also called the Sac, are an Algonquian-speaking Native American people closely allied with the Fox, now organized in federally recognized tribes in Oklahoma, Iowa, and Kansas.
Seminole
The Seminole are a Native American people formed in 1700s Florida from Creek and other migrants; three wars and removal produced three federally recognized tribes in Florida and Oklahoma.
Seminole Nation
The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma is a federally recognized Native American nation headquartered in Wewoka, descended from Seminoles forcibly removed from Florida in the nineteenth century.
Seminole Tribe of Florida
Federally recognized Native American tribe in Florida, distinct from the Miccosukee Tribe; descendants of Seminoles who avoided 19th-century removal, never signed a peace treaty, ratified a 1957 constitution, and now run Hard Rock International and seven casinos.
Seneca people
Seneca (Onödowá'ga', People of the Great Hill): largest nation of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy in western New York; 1848 elected constitution, Cattaraugus and Allegany territories, key treaties of Canandaigua, Big Tree, Buffalo Creek and the 1842 Compromise.
Seven Nations of Canada
The Seven Nations of Canada (les Sept-Nations du Canada) was a confederacy of Catholic mission villages in the St. Lawrence Valley allied with New France.
Shawnee
The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking Eastern Woodlands people of the Ohio Valley, led historically by Tecumseh, removed to Kansas and Oklahoma, and today organized as three federally recognized tribes headquartered in Oklahoma.
Shoshone
Shoshone (Newe) are Native Americans of the Great Basin, Rocky Mountains, and northern Plains, divided into Western, Northern, and Eastern groups; their Central Numic Uto-Aztecan language has about 5,000 speakers and is endangered, with major reservations at Wind River and Fort Hall.
Shuar
The Shuar are a Chicham (Jivaroan)-speaking indigenous people of southeastern Ecuador and northern Peru, related to the Achuar, Aguaruna, and Huambisa, known for the Shuar Federation (1964), tsantsa shrunken heads, and conflicts over mining and oil on their territory.
Sioux
The Sioux (Oceti Sakowin, Seven Council Fires) are Northern Plains Native peoples in Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota divisions; "Sioux" is a French adaptation of an Ojibwe word meaning enemy, still used in treaties and tribal legal names.
Slavery among Native Americans in the United States
Slavery among Native Americans in the United States: Indigenous captivity practices, European enslavement of Native people (2.5-5 million estimate), the Southeastern Indian slave trade of 1685-1715, and chattel slavery practiced by the Five Civilized Tribes until the 1866 treaties.
Squanto
Squanto (Tisquantum), Patuxet Wampanoag interpreter and guide for Plymouth Colony, kidnapped in 1614, sole survivor of his village, died 1622 at Manamoick.
Squaw
Squaw: English word for a Native American woman, from Algonquian (Massachusett squa) 'woman', 1630s; now a slur for Indigenous women. Removed from about 650 US federal place names by Secretarial Order 3404 and Board on Geographic Names votes in 2022-2023.
Sterilization of Native American women
Sterilization of Native American women: IHS-performed procedures, 1960s-1970s, often without informed consent; GAO found 3,406 sterilizations in four service areas, 1973-1976; ended by 1978 HEW regulations.
Suquamish people
The Suquamish (dxʷsəqʷəbš, "people of the clear salt water") are a Coast Salish, Lushootseed-speaking tribe on the Port Madison Reservation in Kitsap County, Washington, party to the 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott, with 1,515 members led by Chairman Leonard Forsman.
Taíno
The Taíno, also known as the Taino people or Island Arawaks, were an Arawakan-speaking Caribbean people inhabiting Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico at the time of Columbus.
Taiwanese indigenous peoples
Taiwanese indigenous peoples (原住民族) are Austronesian peoples of Taiwan; 16 groups were long recognized, and the Siraya became the 17th in July 2026 under the 2025 Pingpu (Plains Indigenous) Status Act following Constitutional Court Interpretation No. 17.
Tboli people
Tboli (T'boli, Tagabili, TauSebu), an animist indigenous Lumad people of highland southwestern Mindanao centered on Lake Sebu, South Cotabato, known for dream-inspired t'nalak abaca weaving, the Todbulol epic, and ancestral domain rights.
Tlingit
The Tlingit (Lingít) are an Indigenous Northwest Coast people of southeast Alaska with matrilineal clans, a marine salmon economy, the potlatch, and the 1802 and 1804 battles of Sitka against Russia.
Torres Strait Islanders
Torres Strait Islanders are the Melanesian Indigenous people of the Torres Strait Islands between Australia and Papua New Guinea, culturally distinct from Aboriginal Australians, speaking Meriam Mir, Kala Lagaw Ya and Yumplatok, annexed by Queensland in 1872 and 1879.
Totonac
The Totonac are an Indigenous people of Mexico's Gulf coast, living in Veracruz and Puebla, whose cities included El Tajín and Cempoala, and who allied with Cortés in 1519.
Tribal sovereignty in the United States
Tribal sovereignty in the United States is the inherent authority of 574 federally recognized tribes to govern themselves. This authority predates the Constitution and is exercised over tribal lands.
Tsimshian
The Tsimshian (Ts'msyen) are a Northwest Coast Indigenous nation of northwestern British Columbia whose territory spans the lower Skeena River and, since 1887, part of southern Alaska.
Tuscarora people
Tuscarora (Skarù∙ręʔ, Hemp People), an Iroquoian people of North Carolina defeated in the 1711-1713 Tuscarora War, adopted as the sixth nation of the Haudenosaunee around 1720-1723, now centered in Niagara County, New York.
Ulch people
Ulch people (nani), Tungusic indigenous ethnic group of the lower Amur in Khabarovsk Krai, Russia; about 2,800 in 2010 census, with under 150 speakers of the Ulch language; fishing culture with shamanism and bear festival.
Uncontacted peoples
Uncontacted peoples, or Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation, live without sustained contact with outside society; about 196 groups in 10 countries, over 95% in the Amazon, face logging, mining, disease, and missionary threats.
Ute people
The Ute (Nuche, Núu-ci) are an Indigenous Shoshonean-speaking people of the Colorado and Utah mountains, once organized into bands such as the Mouache and Weenuchiu, now three federally recognized tribes: Southern Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, and Uintah-Ouray.
Vedda (වැද්දා)
Vedda (වැද්දා), also Vanniyalettho or Wanniyalaeto, are the indigenous people of Sri Lanka speaking a language isolate. Genetically drifted with deep links to Indian tribal populations, they number under 1% of the population and lack formal indigenous recognition.