Everybody knows
who Christopher Columbus was, but very few know the name of the
first Native who welcomed Columbus. to the Americas. The main
objective of the "Amauta" Info Website is to educate people about
the little known history of the America's Indigenous people.
The President of the United States, Barack
Obama said:
"America's journey has been marked both by bright times of
progress and dark moments of injustice for American Indians and
Alaska Natives. Since the birth of America, they have contributed
immeasurably to our country and our heritage, distinguishing
themselves as scholars, artists, entrepreneurs, and leaders in all
aspects of our society. Native Americans have also served in the
United States Armed Forces with honor and distinction, defending the
security of our Nation with their lives. Yet, our tribal communities
face stark realities, including disproportionately high rates of
poverty, unemployment, crime, and disease. These disparities are
unacceptable, and we must acknowledge both our history and our
current challenges if we are to ensure that all of our children have
an equal opportunity to pursue the American dream. From upholding
the tribal sovereignty recognized and reaffirmed in our Constitution
and laws to strengthening our unique nation-to- nation relationship,
my Administration stands firm in fulfilling our Nation's
commitments.
President of USA Barack Obama on October 29, 2010
National American Indian Heritage Month Proclamation
The President of the United States, George W.
Bush said:
"The strength of our Nation comes from its people. As the
early inhabitants of this great land, the native peoples of North
America played a unique role in the shaping of our Nation's history
and culture...I call on all Americans to learn more about the
history and heritage of the Native peoples of this great land. Such
actions reaffirm our appreciation and respect for their traditions
and way of life and can help to preserve an important part of our
culture for generations yet to come."
President of USA George W. Bush on November 19, 2001
National American Indian Heritage Month Proclamation
The President of the United States, William J.
Clinton said:
"So much of who we are today comes from who you have been for long
time. Long before others came to the shores there were powerful and
sophisticated cultures and societies here--yours. Because of your
ancestors, democracy existed here long before the Constitution was
drafted and ratified...I believe in your rich heritage and in our
common destiny. What you have done to retain your identity,
your dignity and your faith in the face of often immeasurable
obstacles is profoundly moving--an example of the enduring strength
of the human spirit.""
President of USA Williams J. Clinton on April 29, 1994
From the Book: Native Time written by Lee Francis, pp. 328-329
CANADA FIRST NATIONS:
The histories of the First Nations peoples are fundamentally
connected to the physical identity of Canada. The vastness and
variety of Canada's climates, ecology, vegetation, fauna, and
landforms separate, join, and define ancient peoples, as implicitly
as cultural or linguistic divisions. Canada is surrounded north,
east, and west with coastline and since the last ice age Canada has
consisted of several distinct forest regions.
Adaptability
is the essential component for survival within these demanding
environments. Historic geographical models and population estimates
are supplemented by oral histories, archaeological and
anthropological evidence to derive knowledge of First Nations
dwellings, food sources, and technology. Understanding how a people
survived within their environment provides a greater insight into
their history.
MOUNDS BUILDERS CULTURE:
Mound Builders,
were people who built mounds in E central North America,
concentrating in the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys, from the
early 6th cent. to historic times. Probably ancestors of Native
Americans found in that region by Europeans, they were politically
diverse and developed distinct cultures. Artifacts indicate fine
stone carving, pottery making, and weaving, as well as widespread
trade in copper, mica, and obsidian. The mounds vary in size (1–100
acres/0.4–40 hectares), shape (geometric or animal effigy, e.g.,
Serpent Mound in Ohio), and purpose (burial, fortress, or totem.
Excellent Satellite
Pictures
ANAZASI CULTURE:
A·na·sa·zi (ä´ne-sä¹zê)
noun pluralAnasazi were a group of Native American people inhabiting
southern Colorado and Utah and northern New Mexico and Arizona from
about A.D. 100 and whose descendants are the present-day Pueblo
peoples. Anasazi culture includes an early Basket Maker phase and a
later Pueblo phase marked by the construction of cliff dwellings and
by expert craftsmanship in weaving and pottery.
Excellent Satellite
Pictures. More
Pictures by James Q Jacobs , 1999
HOHOKAM CULTURE:
Hohokam,
was an ancient agricultural culture of S Arizona (c.300–1200 A.D.).
The Hohokam are noted for their extensive irrigation systems but
also built sunken ball-courts, pyramidal mounds, and other
structures similar to those of central Mexico. Most archaeologists
believe that Hohokam culture evolved from local antecedents,
although they did trade with more southerly groups. Their fate and
possible ancestry of the Pima and Tohono O'Odham (Papago) is widely
disputed.
MOGOLLON CULTURE:
Mogollon (mo´ge-yon¹)
noun. A Native American culture flourishing from the 2nd century
B.C. to the 13th century A.D. in southeast Arizona and southwest New
Mexico, especially noted for its development of pottery.
FREMONT CULTURE:
Fremont is
the name given to diverse groups of Native Americans that inhabited
the western Colorado Plateau and the eastern Great Basin from 400
A.D. to 1350 A.D. Fremont Indians lived along streambeds and raised
their families in this desolate land several hundred years longer
than the descendents of European emigrants have lived in America.
The barren, semi-arid land where the Fremont Indians lived contains
areas of spectacular beauty.
Excellent Pictures
by James Q. Jacobs, 1999
SALADO INDIANS:
The Salado Culture represents a mixture of Mogollon, Hohokam
and Anasazi peoples. The Hohokam and Mogollon had already been
interacting in this area for some time, but it was not until the
first influx of Anasazi peoples, probably originating from the
Little Colorado area, that this mixture of peoples began to develop
its own distinct character. This occured around 1100 AD, and is
evidenced in the appearance at this time of black-on-white pottery
types.
500 NATIONS:
(Indian
Tribes Map) The first people
to discover the New World, or Western Hemisphere, are believed to
have walked across a “land bridge” from Siberia to Alaska, an
isthmus since broken by the Bering Strait. From Alaska, these
ancestors of the Native Americans spread through what became known
as North, Central, and South America. Anthropologists have placed
these crossings at between 18,000 and 14,000 B.C., but evidence
found in 1967 near Puebla, Mex., indicates people may have reached
there as early as 35,000-40,000 years ago. There were more 500
Indian Nations in North America before Columbus.
Excellent Pictures on North American Cultures.
Collection of Native American Pictures.
National Museum of American Indian Exhibition.
Edward Curtis Collection
At first, these people were hunters, using flint weapons and tools.
In Mexico, about 7000-6000 B.C., they founded farming cultures and
developed crops, such as corn and squash. Eventually, they created
complex civilizations—the Olmec, Toltec, Aztec, and Maya and, in
South America, the Inca. Carbon-14 tests show that humans lived
about 8000 B.C. near what are now Front Royal, VA, Kanawha, WV, and
Dutchess Quarry, NY. The Hopewell Culture, based on farming,
flourished about 1000 B.C.; remains of it are seen today in large
mounds in Ohio and other states.
On the other
hand, Native Americans believe on the Creation of the World and the
Indian people. Many not different stories of the creation of
Indian people are handle down to the new generations. Native
Americans do not believe in the Bering Strait theory and even some
of us consider that theory very offensive.
Norsemen (Norwegian Vikings sailing out of Iceland and Greenland)
are credited by most scholars with being the first Europeans to
discover America, with at least 5 voyages occurring about A.D. 1000
to areas they called Helluland, Markland, Vinland—possibly what are
known today as Labrador, Nova Scotia or Newfoundland, and New
England.
Indian Tribes in United States and Canada
HAWAIIAN NATIVE PEOPLE:
To understand
Hawaiian native history and culture, one must understand the
greater Polynesian phenomenon. Hawaii is the apex of the Polynesian
Triangle, a region of the Pacific Ocean anchored by three island
groups: Hawaii, Rapa Nui (Easter
Island) and Aotearoa (New Zealand). The many island cultures
within the Polynesian Triangle share similar languages derived from
a proto-Malayo-Polynesian language used in Southeast Asia 5000 years
ago. Polynesians also share fundamentally similar cultural
traditions, arts, religion, sciences. Anthropologists believe that
all Polynesians have a common connection to a single proto-culture
established in the South Pacific by migrant Austronesian
(Malayo-Polynesian) people.
Excellent Pictures
A SHORT HISTORY ON NATIVE AMERICANS AND THEIR ENCOUNTER WITH
EUROPEANS:
EUROPEAN CONTACT AND IMPACT It is
estimated that at the time of first European contact, North and
South America was inhabited by more than 90 million people (some
said 120 million): about 10 million in America north of present-day
Mexico; 30 million in Mexico; 11 million in Central America; 445,000
in the Caribbean islands; 30 million in the South American Andean
region; and 9 million in the remainder of South America. These
population figures are a rough estimate (some authorities cite much
lower figures); exact figures are impossible to ascertain. When
colonists began keeping records, the Native American populations had
been drastically reduced by war, famine, forced labor, and epidemics
of diseases introduced through contact with Europeans.
As
early Europeans first stepped ashore in what they considered the
“New World”—whether in San Salvador (West Indies), Roanoke Island
(North Carolina), or Chaleur Bay (New Brunswick)—they usually were
welcomed by the peoples indigenous to the Americas. Native Americans
seemed to regard their lighter-complexioned visitors as something of
a marvel, not only for their dress, beards, and winged ships but
even more for their technology—steel knives and swords,
fire-belching arquebus (a portable firearm of the 15th and
16th centuries) and cannon, mirrors, hawkbells and earrings, copper
and brass kettles, and other items unusual to the way of life of
Native Americans.
RELATION WITH THE COLONIAL POWERS “We
came here to serve God, and also to get rich,” announced a member of
the entourage of Spanish explorer and conqueror Hernán Cortés. Both
agendas of 16th-century Spaniards, the commercial and the religious,
needed the Native Americans themselves in order to be successful.
The Spanish conquistadors and other adventurers wanted the land and
labor of the Native Americans; the priests and friars laid claim to
their souls. Ultimately, both programs were destructive to many
indigenous peoples of the Americas. The first robbed them of their
freedom and, in many cases, their lives; the second deprived them of
their culture.
Contrary to many stereotypes, however, many 16th-century Spaniards
agonized over the ethics of conquest. Important Spanish jurists and
humanists argued at length over the legality of depriving the Native
Americans of their land and coercing them to submit to Spanish
authority. For the Native Americans, however, these ethical debates
did little good.
THE RAVAGES OF DISEASES In
1492 the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and Andean South
America were among the most densely populated regions of the
hemisphere. Yet, within a span of several generations, each
experienced a cataclysmic population decline. The culprit, to a
large extent, was microbial infection: European-brought diseases
such as
smallpox, pulmonary ailments, and
gastrointestinal disorders, all of which had been unknown in the
Americas during the pre-Columbian period. Native Americans were
immunologically vulnerable to this invisible conqueror.
The
destruction was especially visible in Latin America, where great
masses of susceptible individuals were congregated in cities such as
Tenochtitlán and Cuzco, not to mention
the innumerable towns and villages dotting the countryside. More
than anything else, it was the appalling magnitude of these deaths
from disease that prompted the vigorous Spanish debate over the
morality of conquest.
As
the indigenous population in the Caribbean plummeted, Spaniards
resorted to slave raids on the mainland of what is now Florida to
bolster the work force. When the time came that this, too, proved
insufficient, they took to importing West Africans to work the cane
fields and silver mines.
Those Native Americans who did survive were often assigned, as an
entire village or community to a planter or mine operator to whom
they would owe all their services. The encomienda system, as
it came to be known, amounted to virtual slavery. This, too, broke
the spirit and health of the indigenous peoples, making them all the
more vulnerable to the diseases brought by the Europeans.
Death from microbial infection was probably not as extensive in the
Canadian forest, where most of the indigenous peoples lived as
migratory hunter-gatherers. Village farmers, such as the Huron north
of Lake Ontario, did, however, suffer serious depopulation in waves
of epidemics that may have been triggered by Jesuit priests and
their lay assistants, who had established missions in the area.
NATIVE NORTH AMERICANS TODAY
Statistics of health, education, unemployment rates, and income
levels continue to show Native Americans as disadvantaged compared
to the general population of North America. In the 1980s U.S.
government policies have led to budget cuts for social and welfare
services on the reservations. However, according to the United
States Census Bureau, the Native American population in the United
States rose more than 20 percent between 1980 and 1990. Pride in
Native American heritage has survived as well. On many reservations,
tribal languages and religious ceremonies are enjoying renewed
vigor. Traditional arts and crafts, such as Pueblo pottery and
Navajo weaving, continue to be practiced, and some contemporary
Native American artists of North America, such as Fritz Scholder and
R. C. Gorman, have successfully adapted European styles to their
paintings and prints of Native American subjects. The strength of
the Native American narrative tradition can be felt in the poetry
and novels of the Native American writer N. Scott Momaday, who won a
Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his House Made of Dawn (1969).
Other prestigious contemporary Native American writers of North
America include Vine Deloria, best known for his indictment of U.S.
policy toward Native Americans in Custer Died for Your Sins
(1969) and Behind the Trail of Broken Treaties (1974);
novelists James Welch and Leslie Marmon Silko; and William Least
Heat-Moon, author of the widely popular Blue Highways: A Journey
into America (1983), an account of his travels in the United
States.
Statistics on Native Americans in USA, Census 2000
BRIEF HISTORY OF FEDERAL INDIAN POLICY
1492-1787: Tribal Independence
- French Indian Wars (Seven Years War in 1763)
- The Iroquois and the British agreements
- The King proclaimed the liberty of Indian Nations and their
properties
1787-1828: Agreement Between Equals
- Indian Tribes as Foreign Nations
- Militarily, Indian Nations were more powerful
- 1790, the Congress prohibited whites to obtaining Indian lands
- 1793, Non-Indian were prohibited from setting on Indian lands
- The invasion of white settlers started
1828-1887: Relocations of Indian Nations
- Pte. Andrew Jackson "The Jackson Era" and the removal of
Indian Nations
- 1830, Indian Removal Act
- Gold in California and the Black Hills
- 1871, No more treaties with Indian Nations (400 treaties)
1887-1934: Allotment and Assimilation
- Policy for taking more Indian lands (From 150 million to
50 million acres)
- "Acculturation" of Indian Nations. "Take the Indian out and
leave the man"
- GAA General Allotment Act or Dawes Act
1934-1953: Indian reorganization Act
- John Collier, Commissioner of Indian Affairs
- No interference on Indian Religion
- IRA, Indian Reorganization Act or Wheeler and Howard Act
- The first policy in 100 years not undermining the status of
Indians
1953-1968: Termination Act
- 1949, the Hoover Commission recognized "Indian
Assimilation"
- They took funding from Indian Nations
- 1953, A total of 109 Tribes were affected with Resolution # 108
1968-Present
- Pte. Lyndon Johnson and the "Freedom of Choice and
Self-determination"
- Pte. Richard Nixon denounced the termination era and ended it
- Pte. Ronald Reagan and "Self-Determination Act"
GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT NATIVE AMERICANS OR INDIANS OF THE
AMERICAS TODAY:
Estimate Numbers of Native Americans or
Indians: 40 to 70 million.
Numbers of Native Americans in United
States and Canada:
2,475,956 (USA) 799,000 (Canada)
Numbers of Native Americans or Indians in
Latin America: 39,442,000
million
(Countries with more than a million): Mexico (12m.), Peru (10.2m.),
Bolivia (4.2m.), Guatemala (4.2m.), Ecuador (3.34m.), Chile (1m.).
(Countries with less than a million): Argentina (398t.), Belize
(30t.), Brazil (243t.), Colombia (547t.), Costa Rica (32t.), El
Salvador (300t.), Guyana (28t.), Honduras (245t.), Nicaragua
(152t.), Panama (126t.), Paraguay (67t.), Surinam (10t.), and
Venezuela (331t.) (t.=thousand).
-
Indian Tribes in Latin America -
Latin American Indian Population - Up date
Problems with Statistics regarding Native Americans or Indians: In
some countries in Latin America, there are no census data for Native
people, in others, the census include complex criteria to determine
who is Native. Until few years ago, some countries denied the
existence of Native people in their territories and in many cases,
Native people denied their origin due to the pressure of
society who consider them "uncivilized". In my opinion the estimated
numbers are very low, in one of my presentations, I further explain
my position. Source: America Indigena (1-2-1992) -
Latin American Indian Population - Up date -
A Paper About Latin American Indian
Populations (Spanish)
-
Indians in Latina America, Population
(Spanish)
