Native Americans: A History in Pictures

An amazing photographic history of the Native American experience.

Chapter One

Ancestral Times to 1850s
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A CONFLICT
OF CULTURES

Encounters between North American Native peoples and Europeans began peaceably, but soon deteriorated as the newcomers sought to conquer the disease-weakened Native populations.

Ancestral Native Life

For at least 30,000 YEARS, long before the first arrivals of Europeans in 1500, ancient Native peoples had populated the North American landscape with a diversity of thriving societies. These first Americans regarded nature as the source of all existence and excelled at exploiting natural resources and adapting to the climates and terrains in which they lived. Many Natives today dispute scientific theories that their ancestors originally migrated across the Bering Sea land bridge from Siberia to Alaska.

Some scientists believe that the human history of North America began when small bands of Paleo-Indian hunters made their way across the Bering Sea land bridge from Siberia to Alaska. Eventually these people and their descendants spread throughout North and South America, and they, the scientists say, are the ancestors of all subsequent generations of Native peoples. The best known of the early arrivals are estimated to have occurred between 30,000 and 50,000 years ago, but some archaeologists extend this period back to 100,000 years.

    Many Native peoples, however, argue that their ancestors originated in the Americas, and they question the scientists' theories, citing the lack of archaeological evidence, the difficulty of the journey, and the fact that the theory does not fit with tribes' oral accounts of their origins, which have been passed on through the generations. These creation stories describe spirits ascending from the underground or the sea into the world today, and tell of spiritual beings descending from the sky. In such accounts, the spirits often create people after arriving in the present-day world.

Developing Native Cultures

By AD 1000, Native peoples had established complex societies across North America. Dense populations on the Northwest coast exploited the abundance of sea mammals and fish in the Pacific Ocean and in the tributaries of the Columbia River. A warm climate promoted the growth of vast forests of giant evergreen trees, which the Natives used to build houses and to construct giant totem poles.

    In the deserts of the Southwest, the Natives built apartment-like dwellings and practiced agriculture so successfully that, even in such arid surroundings, they could support sizable populations. In the Arctic, inhabitants adapted remarkably well to the harsh environment, becoming highly skilled hunters and fishermen and relying on sea and land mammals to provide dependable food sources. The forests of the Northeast were a natural resource for Native peoples — wood for houses, boats, tools, and fuel, as well as bark for clothing, roofing, and bedding. These forests also housed game — a source of meat for food, hides for clothing, and bones for tools.

    The famous Plains Indian culture evolved in the treeless grassland region only after the arrival of whites. Different kinds of animals, such as buffalo, antelope, deer, elk, and rabbits, lived on the grasslands and provided meat for food as well as hides, bones, and horns for shelter, clothing, and tools.

Natural Spirituality

Religion was the center of existence for these ancient peoples, who constructed their ceremonies and rituals around solstices and equinoxes. They worshiped at natural sacred sites, where they communed with their ancestors and with plants, animals, and spirits. Their daily lives were built around praying to spiritual powers and giving thanks for crop harvests and success in hunting.

The Pueblo Peoples

Around AD 800, the Pueblo Indians, began to from their distinctive cultures, living in multilevel, apartment-style adobe villages. As well as being gifted potters, they mastered irrigation, allowing them to farm in the arid environment. They also plated crops at the mouths of large washes to capture the runoff from heavy rainfall.

League of the Iroquois

Some time before the mid-fifteenth century, five nations in present-day New York State and Ontario — Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca (later jointed by the Tuscarora) — united to form the Iroquois Confederacy. Known as Haudenosaunee (People of the Longhouse), the nations form an east-to-west geographic line, just as families were arranged in a longhouse.

The Blackfeet

One of the most powerful and numerous Indian tribes, the Blackfeet controlled a huge area from the North Saskatchewan River in what is now Alberta, Canada, to the upper Missouri River in present-day Montana. They adapted to a mobile life on the open grasslands, hunting buffalo, their main food source, on foot with stone and bone arrows and lances.

The Haida

The Northwest coast provided an abundant food supply for the Haida, who lived on the Queen Charlotte Islands, off present-day British Columbia. There, they hunted sea mammals, such as seals, and fished for cod. In an area well supplied with timber, they built large houses of cedar planks; the door openings faced the sea and one or more totem poles were erected in front of each house.

The Inuits

The Inuits, formerly known in Canada as Eskimos (see p.15), have lived in Alaska, the Northwest Territories, the provinces of Newfoundland and Quebec, Siberia, and Greenland. In this mostly icebound region, some Inuits hunted walruses, seals, and whales for food, clothing, weapons, tools, and oil for lighting and cooking. Inland, others hunted caribou for meat and materials.

Copyright © 2000 Dorling Kindersley Limited. All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-7894-5162-X

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In this profusely and creatively illustrated book, Hirschfelder, an award-winning author (Happily May I Walk: American Indians and Alaskan Natives Today) who was formerly with the Association for American Indian Affairs, responds to the insatiable demand for depictions of Indians and their ways of life. Text sections, arranged in a loose chronological order, include "A Conflict of Cultures," "Dispossession and Loss," "War Against Native Peoples," and "Resurgence and Renewal." Each section features vignettes from the history of Indian-white relations the massacre at Sand Creek, for example and illustrations and photographs that help tell the story. In "Native Voice" sections, readers are exposed to the thoughts of historical and contemporary Native American leaders as expressed in their speeches or writings. There is a great deal of information packed in these heavily illustrated pages, but not a lot of attention is paid to any single subject. An indifferent index fails to include much of the information found in picture captions. The book is best for browsers of Native American history. Recommended for general collections. Mary B. Davis, Huntington Free Lib., Bronx, NY Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.