Indigenous peoples of the Americas#European colonization

File:Karte Karibik Inseln.png (or Antilles) in relation to the continental Americas]]

File:Navajo (young boy) 2007.jpg boy in the desert in present-day Monument Valley in Arizona with the "Three Sisters" rock formation in the background in 2007]]

File:Amerindians and Inuits map.png

Application of the term "Indian" originated with Christopher Columbus, who, when searching for India, made landfall in the Americas but thought he had arrived in the East Indies.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cp0r3aa8EM8C&q=indian+%22in+dios%22+wilton&pg=PA163 |title=Word myths: debunking linguistic urban legends |first=David |last=Wilton |page=163 |publisher=Oxford University Press, USA |isbn=978-0-19-517284-3 |date=2 December 2004 |access-date=3 July 2011}}{{cite web |url=http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1966/does-indian-derive-from-columbuss-description-of-native-americans-as-una-gente-in-dios |title=Does "Indian" derive from Columbus's description of Native Americans as "una gente in Dios"? |date=25 October 2001 |first=Cecil |last=Adams |author-link=Cecil Adams |website=The Straight Dope |access-date=3 July 2011 |archive-date=28 June 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110628192914/http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1966/does-indian-derive-from-columbuss-description-of-native-americans-as-una-gente-in-dios |url-status=live}}{{cite web |title=The Biggest Misnomer of All Time? |url=http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/2015/ |date=12 October 2009 |first=Ben |last=Zimmer |author-link=Ben Zimmer |publisher=VisualThesaurus |access-date=3 July 2011 |archive-date=19 April 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120419005109/http://www.visualthesaurus.com/cm/wordroutes/2015/ |url-status=live}}{{cite book |last=Hoxie |first=Frederick E. |title=Encyclopedia of North American Indians |year=1996 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |isbn=978-0-395-66921-1 |page=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofno00hoxi/page/568 568] |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofno00hoxi/page/568}}{{cite book |last=Herbst |first=Philip |title=The Color of Words: An Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Ethnic Bias in the United States |year=1997 |publisher=Intercultural Press |isbn=978-1-877864-97-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UiZQH5gHuggC&pg=PA116 |page=116}}{{cite book |title=Discourse Analysis as Sociocriticism : The Spanish Golden Age |first=Antonio |last=Gómez-Moriana |chapter=The Emerging of a Discursive Instance: Columbus and the invention of the "Indian" |pages=[https://archive.org/details/discourseanalysi0000gome/page/124 124–32] |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |date=12 May 1993 |isbn=978-0-8166-2073-9 |access-date=4 July 2011 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_BCpLZfypTIC&q=columbus+indios+indian&pg=PA124 |url=https://archive.org/details/discourseanalysi0000gome/page/124}}

The islands came to be known as the "West Indies" (or "Antilles"), a name that is still used to describe the islands. This led to the blanket term "Indies" and "Indians" ({{langx|es|indios}}; {{langx|pt|índios}}; {{langx|fr|indiens}}; {{langx|nl|indianen}}) for the Indigenous inhabitants, which implied some kind of ethnic or cultural unity among the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. This unifying concept, codified in law, religion, and politics, was not originally accepted by the myriad groups of Indigenous peoples themselves but has since been embraced or tolerated by many over the last two centuries.{{cite AV media |last=Grey |first=CGP |author-link=CGP Grey |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh88fVP2FWQ |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211221/kh88fVP2FWQ |archive-date=21 December 2021 |url-status=live |title='Indian' or 'Native American'? [Reservations, Part 0] |type=YouTube video |date=24 November 2019 |access-date=13 August 2022}}{{cbignore}} The term "First Nations" is used in Canada to identify that type of indigenous people.

The term "Indian" (or First Nations in Canada) generally does not include the culturally and linguistically distinct Indigenous peoples of the Arctic regions of the Americas, including the Aleuts, Inuit, or Yupik peoples. These peoples entered the continent as a second, more recent wave of migration several thousand years later and have much more recent genetic and cultural commonalities with the Indigenous peoples of Siberia. However, these groups are nonetheless considered among the "Indigenous peoples of the Americas".{{cite book |last=Sutton |first=M.Q. |title=An Introduction to Native North America |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2021 |isbn=978-1-000-34916-0 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TQsVEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT30 |access-date=5 July 2023 |page=30 |archive-date=8 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230708081141/https://books.google.com/books?id=TQsVEAAAQBAJ&pg=PT30 |url-status=live}}

The term Amerindian, a portmanteau of "American Indian", was coined in 1902 by the American Anthropological Association. It has been controversial ever since its creation. It was immediately rejected by some leading members of the Association, and, while adopted by many, it was never universally accepted.{{cite news |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1902/10/22/118482945.pdf |title=Americanists in dispute |date=22 October 1902 |work=The New York Times |access-date=14 January 2009 |archive-date=25 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225030638/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1902/10/22/118482945.pdf |url-status=live}} While never popular in Indigenous communities themselves, it remains a preferred term among some anthropologists, notably in some parts of Canada and the English-speaking Caribbean.{{cite web |url=http://www.survivalinternational.org/info/terminology |title=Terminology |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121209152712/http://www.survivalinternational.org/info/terminology |archive-date=9 December 2012 |website=Survival International |access-date=30 March 2012}}. [http://lema.rae.es/drae/?val=aborigen "Aborigen"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221215163949/https://dle.rae.es/aborigen |date=15 December 2022 }} Diccionario de la Real Academia Española. Retrieved 8 February 2012.{{Cite web |last=Reid |first=Basil |title=Tracing Our Amerindian Heritage |url=http://www2.sta.uwi.edu/pelican/exclusives/oex_3.asp |access-date=10 February 2016 |website=www2.sta.uwi.edu |archive-date=16 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160216050126/http://www2.sta.uwi.edu/pelican/exclusives/oex_3.asp |url-status=dead}}{{Cite web |title=The Abbreviated History of Barbados |url=http://www.barbados.org/history1.htm |access-date=10 February 2016 |website=www.barbados.org |archive-date=16 January 2000 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000116155652/http://barbados.org/history1.htm |url-status=live}}{{Cite web |author=Unique Media Design Limited |title=diGJamaica :: Amerindian Jamaica |url=http://www.digjamaica.com/amerindian_jamaica |access-date=10 February 2016 |website=diGJamaica.com |archive-date=23 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160223225624/http://digjamaica.com/amerindian_jamaica |url-status=dead}}

"Indigenous peoples in Canada" is used as the collective name for First Nations, Inuit, and Métis.{{cite web |last1=McKay |first1=Celeste |title=Briefing Note on Terminology |url=http://umanitoba.ca/student/indigenous/terminology.html |publisher=University of Manitoba |access-date=2 July 2020 |date=April 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161025224808/http://umanitoba.ca/student/indigenous/terminology.html |archive-date=25 October 2016}}{{cite news |url=https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/indigenous-aboriginal-which-is-correct-1.3771433 |title=Indigenous or Aboriginal: Which is correct? |first=Bob |last=Joseph |publisher=CBC News |date=21 September 2016 |access-date=28 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160922085332/https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/indigenous-aboriginal-which-is-correct-1.3771433 |archive-date=22 September 2016}} The term Aboriginal peoples as a collective noun (also describing First Nations, Inuit, and Métis) is a specific term of art used in some legal documents, including the Constitution Act, 1982.{{cite web|url=http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ap/tln-eng.asp|title=Terminology |work=Indian and Northern Affairs Canada |access-date=11 November 2009 |quote=The Canadian Constitution recognizes three groups of Aboriginal people – Indians (First Nations), Métis and Inuit. These separate peoples have unique heritages, languages, cultural practices, and spiritual beliefs |archive-date=27 October 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091027041022/http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ap/tln-eng.asp |url-status=dead}} Over time, as societal perceptions and government–indigenous relationships have shifted, many historical terms have changed definitions or been replaced as they have fallen out of favor.{{Cite web |last=Kesler |first=Linc |date=10 February 2020 |title=Aboriginal Identity & Terminology |url=https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/aboriginal_identity__terminology/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220324040124/https://web.archive.org/screenshot/https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/aboriginal_identity__terminology/ |archive-date=24 March 2022 |access-date=23 March 2022 |website=Indigenous Foundations}} The use of the term "Indian" is frowned upon because it represents the imposition and restriction of Indigenous peoples and cultures by the Canadian Government. The terms "Native" and "Eskimo" are generally regarded as disrespectful (in Canada), and so are rarely used unless specifically required.{{Cite web |date=2019 |title=Indigenous Terminology Guide |url=https://www.queensu.ca/indigenous/ways-knowing/terminology-guide |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220324040103/https://web.archive.org/screenshot/https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/aboriginal_identity__the_classroom/ |archive-date=24 March 2022 |access-date=23 March 2022 |website=Queen's University}} While "Indigenous peoples" is the preferred term, many individuals or communities may choose to describe their identity using a different term.

The Métis people of Canada can be contrasted, for instance, to the Indigenous-European mixed-race mestizos (or {{lang|pt|caboclos}} in Brazil) of Hispanic America whose large populations constitute outright majorities, pluralities, or at the least large minorities in most Latin American countries. They identify largely as an ethnic group distinct from Europeans and Indigenous, but consider themselves a subset of the European-derived Hispanic or Brazilian peoplehood in culture and ethnicity (cf. {{lang|es|ladinos}}).

Among Spanish-speaking countries, {{lang|es|indígenas}} or {{lang|es|pueblos indígenas}} ('Indigenous peoples') is a common term, though {{lang|es|nativos}} or {{lang|es|pueblos nativos}} ('native peoples') may also be heard; moreover, {{lang|es|aborigen}} ('aborigine') is used in Argentina and {{lang|es|pueblos originarios}} ('original peoples') is common in Chile. In Brazil, {{lang|pt|indígenas}} and {{lang|pt|povos originários}} ('Indigenous peoples') are common formal-sounding designations, while {{lang|pt|índio}} ('Indian') is still the more often heard term (the noun for the South-Asian nationality being {{lang|pt|indiano}}), but since the early 2010s has been considered offensive and pejorative.{{citation needed|date=July 2023}} {{lang|pt|Aborígene}} and {{lang|pt|nativo}} are rarely used in Brazil in Indigenous-specific contexts (e.g., {{lang|pt|aborígene}} is usually understood as the ethnonym for Indigenous Australians). The Spanish and Portuguese equivalents to Indian, nevertheless, could be used to mean any hunter-gatherer or full-blooded Indigenous person, particularly to continents other than Europe or Africa—for example, {{lang|es|indios filipinos}}.{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}}

Indigenous peoples of the United States are commonly known as Native Americans, Indians, as well as Alaska Natives.{{clarify|date=July 2023|reason=Ungrammatical; unclear exactly what is meant.}} The term "Indian" is still used in some communities and remains in use in the official names of many institutions and businesses in Indian Country.{{cite web |title=Terminology of First Nations Native, Aboriginal and Indian |url=http://www.aidp.bc.ca/terminology_of_native_aboriginal_metis.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100714021655/http://www.aidp.bc.ca/terminology_of_native_aboriginal_metis.pdf |archive-date=14 July 2010 |access-date=11 November 2009 |work=the Office of the Aboriginal Advisor for Aboriginals |quote=Native is a word similar in meaning to Aboriginal. Native Peoples or First peoples is a collective term to describe the descendants of the original peoples of North America.}}

{{Main|Native American name controversy}}

File:Guajiran artisans.jpg women in the Guajira Peninsula, which comprises parts of Colombia and Venezuela]]

File:Taquile Inselfest Frauen.JPG women in festive dress on Taquile Island on Lake Titicaca, west of Peru]]

The various nations, tribes, and bands of Indigenous peoples of the Americas have differing preferences in terminology for themselves.{{cite book |title=1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus |isbn=978-1-4000-3205-1 |last1=Mann |first1=Charles C. |author-link=Charles C. Mann |year=2006 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing}}{{page needed|date=August 2024}} While there are regional and generational variations in which umbrella terms are preferred for Indigenous peoples as a whole, in general, most Indigenous peoples prefer to be identified by the name of their specific nation, tribe, or band.{{Cite web |last=loprespub |date=20 May 2020 |title=Indigenous Peoples: Terminology Guide |url=https://hillnotes.ca/2020/05/20/indigenous-peoples-terminology-guide/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210120123317/https://hillnotes.ca/2020/05/20/indigenous-peoples-terminology-guide/ |archive-date=20 January 2021 |access-date=10 September 2021 |website=HillNotes |language=en-US}}

Early settlers often adopted terms that some tribes used for each other, not realizing these were derogatory terms used by enemies. When discussing broader subsets of peoples, naming has often been based on shared language, region, or historical relationship.{{cite book |title=Language History, Language Change, and Languas Relationship |isbn=978-3-11-060969-1 |last1=Hock |first1=Hans Henrich |last2=Joseph |first2=Brian D. |date=22 July 2019 |publisher=De Gruyter}} Many English exonyms have been used to refer to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Some of these names were based on foreign language terms used by earlier explorers and colonists, while others resulted from the colonists' attempts to translate or transliterate endonyms from the native languages. Other terms arose during periods of conflict between the colonists and Indigenous peoples.{{cite book |title=Contributions to Sino-Tibetan Studies |isbn=90-04-07850-9 |last1=McCoy |first1=John F. |last2=Light |first2=Timothy |year=1986 |publisher=Brill Archive}}

Since the late 20th century, Indigenous peoples in the Americas have been more vocal about how they want to be addressed, pushing to suppress the use of terms widely considered to be obsolete, inaccurate, or racist. During the latter half of the 20th century and the rise of the Indian rights movement, the United States federal government responded by proposing the use of the term "Native American", to recognize the primacy of Indigenous peoples' tenure in the nation.{{cite journal |url=https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417502000026 |doi=10.1017/S0010417502000026 |title=The Production of Legal Identities Proper to States: The Case of the Permanent Family Surname |year=2002 |last1=Scott |first1=James C. |last2=Tehranian |first2=John |last3=Mathias |first3=Jeremy |journal=Comparative Studies in Society and History |volume=44 |pages=4–44 |s2cid=146687944 |issn=0010-4175|url-access=subscription }} As may be expected among people of over 400 different cultures in the US alone, not all of the people intended to be described by this term have agreed on its use or adopted it. No single group naming convention has been accepted by all Indigenous peoples in the Americas. Most prefer to be addressed as people of their tribe or nations when not speaking about Native Americans/American Indians as a whole.>{{cite book |title=1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus |isbn=978-1-4000-3205-1 |last1=Mann |first1=Charles C. |author-link=Charles C. Mann |year=2006 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing |chapter=Loaded Words}}

Since the 1970s, the word "Indigenous", which is capitalized when referring to people, has gradually emerged as a favored umbrella term. The capitalization is to acknowledge that Indigenous peoples have cultures and societies that are equal to Europeans, Africans, and Asians.{{Cite web |date=19 May 2020 |title=Why Capitalize "Indigenous"? |url=https://www.sapiens.org/language/capitalize-indigenous/ |access-date=25 June 2021 |website=SAPIENS |language=en-US |archive-date=25 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210625142119/https://www.sapiens.org/language/capitalize-indigenous/ |url-status=live}} This has recently been acknowledged in the AP Stylebook.{{Cite web |title=Associated Press Stylebook |url=https://www.apstylebook.com/race-related-coverage |access-date=25 June 2021 |website=www.apstylebook.com |archive-date=16 August 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210816190545/https://www.apstylebook.com/race-related-coverage |url-status=dead}} Some consider it improper to refer to Indigenous people as "Indigenous Americans" or to append any colonial nationality to the term because Indigenous cultures existed before European colonization. Indigenous groups have territorial claims that are different from modern national and international borders, and when labeled as part of a country, their traditional lands are not acknowledged. Some who have written guidelines consider it more appropriate to describe an Indigenous person as "living in" or "of" the Americas, rather than calling them "American"; or simply calling them "Indigenous" without any addition of a colonial state.{{Cite web |title=Indigenous Terminology Guide |url=https://www.queensu.ca/indigenous/ways-knowing/terminology-guide |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220324040103/http://web.archive.org/screenshot/https://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/aboriginal_identity__the_classroom/ |archive-date=24 March 2022 |access-date=25 June 2021 |website=www.queensu.ca |publisher=Queen's University}}{{Cite web |title=University Of Guelph Brand Guide {{!}} Indigenous Peoples|url=https://guides.uoguelph.ca/guides/style-guide/inclusive-language/indigenous-peoples/ |access-date=25 June 2021 |website=guides.uoguelph.ca |date=14 November 2019 |archive-date=25 June 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210625194830/https://guides.uoguelph.ca/guides/style-guide/inclusive-language/indigenous-peoples/ |url-status=live}}

{{Excerpt|Peopling of the Americas}}

{{Main|Pre-Columbian era|Archaeology of the Americas}}

File:Langs N.Amer.png shown across present-day Canada, Greenland, the United States, and northern Mexico]]

File:Hombrekogui.jpg, descendants of the Tairona, are a culturally intact, largely pre-Columbian era society.{{Cite news |date=29 October 2013 |title=What Colombia's Kogi people can teach us about the environment|url=http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/colombia-kogi-environment-destruction |access-date=11 August 2020 |work=The Guardian |language=en |archive-date=19 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200819050754/https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/colombia-kogi-environment-destruction |url-status=live}}]]

File:Llullaillaco mummies in Salta city, Argentina.jpg, a preserved Inca human sacrifice from around the year 1500.{{Cite web |date=29 July 2013 |title=Inca Child Sacrifice Victims Were Drugged |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/7/130729-inca-mummy-maiden-sacrifice-coca-alcohol-drug-mountain-andes-children/ |access-date=7 August 2020 |website=National Geographic News |language=en |archive-date=4 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200704094117/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/7/130729-inca-mummy-maiden-sacrifice-coca-alcohol-drug-mountain-andes-children/ |url-status=dead}}{{Cite magazine |last=Killgrove |first=Kristina |title=Inside The Last Meals Of Ancient Victims Of Sacrifice And Murder |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2019/01/30/inside-the-last-meals-of-ancient-victims-of-sacrifice-and-murder/ |access-date=7 August 2020 |magazine=Forbes |language=en |archive-date=7 November 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201107230919/https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2019/01/30/inside-the-last-meals-of-ancient-victims-of-sacrifice-and-murder/ |url-status=live}}]]

While technically referring to the era before Christopher Columbus' voyages of 1492 to 1504, in practice the term usually includes the history of Indigenous cultures until Europeans either conquered or significantly influenced them.{{cite book |last=Fernández-Armesto |first=Felipe |author-link=Felipe Fernández-Armesto |year=1987 |title=Before Columbus: Exploration and Colonisation from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic: 1229–1492 |series=New studies in medieval history series |location=Basingstoke, Hampshire |publisher=Macmillan Education |isbn=978-0-333-40382-2 |oclc=20055667}} "Pre-Columbian" is used especially often in the context of discussing the pre-contact Mesoamerican Indigenous societies: Olmec; Toltec; Teotihuacano' Zapotec; Mixtec; Aztec and Maya civilizations; and the complex cultures of the Andes: Inca Empire, Moche culture, Muisca Confederation, and Cañari.

The Pre-Columbian era refers to all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European and African influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original arrival in the Upper Paleolithic to European colonization during the early modern period.{{cite web |title=Method and Theory in American Archaeology |url=https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=6136197 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040123161619/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=6136197 |url-status=dead |archive-date=23 January 2004 |work=Gordon Willey and Philip Phillips |publisher=University of Chicago |year=1958 |format=}}

The Norte Chico civilization (in present-day Peru) is one of the defining six original civilizations of the world, arising independently around the same time as that of Egypt.{{cite journal |last=Shady Solis |first=Ruth |author2=Jonathan Haas |author3=Winifred Creamer |date=27 April 2001 |title=Dating Caral, a Preceramic Site in the Supe Valley on the Central Coast of Peru |journal=Science |volume=292 |issue=5517 |pages=723–726 |doi=10.1126/science.1059519 |pmid=11326098 |bibcode=2001Sci...292..723S |s2cid=10172918}}{{cite journal |last1=Haas |first1=Jonathan |first2=Winifred |last2=Creamer |first3=Alvaro |last3=Ruiz |date=23 December 2004 |title=Dating the Late Archaic occupation of the Norte Chico region in Peru |journal=Nature |volume=432 |issue=7020 |pages=1020–1023 |doi=10.1038/nature03146 |pmid=15616561 |bibcode=2004Natur.432.1020H |s2cid=4426545}} Many later pre-Columbian civilizations achieved great complexity, with hallmarks that included permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, engineering, astronomy, trade, civic and monumental architecture, and complex societal hierarchies. Some of these civilizations had long faded by the time of the first significant European and African arrivals (ca. late 15th–early 16th centuries), and are known only through oral history and through archaeological investigations. Others were contemporary with the contact and colonization period and were documented in historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Mayan, Olmec, Mixtec, Aztec, and Nahua peoples, had their written languages and records. However, the European colonists of the time worked to eliminate non-Christian beliefs and burned many pre-Columbian written records. Only a few documents remained hidden and survived, leaving contemporary historians with glimpses of ancient culture and knowledge.

According to both Indigenous and European accounts and documents, American civilizations before and at the time of European encounter had achieved great complexity and many accomplishments.{{cite book |last=Wright |first=Ronald |author-link=Ronald Wright |year=2005 |title=Stolen Continents: 500 Years of Conquest and Resistance in the Americas |edition=1st Mariner Books |location=Boston, Massachusetts |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |isbn=978-0-618-49240-4 |oclc=57511483}} For instance, the Aztecs built one of the largest cities in the world, Tenochtitlan (the historical site of what would become Mexico City), with an estimated population of 200,000 for the city proper and a population of close to five million for the extended empire.{{cite web |last=Drake |first=Thomas |title=1519 |url=http://webpages.uidaho.edu/engl257/Ren/aztec_empire_in_1519.htm |website=English 257: Literature of Western Civilization |publisher=University of Idaho |access-date=26 December 2018 |archive-date=27 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181227040606/http://webpages.uidaho.edu/engl257/Ren/aztec_empire_in_1519.htm |url-status=live}} By comparison, the largest European cities in the 16th century were Constantinople and Paris with 300,000 and 200,000 inhabitants respectively.{{cite web |last=Bucholz |first=Robert |title=Europe in 1500 |url=http://remus.shidler.hawaii.edu/genes/Bavaria/Europe%20in%201500.htm |website=University of Hawaii |access-date=26 December 2018 |archive-date=25 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181225062011/http://remus.shidler.hawaii.edu/genes/Bavaria/Europe%20in%201500.htm |url-status=dead}} The population in London, Madrid, and Rome hardly exceeded 50,000 people. In 1523, right around the time of the Spanish conquest, the entire population in the country of England was just under three million people.{{cite web |last1=Munro |first1=John |title=Medieval Population Dynamics to 1500 |url=https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/munro5/L02MedievalPopulationC.pdf |website=University of Toronto |access-date=26 December 2018 |archive-date=26 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181226232658/https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/munro5/L02MedievalPopulationC.pdf |url-status=live}} This fact speaks to the level of sophistication, agriculture, governmental procedure, and rule of law that existed in Tenochtitlan, needed to govern over such a large citizenry. Indigenous civilizations also displayed impressive accomplishments in astronomy and mathematics, including the most accurate calendar in the world.{{Citation needed|date=October 2023}} The domestication of maize or corn required thousands of years of selective breeding, and continued cultivation of multiple varieties was done with planning and selection, generally by women.

Inuit, Yupik, Aleut, and Indigenous creation myths tell of a variety of origins of their respective peoples. Some were "always there" or were created by gods or animals, some migrated from a specified compass point, and others came from "across the ocean".{{cite book |first1=Richard |last1=Erdoes |first2=Alfonso |last2=Ortiz |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4YPqAQAAQBAJ&q=Richard%20Erdoes%20and%20Alfonso%20Ortiz%2C%20American%20Indian%20Myths%20and%20Legends&pg=PP1 |title=American Indian Myths and Legends |location=New York |publisher=Pantheon Books |year=1985 |page=xiv |isbn=9780804151757}}

{{Main|European colonization of the Americas}}

{{See also|Population history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Columbian exchange|Criollo people#Spanish colonial caste system{{!}}Society of the Spanish-Americans in the Spanish Colonial Americas}}

File:North American cultural areas.png at time of European colonization]]

File:Áreas_Culturales_de_América.PNG and Central America at the time of European colonization (in Spanish)]]

File:FlorentineCodex BK12 F54 smallpox.jpg, compiled between 1540 and 1585, depicting the Nahua peoples suffering from smallpox during the conquest-era in central Mexico]]

File:Índios em uma fazenda.jpg in present-day Brazil, {{Circa|1824}}]]

File:Índios isolados no Acre 12.jpg encountered in Acre in present-day Brazil in 2009]]

The European colonization of the Americas fundamentally changed the lives and cultures of the resident Indigenous peoples. Although the exact pre-colonization population count of the Americas is unknown, scholars estimate that Indigenous populations diminished by between 80% and 90% during the first centuries of European colonization. Most scholars estimate a pre-colonization population of around 50 million, with other scholars arguing for an estimate of 100 million. Estimates reach as high as 145 million.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NPoAQRgkrOcC&q=pre-Columbian+population+million&pg=PA40 |title=American colonies; Volume 1 of The Penguin history of the United States, History of the United States Series |first=Alan |last=Taylor |publisher=Penguin |year=2002 |isbn=978-0142002100 |page=40 |access-date=7 October 2013}}{{cite book |first=David E. |last=Stannard |author-link=David Stannard |title=American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World |year=1993 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=151 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RzFsODcGjfcC&pg=151 |isbn=978-0-19-508557-0}}{{Cite book |last1=McKenna |first1=Erin |last2=Pratt |first2=Scott L. |title=American Philosophy: From Wounded Knee to the Present |publisher=Bloomsbury |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-44118-375-0 |location=London|pages=375}} William Denevan estimates of the pre-contact population range from 8 million to 112 million, falling to under 6 million by 1650.{{cite book | last=Denevan | first=William M. | title=The Native Population of the Americas in 1492 | publisher=Univ of Wisconsin Press | publication-place=Madison, Wis | date=1992-03-15 | isbn=978-0-299-13434-1}}

Epidemics ravaged the Americas with diseases, such as smallpox, measles, and cholera, which the early colonists brought from Europe. The spread of infectious diseases was slow initially, as most Europeans were not actively or visibly infected, due to inherited immunity from generations of exposure to these diseases in Europe. This changed when the Europeans began the human trafficking of massive numbers of enslaved Western and Central African people to the Americas. Like Indigenous peoples, these African people, newly exposed to European diseases, lacked any inherited resistance to the diseases of Europe. In 1520, an African who had been infected with smallpox had arrived in Yucatán. By 1558, the disease had spread throughout South America and had arrived at the Plata basin.{{Cite journal |last=Curtin |first=Philip D. |date=1993 |title=Disease Exchange Across the Tropical Atlantic |journal=History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences |volume=15 |issue=3 |pages=329–356 |jstor=23331729 |pmid=7529931}} Colonist violence towards Indigenous peoples accelerated the loss of lives. European colonists perpetrated massacres on the Indigenous peoples and enslaved them.{{cite book |last=Martin |first=Stacie E |chapter=Native Americans |title=Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes against Humanity |editor-first=Dinah |editor-last=Shelton |publisher=Macmillan Library Reference |year=2004 |pages=740–746}}{{cite book |first=David E. |last=Stannard |title=American Holocaust:The Conquest of the New World: The Conquest of the New World |year=1993 |publisher=Oxford University Press, USA|isbn=978-0-19-508557-0|url=https://archive.org/details/americanholocaus00stan}}{{cite book |first=Russel |last=Thornton |title=American Indian Holocaust and Survival: ˜a Population History Since 1492 |year=1987|location=Norman, Oklahoma |publisher= University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=978-0-8061-2074-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/americanindianho00thor_0}} According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census (1894), the North American Indian Wars of the 19th century had a known death toll of about 19,000 Europeans and 30,000 Native Americans, and an estimated total death toll of 45,000 Native Americans.{{cite book|last=Thornton|first=Russell|date=1990|title=American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History since 1492|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|page=48|isbn=978-0-8061-2220-5}}

The first Indigenous group encountered by Columbus, the 250,000 Taínos of Hispaniola, represented the dominant culture in the Greater Antilles and the Bahamas. Within thirty years about 70% of the Taínos had died. They had no immunity to European diseases, so outbreaks of measles and smallpox ravaged their population.{{cite encyclopedia|title=Smallpox Through History |url=http://encarta.msn.com/media_701508643/Smallpox_Through_History.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091029184350/http://encarta.msn.com/media_701508643/Smallpox_Through_History.html |archive-date=29 October 2009 |url-status=dead}} One such outbreak occurred in a camp of enslaved Africans, where smallpox spread to the nearby Taíno population and reduced their numbers by 50%. Increasing punishment of the Taínos for revolting against forced labor, despite measures put in place by the encomienda, which included religious education and protection from warring tribes,{{cite book |last=Rodriguez |first=Junius P. |title=Encyclopedia of slave resistance and rebellion, Volume 1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h86YKfO-9RgC&q=enriquillo+revolt&pg=PA184 |access-date=1 July 2010 |isbn=978-0-313-33272-2 |year=2007 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing}} eventually led to the last great Taíno rebellion (1511–1529).

Following years of mistreatment, the Taínos began to adopt suicidal behaviors, with women aborting or killing their infants and men jumping from cliffs or ingesting untreated cassava, a violent poison.Espagnols-Indiens: le choc des civilisations" in L'Histoire, n°322, July–August 2007, pp.14–21

Eventually, a Taíno Cacique named Enriquillo managed to hold out in the Baoruco Mountain Range for thirteen years, causing serious damage to the Spanish, Carib-held plantations and their Indian auxiliaries.{{cite book |last=Traboulay |first=David M. |title=Columbus and Las Casas: the conquest and Christianization of America, 1492–1566 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7Jmi4Wb1DdsC&q=enriquillo+revolt&pg=PA44 |access-date=1 July 2010 |isbn=978-0-8191-9642-2 |date=September 1994 |publisher=University Press of America}}{{failed verification|date=January 2017}} Hearing of the seriousness of the revolt, Emperor Charles V (also King of Spain) sent Captain Francisco Barrionuevo to negotiate a peace treaty with the ever-increasing number of rebels. Two months later, after consultation with the Audencia of Santo Domingo, Enriquillo was offered any part of the island to live in peace.

The Laws of Burgos, 1512–1513, were the first codified set of laws governing the behavior of Spanish settlers in America, particularly concerning Indigenous peoples. The laws forbade the maltreatment of them and endorsed their conversion to Catholicism.{{cite web |url=http://faculty.smu.edu/bakewell/BAKEWELL/texts/burgoslaws.html |title=Laws of Burgos, 1512–1513 |publisher=Faculty.smu.edu |access-date=23 May 2010 |archive-date=6 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190606074822/http://faculty.smu.edu/bakewell/bakewell/texts/burgoslaws.html |url-status=dead}} The Spanish crown found it difficult to enforce these laws in distant colonies.

Epidemic disease was the overwhelming cause of the population decline of the Indigenous peoples.{{cite book |first=Noble David |last=Cook |title=Born to Die: Disease and New World Conquest, 1492–1650 |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-521-62208-0 |page=1 |publisher=Cambridge University Press}}{{cite web |url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/smallpox_01.shtml |title=BBC Smallpox: Eradicating the Scourge |publisher=BBC |date=5 November 2009 |access-date=23 May 2010 |archive-date=7 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130507074222/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/smallpox_01.shtml |url-status=live}} After initial contact with Europeans and Africans, Old World diseases caused the deaths of 90 to 95% of the native population of the New World in the following 150 years.{{cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html |title=The Story Of... Smallpox – and other Deadly Eurasian Germs |publisher=PBS |access-date=23 May 2010 |archive-date=16 January 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100116115810/http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html |url-status=live}} Smallpox killed from one-third to half of the native population of Hispaniola in 1518.{{Cite book |first=George C. |last=Kohn |title=Encyclopedia of plague and pestilence: from ancient times to the present |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tzRwRmb09rgC&pg=PA160 |publisher=Infobase Publishing |year=2008 |page=160 |isbn=978-0-8160-6935-4}}{{Cite web |url=http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/AfricanStudies/AfricanStudies-idx?type=div&did=AFRICANSTUDIES.LOVEJOY.DHENIGE&isize=text |title=Africans in bondage: studies in slavery and the slave trade : essays in honor of Philip D. Curtin on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of African Studies at the University of Wisconsin: Chapter 1: When did smallpox reach the New World (and why does it matter)? |website=digicoll.library.wisc.edu |language=en-US |access-date=5 December 2017 |archive-date=6 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171206005901/http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/cgi-bin/AfricanStudies/AfricanStudies-idx?type=div&did=AFRICANSTUDIES.LOVEJOY.DHENIGE&isize=text |url-status=live}} By killing the Incan ruler Huayna Capac, smallpox caused the Inca Civil War of 1529–1532. Smallpox was only the first epidemic. Typhus (probably) in 1546, influenza and smallpox together in 1558, smallpox again in 1589, diphtheria in 1614, and measles in 1618—all ravaged the remains of Inca culture.

Smallpox killed millions of native inhabitants of Mexico.{{cite web |url=http://www.libby-genealogy.com/epidemics.htm |title=Epidemics |publisher=Libby-genealogy.com |date=30 April 2009 |access-date=23 May 2010 |archive-date=22 July 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130722144136/http://www.libby-genealogy.com/epidemics.htm |url-status=dead}}{{cite magazine |url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn268-american-plague.html |title=American plague |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221215163948/https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn268-american-plague/ |archive-date=15 December 2022 |magazine=New Scientist}} Unintentionally introduced at Veracruz with the arrival of Pánfilo de Narváez on 23 April 1520, smallpox ravaged Mexico in the 1520s,{{cite web |url=http://www.allempires.info/article/index.php?q=Oaxaca |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171117071748/http://www.allempires.info/article/index.php?q=Oaxaca |url-status=dead |archive-date=17 November 2017 |title=Allempires.info |date=17 November 2017}} possibly killing over 150,000 in Tenochtitlán (the heartland of the Aztec Empire) alone, and aiding in the victory of Hernán Cortés over the Aztec Empire at Tenochtitlan (present-day Mexico City) in 1521.{{citation needed|reason=This was previously sourced to a self-published website. The bad reference was removed.|date=March 2014}}

There are many factors as to why Indigenous peoples suffered such immense losses from Afro-Eurasian diseases. Many Old World diseases, like cow pox, are acquired from domesticated animals that are not indigenous to the Americas. European populations had adapted to these diseases, and built up resistance, over many generations. Many of the Old World diseases that were brought over to the Americas were diseases, like yellow fever, that were relatively manageable if infected as a child, but were deadly if infected as an adult. Children could often survive the disease, resulting in immunity to the disease for the rest of their lives. But contact with the disease by adults without this childhood or inherited immunity often proved fatal.{{cite web|url=http://www.millersville.edu/~columbus/papers/goodling.html |title=Stacy Goodling, "Effects of European Diseases on the Inhabitants of the New World" |publisher=Millersville.edu |access-date=23 May 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080510163413/http://www.millersville.edu/~columbus/papers/goodling.html |archive-date=10 May 2008}}

Colonization of the Caribbean led to the destruction of the Arawaks of the Lesser Antilles. Their culture was destroyed by 1650. Only 500 had survived by the year 1550, though the bloodlines continued through to the modern populace. In Amazonia, Indigenous societies weathered, and continue to suffer, centuries of colonization and genocide.See Varese (2004), as reviewed in Dean (2006). {{dead link|date=January 2017}}

Contact with European diseases such as smallpox and measles killed between 50 and 67 percent of the Indigenous population of North America in the first hundred years after the arrival of Europeans."[https://archive.today/20120701132252/http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/sitefrancais/english/maps/historical/aboriginalpeoples/circa1740/2/maptext_view%23distribution_1653 Aboriginal Distributions 1630 to 1653]". Natural Resources Canada. {{dead link|date=June 2016|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} Some 90 percent of the native population near Massachusetts Bay Colony died of smallpox in an epidemic in 1617–1619.{{cite web |last=Koplow |first=David A. |url=http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9968/9968.ch01.html |title=Smallpox: The Fight to Eradicate a Global Scourge |publisher=Ucpress.edu |access-date=23 February 2011 |page=9 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080907093641/http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9968/9968.ch01.html |archive-date=7 September 2008 |url-status=dead}} In 1633, in Fort Orange (New Netherland), the Native Americans there were exposed to smallpox because of contact with Europeans. As it had done elsewhere, the virus wiped out entire population groups of Native Americans.{{cite web |url=http://www.paulkeeslerbooks.com/Chap5Iroquois.html |title=Dutch Children's Disease Kills Thousands of Mohawks |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071217225720/http://www.paulkeeslerbooks.com/Chap5Iroquois.html |archive-date=17 December 2007}} It reached Lake Ontario in 1636, and the lands of the Iroquois by 1679.{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/smallpox |title=Smallpox |last=Spaulding |first=W. B. |encyclopedia=The Canadian Encyclopedia |access-date=18 August 2019 |archive-date=8 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190608134549/https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/smallpox |url-status=live}}{{cite web |url=http://www.fourdir.com/iroquois.htm |title=Iroquois |publisher=Fourdir.com |access-date=23 May 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161106145008/http://www.fourdir.com/iroquois.htm |archive-date=6 November 2016 |url-status=usurped}} During the 1770s smallpox killed at least 30% of the West Coast Native Americans.{{cite web |last=Lange |first=Greg |url=http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5100 |title=Smallpox epidemic ravages Native Americans on the northwest coast of North America in the 1770s |publisher=Historylink.org |date=23 January 2003 |access-date=23 May 2010 |archive-date=26 May 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080526181907/http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=5100 |url-status=live}} The 1775–82 North American smallpox epidemic and the 1837 Great Plains smallpox epidemic brought devastation and drastic population depletion among the Plains Indians.{{Cite journal|pmc=2094753 |title=The first smallpox epidemic on the Canadian Plains: In the fur-traders' words |journal=The Canadian Journal of Infectious Diseases |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=112–115 |year=2000 |last1=Houston |first1=C. S. |last2=Houston |first2=S |pmid=18159275 |doi=10.1155/2000/782978 |doi-access=free}}{{cite web |url=http://www.thefurtrapper.com/ |title=Mountain Man Plain Indian Fur Trade |publisher=Thefurtrapper.com |access-date=23 May 2010 |archive-date=17 March 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110317053022/http://www.thefurtrapper.com/ |url-status=live}} In 1832 the federal government of the United States established a smallpox vaccination program for Native Americans (The Indian Vaccination Act of 1832).{{cite journal |title=The Politics of Sovereignty |journal=Wíčazo Ša Review |date=Autumn 2003 |pages=9–35 |jstor=1409535 |volume=18 |issue=2 |last1=Pearson |first1=J. Diane |doi=10.1353/wic.2003.0017 |s2cid=154875430}}

The Indigenous peoples in Brazil declined from a pre-Columbian high of an estimated three million{{cite web |last=Fineberg |first=Gail |url=https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0006/brazil.html |title=500 Years of Brazil's Discovery|work=Library of Congress |access-date=23 May 2010 |archive-date=5 December 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091205192609/http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0006/brazil.html |url-status=live}} to some 300,000 in 1997.{{dubious|reason=BBC source states 700,000 in 2005|date=February 2014}}{{failed verification||BBC source only states 700,000 in 2005|date=February 2014}}{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4392805.stm |title=Brazil urged to protect Indians |publisher=BBC News |date=30 March 2005 |access-date=23 May 2010 |archive-date=17 November 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171117071558/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4392805.stm |url-status=live}}

The Spanish Empire and other Europeans re-introduced horses to the Americas. Some of these animals escaped and began to breed and increase their numbers in the wild.{{cite web |title=Ancient Horse (Equus cf. E. complicatus) |publisher=The Academy of Natural Sciences, Thomas Jefferson Fossil Collection, Philadelphia |url=http://www.ansp.org/museum/jefferson/otherFossils/equus.php |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080829184554/http://www.ansp.org/museum/jefferson/otherFossils/equus.php |archive-date=29 August 2008}} The reintroduction of the horse, extinct in the Americas for over 7500 years, had a profound impact on Indigenous cultures in several regions, such as those of the Great Plains, the Northwest Plateau, the Great Basin, Aridoamerica, the Gran Chaco and the Southern Cone. By domesticating horses, some tribes had great success: horses enabled them to expand their territories, exchange more goods with neighboring tribes, and more easily capture game, such as bison.

According to Erin McKenna and Scott L. Pratt, the Indigenous population of the Americas was 145 million in the late 15th and by the late 17th century, had been reduced to 15 million due to epidemics, wars, massacres, mass rapes, starvation, and enslavement.

{{See also|Historical trauma#Indigenous historical trauma}}

{{Maplink|frame=yes|from=Canadian Indian residential school gravesites.map|text=Map of all Indigenous resident schools in Canada, including gravesites. This map can be expanded and interacted with.{{Legend|#FF0000|Confirmed discoveries of gravesites (24)}}{{Legend|#FFFF00|Investigations underway as of 30 July 2021 (17)}}{{Legend|#1500ff|Investigations that concluded with no discoveries (2)}}{{Legend|#777777|Resident schools where no investigations have taken place (100)}}{{Align|right|{{Small|Data}}}}}}

Indigenous historical trauma (IHT) is the trauma that can accumulate across generations and develop as a result of the historical ramifications of colonization and is linked to mental and physical health hardships and population decline.Gone, Joseph P., William E. Hartmann, Andrew Pomerville, Dennis C. Wendt, Sarah H. Klem, and Rachel L. Burrage. 2019. "[https://doi.apa.org/fulltext/2019-01033-003.pdf The impact of historical trauma on health outcomes for indigenous populations in the USA and Canada: A systematic review] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221215163946/https://psycnet.apa.org:443/fulltext/2019-01033-003.pdf |date=15 December 2022 }}." American Psychologist 74(1):20–35. {{doi|10.1037/amp0000338}}. IHT affects many different people in a multitude of ways because the Indigenous community and their history are diverse.

Many studies (such as Whitbeck et al., 2014;{{Cite journal |last1=Les Whitbeck |first1=B |last2=Chen |first2=Xiaojin |last3=Hoyt |first3=Dan R |last4=Adams |first4=Gary W |date=1 July 2004 |title=Discrimination, historical loss and enculturation: culturally specific risk and resiliency factors for alcohol abuse among American Indians. |journal=Journal of Studies on Alcohol |volume=65 |issue=4 |pages=409–418 |doi=10.15288/jsa.2004.65.409 |pmid=15376814 |issn=0096-882X}} Brockie, 2012; Anastasio et al., 2016;{{Cite journal |last1=Anastario |first1=Michael P. |last2=FourStar |first2=Kris |last3=Rink |first3=Elizabeth |date=1 October 2013 |title=Sexual Risk Behavior and Symptoms of Historical Loss in American Indian Men |journal=Journal of Community Health |language=en |volume=38 |issue=5 |pages=894–899|doi=10.1007/s10900-013-9695-8 |pmid=23624772 |s2cid=7866571 |issn=1573-3610}} Clark & Winterowd, 2012;{{Cite journal |last1=Clark |first1=Julie Dorton |last2=Winterowd |first2=Carrie |date=2012 |title=Correlates and Predictors of Binge Eating Among Native American Women |journal=Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development |language=en |volume=40 |issue=2 |pages=117–127 |doi=10.1002/j.2161-1912.2012.00011.x |issn=2161-1912}} Tucker et al., 2016){{cite journal |last1=Tucker |first1=Raymond P. |first2=LaRicka R. |last2=Wingate |first3=Victoria M. |last3=O'Keefe |date=2016 |title=Historical loss thinking and symptoms of depression are influenced by ethnic experience in American Indian college students |journal=Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology |volume=22 |number=3 |pages=350–358 |doi=10.1037/cdp0000055 |pmid=26371791}} have evaluated the impact of IHT on health outcomes of Indigenous communities from the United States and Canada. IHT is a difficult term to standardize and measure because of the vast and variable diversity of Indigenous people and their communities. Therefore, it is an arduous task to assign an operational definition and systematically collect data when studying IHT. Many of the studies that incorporate IHT measure it in different ways, making it hard to compile data and review it holistically. This is an important point that provides context for the following studies that attempt to understand the relationship between IHT and potential adverse health impacts.

Some of the methodologies to measure IHT include a "Historical Losses Scale" (HLS), "Historical Losses Associated Symptoms Scale" (HLASS), and residential school ancestry studies.{{Rp|23}} HLS uses a survey format that includes "12 kinds of historical losses", such as loss of language and loss of land and asks participants how often they think about those losses.{{Rp|23}} The HLASS includes 12 emotional reactions, and asks participants how they feel when they think about these losses. Lastly, the residential school ancestry studies ask respondents if their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, or "elders from their community" went to a residential school to understand if family or community history in residential schools is associated with negative health outcomes.{{Rp|25}} In a comprehensive review of the research literature, Joseph Gone and colleagues compiled and compared outcomes for studies using these IHT measures relative to the health outcomes of Indigenous peoples. The study defined negative health outcomes to include such concepts as anxiety, suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, polysubstance abuse, PTSD, depression, binge eating, anger, and sexual abuse.

The connection between IHT and health conditions is complicated because of the difficult nature of measuring IHT, the unknown directionality of IHT and health outcomes, and because the term Indigenous people used in the various samples comprises a huge population of individuals with drastically different experiences and histories. That being said some studies such as Bombay, Matheson, and Anisman (2014),{{Cite journal |last1=Bombay |first1=Amy |last2=Matheson |first2=Kimberly |last3=Anisman |first3=Hymie |date=24 September 2013 |title=The intergenerational effects of Indian Residential Schools: Implications for the concept of historical trauma |journal=Transcultural Psychiatry |language=en-US |volume=51 |issue=3 |pages=320–338 |doi=10.1177/1363461513503380 |issn=1363-4615 |pmc=4232330 |pmid=24065606}} Elias et al. (2012),{{Cite journal |last1=Elias |first1=Brenda |last2=Mignone |first2=Javier |last3=Hall |first3=Madelyn |last4=Hong |first4=Say P. |last5=Hart |first5=Lyna |last6=Sareen |first6=Jitender |date=1 May 2012 |title=Trauma and suicide behaviour histories among a Canadian indigenous population: An empirical exploration of the potential role of Canada's residential school system |url=http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953612001426 |journal=Social Science & Medicine |language=en |volume=74 |issue=10 |pages=1560–1569 |doi=10.1016/j.socscimed.2012.01.026 |pmid=22464223 |issn=0277-9536 |access-date=10 August 2020 |archive-date=13 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121013152528/http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953612001426 |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }} and Pearce et al. (2008){{Cite journal |last1=For the Cedar Project Partnership |last2=Pearce |first2=Margo E. |last3=Christian |first3=Wayne M. |last4=Patterson |first4=Katharina |last5=Norris |first5=Kat |last6=Moniruzzaman |first6=Akm |last7=Craib |first7=Kevin J. P. |last8=Schechter |first8=Martin T. |last9=Spittal |first9=Patricia M. |date=1 June 2008 |title=The Cedar Project: Historical trauma, sexual abuse and HIV risk among young Aboriginal people who use injection and non-injection drugs in two Canadian cities |journal=Social Science & Medicine |language=en |volume=66 |issue=11 |pages=2185–2194 |doi=10.1016/j.socscimed.2008.03.034 |issn=0277-9536 |pmc=5125817 |pmid=18455054}} found that Indigenous respondents with a connection to residential schools have more negative health outcomes (e.g., suicide ideation, suicide attempts, and depression) than those who did not have a connection to residential schools. Additionally, Indigenous respondents with higher HLS and HLASS scores had one or more negative health outcomes. While there are many studies{{Cite journal |last1=Armenta |first1=Brian E. |last2=Whitbeck |first2=Les B. |last3=Habecker |first3=Patrick N. |date=January 2016 |title=The Historical Loss Scale: Longitudinal Measurement Equivalence and Prospective Links to Anxiety Among North American Indigenous Adolescents |journal=Cultural Diversity & Ethnic Minority Psychology |volume=22 |issue=1 |pages=1–10 |doi=10.1037/cdp0000049 |issn=1099-9809 |pmc=6038142 |pmid=26213891}}{{Cite journal |last1=Ehlers |first1=Cindy L. |last2=Gizer |first2=Ian R. |last3=Gilder |first3=David A. |last4=Ellingson |first4=Jarrod M. |last5=Yehuda |first5=Rachel |date=1 November 2013 |title=Measuring historical trauma in an American Indian community sample: Contributions of substance dependence, affective disorder, conduct disorder and PTSD |journal=Drug and Alcohol Dependence |language=en |volume=133 |issue=1 |pages=180–187 |doi=10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2013.05.011 |issn=0376-8716 |pmc=3810370 |pmid=23791028}} that found an association between IHT and adverse health outcomes, scholars continue to suggest that it remains difficult to understand the impact of IHT. IHT needs to be systematically measured. Indigenous people also need to be understood in separate categories based on similar experiences, location, and background as opposed to being categorized as one monolithic group.

{{See also|Agriculture in Mesoamerica|Incan agriculture|Eastern Agricultural Complex|Prehistoric agriculture on the Great Plains|Prehistoric agriculture in the Southwestern United States}}

File:Buffalo Hunt.jpg (1844)]]

File:Indigenous people and their influence of crops and land.jpg

File:Museo Nacional de Antropología - MAÍZ.jpg engraving of maize now on display at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico]]

For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples domesticated, bred, and cultivated a large array of plant species. These species now constitute between 50% and 60% of all crops in cultivation worldwide.{{cite web |url=http://www.allbusiness.com/agriculture-forestry-fishing-hunting/331083-1.html |title="Native Americans: The First Farmers." AgExporter October 1, 1999 |publisher=Allbusiness.com |access-date=23 May 2010 |archive-date=29 August 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110829084251/http://www.allbusiness.com/agriculture-forestry-fishing-hunting/331083-1.html |url-status=live}} In certain cases, the Indigenous peoples developed entirely new species and strains through artificial selection, as with the domestication and breeding of maize from wild teosinte grasses in the valleys of southern Mexico. Numerous such agricultural products retain their native names in the English and Spanish lexicons.

The South American highlands became a center of early agriculture. Genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species suggests that the potato has a single origin in the area of southern Peru,{{cite journal |title=A single domestication for potato based on multilocus amplified fragment length polymorphism genotyping |last=Spooner |first=DM |journal=PNAS |volume=102 |issue=41 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0507400102 |pages=14694–99 |year=2005 |pmid=16203994 |pmc=1253605 |display-authors=etal |bibcode=2005PNAS..10214694S |doi-access=free}} [http://www.cipotato.org/pressroom/press_releases_detail.asp?cod=17&lang=en Lay summary] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110426183520/http://www.cipotato.org/pressroom/press_releases_detail.asp?cod=17&lang=en |date=26 April 2011 }} from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex. Over 99% of all modern cultivated potatoes worldwide are descendants of a subspecies indigenous to south-central Chile,{{cite web |url=http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/uow-uds012908.php |title=Using DNA, scientists hunt for the roots of the modern potato |access-date=10 September 2008 |date=29 January 2008 |last=Miller |first=N |publisher=American Association for the Advancement of Science |archive-date=26 February 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200226222807/https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/uow-uds012908.php |url-status=live}} Solanum tuberosum ssp. tuberosum, where it was cultivated as long as 10,000 years ago.{{cite journal |url=http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0717-34582007000300011&lng=en&nrm= |title=Molecular description and similarity relationships among native germplasm potatoes (Solanum tuberosum ssp. tuberosum L.) using morphological data and AFLP markers |last1=Solis |first1=JS |journal=Electronic Journal of Biotechnology |year=2007 |volume=10 |issue=3 |doi=10.2225/vol10-issue3-fulltext-14 |pages=376–385 |last2=Anabalón Rodríguez |last3=Leonardo |doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |display-authors=etal |hdl=10925/320 |hdl-access=free |access-date=19 November 2009 |archive-date=9 February 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090209223257/http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0717-34582007000300011&lng=en&nrm= |url-status=live}}{{cite book |author1-link=J. Michael Francis |last=Francis |first=John Michael |title=Iberia and the Americas

|publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OMNoS-g1h8cC&q=artistic+potato&pg=PA867 |isbn=978-1-85109-421-9}} According to Linda Newson, "It is clear that in pre-Columbian times some groups struggled to survive and often suffered food shortages and famines, while others enjoyed a varied and substantial diet."{{cite book |last1=Newson |first1=Linda |author1-link=Linda Newson |year=2001 |chapter=6: Pathogens, Places and Peoples: Geographical Variations in the Impact of Disease in Early Spanish America and the Philippines |editor1-last=Raudzens |editor1-first=George |title=Technology, Disease, and Colonial Conquests, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries: Essays Reappraising the Guns and Germs Theories |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_PFSc4kCyxcC |series=History of warfare |volume=2 |edition=reprint |location=Boston |publisher=Brill Academic Publishers |publication-date=2003 |page=190 |isbn=9780391042063 |access-date=27 October 2018 |quote=It is clear that in pre-Columbian times some groups struggled to survive and often suffered food shortages and famines, while others enjoyed a varied and substantial diet.}}

Persistent drought around AD 850 coincided with the collapse of the Classic Maya civilization, and the famine of One Rabbit (AD 1454) was a major catastrophe in Mexico.{{cite book |last1=Gill |first1=Richardson Benedict |year=2000 |chapter=5. Famine and Social Dissolution |title=The Great Maya Droughts: Water, Life, and Death |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DRt5RnlBTq0C |edition=revised |location=Albuquerque |publisher=University of New Mexico Press |publication-date=2001 |page=123 |isbn=9780826327741 |access-date=27 October 2018 |quote=In Tenochtitlan, during the famine of 1 Rabbit in 1454, Moctezuma Ilhuicamina distributed food from the royal granaries to the poor. When the stores ran out, he gave permission for the populace to leave the city to find food elsewhere and people left. The populations of Texcoco, Chalco, Xochimilco, and Tepanecapan also fled their cities. The Maya Lowlands appear to have suffered a famine at the same time, and the cities of Chichen Itza, Mayapan, and Uxmal appear to have been all abandoned simultaneously [...].}}

File:Phaseolus vulgaris seed.jpg is native to Mexico and Central America and later began to be cultivated in South America.]]

Indigenous peoples of North America began practicing farming approximately 4,000 years ago, late in the Archaic period of North American cultures. Technology had advanced to the point where pottery had started to become common and the small-scale felling of trees had become feasible. Concurrently, the Archaic Indigenous peoples began using fire in a controlled manner. They carried out the intentional burning of vegetation to mimic the effects of natural fires that tended to clear forest understories. It made travel easier and facilitated the growth of herbs and berry-producing plants, which were important both for food and for medicines.{{cite web |url=http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/sustain/report/terra2/terra2.htm |title=Chapter 2 (TERRA–2): The History of Native Plant Communities in the South |last=Owen |first=Wayne |year=2002 |work=Southern Forest Resource Assessment Final Report |publisher=U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station |access-date=29 July 2008 |archive-date=15 May 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080515093004/http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/sustain/report/terra2/terra2.htm |url-status=live}}

In the Mississippi River valley, Europeans noted that Native Americans managed groves of nut and fruit trees not far from villages and towns and their gardens and agricultural fields. They would have used prescribed burning farther away, in forest and prairie areas.{{cite book |title=Imperfect balance: landscape transformations in the Precolumbian Americas |url=https://archive.org/details/imperfectbalance00lent |url-access=limited |editor-first=David L. |editor-last=Lentz |publisher=Columbia University Press |location=New York |year=2000 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/imperfectbalance00lent/page/n265 241]–242 |isbn=978-0-231-11157-7}}

File:Tomato.jpg

Many crops first domesticated by Indigenous peoples are now produced and used globally, most notably maize (or "corn") arguably the most important crop in the world.Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma Other significant crops include cassava; chia; squash (pumpkins, zucchini, marrow, acorn squash, butternut squash); the pinto bean, Phaseolus beans including most common beans, tepary beans, and lima beans; tomatoes; potatoes; sweet potatoes; avocados; peanuts; cocoa beans (used to make chocolate); vanilla; strawberries; pineapples; peppers (species and varieties of Capsicum, including bell peppers, jalapeños, paprika, and chili peppers); sunflower seeds; rubber; brazilwood; chicle; tobacco; coca; blueberries, cranberries, and some species of cotton.

Studies of contemporary Indigenous environmental management—including agro-forestry practices among Itza Maya in Guatemala and hunting and fishing among the Menominee of Wisconsin—suggest that longstanding "sacred values" may represent a summary of sustainable millennial traditions.{{cite book |last1=Atran |first1=Scott |last2=Medin |first2=Douglas |date=2010 |title=The Native Mind and the Cultural Construction of Nature |publisher=MIT Press}}

Numerous Native American dog breeds have been used by the people of the Americas, such as the Canadian Eskimo dog, the Carolina dog, and the Chihuahua. Some indigenous peoples in the Great Plains used dogs for pulling travois, while others like the Tahltan bear dog were bred to hunt larger game. Some Andean cultures also bred the Chiribaya to herd llamas. The vast majority of indigenous dog breeds in the Americas went extinct, due to being replaced by dogs of European origin.{{cite journal |last1=Ní Leathlobhair |first1=Máire |last2=Perri |first2=Angela R |last3=Irving-Pease |first3=Evan K |last4=Witt |first4=Kelsey E |last5=Linderholm |first5=Anna |last6=Haile |first6=James |last7=Lebrasseur |first7=Ophelie |last8=Ameen |first8=Carly |last9=Blick |first9=Jeffrey |last10=Boyko |first10=Adam R |last11=Brace |first11=Selina |last12=Cortes |first12=Yahaira Nunes |last13=Crockford |first13=Susan J |last14=Devault |first14=Alison |last15=Dimopoulos |first15=Evangelos A |display-authors=29 |year=2018 |title=The evolutionary history of dogs in the Americas |url=http://dro.dur.ac.uk/25675/1/25675.pdf |journal=Science |volume=361 |issue=6397 |pages=81–85 |bibcode=2018Sci...361...81N |doi=10.1126/science.aao4776 |pmc=7116273 |pmid=29976825 |doi-access=free |last16=Eldridge |first16=Morley |last17=Enk |first17=Jacob |last18=Gopalakrishnan |first18=Shyam |last19=Gori |first19=Kevin |last20=Grimes |first20=Vaughan |last21=Guiry |first21=Eric |last22=Hansen |first22=Anders J |last23=Hulme-Beaman |first23=Ardern |last24=Johnson |first24=John |last25=Kitchen |first25=Andrew |last26=Kasparov |first26=Aleksei K |last27=Kwon |first27=Young-Mi |last28=Nikolskiy |first28=Pavel A |last29=Lope |first29=Carlos Peraza |last30=Manin |first30=Aurélie |access-date=7 September 2023 |archive-date=1 June 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230601103204/https://dro.dur.ac.uk/25675/1/25675.pdf |url-status=live}}

The Fuegian dog was a domesticated variation of the culpeo that was raised by several cultures in Tierra del Fuego, like the Selkʼnam and the Yahgan.{{cite journal |last1=Petrigh |first1=Romina S. |last2=Fugassa |first2=Martin H. |date=13 December 2013 |title=Molecular identification of a Fuegian dog belonging to the Fagnano Regional Museum ethnographic collection, Tierra del Fuego |url=http://fulltext.study/preview/pdf/1041543.pdf |url-status=dead |volume=317 |pages=14–18 |doi=10.1016/j.quaint.2013.07.030 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220121042/http://fulltext.study/preview/pdf/1041543.pdf |archive-date=20 December 2016 |access-date=2 September 2020 |journal=Quaternary International |bibcode=2013QuInt.317...14P |hdl=11336/25319}} It was exterminated by Argentine and Chilean settlers, due to supposedly posing as a threat to livestock.{{cite book |last1=Orquera |first1=L. |title=La vida material y social de los Yámana |language=es |trans-title=The material and social life of the Yámana |last2=Piana |first2=E. |date=1999 |publisher=Editorial Eudeba |location=Buenos Aires |pages=178–180}}

Several bird species, such as turkeys, Muscovy ducks, Puna ibis, and neotropic cormorants were domesticated by various peoples in Mesoamerica and South America to be used for poultry.

In the Andean region, indigenous peoples domesticated llamas and alpacas to produce fiber and meat. The llama was the only beast of burden in the Americas before European colonization.

Guinea pigs were domesticated from wild cavies to be raised for meat consumption in the Andean region. Guinea pigs are now widely raised in Western society as household pets.

In Oasisamerica, several cultures raised scarlet macaws imported from Mesoamerica for their feathers.{{cite book |last1=Di Peso |first1=Charles |title=Casas Grandes: A Fallen Trading Center of the Gran Chichimeca (Vols. 13) |date=1974 |publisher=Northland Press |location=Flagstaff, AZ}}{{cite book |last1=Di Peso |first1=Charles |title=Casas Grandes: A Fallen Trading Center of the Gran Chichimeca (Vols. 1–3) |date=1974 |publisher=Northland Press |location=Flagstaff, AZ}}

In the Maya civilization, stingless bees were domesticated to produce balché.{{Cite journal |last=Kent |first=Robert B. |date=1984 |title=Mesoamerican Stingless Beekeeping |url=http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08873638409478571 |url-status=live |journal=Journal of Cultural Geography |language=en |volume=4 |issue=2 |pages=14–28 |doi=10.1080/08873638409478571 |issn=0887-3631 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220119131258/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08873638409478571 |archive-date=2022-01-19 |access-date=2021-03-29|url-access=subscription }}

Cochineal were harvested by Mesoamerican and Andean civilizations for coloring fabrics via carminic acid.{{cite book |last1=Phipps |first1=Elena |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sHgkwaFhxv4C |title=Cochineal Red: The Art History of a Color |date=2010 |publisher=Metropolitan Museum of Art |isbn=978-1-58839-361-6 |location=New York, NY |language=en |access-date=28 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220328210151/https://books.google.com/books?id=sHgkwaFhxv4C |archive-date=28 March 2022 |url-status=live|page=10}}{{cite book |author-last1=Pearlstein |author-first1=Ellen |url=https://www.academia.edu/14834848 |title=A Red Like No Other: How Cochineal Colored the World |author-last2=MacKenzie |author-first2=Mark |author-last3=Kaplan |author-first3=Emily |author-last4=Howe |author-first4=Ellen |author-last5=Levinson |author-first5=Judith |date=2015 |publisher=Rizzoli and Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico |editor-last1=Anderson |editor-first1=Barbara |pages=44–51 |chapter=Tradition and Innovation, Cochineal and Andean keros |access-date=29 March 2022 |editor-last2=Padilla |editor-first2=Carmella |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220914213428/https://www.academia.edu/14834848 |archive-date=14 September 2022 |url-status=live}}{{cite web |author=Threads In Tyme, LTD |title=Time line of fabrics |url=http://threadsintyme.tripod.com/id63.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051028155009/http://threadsintyme.tripod.com/id63.htm |archive-date=October 28, 2005 |access-date=July 14, 2005}}

{{Further|Classification of Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Mythologies of the indigenous peoples of the Americas|Category:Archaeological cultures of North America|Category:Archaeological cultures of South America|label2=Mythologies of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas}}

Cultural practices in the Americas seem to have been shared mostly within geographical zones where distinct ethnic groups adopt shared cultural traits, similar technologies, and social organizations. An example of such a cultural area is Mesoamerica, where millennia of coexistence and shared development among the peoples of the region produced a fairly homogeneous culture with complex agricultural and social patterns. Another well-known example is the North American plains where until the 19th century several peoples shared the traits of nomadic hunter-gatherers based primarily on bison hunting.

{{Main|Indigenous languages of the Americas}}

File:SouthAmerican families.png of much of present-day South America and Panama]]

Indigenous languages in North America have been classified into 56 groups or stock tongues, in which the spoken languages of the various nations may be said to center. In connection with speech, reference may be made to gesture language which was highly developed in parts of this area. Of equal interest is the picture writing especially well developed among the Anishinaabe and Lenape nations.Hammerton, J.A., Peoples of All Nations, Volume 7, London: Educational Book Co., Limited, 17, New Bridge Street, E.C

{{see also|Canadian Aboriginal syllabics|Cherokee syllabary|Quipu|label 1=Syllabics used by Indigenous peoples living in Canada}}

File:Palenque glyphs-edit1.jpg in stucco now on display at Museo de sitio in Palenque, Mexico]]

Beginning in the 1st millennium BCE, pre-Columbian cultures in Mesoamerica developed several Indigenous writing systems (independent of any influence from the writing systems that existed in other parts of the world). The Cascajal Block is perhaps the earliest-known example in the Americas of what may be an extensive written text. The Olmec hieroglyphs tablet has been indirectly dated (from ceramic shards found in the same context) to approximately 900 BCE which is around the same time that the Olmec occupation of San Lorenzo Tenochtitlán began to weaken.{{cite web |last=Skidmore |first=Joel |title=The Cascajal Block: The Earliest Precolumbian Writing |url=http://www.mesoweb.com/reports/Cascajal.pdf |year=2006 |pages=1–4 |publisher=Mesoweb Reports & News |access-date=14 September 2009 |archive-date=13 September 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090913151811/http://www.mesoweb.com/reports/Cascajal.pdf |url-status=live}}

The Maya writing system was logosyllabic (a combination of phonetic syllabic symbols and logograms). It is the only pre-Columbian writing system known to have completely represented the spoken language of its community. It has more than a thousand different glyphs, but a few are variations on the same sign or have the same meaning, many appear only rarely or in particular localities, no more than about five hundred were in use in any given time, and, of those, it seems only about two hundred (including variations) represented a particular phoneme or syllable.{{cite book |last1=Coe |first1=Michael D. |author1-link=Michael D. Coe |year=1992 |title=Breaking the Maya Code |publisher=Thames & Hudson |location=London |isbn=978-0-500-05061-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/breakingmayacode00coem_0}}{{cite book |last1=Coe |first1=Michael D. |author1-link=Michael D. Coe |first2=Mark L. |last2=Van Stone |year=2005 |title=Reading the Maya Glyphs |publisher=Thames & Hudson |location=London |isbn=978-0-500-28553-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/readingmayaglyph0000coem}}{{cite book |last1=Kettunen |first1=Harri |first2=Christophe |last2=Helmke |year=2010 |title=Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs |publisher=Wayeb and Leiden University |url=http://www.mesoweb.com/resources/handbook/index.html |access-date=31 January 2013 |archive-date=17 June 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070617102538/http://www.mesoweb.com/resources/handbook/index.html |url-status=live}}

The Zapotec writing system, one of the earliest in the Americas,Urcid Javier, 2005; La Escritura zapoteca was logographic and presumably syllabic. There are remnants of Zapotec writing in inscriptions on some of the monumental architecture of the period, but so few inscriptions are extant that it is difficult to fully describe the writing system. The oldest example of the Zapotec script, dating from around 600 BCE, is on a monument that was discovered in San José Mogote.Flannery and Marcus, 2003{{full citation needed|date=August 2024}}

Aztec codices (singular codex) are books that were written by pre-Columbian and colonial-era Aztecs. These codices are some of the best primary sources for descriptions of Aztec culture. The pre-Columbian codices are largely pictorial; they do not contain symbols that represent spoken or written language.{{cite book |first=Elizabeth Hill |last=Boone |title=Pictorial Documents and Visual Thinking in Postconquest Mexico |page=158}} By contrast, colonial-era codices contain not only Aztec pictograms, but also writing that uses the Latin alphabet in several languages: Classical Nahuatl, Spanish, and occasionally Latin.

Spanish mendicants in the sixteenth century taught Indigenous scribes in their communities to write their languages using Latin letters, and there are a large number of local-level documents in Nahuatl, Zapotec, Mixtec, and Yucatec Maya from the colonial era, many of which were part of lawsuits and other legal matters. Although Spaniards initially taught Indigenous scribes alphabetic writing, the tradition became self-perpetuating at the local level.{{cite book |first=Frances |last=Karttunen |chapter=Nahuatl Literacy |editor1-first=George A. |editor1-last=Collier |display-editors=etal |title=The Inca and Aztec States |location=New York |publisher=Academic Press |date=1982 |pages=395–417}} The Spanish crown gathered such documentation, and contemporary Spanish translations were made for legal cases. Scholars have translated and analyzed these documents in what is called the New Philology to write histories of Indigenous peoples from Indigenous viewpoints.{{cite book |first=James |last=Lockhart |title=The Nahuas After the Conquest |location=Stanford |publisher=Stanford University Press |date=1992|page=7}}

The Wiigwaasabak, birch bark scrolls on which the Ojibwa (Anishinaabe) people wrote complex geometrical patterns and shapes, can also be considered a form of writing, as can Mi'kmaq hieroglyphics.

Aboriginal syllabic writing, or simply syllabics, is a family of abugidas used to write some Indigenous languages of the Algonquian, Inuit, and Athabaskan language families.

{{Main|Visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native American music|l1 = Visual arts by Indigenous peoples of the Americas|l2 = Indigenous music}}

File:JuPi 1.jpg, Arviat, Nunavut, Canada, wool, and embroidery floss]]

File:Gorget, Peru, north coast, Chimu style, c. 1350-1450 AD, feathers, reeds, copper bars, silver, metal overlaid with skin - Textile Museum, George Washington University - DSC09898.JPG feather pectoral, feathers, reed, copper, silver, hide, cordage, {{Circa|1350–1450}}]]

File:Pan flute played 2.jpg

Indigenous music can vary between cultures, however, there are significant commonalities. Traditional music often centers around drumming and singing. Rattles, clapper sticks, and rasps are also popular percussive instruments, both historically and in contemporary cultures. Flutes are made of river cane, cedar, and other woods. The Apache have a type of fiddle, and fiddles are also found many First Nations and Métis cultures.

The music of the Indigenous peoples of Central Mexico and Central America, like that of the North American cultures, tends to be spiritual ceremonies. It traditionally includes a large variety of percussion and wind instruments such as drums, flutes, sea shells (used as trumpets), and "rain" tubes. No remnants of pre-Columbian stringed instruments were found until archaeologists discovered a jar in Guatemala, attributed to the Maya of the Late Classic Era (600–900 CE); this jar was decorated with imagery depicting a stringed musical instrument which has since been reproduced. This instrument is one of the very few stringed instruments known in the Americas before the introduction of European musical instruments; when played, it produces a sound that mimics a jaguar's growl.{{cite web |url=http://mcis2.princeton.edu/jaguar/jaguar.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150420123834/http://mcis2.princeton.edu/jaguar/jaguar.html |date=17 April 2004 |archive-date=20 April 2015 |access-date=22 June 2016 |title=Music from the Land of the Jaguar |publisher=The Princeton Art Museum}} (Includes sound sample.) {{Dead link|date=May 2017}}

Visual arts by Indigenous peoples of the Americas comprise a major category in the world art collection. Contributions include pottery, paintings, jewelry, weavings, sculptures, basketry, carvings, and beadwork.{{cite web |url=http://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections/BAE/Bulletin164/tptoc.htm |title="Hair Pipes in Plains Indian Adornment" by John C. Ewers |publisher=Sil.si.edu |access-date=14 September 2009 |archive-date=17 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171217084237/http://www.sil.si.edu/DigitalCollections/BAE/Bulletin164/tptoc.htm |url-status=live}} Because too many artists were posing as Native Americans and Alaska Natives{{cite web |title=Buying Alaska Native Art |website=Federal Trade Commission |access-date=11 September 2014 |url=http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0177-buying-alaska-native-art |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221215163950/https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/buying-alaska-native-art |archive-date=15 December 2022}} to profit from the cachet of Indigenous art in the United States, the U.S. passed the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, requiring artists to prove that they were enrolled in a state or federally recognized tribe. To support the ongoing practice of American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian arts and cultures in the United States,{{cite web |url=http://www.narf.org/cases/arts-cultures-foundation/ |title="National Native Arts And Cultures Foundation" by Native American Rights Fund |access-date=17 February 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150217203107/http://www.narf.org/cases/arts-cultures-foundation/ |archive-date=17 February 2015 |url-status=dead}} the Ford Foundation, arts advocates, and American Indian tribes created an endowment seed fund and established a national Native Arts and Cultures Foundation in 2007.[http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/library/Native-Arts-and-Cultures.pdf] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924014635/http://www.fordfoundation.org/pdfs/library/Native-Arts-and-Cultures.pdf|date=24 September 2015}}{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/arts/22native.html |title=With Ford Foundation Backing, a New Agency Will Sponsor Native American Arts |first=Robin |last=Pogrebin |date=21 April 2009 |access-date=9 April 2018 |website=The New York Times |archive-date=27 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180127121001/http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/arts/22native.html |url-status=live}}

After the entry of the Spaniards, the process of spiritual conquest was favored, among other things, by the liturgical musical service to which the natives, whose musical gifts came to surprise the missionaries, were integrated. The musical gifts of the natives were of such magnitude that they soon learned the rules of counterpoint and polyphony and even the virtuous handling of the instruments. This helped to ensure that it was not necessary to bring more musicians from Spain, which significantly annoyed the clergy.{{Cite web |title=The Myths That Made America |url=http://oaresource.library.carleton.ca/oa-America9783839414859.pdf |access-date=31 August 2021 |archive-date=9 October 2022 |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://oaresource.library.carleton.ca/oa-America9783839414859.pdf |url-status=live}}

The solution that was proposed was not to employ but a certain number of indigenous people in the musical service, not to teach them counterpoint, not to allow them to play certain instruments (brass breaths, for example, in Oaxaca, Mexico) and, finally, not to import more instruments so that the indigenous people would not have access to them. The latter was not an obstacle to the musical enjoyment of the natives, who experienced the making of instruments, particularly rubbed strings (violins and double basses) or plucked (third). It is there where we can find the origin of what is now called traditional music whose instruments have their tuning and a typical Western structure.{{Cite web |title=Indians, Song, and Dance in the Missions of Northern New Spain |url=https://cilam.ucr.edu/diagonal/issues/2009/Mann.pdf |access-date=31 August 2021 |archive-date=11 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211011120246/https://cilam.ucr.edu/diagonal/issues/2009/Mann.pdf |url-status=live}}

{{Main|Indigenous peoples in Canada}}

File:Indigenous population by census division.svg (First Nations, Inuit, Métis) by census division, according to the 2021 Canadian census{{cite web |title=Census Program Data Viewer dashboard |website=Statistics Canada |date=9 February 2022 |url=https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/dv-vd/cpdv-vdpr/index-eng.cfm | access-date=3 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240611142229/https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2021/dp-pd/dv-vd/cpdv-vdpr/index-eng.cfm |archive-date=11 June 2024}}]]

{{Excerpt|Indigenous peoples in Canada|paragraph=1,2,3,4|hat=yes|only=paragraphs}}

{{Main|Greenlandic Inuit}}

File:Kulusuk, Inuit couple (6822265499).jpg Inuit couple from Kulusuk, Greenland]]

The Greenlandic Inuit (Kalaallisut: kalaallit, Tunumiisut: tunumiit, Inuktun: inughuit) are the Indigenous and most populous ethnic group in Greenland.{{cite web |title=Indigenous peoples in Greenland |url=https://www.iwgia.org/en/greenland |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171015064635/https://www.iwgia.org/en/Greenland |archive-date=15 October 2017 |website=International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs}} This means that Denmark has one officially recognized Indigenous group. the Inuit – the Greenlandic Inuit of Greenland and the Greenlandic people in Denmark (Inuit residing in Denmark).

Approximately 89 percent of Greenland's population of 57,695 is Greenlandic Inuit, or 51,349 people {{as of|2012|lc=on}}.{{cite book |chapter-url=https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/peru/ |chapter=People and Society: Peru |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211119135020/https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/peru/ |archive-date=19 November 2021 |title=The World Factbook |publisher=Central Intelligence Agency |access-date=28 December 2011}}{{cite web |url=http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=kal |title=Inuktitut, Greenlandic |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120111084336/http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=kal |archive-date=11 January 2012 |website=Ethnologue |access-date=6 August 2012}} Ethnographically, they consist of three major groups:

• the Kalaallit of west Greenland, who speak Kalaallisut
• the Tunumiit of Tunu (east Greenland), who speak Tunumiit oraasiat ("East Greenlandic")
• the Inughuit of north Greenland, who speak Inuktun ("Polar Inuit")

{{Main|Indigenous peoples of Mexico}}

File:Distribution of indigenous people in Mexico, 2020.svg in each municipalities in 2020.]]

File:Huichol indian.jpg woman from Zacatecas, Mexico]]

File:Carnavaltenejapa.JPG in Tenejapa Municipality, Chiapas]]

The territory of modern-day Mexico was home to numerous Indigenous civilizations before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores: The Olmecs, who flourished from between 1200 BCE to about 400 BCE in the coastal regions of the Gulf of Mexico; the Zapotecs and the Mixtecs, who held sway in the mountains of Oaxaca and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec; the Maya in the Yucatán (and into neighboring areas of contemporary Central America); the Purépecha in present-day Michoacán and surrounding areas, and the Aztecs/Mexica, who, from their central capital at Tenochtitlan, dominated much of the center and south of the country (and the non-Aztec inhabitants of those areas) when Hernán Cortés first landed at Veracruz.

In contrast to what was the general rule in the rest of North America, the history of the colony of New Spain was one of racial intermingling (mestizaje). Mestizos, which in Mexico designate people who do not identify culturally with any Indigenous grouping, quickly came to account for a majority of the colony's population. Today, Mestizos in Mexico of mixed indigenous and European ancestry (with a minor African contribution) are still a majority of the population. Genetic studies vary over whether indigenous or European ancestry predominates in the Mexican Mestizo population.{{Cite journal |title=Analysis of genomic diversity in Mexican Mestizo populations to develop genomic medicine in Mexico |first1=Irma |last1=Silva-Zolezzi |first2=Alfredo |last2=Hidalgo-Miranda |first3=Jesus |last3=Estrada-Gil |first4=Juan Carlos |last4=Fernandez-Lopez |first5=Laura |last5=Uribe-Figueroa |first6=Alejandra |last6=Contreras |first7=Eros |last7=Balam-Ortiz |first8=Laura |last8=del Bosque-Plata |first9=David |last9=Velazquez-Fernandez |first10=Cesar |last10=Lara |first11=Rodrigo |last11=Goya |first12=Enrique |last12=Hernandez-Lemus |first13=Carlos |last13=Davila |first14=Eduardo |last14=Barrientos |first15=Santiago |last15=March |first16=Gerardo |last16=Jimenez-Sanchez |date=26 May 2009 |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |volume=106 |issue=21 |pages=8611–8616 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0903045106 |pmid=19433783 |pmc=2680428 |bibcode=2009PNAS..106.8611S |doi-access=free}}{{Cite journal |title=Admixture in Latin America: Geographic Structure, Phenotypic Diversity and Self-Perception of Ancestry Based on 7,342 Individuals |first1=Andrés |last1=Ruiz-Linares |first2=Kaustubh |last2=Adhikari |first3=Victor |last3=Acuña-Alonzo |first4=Mirsha |last4=Quinto-Sanchez |first5=Claudia |last5=Jaramillo |first6=William |last6=Arias |first7=Macarena |last7=Fuentes |first8=María |last8=Pizarro |first9=Paola |last9=Everardo |first10=Francisco de |last10=Avila |first11=Jorge |last11=Gómez-Valdés |first12=Paola |last12=León-Mimila |first13=Tábita |last13=Hunemeier |first14=Virginia |last14=Ramallo |first15=Caio C. Silva de |last15=Cerqueira |first16=Mari-Wyn |last16=Burley |first17=Esra |last17=Konca |first18=Marcelo Zagonel de |last18=Oliveira |first19=Mauricio Roberto |last19=Veronez |first20=Marta |last20=Rubio-Codina |first21=Orazio |last21=Attanasio |first22=Sahra |last22=Gibbon |first23=Nicolas |last23=Ray |first24=Carla |last24=Gallo |first25=Giovanni |last25=Poletti |first26=Javier |last26=Rosique |first27=Lavinia |last27=Schuler-Faccini |first28=Francisco M. |last28=Salzano |first29=Maria-Cátira |last29=Bortolini |first30=Samuel |last30=Canizales-Quinteros |first31=Francisco |last31=Rothhammer |first32=Gabriel |last32=Bedoya |first33=David |last33=Balding |first34=Rolando |last34=Gonzalez-José |date=25 September 2014 |journal=PLOS Genetics |volume=10 |issue=9 |pages=e1004572 |doi=10.1371/journal.pgen.1004572 |pmid=25254375 |pmc=4177621 |doi-access=free|bibcode=2014PLOSG..10.4572R }} In the 2020 INEGI census, 23.2 million people (19.4% of the Mexican population aged 3 years and older) self-identified as indigenous. Somewhat contradictorily, in the same 2020 census, 11.8 million people (9.3% of the Mexican population) were determined to be indigenous by the Mexican government based on the language spoken in their households. The indigenous population is distributed throughout the territory of Mexico but is especially concentrated in the Sierra Madre del Sur, the Yucatán Peninsula, and the most remote and difficult-to-access areas, such as the Sierra Madre Oriental, the Sierra Madre Occidental, and neighboring areas.[https://web.archive.org/web/20131023172638/http://www.cdi.gob.mx/index2.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=62&Itemid=24 2015 Mexican Census (Spanish)], Archived at the Wayback Machine The CDI identifies 62 Indigenous groups in Mexico, each with a unique language.{{cite web |url=http://www.diputados.gob.mx/LeyesBiblio/pdf/257.pdf |title=Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas |language=es |trans-title=General Law on Linguistic Rights of Indigenous Peoples |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080611011220/http://www.diputados.gob.mx/LeyesBiblio/pdf/257.pdf |archive-date=11 June 2008 }}{{Cite web |date=2020 |title=Población Indígena, 2010 y 2020 INEGI |language=es |trans-title=Indigenous Population, 2010 and 2020 INEGI |url=https://www.inegi.org.mx/contenidos/programas/ccpv/2020/doc/Censo2020_Principales_resultados_EUM.pdf |access-date=29 December 2021 |archive-date=24 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220124172052/https://www.inegi.org.mx/contenidos/programas/ccpv/2020/doc/Censo2020_Principales_resultados_EUM.pdf |url-status=live}}

In the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca and the interior of the Yucatán Peninsula, a large amount of the population is of Indigenous descent with the largest ethnic group being Mayan with a population of 900,000.{{Cite web |title=Mayas |url=https://sic.gob.mx/ficha.php?table=grupo_etnico&table_id=15 |access-date=29 December 2021 |website=Secretaría de Cultura/Sistema de Información Cultural |language=es |archive-date=29 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211229055441/https://sic.gob.mx/ficha.php?table=grupo_etnico&table_id=15 |url-status=live}} Large Indigenous minorities, including Aztecs or Nahua, Purépechas, Mazahua, Otomi, and Mixtecs are also present in the central regions of Mexico. In the Northern and Bajio regions of Mexico, Indigenous people are a small minority.

The General Law of Linguistic Rights of the Indigenous Peoples grants all Indigenous languages spoken in Mexico, regardless of the number of speakers, the same validity as Spanish in all territories in which they are spoken, and Indigenous peoples are entitled to request some public services and documents in their native languages.{{cite web |title=Ley General de Derechos Lingüísticos de los Pueblos Indígenas |trans-title=General Law of the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples |work=CDI México |url=http://cdi.gob.mx/derechos/vigencia/2006_ley_general_derechos_linguisticos_pueblos_indigenas.pdf |access-date=2 October 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070925193420/http://cdi.gob.mx/derechos/vigencia/2006_ley_general_derechos_linguisticos_pueblos_indigenas.pdf |archive-date=25 September 2007 |language=es}} Along with Spanish, the law has granted them—more than 60 languages—the status of "national languages". The law includes all Indigenous languages of the Americas regardless of origin; that is, it includes the Indigenous languages of ethnic groups non-native to the territory. The National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples recognizes the language of the Kickapoo, who immigrated from the United States{{cite web |title=Kikapúes — Kikaapoa |work=CDI México |url=http://www.cdi.gob.mx/index.php?id_seccion=291 |access-date=2 October 2007 |archive-date=24 April 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150424081454/http://www.cdi.gob.mx/index.php?id_seccion=291 |url-status=live}} and recognizes the languages of the Indigenous refugees from Guatemala.{{cite web |title=Aguacatecos, cakchiqueles, ixiles, kekchíes, tecos y quichés |work=CDI México |url=http://cdi.gob.mx/index.php?id_seccion=1378 |access-date=2 October 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070926232909/http://cdi.gob.mx/index.php?id_seccion=1378 |archive-date=26 September 2007}} The Mexican government has promoted and established bilingual primary and secondary education in some Indigenous rural communities. Nonetheless, of the Indigenous peoples in Mexico, 93% are either native speakers or bilingual second-language speakers of Spanish with only about 62.4% of them (or 5.4% of the country's population) speaking an Indigenous language and about a sixth do not speak Spanish (0.7% of the country's population).{{cite web |title=Poblicación de 5 años y más por Entidad Federativa, sexo y grupos lengüa indígena quinquenales de edad, y su distribución según condición de habla indígena y habla española |work=INEGI, México |url=http://www.inegi.gob.mx/prod_serv/contenidos/espanol/bvinegi/productos/censos/poblacion/2000/definitivos/Nal/tabulados/00li01.pdf |access-date=13 December 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080102103605/http://www.inegi.gob.mx/prod_serv/contenidos/espanol/bvinegi/productos/censos/poblacion/2000/definitivos/Nal/tabulados/00li01.pdf |archive-date=2 January 2008}}

File:Copper Canyons marathon in Urique.jpg marathon in Urique]]

The Indigenous peoples in Mexico have the right of free determination under the second article of the constitution. According to this article, the Indigenous peoples are granted:{{cite web |url=http://www.diputados.gob.mx/LeyesBiblio/pdf/1.pdf |title=Constitución Política de los Estados Unidos Mexicanos |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130102043233/http://www.diputados.gob.mx/LeyesBiblio/pdf/1.pdf |archive-date=2 January 2013}}  {{small|(779 KB)}}. Second article.

• the right to decide the internal forms of social, economic, political, and cultural organization;
• the right to apply their normative systems of regulation as long as human rights and gender equality are respected;
• the right to preserve and enrich their languages and cultures;
• the right to elect representatives before the municipal council in which their territories are located;

amongst other rights.

{{Main|Native Americans in the United States|Alaska Natives}}

File:Indigenous_Americans_by_county.png in each county in 2020.]]

File:Norma howard choctaw.jpg artist in present-day Oklahoma]]

File:Navajo Cowboy-1.jpg man on horseback in present-day Monument Valley in Arizona]]

Indigenous peoples in what is now the contiguous United States, including their descendants, were commonly called American Indians, or simply Indians domestically and since the late 20th century the term Native American came into common use. In Alaska, Indigenous peoples belong to 11 cultures with 11 languages. These include the St. Lawrence Island Yupik, Iñupiat, Athabaskan, Yup'ik, Cup'ik, Unangax, Alutiiq, Eyak, Haida, Tsimshian, and Tlingit,{{cite web|title=Education and Programs: Traditional Territories of Alaska Native Cultures|url=http://www.alaskanative.net/en/main-nav/education-and-programs/cultures-of-alaska/|website=Alaskan Native Heritage Center Museum|access-date=8 November 2015|location=Anchorage, AK|archive-date=14 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131214150205/http://www.alaskanative.net/en/main-nav/education-and-programs/cultures-of-alaska/|url-status=dead}} and are collectively called Alaska Natives. They include Native American peoples as well as Inuit, who are distinct but occupy areas of the region.

The United States has authority over Indigenous Polynesian people, which include Hawaiians, Marshallese (Micronesian), and Samoan; politically they are classified as Pacific Islander Americans. They are geographically, genetically, and culturally distinct from Indigenous peoples of the mainland continents of the Americas.

In the 2020 census 2.9% of the U.S. population claimed to have some degree of Native American heritage. When answering a question about racial background, 3.7 million people identified solely as "American Indian or Alaska Native", while another 5.9 million did so in combination with other races.{{cite web |url=https://data.census.gov/table/DECENNIALPL2020.P1 |title=2020: DEC Redistricting Data (PL 94-171) |publisher=United States Census Bureau}} The American Indian and Alaska Native population of one race was 3.7 million and the two or more races population 5.9 million (excluding Puerto Rico). Aztecs were the largest single Native American group in the 2020 census, while Cherokee was the largest group in combination with any other race.{{Cite web |author=US Census Bureau |title=Census Bureau Releases 2020 Census Data for Nearly 1,500 Detailed Race and Ethnicity Groups, Tribes and Villages |url=https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2023/2020-census-detailed-dhc-file-a.html |access-date=29 March 2024 |website=Census.gov}} Tribes have established their criteria for membership, which are often based on blood quantum, lineal descent, or residency. A minority of Native Americans live in land units called Indian reservations.

Some California and Southwestern tribes, such as the Kumeyaay, Cocopa, Pascua Yaqui, Tohono O'odham, and Apache, span both sides of the US–Mexican border. By treaty, Haudenosaunee people have the legal right to freely cross the US–Canada border. Athabascan, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, Iñupiat, Blackfeet, Nakota, Cree, Anishinaabe, Huron, Lenape, Mi'kmaq, Penobscot, and Haudenosaunee, among others, live in both Canada and the United States, whose international border cut through their common cultural territory.

Mestizos (mixed European-Indigenous) number about 34% of the population; unmixed Maya make up another 10.6% (Kekchi, Mopan, and Yucatec). The Garifuna, who came to Belize in the 19th century from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, have mixed African, Carib, and Arawak ancestry and make up another 6% of the population.{{cite web |url=http://celade.cepal.org/cgibin/RpWebEngine.exe/PortalAction?&MODE=MAIN&BASE=CPVBLZ2000&MAIN=WebServerMain.inl |title=Belize 2000 Housing and Population Census |access-date=30 September 2008 |year=2000 |publisher=Belize Central Statistical Office |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120628225923/http://celade.cepal.org/cgibin/RpWebEngine.exe/PortalAction?&MODE=MAIN&BASE=CPVBLZ2000&MAIN=WebServerMain.inl |archive-date=28 June 2012}}

{{Main|Indigenous peoples of Costa Rica}}

There are over 114,000 inhabitants of Native American origins, representing 2.4% of the population. Most of them live in secluded reservations, distributed among eight ethnic groups: Quitirrisí (In the Central Valley), Matambú or Chorotega (Guanacaste), Maleku (Northern Alajuela), Bribri (Southern Atlantic), Cabécar (Cordillera de Talamanca), Boruca (Southern Costa Rica) and Ngäbe (Southern Costa Rica long the Panamá border).

These native groups are characterized by their work in wood, like masks, drums, and other artistic figures, as well as fabrics made of cotton.

Their subsistence is based on agriculture, having corn, beans, and plantains as the main crops.{{citation needed|date=January 2020}}

{{Main|Demographics of El Salvador|La Matanza}}

File:Nuestros Angeles de El Salvador.jpg women dancing in the traditional Procession of Palms in Panchimalco, El Salvador]]

Estimates for El Salvador's indigenous population vary. The last time a reported census had an Indigenous ethnic option was in 2007, which estimated that 0.23% of the population identified as Indigenous. Historically, estimates have claimed higher amounts. A 1930 census stated that 5.6% were Indigenous.{{cite web |title=Primer Censo de Población |language=es |trans-title= |url=http://aplicaciones.digestyc.gob.sv/biblioteca/CENSOS/SERIE%20DE%20CENSOS%20DE%20EL%20SALVADOR/CENSOS%20POBLACI%C3%93N%20y%20VIVIENDA/PRIMER%20CENSO%20NACIONAL%20DE%20POBLACI%C3%93N%201930/CENSO%20DE%20POBLACION%2002%201930.pdf#page=3 |date=1 May 1930 |publisher=Oficina Nacional del Censo de Población |access-date=17 March 2022 |archive-date=19 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220319054204/http://aplicaciones.digestyc.gob.sv/biblioteca/CENSOS/SERIE%20DE%20CENSOS%20DE%20EL%20SALVADOR/CENSOS%20POBLACI%C3%93N%20y%20VIVIENDA/PRIMER%20CENSO%20NACIONAL%20DE%20POBLACI%C3%93N%201930/CENSO%20DE%20POBLACION%2002%201930.pdf#page=3 |url-status=dead}} By the mid-20th century, there may have been as much as 20% (or 400,000) that would qualify as "Indigenous". Another estimate stated that by the late 1980s, 10% of the population was Indigenous, and another 89% was mestizo (or people of mixed European and Indigenous ancestry).{{cite journal |last1=Salas |first1=Antonio |last2=Lovo-Gomez |first2=Jose |date=2 September 2009 |title=Mitochondrial Echoes of First Settlement and Genetic Continuity in El Salvador |journal=PLoS ONE |volume=4 |issue=9 |pages=e6882 |doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0006882 |pmid=19724647 |pmc=2731219 |bibcode=2009PLoSO...4.6882S |doi-access=free}}

Much of El Salvador was home to the Pipil, the Lenca, Xinca, and Kakawira. The Pipil lived in western El Salvador, spoke Nawat, and had many settlements there, most noticeably Cuzcatlan. The Pipil had no precious mineral resources, but they did have rich and fertile land that was good for farming. The Spaniards were disappointed not to find gold or jewels in El Salvador as they had in other lands like Guatemala or Mexico, but upon learning of the fertile land in El Salvador, they attempted to conquer it. Noted Meso-American Indigenous warriors to rise militarily against the Spanish included Princes Atonal and Atlacatl of the Pipil people in central El Salvador and Princess Antu Silan Ulap of the Lenca people in eastern El Salvador, who saw the Spanish not as gods but as barbaric invaders. After fierce battles, the Pipil successfully fought off the Spanish army led by Pedro de Alvarado along with their Indigenous allies (the Tlaxcalas), sending them back to Guatemala. After many other attacks with an army reinforced with Indigenous allies, the Spanish were able to conquer Cuzcatlan. After further attacks, the Spanish also conquered the Lenca people. Eventually, the Spaniards intermarried with Pipil and Lenca women, resulting in the mestizo population that would make up the vast majority of the Salvadoran people. Today many Pipil and other Indigenous populations live in the many small towns of El Salvador like Izalco, Panchimalco, Sacacoyo, and Nahuizalco.

{{Main|Demographics of Guatemala}}

{{see also|Indigenous peoples in Guatemala}}

File:Guatémala 78.jpg]]

File:Image of photo of Mayan woman (6849889936).jpg

Guatemala has one of the largest Indigenous populations in Central America, with approximately 43.6% of the population considering themselves Indigenous.{{Cite web |title=The World Factbook – Central Intelligence Agency |url=https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/guatemala/ |access-date=18 October 2021 |website=CIA |language=en |archive-date=16 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210416041152/https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/guatemala/ |url-status=live}} The Indigenous demographic portion of Guatemala's population consists of a majority of Mayan groups and one non-Mayan group. The Mayan language-speaking portion makes up 29.7% of the population and is distributed into 23 groups namely Q'eqchi' 8.3%, K'iche 7.8%, Mam 4.4%, Kaqchikel 3%, Q'anjob'al 1.2%, Poqomchi' 1%, and Other 4%. The Non-Mayan group consists of the Xinca who are another set of Indigenous people making up 1.8% of the population. Other sources indicate that between 50% and 60% of the population could be Indigenous because part of the Mestizo population is predominantly Indigenous.

The Mayan tribes cover a vast geographic area throughout Central America and expand beyond Guatemala into other countries. One could find vast groups of Mayan people in Boca Costa, in the Southern portions of Guatemala, as well as the Western Highlands living together in close communities.{{Cite news |url=http://www.refworld.org/docid/49749d163c.html |title=Refworld {{!}} World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples – Guatemala : Maya |author=United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees |work=Refworld |access-date=5 November 2017 |language=en |archive-date=7 November 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107023857/http://www.refworld.org/docid/49749d163c.html |url-status=live}} Within these communities and outside of them, around 23 Indigenous languages (or Native American Indigenous languages) are spoken as a first language. Of these 23 languages, they only received official recognition by the Government in 2003 under the Law of National Languages. The Law on National Languages recognizes 23 Indigenous languages including Xinca, enforcing that public and government institutions not only translate but also provide services in said languages.{{Cite web |url=http://www.ipsnews.net/2003/05/guatemala-new-law-recognises-indigenous-languages/ |title=GUATEMALA: New Law Recognises Indigenous Languages {{!}} Inter Press Service |website=Ipsnews.net |date=30 May 2003 |access-date=5 November 2017 |archive-date=7 November 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107012620/http://www.ipsnews.net/2003/05/guatemala-new-law-recognises-indigenous-languages/ |url-status=live}} It would provide services in Cakchiquel, Garifuna, Kekchi, Mam, Quiche, and Xinca.{{Cite web |url=https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/guatemala/ |title=The World Factbook — Central Intelligence Agency |website=CIA |language=en |access-date=November 5, 2017 |archive-date=April 16, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210416041152/https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/guatemala/ |url-status=live}}

The Law of National Languages has been an effort to grant and protect Indigenous people rights not afforded to them previously. Along with the Law of National Languages passed in 2003, in 1996 the Guatemalan Constitutional Court had ratified the ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples.{{Cite news |url=https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/5613|title=Guatemala adopts indigenous rights into Constitution |last=International |first=Survival |access-date=5 November 2017 |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171107003354/https://www.survivalinternational.org/news/5613 |archive-date=7 November 2017 |url-status=dead}} The ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, is also known as Convention 169. Which is the only International Law regarding Indigenous peoples that Independent countries can adopt. The convention establishes that governments like Guatemala must consult with Indigenous groups before any projects occur on tribal lands.{{Cite web |url=http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C169 |title=Convention C169 – Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169) |website=Ilo.org |language=en |access-date=5 November 2017 |archive-date=29 September 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200929110702/https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C169 |url-status=live}}

About 5 percent of the population is of full-blooded Indigenous descent, but as much as 80 percent of Hondurans are mestizo or part-Indigenous with European admixture, and about 10 percent are of Indigenous or African descent.{{cite journal |title=The Miskitu of Nicaragua: Politicized Ethnicity |first=Philippe |last=Bourgois |jstor=3033029 |journal=Anthropology Today |volume=2 |number=2 |date=April 1986 |pages=4–9 |doi=10.2307/3033029}} The largest concentrations of Indigenous communities in Honduras are in the westernmost areas facing Guatemala and along the coast of the Caribbean Sea, as well as on the border with Nicaragua. The majority of Indigenous people are Lencas, Miskitos to the east, Mayans, Pech, Sumos, and Tolupan.

About 5 percent of the Nicaraguan population is Indigenous. The largest Indigenous group in Nicaragua is the Miskito people. Their territory extended from Cabo Camarón, Honduras, to La Cruz de Rio Grande, Nicaragua along the Mosquito Coast. There is a native Miskito language, but large numbers speak Miskito Coast Creole, Spanish, Rama, and other languages. Their use of Creole English came about through frequent contact with the British, who colonized the area. Many Miskitos are Christians. Traditional Miskito society was highly structured, politically and otherwise. It had a king, but he did not have total power. Instead, the power was split between himself, a Miskito Governor, a Miskito General, and by the 1750s, a Miskito Admiral. Historical information on Miskito kings is often obscured by the fact that many of the kings were semi-mythical.

Another major Indigenous culture in eastern Nicaragua is the Mayangna (or Sumu) people, counting some 10,000 people.Gould, J. L. (1998). To die in this way: Nicaraguan Indians and the myth of mestizaje, 1880–1965. Duke University Press. A smaller Indigenous culture in southeastern Nicaragua is the Rama.

Other Indigenous groups in Nicaragua are located in the central, northern, and Pacific areas and they are self-identified as follows: Chorotega, Cacaopera (or Matagalpa), Xiu-Subtiaba, and Nicarao.{{cite web |last1=Saballos |first1=Francisco |title=Características Socioculturales de los Pueblos Indígenas del Pacífico, Centro y Norte |url=http://www.pueblosindigenaspcn.net/component/content/article/84.html |access-date=29 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121114052706/http://www.pueblosindigenaspcn.net/component/content/article/84.html |archive-date=14 November 2012 |language=es |trans-title=Sociocultural Characteristics of the Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific, Central and North |date=10 August 2011}}

{{See also|Indigenous peoples of Panama}}

File:Panama Embera0604.jpg girl in the Darién Province, 2006.]]

Indigenous peoples of Panama, or Native Panamanians, are the native peoples of Panama. According to the 2010 census, they make up 12.3% of the overall population of 3.4 million, or just over 418,000 people. The Ngäbe and Buglé comprise half of the indigenous peoples of Panama.[http://www.panama-experts.com/indigenous.html "Panama History: Indigenous People."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101125045628/http://www.panama-experts.com/indigenous.html |date=2010-11-25 }} Panama Experts. (retrieved 23 Feb 2011)

Many of the Indigenous Peoples live on comarca indígenas,[http://www.iwgia.org/sw32477.asp "Indigenous Peoples in Panama."] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110302230553/http://www.iwgia.org/sw32477.asp |date=2011-03-02 }} International Work Group for Indian Affairs. (retrieved 23 Feb 2011) which are administrative regions for areas with substantial Indigenous populations. Three comarcas (Comarca Emberá-Wounaan, Guna Yala, Ngäbe-Buglé) exist as equivalent to a province, with two smaller comarcas (Guna de Madugandí and Guna de Wargandí) subordinate to a province and considered equivalent to a corregimiento (municipality).

{{Main|Indigenous peoples of South America}}

{{See also|Indigenous peoples in Argentina|List of indigenous languages in Argentina}}

File:Distribution_of_indigenous_people_in_Argentina,_2022.svg in each department in 2022.]]

File:The Tolaba Family - Proprietors of Roadside Cafe en route to Cachi - Argentina.jpg, Salta Province, Argentina]]

In 2005, the Indigenous population living in Argentina (known as pueblos originarios) numbered about 600,329 (1.6% of the total population); this figure includes 457,363 people who self-identified as belonging to an Indigenous ethnic group and 142,966 who identified themselves as first-generation descendants of an Indigenous people.{{cite web |url=http://www.indec.gov.ar/webcenso/ECPI/index_ecpi.asp |title=Encuesta Complementaria de Pueblos Indígenas (ECPI) 2004 – 2005 |publisher=INDEC |access-date=3 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080611004448/http://www.indec.gov.ar/webcenso/ECPI/index_ecpi.asp |archive-date=11 June 2008 |url-status=dead}} The ten most populous Indigenous peoples are the Mapuche (113,680 people), the Kolla (70,505), the Toba (69,452), the Guaraní (68,454), the Wichi (40,036), the Diaguita–Calchaquí (31,753), the Mocoví (15,837), the Huarpe (14,633), the Comechingón (10,863) and the Tehuelche (10,590). Minor but important peoples are the Quechua (6,739), the Charrúa (4,511), the Pilagá (4,465), the Chané (4,376), and the Chorote (2,613). The Selkʼnam (Ona) people are now virtually extinct in its pure form. The languages of the Diaguita, Tehuelche, and Selkʼnam nations have become extinct or virtually extinct: the Cacán language (spoken by Diaguitas) in the 18th century and the Selkʼnam language in the 20th century; one Tehuelche language (Southern Tehuelche) is still spoken by a handful of elderly people.

{{Update|inaccurate=yes|date=April 2012}}

{{Main|Indigenous peoples in Bolivia}}

File:Pongo 0436b.jpg, Bolivia]]

In Bolivia, the 2012 National Census reported that 41% of residents over the age of 15 are of Indigenous origin. Some 3.7% report growing up with an Indigenous mother tongue but do not identify as Indigenous.Indigenous identification was treated in a complex way in the 2001 Census, which collected data based on three criteria: self-identification, capacity to speak an indigenous language, and learning an indigenous language as a child. CEPAL, "[http://www.eclac.org/cgi-bin/getProd.asp?xml=/publicaciones/xml/3/23263/P23263.xml&xsl=/celade/tpl/p9f.xsl&base=/celade/tpl/top-bottom.xsl Los pueblos indígenas de Bolivia: diagnóstico sociodemográfico a partir del censo del 2001] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130730033155/http://www.eclac.org/cgi-bin/getProd.asp?xml=%2Fpublicaciones%2Fxml%2F3%2F23263%2FP23263.xml&xsl=%2Fcelade%2Ftpl%2Fp9f.xsl&base=%2Fcelade%2Ftpl%2Ftop-bottom.xsl |date=30 July 2013 }}", 2005, p. 32 When both of these categories are totaled, and children under 15, some 66.4% of Bolivia's population was recorded as Indigenous in the 2001 Census.CEPAL, "[http://www.eclac.org/cgi-bin/getProd.asp?xml=/publicaciones/xml/3/23263/P23263.xml&xsl=/celade/tpl/p9f.xsl&base=/celade/tpl/top-bottom.xsl Los pueblos indígenas de Bolivia: diagnóstico sociodemográfico a partir del censo del 2001] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130730033155/http://www.eclac.org/cgi-bin/getProd.asp?xml=%2Fpublicaciones%2Fxml%2F3%2F23263%2FP23263.xml&xsl=%2Fcelade%2Ftpl%2Fp9f.xsl&base=%2Fcelade%2Ftpl%2Ftop-bottom.xsl |date=30 July 2013 }}", 2005, p. 42

The 2021 National Census, recognizes 38 cultures, each with its language, as part of a pluri-national state. Some groups, including CONAMAQ (the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu), draw ethnic boundaries within the Quechua- and Aymara-speaking population, resulting in a total of 50 Indigenous peoples native to Bolivia.

The largest Indigenous ethnic groups are Quechua, about 2.5 million people; Aymara, 2 million; Chiquitano, 181,000; Guaraní, 126,000; and Mojeño, 69,000. Some 124,000 belong to smaller Indigenous groups.CEPAL, "[http://www.eclac.org/cgi-bin/getProd.asp?xml=/publicaciones/xml/3/23263/P23263.xml&xsl=/celade/tpl/p9f.xsl&base=/celade/tpl/top-bottom.xsl Los pueblos indígenas de Bolivia: diagnóstico sociodemográfico a partir del censo del 2001] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130730033155/http://www.eclac.org/cgi-bin/getProd.asp?xml=%2Fpublicaciones%2Fxml%2F3%2F23263%2FP23263.xml&xsl=%2Fcelade%2Ftpl%2Fp9f.xsl&base=%2Fcelade%2Ftpl%2Ftop-bottom.xsl |date=30 July 2013 }}", 2005, p. 47 The Constitution of Bolivia, enacted in 2009, recognizes 36 cultures, each with its language, as part of a pluri-national state. Some groups, including CONAMAQ (the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu), draw ethnic boundaries within the Quechua- and Aymara-speaking population, resulting in a total of 50 Indigenous peoples native to Bolivia.

Large numbers of Bolivian highland peasants retained Indigenous language, culture, customs, and communal organization throughout the Spanish conquest and the post-independence period. They mobilized to resist various attempts at the dissolution of communal landholdings and used legal recognition of "empowered caciques" to further communal organization. Indigenous revolts took place frequently until 1953.{{Cite book |publisher=Duke University Press |last=Gotkowitz |first=Laura |title=A Revolution for Our Rights: Indigenous Struggles for Land and Justice in Bolivia, 1880–1952 |location=Durham |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-8223-4049-2}} While the National Revolutionary Movement government began in 1952 and discouraged people identifying as Indigenous (reclassifying rural people as campesinos, or peasants), renewed ethnic and class militancy re-emerged in the Katarista movement beginning in the 1970s.{{Cite book |publisher=United Nations Research Institute for Social Development |last=Rivera Cusicanqui |first=Silvia |title=Oppressed but Not Defeated: Peasant Struggles among the Aymara and Qhechwa in Bolivia, 1900–1980 |location=Geneva |year=1987}} Many lowland Indigenous peoples, mostly in the east, entered national politics through the 1990 March for Territory and Dignity organized by the CIDOB confederation. That march successfully pressured the national government to sign the ILO Convention 169 and to begin the still-ongoing process of recognizing and giving official titles to Indigenous territories. The 1994 Law of Popular Participation granted "grassroots territorial organizations;" these are recognized by the state and have certain rights to govern local areas.

Some radio and television programs are produced in the Quechua and Aymara languages. The constitutional reform in 1997 recognized Bolivia as a multi-lingual, pluri-ethnic society and introduced education reform. In 2005, for the first time in the country's history, an Indigenous Aymara, Evo Morales, was elected as president.

Morales began work on his "Indigenous autonomy" policy, which he launched in the eastern lowlands department on 3 August 2009. Bolivia was the first nation in the history of South America to affirm the right of Indigenous people to self-government.{{cite web |url=http://en.mercopress.com/2009/08/03/bolivian-president-morales-launches-the-indigenous-autonomy |title=Bolivian president Morales launches the "indigenous autonomy" |date=3 August 2009 |access-date=5 August 2009 |publisher=MercoPress |archive-date=11 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150911002044/http://en.mercopress.com/2009/08/03/bolivian-president-morales-launches-the-indigenous-autonomy |url-status=live}} Speaking in Santa Cruz Department, the President called it "a historic day for the peasant and Indigenous movement", saying that, though he might make errors, he would "never betray the fight started by our ancestors and the fight of the Bolivian people". A vote on further autonomy for jurisdictions took place in December 2009, at the same time as general elections to office. The issue divided the country.{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8180790.stm |title=Bolivian Indians in historic step |date=3 August 2009 |access-date=5 August 2009 |work=BBC News |archive-date=5 August 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090805095751/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8180790.stm |url-status=live}}

At that time, Indigenous peoples voted overwhelmingly for more autonomy: five departments that had not already done so voted for it;"La Bolivia autonómica", Los Tiempos (Cochabamba), edición especial, 6 August 2010 as did Gran Chaco Province in Taríja, for regional autonomy;Ministerio de Autonomías, "[http://www.autonomia.gob.bo/portal3/content/regi%C3%B3n-aut%C3%B3noma-chaco-tarije%C3%B1o Región Autónoma Chaco Tarijeño] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110428105059/http://www.autonomia.gob.bo/portal3/content/regi%C3%B3n-aut%C3%B3noma-chaco-tarije%C3%B1o |date=28 April 2011 }}." and 11 of 12 municipalities that had referendums on this issue.{{cite journal |first=Diego Andrés Chávez |last=Rodríguez |title=La Autonomía Indígena Originario Campesina: Entre la formalidad y la autodeterminación |language=es |trans-title=Indigenous Originary Peasant Autonomy: Between formality and self-determination |journal=Diálogos en Democracia |date=21 March 2010}} (Supplement to Pulso Bolivia).

{{See also|Indigenous peoples in Brazil}}

File:Brazil_Native_Alone_in_2022.svg in each department in 2022.]]

File:Terena005.jpg man from present-day Brazil]]

Indigenous peoples of Brazil make up 0.4% of Brazil's population, or about 817,000 people, but millions of Brazilians are mestizo or have some Indigenous ancestry. Indigenous peoples are found in the entire territory of Brazil, although in the 21st century, the majority of them live in Indigenous territories in the North and Center-Western parts of the country. On 18 January 2007, Fundação Nacional do Índio (FUNAI) reported that it had confirmed the presence of 67 different uncontacted tribes in Brazil, up from 40 in 2005. Brazil is now the nation that has the largest number of uncontacted tribes, and the island of New Guinea is second.{{cite news |url=http://news.discovery.com/human/amazon-tribe-rare-photos-110201.html |title=Uncontacted Amazonian Tribe Spotted in Rare Photos: Big Pics h |publisher=Discovery.com |date=1 February 2011 |access-date=12 February 2012 |first=Raymond |last=Colitt |archive-date=2 February 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120202224655/http://news.discovery.com/human/amazon-tribe-rare-photos-110201.html |url-status=dead}}

The Washington Post reported in 2007, "As has been proved in the past when uncontacted tribes are introduced to other populations and the microbes they carry, maladies as simple as the common cold can be deadly. In the 1970s, 185 members of the Panara tribe died within two years of discovery after contracting such diseases as flu and chickenpox, leaving only 69 survivors.""{{cite news |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/07/AR2007070701312.html |title=In Amazonia, Defending the Hidden Tribes |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181018015001/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/07/AR2007070701312.html |archive-date=18 October 2018 |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=8 July 2007}}

{{Main|Indigenous peoples in Chile}}

File:Mapuche.jpg]]

File:Hombre & mujer Mapuche.jpg

According to the 2012 Census, 10% of the Chilean population, including the Rapa Nui (a Polynesian people) of Easter Island, was Indigenous, although most show varying degrees of mixed heritage.{{cite web|url=http://www.medwave.cl/ciencia/11.act |title=El gradiente sociogenético chileno y sus implicaciones ético-sociales |language=es |trans-title=The Chilean sociogenetic gradient and its ethical-social implications |publisher=Medwave.cl |date=15 June 2000 |access-date=23 May 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130818181825/http://www.medwave.cl/ciencia/11.act |archive-date=18 August 2013}} Many are descendants of the Mapuche and live in Santiago, Araucanía, and Los Lagos Region. The Mapuche successfully fought off defeat in the first 300–350 years of Spanish rule during the Arauco War. Relations with the new Chilean Republic were good until the Chilean state decided to occupy their lands. During the Occupation of Araucanía, the Mapuche surrendered to the country's army in the 1880s. Their land was opened to settlement by Chileans and Europeans. Conflict over Mapuche land rights continues to the present.

Other groups include the Aymara, the majority of whom live in Bolivia and Peru, with smaller numbers in the Arica-Parinacota and Tarapacá regions, and the Atacama people ({{lang|es|Atacameños}}), who reside mainly in El Loa.

{{Main|Indigenous peoples in Colombia}}

File:Guambia, Colombia.jpg relaxing in Colombia]]

A minority today within Colombia's mostly Mestizo and White Colombian population, Indigenous peoples living in Colombia, consist of around 85 distinct cultures and around 1,905,617 people, however, it is likely much higher.DANE 2018 national census{{cite report |url=https://www.who.int/social_determinants/resources/isa_etnic_minorities_col.pdf |title=Health equity and ethnic minorities in emergency situations |first1=Pier Paolo |last1=Balladelli |first2=José Milton |last2=Guzmán |first3=Marcelo |last3=Korc |first4=Paula |last4=Moreno |first5=Gabriel |last5=Rivera |publisher=The Commission on Social Health Determinants, Pan American Health Organization, World Health Organization |location=Bogotá, Colombia |date=2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231207101850/https://www.who.int/social_determinants/resources/isa_etnic_minorities_col.pdf |archive-date=7 December 2023}} A variety of collective rights for Indigenous peoples are recognized in the 1991 Constitution. One of the influences is the Muisca culture, a subset of the larger Chibcha ethnic group, famous for their use of gold, which led to the legend of El Dorado. At the time of the Spanish conquest, the Muisca were the largest Indigenous civilization geographically between the Inca and the Aztec empires.

{{Main|Indigenous peoples in Ecuador}}

File:Chaman Amazonie 5 06.jpg in present-day Ecuador]]

Ecuador was the site of many Indigenous cultures, and civilizations of different proportions. An early sedentary culture, known as the Valdivia culture, developed in the coastal region, while the Caras and the Quitus unified to form an elaborate civilization that ended at the birth of the Capital Quito. The Cañaris near Cuenca were the most advanced, and most feared by the Inca, due to their fierce resistance to the Incan expansion. Their architectural remains were later destroyed by the Spaniards and the Incas.

Between 55% and 65% of Ecuador's population consists of Mestizos of mixed indigenous and European ancestry while indigenous people comprise about 25%.Encyclopedia of the World's Minorities (2013), p. 422. Edited by Carl Skutsch Genetic analysis indicates that Ecuadorian Mestizos are of predominantly indigenous ancestry.{{Cite journal |title=The three-hybrid genetic composition of an Ecuadorian population using AIMs-InDels compared with autosomes, mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome data |first1=Ana Karina |last1=Zambrano |first2=Aníbal |last2=Gaviria |first3=Santiago |last3=Cobos-Navarrete |first4=Carmen |last4=Gruezo |first5=Cristina|last5=Rodríguez-Pollit |first6=Isaac |last6=Armendáriz-Castillo |first7=Jennyfer M. |last7=García-Cárdenas |first8=Santiago |last8=Guerrero |first9=Andrés |last9=López-Cortés |first10=Paola E. |last10=Leone |first11=Andy |last11=Pérez-Villa |first12=Patricia |last12=Guevara-Ramírez |first13=Verónica |last13=Yumiceba |first14=Gisella |last14=Fiallos |first15=Margarita |last15=Vela |first16=César |last16=Paz-y-Miño |date=25 June 2019 |journal=Scientific Reports |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=9247 |doi=10.1038/s41598-019-45723-w |pmid=31239502 |pmc=6592923 |bibcode=2019NatSR...9.9247Z}} Approximately 96.4% of Ecuador's Indigenous population are Highland Quichuas living in the valleys of the Sierra region. Primarily consisting of the descendants of peoples conquered by the Incas, they are Kichwa speakers and include the Caranqui, the Otavalos, the Cayambe, the Quitu-Caras, the Panzaleo, the Chimbuelo, the Salasacan, the Tugua, the Puruhá, the Cañari, and the Saraguro. Linguistic evidence suggests that the Salascan and the Saraguro may have been the descendants of Bolivian ethnic groups transplanted to Ecuador as mitimaes.

Coastal groups, including the Awá, Chachi, and the Tsáchila, make up 0.24% percent of the Indigenous population, while the remaining 3.35 percent live in the Oriente and consist of the Oriente Kichwa (the Canelo and the Quijos), the Shuar, the Huaorani, the Siona-Secoya, the Cofán, and the Achuar.

In 1986, Indigenous peoples formed the first "truly" national political organization. The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) has been the primary political institution of Indigenous peoples since then and is now the second-largest political party in the nation. It has been influential in national politics, contributing to the ouster of presidents Abdalá Bucaram in 1997 and Jamil Mahuad in 2000.

French Guiana is home to approximately 10,000 indigenous peoples, such as the Kalina and Lokono. Over time, the indigenous population has protested against various environmental issues, such as illegal gold mining, pollution, and a drastic decrease in wild game.

{{Main|Indigenous peoples in Guyana}}

During the early stages of colonization, the indigenous peoples in Guyana partook in trade relations with Dutch settlers and assisted in militia services such as hunting down escaped slaves for the British, which continued until the 19th century. Indigenous Guyanese people are responsible for the invention of the Guyanese pepperpot and the foundation of the Alleluia church.

Guyana's indigenous peoples have been recognized under the Constitution of 1965 and comprise 9.16% of the overall population.

{{Main|Indigenous peoples in Paraguay}}

The vast majority of indigenous peoples in Paraguay are concentrated in the Gran Chaco region in the northwest of the country, with the Guaraní making up the majority of the indigenous population in Paraguay. The Guaraní language is recognized as an official language alongside Spanish, with approximately 90% of the population speaking Guaraní. The indigenous population in Paraguay suffers from several social issues such as low literacy rates and inaccessibility to safe drinking water and electricity.

====Peru====

{{Main|Indigenous peoples in Peru}}

File:Quechuawomanandchild.jpg woman and child in the Sacred Valley in Cuzco Region, Peru]]

According to the 2017 Census, the Indigenous population in Peru makes up approximately 26%. However, this does not include Mestizos of mixed indigenous and European descent, who make up the majority of the population. Genetic testing indicates that Peruvian Mestizos are of predominantly indigenous ancestry.{{Cite web |url=https://www.science.org/content/article/study-short-peruvians-reveals-new-gene-major-impact-height |title=Study of short Peruvians reveals new gene with a major impact on height |date=16 May 2018 |website=Science | AAAS |access-date=30 June 2022 |archive-date=17 July 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220717081939/https://www.science.org/content/article/study-short-peruvians-reveals-new-gene-major-impact-height |url-status=live}} Indigenous traditions and customs have shaped the way Peruvians live and see themselves today. Cultural citizenship—or what Renato Rosaldo has called, "the right to be different and to belong, in a democratic, participatory sense" (1996:243)—is not yet very well developed in Peru. This is perhaps no more apparent than in the country's Amazonian regions where Indigenous societies continue to struggle against state-sponsored economic abuses, cultural discrimination, and pervasive violence.{{cite book |last=Dean |first=Bartholomew |date=2009 |title=Urarina Society, Cosmology, and History in Peruvian Amazonia |location=Gainesville |publisher=University Press of Florida |isbn=978-0-8130-3378-5 |url=http://www.upf.com/book.asp?id=DEANXS07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110717170729/http://www.upf.com/book.asp?id=DEANXS07 |archive-date=17 July 2011}}

{{Main|Indigenous peoples in Suriname}}

According to the 2012 census, the indigenous population of Suriname numbers around 20,000, amounting to 3.8% of the population. The most numerous indigenous groups in Suriname primarily comprise the Lokono, Kalina, Tiriyó, and Wayana.

{{Main|Indigenous peoples in Uruguay}}

Approximately 6.4% of the population in Uruguay is reported to have indigenous ancestry.

{{Main|Indigenous peoples in Venezuela}}

File:A Warao family in their canoe.jpg traveling in their canoe in Venezuela]]

Most Venezuelans have some degree of indigenous heritage even if they may not identify as such. The 2011 census estimated that around 52% of the population identified as mestizo. But those who identify as Indigenous, from being raised in those cultures, make up only around 2% of the total population. The Indigenous peoples speak around 29 different languages and many more dialects. As some of the ethnic groups are very small, their native languages are in danger of becoming extinct in the next decades. The most important Indigenous groups are the Ye'kuana, the Wayuu, the Kali'na, the Ya̧nomamö, the Pemon, and the Warao. The most advanced Indigenous peoples to have lived within the boundaries of present-day Venezuela are thought to have been the Timoto-cuicas, who lived in the Venezuelan Andes. Historians estimate that there were between 350 thousand and 500 thousand Indigenous inhabitants at the time of Spanish colonization. The most densely populated area was the Andean region (Timoto-cuicas), thanks to their advanced agricultural techniques and ability to produce a surplus of food.

The 1999 constitution of Venezuela gives indigenous peoples special rights, although the vast majority of them still live in very critical conditions of poverty. The government provides primary education in their languages in public schools to some of the largest groups, in efforts to continue the languages.

{{Main|Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean}}

The indigenous population of the Caribbean islands consisted of the Taíno of the Lucayan Archipelago, the Greater Antilles and the northern Lesser Antilles, the Kalinago of the Lesser Antilles, the Ciguayo and Macorix of parts of Hispaniola, and the Guanahatabey of western Cuba. The overall population suffered the most adverse colonial effects out of all the indigenous populations in the Americas, as the Kalinago have been reduced to a few islands in the Lesser Antilles such as Dominica and the Taíno are culturally extinct, though a large proportion of populations in Greater Antillean islands such as Puerto Rico and Cuba to a lesser extent,{{Cite web |url=https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q9dDhN16sQQuf81lKE3szBX1hp8kXr4b/view |title=Cuba Indígena hoy: sus rostros y AND |language=es |trans-title=Indigenous Cuba today: its faces and DNA |publisher=Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo |page=75 |first=Beatriz |last=Marcheco |access-date=9 October 2023 |archive-date=10 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231010120217/https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q9dDhN16sQQuf81lKE3szBX1hp8kXr4b/view |url-status=live}} possesses degrees of Taíno ancestry. The Cayman Islands were the only island group in the Caribbean to have remained unsettled by indigenous peoples before the colonial era.{{cite web |last1=Stokes |first1=Anne V. |last2=Keegan |first2=William F. |date=April 1993 |title=A Settlement Survey for Prehistoric Archaeological Sites on Grand Cayman |url=http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/anthro/Caribarch/grandcayman.htm |access-date=5 January 2013 |publisher=Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville |archive-date=17 December 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121217063413/http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/anthro/caribarch/grandcayman.htm |url-status=live}}

{{Main|Latin American Asian}}

{{Main|Mexican settlement in the Philippines}}

Historically, during the Spanish colonization of the Philippines, the territory was ruled as a province of the Mexico-centered Viceroyalty of New Spain and thus many Mexicans including those of indgenous Aztec and Tlaxcalan descent were sent as colonists there.{{cite journal |last=Mawson |first=Stephanie J. |date=15 June 2016 |title=Convicts or Conquistadores? Spanish Soldiers in the Seventeenth-Century Pacific |url=https://academic.oup.com/past/article/232/1/87/1752419 |journal=Past & Present |publisher=Oxford University Press |issue=232 |pages=87–125 |doi=10.1093/pastj/gtw008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180603111934/https://academic.oup.com/past/article/232/1/87/1752419 |archive-date=3 June 2018 |access-date=28 July 2020 |doi-access=free}}{{rp|loc={{plain link|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180614082235/https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/forced-migration-in-the-spanish-pacific-world/unruly-mexicans-in-manila/EF2599210A0715A5A91B23BB9D84B96C|name=Chpt. 6}}}} According to a genetic study by the National Geographic around 2% of the Philippine population are Native American in descent.{{cite web |url=https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/reference-populations-next-gen/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160407092418/https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/reference-populations-next-gen/ |url-status=dead |archive-date=7 April 2016 |title=Reference Populations – Geno 2.0 Next Generation |website=National Geographic |access-date=21 December 2017}} National Geographic Genetic Study{{cite journal |vauthors=Go MC, Jones AR, Algee-Hewitt B, Dudzik B, Hughes C |title=Classification Trends among Contemporary Filipino Crania Using Fordisc 3.1 |journal=Human Biology |volume=2 |issue=4 |pages=293–303 |publisher=University of Florida Press |date=2019 |language=en |url=https://www.academia.edu/38744342 |doi=10.5744/fa.2019.1005 |s2cid=159266278 |quote=[Page 1] ABSTRACT: Filipinos represent a significant contemporary demographic group globally, yet they are underrepresented in the forensic anthropological literature. Given the complex population history of the Philippines, it is important to ensure that traditional methods for assessing the biological profile are appropriate when applied to these peoples. Here we analyze the classification trends of a modern Filipino sample (n = 110) when using the Fordisc 3.1 (FD3) software. We hypothesize that Filipinos represent an admixed population drawn largely from Asian and marginally from European parental gene pools, such that FD3 will classify these individuals morphometrically into reference samples that reflect a range of European admixture, in quantities from small to large. Our results show the greatest classification into Asian reference groups (72.7%), followed by Hispanic (12.7%), Indigenous American (7.3%), African (4.5%), and European (2.7%) groups included in FD3. This general pattern did not change between males and females. Moreover, replacing the raw craniometric values with their shape variables did not significantly alter the trends already observed. These classification trends for Filipino crania provide useful information for casework interpretation in forensic laboratory practice. Our findings can help biological anthropologists to better understand the evolutionary, population historical, and statistical reasons for FD3-generated classifications. The results of our study indicate that ancestry estimation in forensic anthropology would benefit from population-focused research that gives consideration to histories of colonialism and periods of admixture. |access-date=13 September 2020 |doi-access= |archive-date=7 January 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210107133718/https://www.academia.edu/38744342/Classification_Trends_Among_Modern_Filipino_Crania_Using_Fordisc_3_1 |url-status=live}}

{{Indigenous rights}}

Since the late 20th century, Indigenous peoples in the Americas have become more politically active in asserting their treaty rights and expanding their influence. Some have organized to achieve some sort of self-determination and preservation of their cultures. Organizations such as the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon River Basin and the Indian Council of South America are examples of movements that are overcoming national borders to reunite Indigenous populations, for instance, those across the Amazon Basin. Similar movements for Indigenous rights can also be seen in Canada and the United States, with movements like the International Indian Treaty Council and the accession of native Indigenous groups into the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization.

There has been a recognition of Indigenous movements on an international scale. The membership of the United Nations voted to adopt the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, despite dissent from some of the stronger countries of the Americas.

In Colombia, various Indigenous groups have protested the denial of their rights. People organized a march in Cali in October 2008 to demand the government live up to promises to protect Indigenous lands, defend the Indigenous against violence, and reconsider the free trade pact with the United States.{{Cite news |last=Markey |first=Patrick |date=23 October 2008 |url=http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnTRE49M10G.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081027221046/http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnTRE49M10G.html |url-status=dead |title=Colombia says police fired on indigenous protesters |archive-date=27 October 2008 |work=Reuters}}

File:Presidentes del Perú y Bolivia inauguran Encuentro Presidencial y III Gabinete Binacional Perú-Bolivia (36962597345) (cropped).jpg, an Aymara member and former President of Bolivia]]

The first Indigenous President of the Americas was José María Melo, of Pijao descent, and led Colombia in 1854 starting on April 17, 1854. José was born on October 9, 1800, in Chaparral, Tolima, and before his presidency, he fought alongside Simon Bolivar in the Spanish-American Wars of Independence. José María Melo led the Republic of New Granada during the Colombian Civil War of 1854 but eventually lost and was exiled on December 4, 1854.{{cite news |title=La historia de José Maria, el único presidente indígena de Colombia |trans-title=The story of José Maria, the only indigenous president of Colombia |url=https://www.eltiempo.com/politica/partidos-politicos/jose-maria-el-unico-presidente-indigena-de-colombia-644989 |work=El Tiempo |language=es |date=14 January 2022 |access-date=11 September 2023 |archive-date=20 October 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231020092658/https://www.eltiempo.com/politica/partidos-politicos/jose-maria-el-unico-presidente-indigena-de-colombia-644989 |url-status=live}}

The first Indigenous candidate to be democratically elected as head of a country in the Americas was Benito Juárez, a Zapotec Mexican who was elected President of Mexico in 1858 and led the country until 1872 and led the country to victory during the Second French intervention in Mexico.{{cite book |last=Harten |first=Sven |title=The Rise of Evo Morales |year=2011 |publisher=Zed Books |isbn=978-1-84813-523-9}}

In 1930 Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro became the first Peruvian President with Indigenous Peruvian ancestry and the first in South America.{{cite book |title=Argentina, Brazil and Chile Since Independence |publisher=George Washington University Press |first1=James Fred |last1=Rippy |first2=Alva Curtis |last2=Wilgus |year=1935 |pages=481}} He came to power in a military coup.

In 2005, Evo Morales of the Aymara people was the first Indigenous candidate elected as president of Bolivia and the first elected in South America.{{Cite web |last=Albro |first=Robert |date=22 November 2019 |title=Evo Morales's Chaotic Departure Won't Define His Legacy |url=https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/22/evo-morales-departure-bolivia-indigenous-legacy/ |access-date=15 August 2021 |website=Foreign Policy |language=en-US |archive-date=31 July 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210731150831/https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/22/evo-morales-departure-bolivia-indigenous-legacy/ |url-status=live}}

{{Main|Genetic history of indigenous peoples of the Americas|l1 = Genetic history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas}}

{{See also|Y-DNA haplogroups in Indigenous peoples of the Americas}}

File:Map of gene flow in and out of Beringia.jpg while some of the Beringian maternal lineages, such as C1a, spread westwards. More recent genetic exchange (shown in green) is manifested by back-migration of A2a into Siberia and the spread of D2a into the Northeastern United States that post-dates the initial arrival of people in the New World.]]

File:First peopling of America.png, including the Ancestral Northern Eurasian, which represent a distinct Paleolithic Siberian population, and the Northeast Asians, which are an East Asian-related group. The admixture happened somewhere in Northeast Siberia.{{Cite journal |last1=Yu |first1=He |last2=Spyrou |first2=Maria A. |last3=Karapetian |first3=Marina |last4=Shnaider |first4=Svetlana |last5=Radzevičiūtė |first5=Rita |last6=Nägele |first6=Kathrin |last7=Neumann |first7=Gunnar U. |last8=Penske |first8=Sandra |last9=Zech |first9=Jana |last10=Lucas |first10=Mary |last11=LeRoux |first11=Petrus |last12=Roberts |first12=Patrick |last13=Pavlenok |first13=Galina |last14=Buzhilova |first14=Alexandra |last15=Posth |first15=Cosimo |date=11 June 2020 |title=Paleolithic to Bronze Age Siberians Reveal Connections with First Americans and across Eurasia |journal=Cell |language=en |volume=181 |issue=6 |pages=1232–1245.e20 |doi=10.1016/j.cell.2020.04.037 |pmid=32437661 |s2cid=218710761 |issn=0092-8674 |doi-access=free}}]]

File:PCA of the native populations of Sakha in the context of other Eurasian and American populations.jpg |volume=13 |issue=1 |pages=127 |doi=10.1186/1471-2148-13-127 |issn=1471-2148 |pmc=3695835 |pmid=23782551 |bibcode=2013BMCEE..13..127F |doi-access=free}}]]

Genetic history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas primarily focuses on Human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroups and Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroups. "Y-DNA" is passed solely along the patrilineal line, from father to son, while "mtDNA" is passed down the matrilineal line, from mother to offspring of both sexes. Neither recombines and thus Y-DNA and mtDNA change only by chance mutation at each generation with no intermixture between parents' genetic material.{{cite journal |last1=Consortium |first1=T. Y C. |title=A Nomenclature System for the Tree of Human Y-Chromosomal Binary Haplogroups |journal=Genome Research |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=339–48 |year=2002 |pmid=11827954 |pmc=155271 |doi=10.1101/gr.217602}} Autosomal "atDNA" markers are also used but differ from mtDNA or Y-DNA in that they overlap significantly. AtDNA is generally used to measure the average continent-of-ancestry genetic admixture in the entire human genome and related isolated populations.{{Cite book |last=Griffiths |first=Anthony J. F. |title=An Introduction to genetic analysis |year=1999 |publisher=W. H. Freeman |location=New York |isbn=978-0-7167-3771-1 |chapter=Sex chromosomes and sex-linked inheritance |chapter-url=https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22079/ |access-date=1 September 2017 |archive-date=20 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220120201049/https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK22079/ |url-status=live}}

Genetic comparisons of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and Y-chromosome of Native Americans to that of certain Siberian and Central Asian peoples (specifically Paleo-Siberians, Turkic, and historically the Okunev culture) have led Russian researcher I.A. Zakharov to believe that, among all the previously studied Asian peoples, it is "the peoples living between Altai and Lake Baikal along the Sayan mountains that are genetically closest to" Indigenous Americans.{{cite book |first=I. A. |last=Zhakarov |chapter-url=http://macroevolution.narod.ru/zaharov_indians.htm |chapter=Central Asian origin of ancestors of the first Americans |date=2003 |pages=139–144 |editor1-first=Zhamilya |editor1-last=Boldykova |editor2-first=Assel |editor2-last=Berdigulova |url=https://zenodo.org/record/1062402 |title=Ornament as a Universal Language of Peace (Basee on Comparative Analysis of Cultures of proto-Turkic Peoples and Indian Tribes of North America) |doi=10.5281/zenodo.1062402 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150411053047/http://macroevolution.narod.ru/zaharov_indians.htm |archive-date=11 April 2015 |quote='Our results show that of all previously studied Asian peoples it is the peoples living between Altai and Lake Baikal along the Sayan mountains that are genetically closest to Amerindians' – says I.A. Zakharo}}

Some scientific evidence links them to North Asian peoples, specifically the Indigenous peoples of Siberia, such as the Ket, Selkup, Chukchi, and Koryak peoples. Indigenous peoples of the Americas have been linked to some extent to North Asian populations by the distribution of blood types, and in genetic composition as reflected by molecular data, and limited DNA studies.{{cite book |last=Jones |first=Peter N. |title=American Indian Mtdna, Y Chromosome Genetic Data, and the Peopling of North America |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FKmlyhxhw3sC&pg=PA4 |date=October 2002 |publisher=Bauu Institute |isbn=978-0-9721349-1-0 |page=4}}{{cite web |title=Native Americans fear potential exploitation of their DNA |first=Arvind |last=Suresh |url=https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2016/10/06/native-americans-fear-potential-exploitation-dna/ |publisher=Genetic Literacy Project |date=6 October 2016 |access-date=7 September 2021 |archive-date=23 November 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211123212846/https://geneticliteracyproject.org/2016/10/06/native-americans-fear-potential-exploitation-dna/ |url-status=live}}{{cite web |title=DNA tests stand on shaky ground to define Native American identity |first=Teresa L. |last=Carey |url=https://www.genome.gov/news/news-release/DNA-tests-stand-on-shaky-ground-to-define-Native-American-identity |publisher=National Human Genome Research Institute |date=9 May 2019 |access-date=7 September 2021 |archive-date=11 January 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220111093421/https://www.genome.gov/news/news-release/DNA-tests-stand-on-shaky-ground-to-define-Native-American-identity |url-status=live}}

The common occurrence of the Asian mtDNA haplogroups A, B, C, and D among eastern Asian and Native American populations has been noted.{{cite journal |url=http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~tgschurr/pdf/Am%20Sci%20Article%202000.pdf |author=Schurr, Theodore G. |title=Mitochondrial DNA and the Peopling of the New World |journal=American Scientist |volume=American Scientist Online May–June 2000 |issue=3 |pages=246 |access-date=13 May 2015 |bibcode=2000AmSci..88..246S |year=2000 |doi=10.1511/2000.3.246 |s2cid=7527715 |archive-date=26 June 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200626155411/https://www.sas.upenn.edu/~tgschurr/pdf/Am%20Sci%20Article%202000.pdf |url-status=live}} Some subclades of C and D that have been found in the limited populations of Native Americans who have agreed to DNA testing bear some resemblance to the C and D subclades in Mongolian, Amur, Japanese, Korean, and Ainu populations.{{cite journal |author1=Starikovskaya, Elena B. |author2=Sukernik, Rem I. |author3=Derbeneva, Olga A. |author4=Volodko, Natalia V. |author5=Ruiz-Pesini, Eduardo |author6=Torroni, Antonio |author7=Brown, Michael D. |author8=Lott, Marie T. |author9=Hosseini, Seyed H. |author10=Huoponen, Kirsi |author11=Wallace, Douglas C. |title=Mitochondrial DNA diversity in indigenous populations of the southern extent of Siberia, and the origins of Native American haplogroups |volume=69 |issue=Pt 1 |pmc=3905771 |pmid=15638829 |doi=10.1046/j.1529-8817.2003.00127.x |date=January 2005 |journal=Annals of Human Genetics |pages=67–89}}

Available genetic patterns lead to two main theories of genetic episodes affecting the Indigenous peoples of the Americas; first with the initial peopling of the Americas, and secondly with European colonization of the Americas.{{cite book |first1=Spencer |last1=Wells |first2=Mark |last2=Read |title=The Journey of Man – A Genetic Odyssey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WAsKm-_zu5sC&q=The%20Journey%20of%20Man&pg=PP1 |format=Digitised online by Google books |publisher=Random House |isbn=978-0-8129-7146-0 |access-date=21 November 2009 |year=2002}}{{page needed|date=November 2015}}{{cite web |title=Learn about Y-DNA Haplogroup Q. Genebase Tutorials |first=Wendy |last=Tymchuk |url=http://www.genebase.com/tutorial/item.php?tuId=16 |format=Verbal tutorial possible |publisher=Genebase Systems |year=2008 |access-date=21 November 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100622001311/http://www.genebase.com/tutorial/item.php?tuId=16 |archive-date=22 June 2010}}{{cite journal |last1=Leslie E. |first1=Orgel |title=Prebiotic Chemistry and the Origin of the RNA World |journal=Critical Reviews in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology |volume=39 |issue=2 |pages=99–123 |year=2004 |pmid=15217990 |doi=10.1080/10409230490460765 |citeseerx=10.1.1.537.7679 |s2cid=4939632}} The former is the determinant factor for the number of gene lineages, zygosity mutations, and founding haplotypes present in today's Indigenous peoples of the Americas populations.

The most popular theory among anthropologists is the Bering Strait theory, of human settlement of the New World occurring in stages from the Bering Sea coastline, with a possible initial layover of 10,000 to 20,000 years in Beringia for the small founding population.{{cite book |first1=Spencer |last1=Wells |first2=Mark |last2=Read |title=The Journey of Man – A Genetic Odyssey |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WAsKm-_zu5sC&q=The%20Journey%20of%20Man&pg=PA138 |publisher=Random House |isbn=978-0-8129-7146-0 |access-date=21 November 2009 |year=2002 |pages=138–140}}{{Cite web |title=First Americans Endured 20,000-Year Layover |first=Jennifer |last=Viegas |url=http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/13/beringia-native-american.html |access-date=18 November 2009 |publisher=Discovery Channel |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121010092348/http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/13/beringia-native-american.html |archive-date=10 October 2012}} [http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/13/beringia-native-american-02.html page 2] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120313061401/http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/13/beringia-native-american-02.html |date=13 March 2012 }}{{cite web |title=New World Settlers Took 20,000-Year Pit Stop |first=Ker |last=Than |url=http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080214-america-layover.html |publisher=National Geographic Society |year=2008 |access-date=23 January 2010 |archive-date=26 August 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140826215631/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/02/080214-america-layover.html |url-status=dead}} The micro-satellite diversity and distributions of the Y lineage specific to South America indicate that certain Indigenous peoples of the Americas populations have been isolated since the initial colonization of the region.{{cite web |title=Summary of knowledge on the subclades of haplogroup Q |url=http://64.40.115.138/file/lu/6/52235/NTIyMzV9K3szNTc2Nzc=.jpg?download=1 |publisher=Genebase Systems |year=2009 |access-date=22 November 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110510204204/http://64.40.115.138/file/lu/6/52235/NTIyMzV9K3szNTc2Nzc%3D.jpg?download=1 |archive-date=10 May 2011}} The Na-Dené, Inuit, and Indigenous populations of Alaska exhibit haplogroup Q (Y-DNA) mutations, however are distinct from other Indigenous peoples of the Americas with various mtDNA and atDNA mutations.{{cite journal |last=M |first=Ruhlen |doi=10.1073/pnas.95.23.13994 |title=The origin of the Na-Dene |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |volume=95 |issue=23 |pages=13994–96 |date=November 1998 |pmid=9811914 |pmc=25007 |bibcode=1998PNAS...9513994R |doi-access=free}}{{cite journal |last1=Zegura |first1=S. L. |last2=Karafet |first2=Tatiana M. |last3=Zhivotovsky |first3=Lev A. |last4=Hammer |first4=Michael F. |title=High-Resolution SNPs and Microsatellite Haplotypes Point to a Single, Recent Entry of Native American Y Chromosomes into the Americas |journal=Molecular Biology and Evolution |volume=21 |issue=1 |pages=164–75 |year=2004 |pmid=14595095 |doi=10.1093/molbev/msh009 |doi-access=free}}{{cite journal |last1=Saillard |first1=Juliette |last2=Forster |first2=Peter |last3=Lynnerup |first3=Niels |last4=Bandelt |first4=Hans-Jürgen |last5=Nørby |first5=Søren |title=mtDNA Variation among Greenland Eskimos: The Edge of the Beringian Expansion |journal=The American Journal of Human Genetics |volume=67 |issue=3 |pages=718–26 |year=2000 |pmid=10924403 |pmc=1287530 |doi=10.1086/303038}} This suggests that the earliest migrants into the northern extremes of North America and Greenland derived from later migrant populations.{{cite journal |last1=Schurr |first1=Theodore G. |title=The Peopling of the New World: Perspectives from Molecular Anthropology |journal=Annual Review of Anthropology |volume=33 |issue=1 |year=2004 |pages=551–83 |doi=10.1146/annurev.anthro.33.070203.143932 |jstor=25064865}}{{cite journal |first1=Antonio |last1=Torroni |first2=Theodore G. |last2=Schurr |first3=Chi-Chuan |last3=Yang |first4=Emoke J. E. |last4=Szathmary |first5=Robert C. |last5=Williams |first6=Moses S. |last6=Schanfield |first7=Gary A. |last7=Troup |first8=William C. |last8=Knowler|first9=Dale N. |last9=Lawrence |first10=Kenneth M. |last10=Weisss |first11=Douglas C. |last11=Wallace |title=Native American mitochondrial DNA analysis indicates that the Amerind and the Nadene populations were founded by two independent migrations |journal=Genetics |volume=130 |issue=1 |pages=153–162 |year=1992 |doi=10.1093/genetics/130.1.153 |pmid=1346260 |pmc=1204788 |url=http://www.genetics.org/cgi/pmidlookup?view=long&pmid=1346260}}

Multiple recent findings on autosomal DNA and full genome revealed more information about the formation, settlement, and external relationships of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas to other populations. Native Americans are very closely related to the Paleosiberian tribes of Siberia, and to the ancient samples of the Mal'ta–Buret' culture (Ancient North Eurasians) as well as to the Ancient Beringians. Native Americans also share a relatively higher genetic affinity with East Asian peoples. Native American genetic ancestry is occasionally dubbed as "Amerindian". This type of ancestry largely overlaps with "Paleosiberian" ancestry but is differentiated from "Neo-Siberian" ancestry which represents historical expansions from Northeast Asia and is today widespread among Siberian populations. The ancestors of Native Americans used a single migration route, most likely through Beringia, and subsequently populated all of the Americas in a time range between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago. Possible contact between Native Americans and Polynesians dates back to 1,400 years ago. Previously hypothesized "Paleo-Indian" groups turned out to be genetically identical to modern Native Americans. The controversial claim that the first peoples came from Europe via the North Atlantic, based on an ostensible similarity in stone-tool technology between the Solutrean culture of Pleistocene Europe and Clovis in North America, was undermined by the genome of the Anzick Clovis child, which sits squarely on the branch of Ancestral Native American peoples. No ancient or present-day genome (or mtDNA or Y chromosome marker) in the Americas has shown any direct affinities to Upper Palaeolithic European populations.{{Cite journal |last1=Raghavan |first1=Maanasa |last2=Skoglund |first2=Pontus |last3=Graf |first3=Kelly E. |last4=Metspalu |first4=Mait |last5=Albrechtsen |first5=Anders |last6=Moltke |first6=Ida |last7=Rasmussen |first7=Simon |last8=Stafford Jr |first8=Thomas W. |last9=Orlando |first9=Ludovic |last10=Metspalu |first10=Ene |last11=Karmin |first11=Monika |last12=Tambets |first12=Kristiina |last13=Rootsi |first13=Siiri |last14=Mägi |first14=Reedik |last15=Campos |first15=Paula F. |date=January 2014 |title=Upper Palaeolithic Siberian genome reveals dual ancestry of Native Americans |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=505 |issue=7481 |pages=87–91 |doi=10.1038/nature12736 |issn=1476-4687 |pmc=4105016 |pmid=24256729 |bibcode=2014Natur.505...87R}}{{Cite journal |last1=Kashani |first1=Baharak Hooshiar |last2=Perego |first2=Ugo A. |last3=Olivieri |first3=Anna |last4=Angerhofer |first4=Norman |last5=Gandini |first5=Francesca |last6=Carossa |first6=Valeria |last7=Lancioni |first7=Hovirag |last8=Semino |first8=Ornella |last9=Woodward |first9=Scott R. |last10=Achilli |first10=Alessandro |last11=Torroni |first11=Antonio |date=January 2012 |title=Mitochondrial haplogroup C4c: A rare lineage entering America through the ice-free corridor? |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.21614 |journal=American Journal of Physical Anthropology |language=en |volume=147 |issue=1 |pages=35–39 |doi=10.1002/ajpa.21614 |pmid=22024980 |access-date=26 January 2023 |archive-date=26 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230126091735/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.21614 |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite journal |last1=Tokunaga |first1=Katsushi |last2=Ohashi |first2=Jun |last3=Bannai |first3=Makoto |last4=Juji |first4=Takeo |date=1 September 2001 |title=Genetic link between Asians and native Americans: evidence from HLA genes and haplotypes |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0198885901003019 |journal=Human Immunology |language=en |volume=62 |issue=9 |pages=1001–1008 |doi=10.1016/S0198-8859(01)00301-9 |pmid=11543902 |issn=0198-8859|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite news |title=DNA reveals Native American presence in Polynesia centuries before Europeans arrived |language=en-US |work=History |url=https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/07/dna-pre-columbian-contact-polynesians-native-americans/ |access-date=26 January 2023 |archive-date=6 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210206045929/https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/07/dna-pre-columbian-contact-polynesians-native-americans/ |url-status=dead}}{{Cite journal |last1=Posth |first1=Cosimo |last2=Nakatsuka |first2=Nathan |last3=Lazaridis |first3=Iosif |last4=Skoglund |first4=Pontus |last5=Mallick |first5=Swapan |last6=Lamnidis |first6=Thiseas C. |last7=Rohland |first7=Nadin |last8=Nägele |first8=Kathrin |last9=Adamski |first9=Nicole |last10=Bertolini |first10=Emilie |last11=Broomandkhoshbacht |first11=Nasreen |last12=Cooper |first12=Alan |last13=Culleton |first13=Brendan J. |last14=Ferraz |first14=Tiago |last15=Ferry |first15=Matthew |date=15 November 2018 |title=Reconstructing the Deep Population History of Central and South America |journal=Cell |language=en |volume=175 |issue=5 |pages=1185–1197.e22 |doi=10.1016/j.cell.2018.10.027 |issn=0092-8674 |pmc=6327247 |pmid=30415837 |quote=Our finding of no excess allele sharing with non-Native American populations in the ancient samples is also striking as many of these individuals—including those at Lapa do Santo—have a "Paleoamerican" cranial morphology that has been suggested to be evidence of the spread of a substructured population of at least two different Native American source populations from Asia to the Americas (von Cramon-Taubadel et al., 2017). Our finding that early Holocene individuals with such a morphology are consistent with deriving all their ancestry from the same homogeneous ancestral population as other Native Americans extends the finding of Raghavan et al., 2015 who came to a similar conclusion after analyzing Native Americans inferred to have Paleoamerican morphology who lived within the last millennium.}}{{Cite journal |last1=Willerslev |first1=Eske |last2=Meltzer |first2=David J. |date=June 2021 |title=Peopling of the Americas as inferred from ancient genomics |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03499-y |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=594 |issue=7863 |pages=356–364 |doi=10.1038/s41586-021-03499-y |pmid=34135521 |bibcode=2021Natur.594..356W |s2cid=235460793 |issn=1476-4687 |quote=It is now evident that the initial dispersal involved the movement from northeast Asia. The first peoples, once south of the continental ice sheets, spread widely, expanded rapidly and branched into multiple populations. Their descendants—over the next fifteen millennia—experienced varying degrees of isolation, admixture, continuity and replacement, and their genomes help to illuminate the relationships among major subgroups of Native American populations. Notably, all ancient individuals in the Americas, save for later-arriving Arctic peoples, are more closely related to contemporary Indigenous American individuals than to any other population elsewhere, which challenges the claim—which is based on anatomical evidence—that there was an early, non-Native American population in the Americas. |access-date=15 September 2021 |archive-date=12 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210912161643/https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03499-y |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }}{{Cite web |first=Anjali A. |last=Sarkar |date=18 June 2021 |title=Ancient Human Genomes Reveal Peopling of the Americas |url=https://www.genengnews.com/news/ancient-human-genomes-reveal-peopling-of-the-americas/ |access-date=26 January 2023 |website=GEN – Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News |language=en-US |quote=The team discovered that the Spirit Cave remains came from a Native American while dismissing a longstanding theory that a group called Paleoamericans existed in North America before Native Americans. |archive-date=15 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210915155843/https://www.genengnews.com/news/ancient-human-genomes-reveal-peopling-of-the-americas/ |url-status=live}}{{Cite journal |last=Kozintsev |first=A. G. |date=31 December 2020 |title=The Origin of the Okunev Population, Southern Siberia: The Evidence of Physical Anthropology and Genetics |url=https://journal.archaeology.nsc.ru/jour/article/view/1084 |journal=Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia |language=en |volume=48 |issue=4 |pages=135–145 |doi=10.17746/1563-0110.2020.48.4.135-145 |issn=1563-0110 |access-date=26 January 2023 |archive-date=14 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230114121214/https://journal.archaeology.nsc.ru/jour/article/view/1084 |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }}

File:QpGraph_Maier_et_al._2023_ANE.jpg |volume=12 |pages=e85492 |doi=10.7554/eLife.85492 |issn=2050-084X |pmc=10310323 |pmid=37057893 |doi-access=free}}]]

The date for the formation of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas gene pool ranges from 36,000 to 25,000 years ago, with their internal diverging being around 21,000 years ago, during the settlement of the Americas.{{Cite journal |last1=Moreno-Mayar |first1=J. Víctor |last2=Potter |first2=Ben A. |last3=Vinner |first3=Lasse |last4=Steinrücken |first4=Matthias |last5=Rasmussen |first5=Simon |last6=Terhorst |first6=Jonathan |last7=Kamm |first7=John A. |last8=Albrechtsen |first8=Anders |last9=Malaspinas |first9=Anna-Sapfo |last10=Sikora |first10=Martin |last11=Reuther |first11=Joshua D. |last12=Irish |first12=Joel D. |last13=Malhi |first13=Ripan S. |last14=Orlando |first14=Ludovic |last15=Song |first15=Yun S. |date=January 2018 |title=Terminal Pleistocene Alaskan genome reveals first founding population of Native Americans |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25173 |journal=Nature |language=en |volume=553 |issue=7687 |pages=203–207 |doi=10.1038/nature25173 |pmid=29323294 |bibcode=2018Natur.553..203M |s2cid=4454580 |issn=1476-4687 |access-date=15 September 2021 |archive-date=28 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220928054113/https://www.nature.com/articles/nature25173 |url-status=live}} Native Americans formed from the admixture of a lineage that diverged from Ancient East Asian people around 36,000 years ago somewhere in Southern China, and subsequently migrated northwards into Siberia where they merged with a Paleolithic Siberian population known as Ancient North Eurasians (ANE), deeply related to European hunter-gatherers, giving rise to both Indigenous peoples of Siberia and Ancestral Native Americans. Both Paleo-Siberians and Ancestral Native Americans derive between 32 and 44% of their ancestry from Ancient North Eurasians (ANE), and 56–68% ancestry from Ancient East Asians.{{Cite web |last=Sapiens |date=8 February 2022 |title=A Genetic Chronicle of the First Peoples in the Americas |url=https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/ancient-dna-native-americans/ |access-date=3 April 2023 |website=SAPIENS |language=en-US |archive-date=27 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221027105550/https://www.sapiens.org/archaeology/ancient-dna-native-americans/ |url-status=live}}{{Cite journal |last1=Gill |first1=Haechan |last2=Lee |first2=Juhyeon |last3=Jeong |first3=Choongwon |date=2 April 2024 |title=Reconstructing the Genetic Relationship between Ancient and Present-Day Siberian Populations |journal=Genome Biology and Evolution |volume=16 |issue=4 |pages=evae063 |doi=10.1093/gbe/evae063 |issn=1759-6653 |pmid=38526010 |pmc=10999361}}{{Cite journal |last1=Wong |first1=Emily H.M. |last2=Khrunin |first2=Andrey |last3=Nichols |first3=Larissa |last4=Pushkarev |first4=Dmitry |last5=Khokhrin |first5=Denis |last6=Verbenko |first6=Dmitry |last7=Evgrafov |first7=Oleg |last8=Knowles |first8=James |last9=Novembre |first9=John |last10=Limborska |first10=Svetlana |last11=Valouev |first11=Anton |date=27 January 2017 |title=Reconstructing genetic history of Siberian and Northeastern European populations |journal=Genome Research |volume=27 |issue=1 |pages=1–14 |doi=10.1101/gr.202945.115 |issn=1088-9051 |pmc=5204334 |pmid=27965293}}{{Cite journal |last1=Posth |first1=Cosimo |last2=Nakatsuka |first2=Nathan |last3=Lazaridis |first3=Iosif |last4=Skoglund |first4=Pontus |last5=Mallick |first5=Swapan |last6=Lamnidis |first6=Thiseas C. |last7=Rohland |first7=Nadin |last8=Nägele |first8=Kathrin |last9=Adamski |first9=Nicole |last10=Bertolini |first10=Emilie |last11=Broomandkhoshbacht |first11=Nasreen |last12=Cooper |first12=Alan |last13=Culleton |first13=Brendan J. |last14=Ferraz |first14=Tiago |last15=Ferry |first15=Matthew |date=15 November 2018 |title=Reconstructing the Deep Population History of Central and South America |journal=Cell |volume=175 |issue=5 |pages=1185–1197.e22 |doi=10.1016/j.cell.2018.10.027 |issn=0092-8674 |pmc=6327247 |pmid=30415837}} Based on a 2023 mitochondrial DNA study, a subsequent wave of migration from Northern China, originating near the present-day cities of Beijing and Tianjin, occurred as recently as 9000 BCE, following a previously unknown coastal route from Asia to America.{{cite news |last1=Chen |first1=Stephen |title=Gene study points to link between Stone Age China and the Americas |url=https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3220112/gene-study-points-link-between-stone-age-china-and-americas |access-date=11 May 2023 |publisher=South China Morning Post |date=10 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230511185504/https://www.scmp.com/news/china/science/article/3220112/gene-study-points-link-between-stone-age-china-and-americas |archive-date=11 May 2023}}

{{Further|Population history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas}}

The following table provides estimates for each country or territory in the Americas of the populations of Indigenous people and those with partial Indigenous ancestry, each expressed as a percentage of the overall population. The total percentage obtained by adding both of these categories is also given.

Note: these categories are inconsistently defined and measured differently from country to country. Some figures are based on the results of population-wide genetic surveys while others are based on self-identification or observational estimation.

{{Main|List of indigenous people of the Americas}}

{{Portal|Civilizations|Indigenous peoples of the Americas}}

• Indigenous peoples in Ecuador
• Indigenous peoples in Paraguay
• Indigenous peoples of Costa Rica
• Indigenous peoples in Argentina
• Indigenous peoples of Peru
• Indigenous peoples in Canada
• Indigenous peoples in Colombia
• Indigenous peoples in Brazil
• Indigenous peoples in Chile
• Languages of Guatemala
• Indigenous languages of the Americas

{{div col}}

• Ancient American engineering
• Andean culture (disambiguation)

• List of Greenlandic Inuit
• List of Indigenous artists of the Americas
• List of Indigenous peoples of the Americas
• List of Indigenous writers from the Americas

• Ceramics of Indigenous peoples of the Americas
• Chunkey
• Fully feathered basket
• Indian Mass
• Native American religion
• Pow wow
• Shamanism

• Child development of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas
• Classification of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas
• Indigenous Movements in the Americas
• Origins of Paleoindians
• Pacific Islander
• Population history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas

• Indigenous peoples of South America
• List of Mayan languages
• Society in the Spanish Colonial Americas

• Indigenous peoples of the Caribbean
• Indigenous peoples of Guyana
• Indigenous peoples of Suriname

• Genocide of Indigenous peoples of the Americas
• History of the west coast of North America
• List of traditional territories of the Indigenous peoples of North America
• Native Americans in the United States
• List of American Inuit
• Native American Languages Act of 1990
• Native American weaponry
• Native Americans in German popular culture
• Republic of Lakotah
• Redskin

{{div col end}}

{{Reflist}}

{{refbegin|35em}}

• {{cite book |last=Barnes |first=Ian |title=The Historical Atlas of Native Americans |publisher=Chartwell Books |location=New York |year=2015 |isbn=978-0-7858-3145-7}}
• {{cite book |last1=Cappel |first1=Constance |title=The Smallpox Genocide of the Odawa Tribe at L'Arbre Croche, 1763: The History of a Native American People |year=2007 |publisher=Edwin Mellen Press |location=Lewiston, NY |isbn=978-0-7734-5220-6 |oclc=175217515}}
• {{cite book |editor-last=Cappel |editor-first=Constance |title=Odawa Language and Legends: Andrew J. Blackbird and Raymond Kiogima |publisher=Xlibris |year=2006 |isbn=978-1-59926-920-7}}{{Self-published inline |certain=yes |date=December 2017}}
• {{cite book |last=Churchill |first=Ward |author-link=Ward Churchill |title=A Little Matter of Genocide: Holocaust and Denial in the Americas, 1492 to the Present |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QXRyTRavzK4C&q=A+Little+Matter+of+Genocide:+Holocaust+and+Denial+in+the+Americas,+1492+to+the+Present |year=1997 |publisher=City Lights Books |location=San Francisco |isbn=978-0-87286-323-1 |oclc=35029491}}
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• {{cite book |last1=Dean |first1=Bartholomew |last2=Levi |first2=Jerome M. |title=At the Risk of Being Heard: Identity, Indigenous Rights, and Postcolonial States |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ESutGButMOAC&q=At+the+Risk+of+Being+Heard:+Identity,+Indigenous+Rights,+and+Postcolonial+States |year=2003 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |location=Ann Arbor |isbn=978-0-472-09736-4 |oclc=50841012}}
• {{cite journal |last=Dean |first=Bartholomew |date=January 2006 |title=Salt of the Mountain: Campa Asháninka History and Resistance in the Peruvian Jungle (review) |url=http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/the_americas/v062/62.3dean.html |journal=The Americas |volume=62 |issue=3 |pages=464–466 |issn=0003-1615 |doi=10.1353/tam.2006.0013 |s2cid=143708252 |access-date=14 September 2009 |archive-date=6 November 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111106213433/http://muse.jhu.edu/login?uri=/journals/the_americas/v062/62.3dean.html |url-status=live|url-access=subscription }}
• {{cite encyclopedia |year=1987 |surname=Hultkrantz |given=Åke |entry=North American Indian Religions: An Overview |entry-url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/north-american-indian-religions-overview |editor=Mircea Eliade |editor-link=Mircea Eliade |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Religion |place=New York |publisher=Macmillan |volume=10 |isbn=0-02-909810-6 |via=Encyclopedia.com}}
• {{cite book |last=Josephy |first=Alvin M. Jr. |title=500 Nations: An Illustrated History of North American Indians |year=1995 |publisher=Hutchinson/Pimlico |location=London |isbn=0-09-179148-0}}
• {{cite journal |last=Kane |first=Katie |year=1999 |title=Nits Make Lice: Drogheda, Sand Creek, and the Poetics of Colonial Extermination |journal=Cultural Critique |volume=42 |issue=42 |pages=81–103 |issn=0882-4371 |doi=10.2307/1354592 |jstor=1354592}}
• {{cite book |last=König |first=Eva |title=Indianer 1858–1928, Photographische Reisen von Alaska bis Feuerland |year=2002 |publisher=Edition Braus |location=Museum für Volkerkunde Hamburg |isbn=978-3-89904-021-0}}
• {{cite book |last1=Krech |first1=Shepard III |title=The Ecological Indian: Myth and History |year=1999 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |location=New York |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=on7tKuPdlaMC&q=The+Ecological+Indian:+Myth+and+History |isbn=978-0-393-04755-4 |oclc=318358852}}
• {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CquTz6ps5YgC&q=Yupik%20of%20Alaska%20and%20Siberia%20do%20not%20consider%20themselves%20Inuit&pg=PA213 |title=An Ethnohistorical dictionary of the Russian and Soviet empires |first1=James Stuart |last1=Olson |first2=Nicholas Charles |last2=Pappas |publisher=Connecticut Greenwood Press |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-313-27497-8}}
• {{cite book |first1=Roy |last1=Todd |first2=Martin |last2=Thornton |first3=D. N. |last3=Collins |title=Aboriginal people and other Canadians: shaping new relationships |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ndPJEysK2O0C&pg=PA10 |year=2001 |publisher=University of Ottawa Press |isbn=978-0-7766-0541-8}}
• {{cite book |last1=Varese |first1=Stefano |last2=Ribeiro |first2=Darcy |author2-link=Darcy Ribeiro |title=Salt of the Mountain: Campa Ashaninka History and Resistance in the Peruvian Jungle |year=2004 |orig-year=2002 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |location=Norman |others=trans. Susan Giersbach Rascón |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NCXw6o3YaMkC&q=Salt+of+the+Mountain:+Campa+Ashaninka+History+and+Resistance+in+the+Peruvian+Jungle |isbn=978-0-8061-3512-0 |oclc=76909908}}
• {{cite encyclopedia |year=1987 |surname=Zerries |given=Otto |entry=South American Indian Religions: An Overview |translator=John Maressa |entry-url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/environment/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/south-american-indian-religions-overview |editor=Mircea Eliade |editor-link=Mircea Eliade |encyclopedia=The Encyclopedia of Religion |place=New York |publisher=Macmillan |volume=13 |isbn=0-02-909840-8 |via=Encyclopedia.com}}

{{refend}}

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• {{cite journal |last=Gaskins |first=S. |year=1999 |title=Children's daily lives in a Mayan village: A case study of culturally constructed roles and activities |journal=Children's Engagement in the World: Sociocultural Perspectives |pages=25–61}}
• {{cite journal |last=Nimmo |first=J. |year=2008 |title=Young children's access to real life: An examination of the growing boundaries between children in child care and adults in the community |journal=Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=3–13 |doi=10.2304/ciec.2008.9.1.3 |s2cid=144208459}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Morelli |first1=G. |last2=Rogoff |first2=B. |last3=Angelillo |first3=C. |year=2003 |title=Cultural variation in young children's access to work or involvement in specialised child-focused activities |journal=International Journal of Behavioral Development |volume=27 |issue=3 |pages=264–274 |doi=10.1080/01650250244000335 |s2cid=145563973}}
• Woodhead, M. (1998). Children's perspectives on their working lives: A participatory study in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua.
• {{cite journal |last1=Rogoff |first1=B. |last2=Morelli |first2=G. A. |last3=Chavajay |first3=P. |year=2010 |title=Children's Integration in Communities and Segregation From People of Differing Ages |journal=Perspectives on Psychological Science |volume=5 |issue=4 |pages=431–440 |doi=10.1177/1745691610375558 |pmid=26162189 |s2cid=1391080}}
• Gaskins, S. (2006). 13 The Cultural Organization of Yucatec Mayan Children's Social Interactions. Peer relationships in cultural context, 283.

{{refend}}

• Handbook of North American Indians, ongoing 20-volume series generally edited by William C. Sturtevant. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1978–.
• {{cite book |editor-last=Hamilton |editor-first=Charles |year=1972 |orig-year=1950 Macmillan Co. |title=Cry of the Thunderbird: The American Indian's Own Story |url=https://archive.org/details/cryofthunderbird00hami |url-access=subscription |series=The Civilization of the American Indian Series, vol. 119 |location=Norman, Ok |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |isbn=9780806110035 |oclc=483932822}}

{{Commons and category|Native Americans|Indigenous peoples of the Americas}}

{{NIE Poster|Indians, American|American Indians}}

• [https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/stoneage/ America's Stone Age Explorers], from PBS's Nova
• [http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/archeo/hnpc/npint00e.shtml A History of the Native People of Canada] from the Canadian Museum of Civilization
• [http://pib.socioambiental.org/en Indigenous Peoples in Brazil] from the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA)
• [http://www.nmai.si.edu/ Official website] of the National Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian Institution
• {{cite EB1911 |last=Chamberlain |first=Alexander Francis |author-link=Alexander Francis Chamberlain |wstitle=Indians, North American |short=x}}

{{Indigenous peoples of the Americas}}

{{Cultural areas of indigenous North Americans}}

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