Native Americans in the United States#Current status
{{Short description|Indigenous peoples of the United States}}
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{{redirect|Native Americans}}
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{{Infobox ethnic group
| group = Native Americans
| image = Indigenous Americans by county.png
| image_caption =
| population = Alone (one race)
{{increase}} 3,727,135 (2020 census){{cite web|url=https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/race-and-ethnicity-in-the-united-state-2010-and-2020-census.html|title=Race and Ethnicity in the United States|date=August 12, 2021|publisher=United States Census Bureau|access-date=August 17, 2021}}
{{increase}} 1.12% of the total US population
In combination (multiracial)
{{increase}} 5,938,923 (2020 census)
{{increase}} 1.79% of the total US population
Alone or in combination
{{increase}} 9,666,058 (2020 census)
{{increase}} 2.92% of the total US population
| popplace = Predominantly in Alaska, the Western and Midwestern, with smaller communities in the Eastern United States.
| region1 = {{flagicon|California}} California
| pop1 = 631,016
| region2 = {{flagicon|Oklahoma}} Oklahoma
| pop2 = 332,791
| region3 = {{flagicon|Arizona}} Arizona
| pop3 = 319,512
| region4 = {{flagicon|Texas}} Texas
| pop4 = 278,948
| region5 = {{flagicon|New Mexico}} New Mexico
| pop5 = 212,241
| languages = English
Native American languages
(including Navajo, Central Alaskan Yup'ik, Tlingit, Haida, Dakota, Seneca, Lakota, Western Apache, Keres, Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Kiowa, Comanche, Osage, Zuni, Pawnee, Shawnee, Winnebago, Ojibwe, Cree, O'odhamSiebens, J & T Julian. Native North American Languages Spoken at Home in the United States and Puerto Rico: 2006–2010. United States Census Bureau. December 2011.)
Spanish
Native Pidgin (extinct)
French
| religions = {{plainlist|
- Predominantly Traditional Native American religions, unique to specific tribes or bandsBarry Pritzker, A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture, and Peoples (Oxford University Press, 2000), 331.
- Native American Church
- Christian, denomination dependent on tribe
- Protestant
- Catholic
- Russian Orthodox (mostly in Alaska)Barry Pritzker, A Native American Encyclopedia: History, Culture, and Peoples (Oxford University Press, 2000), 335. }}
| related-c = {{plainlist|
- Indigenous peoples of the Americas
- Indigenous peoples in Canada
- Indigenous peoples of Mexico
- Indigenous peoples of South America
}}
}}
{{Native American topics sidebar}}
Native Americans (also called American Indians, First Americans, or Indigenous Americans) are the Indigenous peoples of the United States, particularly of the lower 48 states and Alaska. They may also include any Americans whose origins lie in any of the indigenous peoples of North or South America. The United States Census Bureau publishes data about "American Indians and Alaska Natives", whom it defines as anyone "having origins in any of the original peoples of North and South America ... and who maintains tribal affiliation or community attachment".{{cite web |title=About the Topic of Race |url=https://www.census.gov/topics/population/race/about.html|access-date=2024-06-29 |publisher=United States Census Bureau}} The census does not, however, enumerate "Native Americans" as such, noting that the latter term can encompass a broader set of groups, e.g. Native Hawaiians, which it tabulates separately.{{cite web|title=U.S. Census Bureau History: American Indians and Alaska Natives|url=https://www.census.gov/history/www/homepage_archive/2021/november_2021.html|publisher=United States Census Bureau|access-date=30 July 2023}}
The European colonization of the Americas from 1492 resulted in a precipitous decline in the size of the Native American population because of newly introduced diseases, including weaponized diseases and biological warfare by colonizers,{{cite journal | last=Alibek | first=Ken | title=Smallpox: a disease and a weapon | journal=International Journal of Infectious Diseases | publisher=Elsevier BV | volume=8 | year=2004 | issn=1201-9712 | doi=10.1016/j.ijid.2004.09.004 | pages=3–8| pmid=15491869 | doi-access=free }}Colonial Williamsburg, CW Journal (Spring 2004), [https://research.colonialwilliamsburg.org/Foundation/journal/Spring04/warfare.cfm "Colonial Germ Warfare"]{{cite book |last1=Fenn |first1=Elizabeth A. |title=Pox Americana: The Great Smallpox Epidemic of 1775–82 |date=2001 |publisher=Hill and Wang |isbn=080907821X |pages=88–89, 275–276 |edition=1st}}{{cite journal |last1=Fenn |first1=Elizabeth A |title=Biological Warfare in Eighteenth-Century North America: Beyond Jeffrey Amherst |journal=Journal of American History |date=March 2000 |volume=86 |issue=4 |page=1553|doi=10.2307/2567577 |jstor=2567577 |issn=0021-8723}}{{cite book |last1=Robertson |first1=Roland G. |title=Rotting Face: Smallpox and the American Indian |date=2001 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |isbn=0870044192 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/rottingfacesmall0000robe/page/119 119, 124] |edition=1st |url=https://archive.org/details/rottingfacesmall0000robe/page/119}} wars, ethnic cleansing, and enslavement. Numerous scholars have classified elements of the colonization process as comprising genocide against Native Americans. As part of a policy of settler colonialism, European settlers continued to wage war and perpetrated massacres against Native American peoples, removed them from their ancestral lands, and subjected them to one-sided government treaties and discriminatory government policies. Into the 20th century, these policies focused on forced assimilation.{{cite journal|first1=Patrick|last1=Wolfe|title=Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native|journal=Journal of Genocide Research|date=December 1, 2006|issn=1462-3528|pages=387–409|volume=8|issue=4|doi=10.1080/14623520601056240|s2cid=143873621|doi-access=free}}{{cite book|first1=W.|last1=Hixson|title=American Settler Colonialism: A History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tiKuAgAAQBAJ|publisher=Springer|date=December 5, 2013|isbn=978-1-137-37426-4|via=Google Books}}{{cite book|first1=Laurelyn|last1=Whitt|first2=Alan W.|last2=Clarke|title=North American Genocides: Indigenous Nations, Settler Colonialism, and International Law|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7r0avgEACAAJ|publisher=Cambridge University Press|date=2019 |isbn=978-1-108-42550-6|via=Google Books}}
When the United States was established, Native American tribes were considered semi-independent nations, because they generally lived in communities which were separate from communities of white settlers. The federal government signed treaties at a government-to-government level until the Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 ended recognition of independent Native nations, and started treating them as "domestic dependent nations" subject to applicable federal laws. This law did preserve rights and privileges, including a large degree of tribal sovereignty. For this reason, many Native American reservations are still independent of state law and the actions of tribal citizens on these reservations are subject only to tribal courts and federal law. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 granted US citizenship to all Native Americans born in the US who had not yet obtained it. This emptied the "Indians not taxed" category established by the United States Constitution, allowed Natives to vote in elections, and extended the Fourteenth Amendment protections granted to people "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. However, some states continued to deny Native Americans voting rights for decades. Titles II through VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 comprise the Indian Civil Rights Act, which applies to Native American tribes and makes many but not all of the guarantees of the U.S. Bill of Rights applicable within the tribes.{{Cite web|title="Civil Rights Act of 1968" full text|url=https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-343/pdf/COMPS-343.pdf|date=14 November 2018|publisher=U.S. Government Publishing Office|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200508013659/https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/COMPS-343/pdf/COMPS-343.pdf|archive-date=8 May 2020|access-date=8 May 2020}}
Since the 1960s, Native American self-determination movements have resulted in positive changes to the lives of many Native Americans, though there are still many contemporary issues faced by them. Today, there are over five million Native Americans in the US, about 80% of whom live outside reservations. As of 2020, the states with the highest percentage of Native Americans are Alaska, Oklahoma, Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas.{{Cite web |last1=Sánchez-Rivera |first1=Ana I |last2=Jacobs |first2=Paul |last3=Spence |first3=Cody |date=2023-12-03 |title=A Look at the Largest American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes and Villages in the Nation, Tribal Areas and States |url=https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/10/2020-census-dhc-a-aian-population.html |access-date=2024-12-03 |website=US Census Bureau |language=en}}{{cite news | title=2020 Census: Native population increased by 86.5 percent | newspaper=ICT News | date=August 13, 2021 | url=https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/2020-census-native-population-increased-by-86-5-percent | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211220025418/https://indiancountrytoday.com/news/2020-census-native-population-increased-by-86-5-percent | access-date=November 24, 2022| archive-date=December 20, 2021 }}
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Background
File:North American cultural areas.pngs of Indigenous peoples of North America during the Pre-Columbian era, according to anthropologist Alfred Kroeber]]
Beginning toward the end of the 15th century, the migration of Europeans to the Americas led to centuries of population, cultural, and agricultural transfer and adjustment between Old and New World societies, a process known as the Columbian exchange. Because most Native American groups had preserved their histories by means of oral traditions and artwork, the first written accounts of the contact were provided by Europeans.Calloway, Colin G. [http://www.americanheritage.com/content/native-americans-first-view-whites-shore "Native Americans First View Whites from the Shore"]. American Heritage, Spring 2009. Retrieved December 29, 2011
Ethnographers classify the Indigenous peoples of North America into ten geographical regions which are inhabited by groups of people who share certain cultural traits, called cultural areas.{{cite web |url=http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/tresors/ethno/etb0170e.shtml |title=Culture Areas Index |website=the Canadian Museum of Civilization}} The ten cultural areas are:{{cn|date=May 2024}}
- Arctic, including Aleut, Inuit, and Yupik peoples
- Subarctic
- Northeastern Woodlands
- Southeastern Woodlands
- Great Plains
- Great Basin
- Northwest Plateau
- Northwest Coast
- California
- Southwest (Oasisamerica)
At the time of the first contact, the Indigenous cultures were different from those of the proto-industrial and mostly Christian immigrants. Some Northeastern and Southwestern cultures, in particular, were matrilineal and they were organized and operated on a more collective basis than the culture which Europeans were familiar with. Most Indigenous American tribes treated their hunting grounds and agricultural lands as land that could be used by their entire tribe. Europeans had developed concepts of individual property rights with respect to land that were extremely different. The differences in cultures, as well as the shifting alliances among different nations during periods of warfare, caused extensive political tension, ethnic violence, and social disruption.{{cn|date=May 2024}}
Native Americans suffered high fatality rates from contact with European diseases that were new to them, and to which they had not acquired immunity. Smallpox epidemics are thought to have caused the greatest loss of life for Indigenous populations. "The decline of native American populations was rapid and severe, probably the greatest demographic disaster ever. Old World diseases were the primary killer. In many regions, particularly the tropical lowlands, populations fell by 90 percent or more in the first century after the contact."{{cite journal|doi=10.1111/j.1467-8306.1992.tb01965.x | volume=82 | issue=3 | title=The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492 | year=1992 | journal=Annals of the Association of American Geographers | pages=369–385 | last1 = Denevan | first1 = William M.}}
Estimates of the pre-Columbian population of the United States vary widely, from 2 million to over 18 million.{{cite web |url = https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/03/1491/302445/ |first = Charles C. |last = Mann|title= 1491|website =The Atlantic|date = March 2002}}[http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/%7Ealcoze/for398/class/pristinemyth.html William M. Denevan, "The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492"], posted at Northern Arizona University, published in Sept. 1992, Annals of the Association of American Geographers{{cite encyclopedia|url=https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1357826/Native-American/273135/North-America-and-Europe-circa-1492 |title=Native American |access-date=June 28, 2009 |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica}}{{Cite book|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/9392931|title=Their number become thinned: native American population dynamics in eastern North America|date=April 8, 1983|publisher=Published by the University of Tennessee Press in cooperation with the Newberry Library Center for the History of the American Indian|oclc=9392931|via=Open WorldCat}} However, it is universally agreed upon by historians that the Indigenous population underwent a drastic decline following European contact. While infectious diseases were a key factor in these declines, warfare and violence by European settlers played a major role as well, often exacerbating the impact of disease outbreaks. Jeffrey Ostler writes: "Most Indigenous communities were eventually afflicted by a variety of diseases, but in many cases this happened long after Europeans first arrived. When severe epidemics did hit, it was often less because Native bodies lack immunity than because European colonialism disrupted Native Communities and damaged their resources, making them more vulnerable to pathogens."{{Cite book |last=Ostler |first=Jeffrey |title=Surviving Genocide : Native Nations and the United States from the American Revolution to Bleeding Kansas |publisher=New Haven Yale University Press |year=2019}} By end of the 18th century, the Indigenous population within the modern borders of the United States had declined to around 600,000 as a result of infectious diseases, warfare, and genocide committed by European settlers.{{Cite journal |last1=Hacker |first1=J. David |last2=Haines |first2=Michael R. |date=2005 |title=American Indian Mortality in the Late Nineteenth Century: the Impact of Federal Assimilation Policies on a Vulnerable Population |url=https://shs.cairn.info/revue-annales-de-demographie-historique-2005-2-page-17?lang=en |journal=Annales de démographie historique |language=en |volume=110 |issue=2 |pages=17–29 |doi=10.3917/adh.110.0017 |issn=0066-2062}}
After the thirteen British colonies revolted against Great Britain and established the United States, President George Washington and Secretary of War Henry Knox conceived the idea of "civilizing" Native Americans in preparation for their assimilation as U.S. citizens.{{Cite book|last=Perdue|first=Theda|title=Mixed Blood Indians: Racial Construction in the Early South|publisher=The University of Georgia Press|chapter=Chapter 2 "Both White and Red"|page=51|isbn=978-0-8203-2731-0|year=2003}}{{Cite book|last=Remini|first=Robert|title=Andrew Jackson|publisher=History Book Club|chapter=Brothers, Listen ... You Must Submit|page=258|isbn=978-0-06-080132-8|orig-year=1977|year=1998}}{{cite web|url=http://www.dreric.org/library/northwest.shtml|title=George Washington and Indians, Washington and the Northwest War, Part One|access-date=May 2, 2008|last=Miller|first=Eric|year=1994|publisher=Eric Miller}}{{cite web|url=http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/2002_summer_fall/tj_views.htm|title=Thomas Jefferson's Views Concerning Native Americans|access-date=February 17, 2009|first=Tom|last=Jewett|year=1996–2009|publisher=Archiving America}} Assimilation, whether it was voluntary, as it was with the Choctaw,{{Cite news|title=An Indian Candidate for Congress|publisher=Christian Mirror and N.H. Observer, Shirley, Hyde & Co.|date=July 15, 1830}}{{cite web|url=http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol2/treaties/cho0310.htm|title=Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties Vol. II, Treaties|access-date=April 16, 2008|first=Charles|last=Kappler|year=1904|publisher=Government Printing Office|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080517182743/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol2/treaties/cho0310.htm|archive-date=May 17, 2008}} or forced, was consistently maintained as a matter of policy by consecutive American administrations.
During the 19th century, the ideology known as manifest destiny became integral to the American nationalist movement. Westward expansion of European American populations after the American Revolution resulted in increasing pressure on Native Americans and their lands, warfare, and rising tensions. In 1830, the U.S. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the federal government to relocate Native Americans from their homelands within established states to lands west of the Mississippi River, in order to accommodate continued European American expansion. This resulted in what amounted to the ethnic cleansing or genocide of many tribes, who were subjected to brutal forced marches. The most infamous of these came to be known as the Trail of Tears.
Contemporary Native Americans have a unique relationship with the United States because they may be members of nations, tribes, or bands that have sovereignty and treaty rights upon which federal Indian law and a federal Indian trust relationship are based.[https://www.bia.gov/frequently-asked-questions U.S. Department of the Interior, Indian Affairs], Native American Faculty and Staff Association News. University of California, Davis. Accessed October 25, 2011. Cultural activism since the late 1960s has increased the participation of Indigenous peoples in American politics. It has also led to expanded efforts to teach and preserve Indigenous languages for younger generations, and to establish a more robust cultural infrastructure: Native Americans have founded independent newspapers and online media outlets, including First Nations Experience, the first Native American television channel;[http://nafsa.ucdavis.edu/NAFSA%20News.html "FNX: First Nations Experience Television"], Native American Faculty and Staff Association News. University of California, Davis. Accessed October 25, 2011. established Native American studies programs, tribal schools universities, museums, and language programs. Literature is at the growing forefront of American Indian studies in many genres, with the notable exception of fiction—some traditional American Indians experience fictional narratives as insulting when they conflict with traditional oral tribal narratives.{{Cite book|url=https://www.nap.edu/read/9599/chapter/6|title=Read "America Becoming: Racial Trends and Their Consequences: Volume I" at NAP.edu|year=2001|publisher=National Academies Press |doi=10.17226/9599|isbn=978-0-309-06838-3|via=www.nap.edu}}
The terms used to refer to Native Americans have at times been controversial. The ways Native Americans refer to themselves vary by region and generation, with many older{{fact|date=December 2023}} Native Americans self-identifying as "Indians" or "American Indians", while younger{{fact|date=December 2023}} Native Americans often identify as "Indigenous" or "Aboriginal". The term "Native American" has not traditionally included Native Hawaiians or certain Alaskan Natives,{{cite web|title=Reporter's Indigenous Terminology Guide|publisher=Native American Journalists Association|url=http://www.naja.com/reporter-s-indigenous-terminology-guide/|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181116050310/https://www.naja.com/reporter-s-indigenous-terminology-guide/|archive-date=November 16, 2018|quote=Over time, Native American has been expanded[...]some in Alaska.}} - The absence of Hawaiian and other Alaskan groups implies that it does not include them. such as Aleut, Yup'ik, or Inuit peoples. By comparison, the Indigenous peoples of Canada are generally known as First Nations, Inuit and Métis (FNIM).{{fact|date=December 2023}}
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History
{{Main|History of Native Americans in the United States|Population history of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas}}
File:Peopling of America through Beringia.png and Paleo-Indian settlements during the era of Clovis culture]]
File:Shriver Circle & Mound City solstice sunrise HRoe 2019sm.jpg and the Mound City Group (on the left), {{Circa|200 BCE}} to {{Circa|500 CE}}, depicted in a 2019 portrait]]
The history of Native Americans in the United States began before the founding of the U.S., tens of thousands of years ago with the settlement of the Americas by the Paleo-Indians. The Eurasian migration to the Americas occurred over millennia via Beringia, a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska, as early humans spread southward and eastward, forming distinct cultures and societies. Archaeological evidence suggests these migrations began 60,000 years ago and continued until around 12,000 years ago. Some may have arrived even before this time fishing in kayaks along what is known as the "Kelp Highway". The early inhabitants by land were classified as Paleo-Indians, who spread throughout the Americas, diversifying into numerous culturally distinct nations. Major Paleo-Indian cultures included the Clovis and Folsom traditions, identified through unique spear points and large-game hunting methods, especially during the Lithic stage.
Around 8000 BCE, as the climate stabilized, new cultural periods like the Archaic stage arose, during which hunter-gatherer communities developed complex societies across North America. The Mound Builders created large earthworks, such as at Watson Brake and Poverty Point, which date to 3500 BCE and 2200 BCE, respectively, indicating early social and organizational complexity. By 1000 BCE, Native societies in the Woodland period developed advanced social structures and trade networks, with the Hopewell tradition connecting the Eastern Woodlands to the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. This period led to the Mississippian culture, with large urban centers like Cahokia—a city with complex mounds and a population exceeding 20,000 by 1250 CE.
From the 15th century onward, European contact drastically reshaped the Americas. Explorers and settlers introduced diseases, causing massive Indigenous population declines, and engaged in violent conflicts with Native groups. By the 19th century, westward U.S. expansion, rationalized by Manifest destiny, pressured tribes into forced relocations like the Trail of Tears, which decimated communities and redefined Native territories. Despite resistance in events like the Sioux Uprising and Battle of Little Bighorn, Native American lands continued to be reduced through policies like the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and later the Dawes Act, which undermined communal landholding.
File:GreenoughRescue.jpg sculpture stood outside the U.S. Capitol between 1853 and 1958. Commissioned by the U.S. government, its sculptor Horatio Greenough wrote that it was "to convey the idea of the triumph of the whites over the savage tribes".Boime, Albert (2004), [https://books.google.com/books?id=24Hgr0U8K3QC&dq=Rescue+AND+Greenough&pg=PA527 A Social History of Modern Art, Volume 2: Art in an Age of Counterrevolution, 1815–1848], (Series: Social History of Modern Art); University of Chicago Press, p. 527.]]
A justification for the policy of conquest and subjugation of the Indigenous people emanated from the stereotyped perceptions of Native Americans as "merciless Indian savages" (as described in the United States Declaration of Independence).{{cite book|title=Out West|date=2000|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|page=96}} Sam Wolfson in The Guardian writes, "The declaration's passage has often been cited as an encapsulation of the dehumanizing attitude toward Indigenous Americans that the US was founded on."{{cite news |title=Facebook labels declaration of independence as 'hate speech' |url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jul/05/facebook-declaration-of-independence-hate-speech |access-date=August 7, 2019 |work=The Guardian}}
Native American nations on the plains in the west continued armed conflicts with the U.S. throughout the 19th century, through what were called generally Indian Wars.Thornton, Russell (1990). [https://archive.org/details/americanindianho00thor_0 American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History since 1492]. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 48. {{ISBN|978-0-8061-2220-5}} Notable conflicts in this period include the Dakota War, Great Sioux War, Snake War, Colorado War, and Texas-Indian Wars. Expressing the frontier anti-Indian sentiment, Theodore Roosevelt believed the Indians were destined to vanish under the pressure of white civilization, stating in an 1886 lecture:
{{blockquote|I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.Cary Michael Carney (1999). "Native American Higher Education in the United States". pp. 65–66. Transaction Publications}}
File:Woundedknee1891.jpg for the dead Lakota after the Wounded Knee Massacre, which took place on December 29, 1890, during the Indian Wars]]
One of the last and most notable events during the Indian wars was the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. In the years leading up to it the U.S. government had continued to seize Lakota lands. A Ghost Dance ritual on the Northern Lakota reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, led to the U.S. Army's attempt to subdue the Lakota. The dance was part of a religious movement founded by the Northern Paiute spiritual leader Wovoka that told of the return of the Messiah to relieve the suffering of Native Americans and promised that if they would live righteous lives and perform the Ghost Dance properly, the European American colonists would vanish, the bison would return, and the living and the dead would be reunited in an Eden
Days after the massacre, the author L. Frank Baum wrote:
{{blockquote|The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth.{{cite web|url=http://www.northern.edu/hastingw/baumedts.htm |title="L. Frank Baum's Editorials on the Sioux Nation" |accessdate=2007-12-09 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20071209193251/http://www.northern.edu/hastingw/baumedts.htm |archivedate=2007-12-09 }} Full text of both, with commentary by professor A. Waller Hastings}}
In the 20th century, Native Americans served in significant numbers during World War II, marking a turning point for Indigenous visibility and involvement in broader American society. Post-war, Native activism grew, with movements such as the American Indian Movement (AIM) drawing attention to Indigenous rights. Landmark legislation like the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975 recognized tribal autonomy, leading to the establishment of Native-run schools and economic initiatives. Tribal sovereignty has continued to evolve, with legal victories and federal acknowledgments supporting cultural revitalization.
By the 21st century, Native Americans had achieved increased control over tribal lands and resources, although many communities continue to grapple with the legacy of displacement and economic challenges. Urban migration has also grown, with over 70% of Native Americans residing in cities by 2012, navigating issues of cultural preservation and discrimination. Continuing legal and social efforts address these concerns, building on centuries of resilience and adaptation that characterize Indigenous history across the Americas.
Demographics
{{Further|Modern social statistics of Native Americans}}
{{See also|Population history of Indigenous peoples of the Americas}}
File:Indigenous Americans by state.svg, and Puerto Rico as of the 2020 U.S. census
File:Indigenous Americans by county.png, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico as of the 2020 United States census
