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When European settlers first arrived in America, millions of American Indians lived throughout the continent. Between 1840 and 1890, the United States went through a huge population boom. During that time, the population grew by nearly 46 million people. As settlers and immigrants continued to arrive, the Native Americans were pushed further west.The completion of the trancontinental railroad made it easier than ever for people to move across the vast country seeking new land and experiences. Many Native Americans died in battles over land and by starvation and diseases brought by the settlers. Their customs and traditions almost disappeared. This huge spurt in population and its effects on the native peoples of North America is one of the sad portions of our history.

Native Americans were gathered and placed on reservations. By about 1887, there were no more free Native Americans. Today, there are approximately 275 Indian land areas in the U.S. administered as Indian reservations The largest is the Navajo reservation that consists of about 16-million acres of land in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Many of the smaller reservations are less than 1,000 acres with the smallest less than 100 acres. On each reservation, the local governing authority is the tribal government.

Sample some of the following activities to learn more about Native Americans.

Places To Go

The following are places to go (some real and some virtual) to find out about Native Americans.

Cankpe Opi :Wounded Knee Home Page
Travel to Wounded Knee, South Dakota. It was the site of one of the last major battles between the United States military and Native American tribes. During this battle, which occurred in 1890, a band of Sioux, led by Big Foot, fled to the badlands of South Dakota to resist being forced onto reservations. They were captured on December 28, 1890 and brought to the banks of a creek. In attempts to disarm the tribe, a military officer was wounded. The U.S. troops then opened fire and shot about 200 men, women, and children.

Indian Pueblo Cultural Center
Virtually visit a Native American pueblo. These homes, built mostly by the Pubelo peoples of what is now New Mexico, were mostly built of adobe. Many of them were several stories high and terraced for defensive purposes.

Carnegie Museum of Natural History : American Indians and the Natural World
Spend time at this web museum and explore Native American connections with the natural universe. This site highlights four native tribes---the Tlingit of the Northwest Coast, the Hopi of the Southwest, the Iroquois of the Northeast, and the Lakota of the Plains--and examines their belief systems, philosophies, and practical knowledge and they relate to their natural surroundings.

Trail of Tears
Travel along the Trail of Tears. In the winter of 1838-1839, the Cherokee were forced to relocate from their native homelands in the southeastern United States. They walked 800-1,000 miles to Indian Territory, which now is the state of Oklahoma.

Historical & Cultural Significance of the Bering Land Bridge
Travel back in time and walk the land bridge that probably once connected Asia and North America. Learn about the theory is that the ancestors of Native Americans crossed the land bridge to North America.

The American Indian Occupation of Alcatraz Island
Travel to that famous island in San Francisco Bay. First, thousands of pelicans lived on it for hundreds of years. Then the Spanish visited it in the 1700s and used it as a fortress. Americans took control of it in the 1850s, and it was the site if Alcatraz prison from 1851 to 1933. From 1969 to 1971, a group of Native American activists occupied the island in hopes of establishing a center there.

Serpent Mound
Visit this ancient, pre-Columbian site in Ohio. It was probably home to the Adena culture of ancient Americans who lived in the area from about 500 BC to 200 AD.

Pontiac
Get to know Chief Pontiac, a member of the Ottawa tribe. He was not happy with the way the British were treating Native Americans and wanted to force the British to stop letting white settlers explore and live in the area west of the Appalachian Mountains. So in the 1760s, he assembled a unified confederation of tribes to resist the British. This group included members of the Ottawas, Delawares, Hurons, Illinois, Kickapoos, Miamis, Senecas, Potawatomies, Shawnees, and Chippewas. Learn more what was called Pontiac's War.

Chief Crazy Horse
Meet Chief Crazy Horse. He was a famous chief of the Oglala Sioux. Like Sittle Bull, Crazy Horse urged his people to resist white encroachment in their tribal lands. This site has a collection of interviews with people who actually knew Crazy Horse. At Thunderhead Mountain near Custer, South Dakoka, in the Black Hills, a memorial to Crazy Horse has been under construction since 1948. It was designed and started by sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski. Like Mt. Rushmore, the memorial is being carved out of the side of a mountain. When it is finished, it will consist of the figure of Crazy Horse mounted on his horse and will be about 563 feet high and 641 feet long--probably the largest statue in the world.

Chief Seattle
Visit with Chief Seattle. He was a Suquamish leader in the Pacific northwest.

Pocahontas
Spend time with legendary Pocahontas. She was born about 1595 near Jamestown. Her father was Powhatan. As a child, she frequently visited Jamestown bringing gifts of food. Her name, Pocahontas, meant "playful one". Did she really save the life of John Smith? In 1613, Pocahontas was captured by the English and taken to Jamestown where she was held as a hostage for English prisoners. While in Jamestown, she converted to Christianity and was baptized as Rebecca. She married Englishman, John Rolfe, in 1614. In 1616, she visited England with her husband and new baby son, Thomas. She died there in 1617 and was buried in England.

Native American Authors
From the Internet Public Library, find links to hundreds of Native American authors.

Jim Thorpe
Become acquainted with Jim Thorpe, one of the greatest all-around athletes in American history. His Native American name was Wa-Tho-Huck which means Bright Path. Growing up in Oklahoma in the early 1900s, he was an accomplished high school athlete in both baseball and football. In 1912, he competed in the summer Olympic games in Stockholm, Sweden.. He won the broad jump and the 200-meter and 1,500-meter runs of the pentathlon. He won the shot put, the 1,500-meter run, and the hurdle race of the decathlon. He was the runner-up in the other events of the pentathlon and decathlon. Find out what happened to his gold medals. Have students discuss if this same thing could ever happen today.

George Catlin
Meet George Catlin. He was an American artist who was fascinated with American Indian life. During the mid 1800s, he traveled the country painting pictures of many Native American scenes. Read George Catlin's words about one of his many experiences with Native American individuals.

Chief Joseph
Make the acquaintance of Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé. Chief Joseph was a name given to him by white settlers. His real name was Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekht which meant Thunder Traveling to the Mountains. His tribe lived in the area of northern Idaho and southern Washington and Oregon. He and his people did not want to leave their ancestral lands. When told that they would be forcibly taken to a reservation in Idaho, his tribe made preparations to travel peacefully to the reservation. But General Oliver Otis Howard of the U.S. Army was misinformed about Chief Joseph's plans and ordered an attack on the tribe. Chief Joseph was able to hold the army back and made a decision to try and flee to Canada and freedom. He and his group of Nez Percé almost made it. They were captured about 30 miles short of the Canadian border. Chief Joseph's emotional words, "I am tired of fighting. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever" and "You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born free should be contented penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases" have become a moving part of American history. Chief Joseph was sent to Fort Leavenworth Missouri for a time and then spent the remainder of his life on Colville Indian Reservation in the state of Washington.

George Armstrong Custer
Meet the man whom the Sioux called "Long Hair". George Armstrong Custer played a role in the Civil War before he went on to became famous or infamous in his dealing with Native Americans. Before Little Bighorn, Custer made himself known to the native tribes in the Black Hills. The United States had previously agreed to leave the Black Hills to the Sioux. But by 1874, Custer and about 1000 soldiers were exploring the Black Hills, looking for a site to build a fort. Custer's men found a gold nugget in the summer of 1874, and soon thousands of miners had invaded the Black Hills, searching for gold. The events at Little Bighorn in Montana occurred in the summer of 1876.

Red Cloud
Get to know Red Cloud. He was leader of the Oglala Sioux. Find out more about this man who is famous for saying, "They made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it."

Florida History
Get to know Osceola. He was a Seminole chief who led his people in resisting their removal out of Florida to the west.

Anasazi
Learn about the Anasazi--prehistoric Native Americans who lived in what is now northern Arizona and southern Utah. These peoples were expert farmers who often lived in cliff homes in canyons and who irrigated nearby river valleys. Mesa Verde, in western Colorado, a national park with dozens of preserved Anasazi cliff dwellings, lets you experience the unique cultural and physical landscape left behind by this prehistoric tribe.

On This Date in North American Indian History
Find out what happened "on this date" in Native American history.

First Nations Histories
Explore links to more than 240 tribal histories categorized by region.

Indian Country Today
Virtually turn the pages of America's largest Native American newspaper.

Native American Nations
Browse through links to tribal nations listed alphabetically.

The Homestead Act
Discover how the Homestead of Act of 1862 affected native peoples. This act promised 160 acres of land to any settler who would live on the acres and farm them. Most of these settlers used the provisions of the act to settle throughout the Great Plains. The Great Plains were, of course, inhabited by many Native American tribes including the Sioux nation, one of the largest of the Native American groups. Have students research some of the reasons why European settlers had difficulty "sharing" the land with Native Americans. Discuss different views of land use such as settlers wanting to stake out and own acres as opposed to the Native American philosophy that men should not "own" the earth but instead should use it wisely for generations to come.

Native American Resources
Find links to many sites including tribal home pages, Native American organizations, Native American colleges, and Native American art and culture.

The California Gold Rush
Learn about the effects that the gold rushes of the 1840s had on native populations. Between 1848 and 1850, it is estimated that 100,000 Native Americans died in California alone as a result of the huge influx of settlers and adventureres seeking their fortune.

Smithsonian : National Museum of the American Indian
Virtually explore rotating exhibits relating to American Indians.

The Paiute People of the Great Basin Desert
Explore the culture of the Paiute peoples of Nevada, California, Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, and Utah.

Southwest Native Americans
Learn about the native peoples of Arizona, New Mexico, Southern Colorado, and the northern part of Mexico. These tribes consisted of the Apache, Hopi, Navajo, Pueblo, and Zuni.

Native American Resources
Learn about the Apache, Blackfoot, Cherokee, Cheyenne, Lakota, and Pueblo tribes. Read about native legends, heros, leaders, and great victories

Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868
Learn about some of the promises that the United States government made to Native Americans. In some of the agreements, such as the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, the government promised that if Native Americans would cease warfare against American forts and against settlers traveling on thoroughfares such as the Oregon Trail, then the government would give the tribes about $50,000 a year--mostly in food and supplies--for 50 years. In this particular instance, Congress later decided that the government would only pay this for 5 years instead of 50. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 promised the Sioux nation that they could retain control over the Black Hills of the Dakotas for "as long as the grass whall gown and the water flow." Have students research if this promise was broken, too. Native Americans were often victimized by unfair treaties and agreements whose conditions were frequently altered--to the detriment of Native Americans.

The Iron Horse
Learn about the impact that the expansion of the railroad across the continent had on Native Americans from ease of transport for settlers and supplies to help them expand to loss of buffalo herds.

WWW Virtual Library - American Indians
Locate dozens and dozens of links about Native American culture, art, history, language, indigenous knowledge, ect.

Map of Turtle Island
Locate where different American Indians on the lived on the continent during the 1500s.

Quotes from Our Native Past
Find quotations from various American Indian leaders. From Sitting Bull, "I am a red man. If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans, in my heart he put other and different desires. Each man is good in his sight. It is not necessary for Eagles to be Crows. We are poor..but we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die...we die defending our rights."

NativeWeb
Explore resources for indiginous cultures around the world.

Native American Indian Resources
Find links to over 300 websites about Native American topics such as herbal knowledge, art, myths and legends, etc.

NativeTech
Explore information about art including beadwork, feathers, pottery, games, toys, clothing, weaving, and stonework.

A Virtual Tour of Southwest American Desert Petroglyphs
Learn about ancient native peoples by viewing the petroglyphs they left behind in the southwestern United States.

Virtual Field Trips are teacher and student-created tours of curricular topics. (You can learn how to use this UEN Virtual Field Trip tool created by UEN for Utah educators).

• Fort Douglas 
• Native American Dwellings

Lesson Plans/Webquests

• Native American History

• Bruchac, Joseph. Many Nations : An Alphabet of Native America. Mahwah, N.J. : Bridgewater Books, c1997.
• Force, Roland W. The American Indians. New York : Chelsea House, c1991.
• Haslam, Andrew. North American Indians. New York : Thomson Learning, 1995.
• Lassieur, Allison. Before the Storm : American Indians Before the Europeans. New York : Facts On File, c1998.
• Miller, Jay. Native Americans. Chicago : Childrens Press, c1993.
• Murdoch, David Hamilton. American Peoples : North American Indian. New York : DK Publishing, 1996.
• Murdoch, David Hamilton. North American Indian. New York : Dorling Kindersley, 2000.
• Smith-Baranzini, Marlene. Book of the American Indians. Boston : Little Brown ; Covelo, Calif : Yolla Bolly Press, c1994.
• Viola, Herman J. North American Indians. New York : Crown Publishers, c1996.