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America, 1491 -

For centuries, Eurocentric history has claimed that the vast continent of North America was sparsely inhabited by disconnected tribes stuck in stalled development. Finally, historians are beginning to realize what Native Americans have always known: the inhabitants of pre-Columbian North America made up thriving, interconnected societies who were experts at living in harmony with their surroundings.

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A continent of tribes, chiefdoms, and cities -

Estimates regarding the population of pre-Columbian North America reach as high as 18 million people. These societies organized themselves in groups of various natures and sizes, from semi-nomadic tribes to vibrant and sedentary cities.

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The Pueblo peoples -

The Pueblo societies of Southwest North America first became culturally distinct around 7,000 years ago. Starting, as most peoples do, as hunter-gatherers, the Pueblo cultures quickly began to settle in sedentary towns and villages. After leaving the nomadic life behind, Pueblo cultures developed sustainable agriculture systems that worked around the seasons.

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The Pueblo peoples -

Pueblo towns, also called pueblos, were built with impressively complex architecture. Using limestone and adobe, Pueblo peoples built large, physically interconnected homes with rooftop-only access in order to protect their goods and families from animals. Underground worship halls, called kivas, were also constructed for the whole town to gather in.

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Taos Pueblo -

One of the largest pueblos in the country is Taos Pueblo, in the state of New Mexico. Taos Pueblo and the larger land of the Eight Northern Pueblos is one of the oldest still-inhabited sites in North America, and counts around 4,500 residents today.

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The Great Plains tribes -

The massive heartland of North America known as the Great Plains has been inhabited by Native Americans for many thousands of years. Skilled hunter-gatherers, most Plains tribes followed the once-populous herds of American bison year round, living semi-nomadic, cyclical lifestyles, constructing and deconstructing small cities on a regular basis.

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The Great Plains tribes -

Much of Great Plains life revolved around bison. Plains peoples made excellent use of these large animals' skins, meats, and bodily fluids, leaving virtually nothing to waste. Even their languages, notably the vastly used Plains Sign Talk, were developed with hunting and quiet coexistence in mind. Considered the lingua franca of the pre-colonial Great Plains, Plains Sign Talk was used to communicate during quiet hunts, religious ceremonies, and inter-tribal trading.

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The Southeastern Woodlands peoples -

The Southeastern Woodlands cultures stretched across the densely wooded and occasionally mountainous land of the Southeastern United States and some of northeastern Mexico.

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The Southeastern Woodlands peoples -

The societies of the Southeastern Woodlands were heavily agricultural, clearing out woodlands for farms while leaving much of their natural surroundings in tact in order to keep the ecosystem upon which they relied so heavily healthy. These societies were some of the largest and most developed in North America. Settlements consisting of thousands of residents lived within a complex system of morals, spiritual beliefs, and social hierarchy.

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The Mississippian culture -

One of the most-studied Southeastern Woodlands cultures is the Mississippian culture. The Mississippian culture was the dominant society for most of the late Woodland Period, which occurred between 500 CE and 1000 CE. They developed some of the earliest artworks ever found in North America.

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Cahokia -

It was this impressively developed Mississippian culture who built the city of Cahokia, which is thought to have been the largest indigenous settlement in pre-Columbian North America. Cahokia served as the center of the larger sphere of influence known as the Ramey State, which is possibly the earliest proper state in North America. At its height, Cahokia is believed to have had a population of 20,000.

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A diverse and developing continent -

Archaeology, ethnography, and anthropology have proven that North America was far from the barbaric wilderness that colonial history tries to suggest. In reality, the continent was home to numerous socially and technologically advanced societies long before the arrival of Europeans.

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The arrival of Columbus -

When Christopher Columbus finally did arrive in continental North America in 1492, the land he claimed for Spain and Europe at large was already thoroughly occupied by its own indigenous residents. Far from marking the beginning of a new world, the arrival of Europeans in North America sounded the death rattle for the rich cultures that had existed in harmony with their land for time immemorial.

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Centuries of freedom fighting -

Violent colonialism that took the form of foreign diseases, ethnic cleansing, and barefaced genocide caused indigenous population counts to drop at catastrophic rates. Some experts say as many as 100 million Native Americans died as a direct result of European colonialism.

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Centuries of freedom fighting -

The post-Columbian history of indigenous Americans is a sad and bloody one, but it is not without its heroes. For over 500 years, Native Americans have fought tirelessly against occupation, oppression, and extinction. From 1492 to the present day, proud and valiant Indigenous Americans have risen up in the name of liberty and autonomy.

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Powhatan -

For many schoolchildren in the United States, Powhatan is the first Native American name they learn. He was the leader of the Algonquian-speaking Powhatan Alliance of around 15,000 individuals that resided in coastal Virginia at the time of the Europeans' arrival at Jamestown in 1607. The father of Matoaka, better known as Pocahontas, Powhatan is remembered in both indigenous and colonial histories as a wise leader who acted with empathy and humanity in his interactions with the European newcomers.

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Tecumseh -

The Shawnee chief Tecumseh, born around 1768, learned from the successes and mistakes made by Powhatan more than a century prior. Tecumseh fought tirelessly against colonial expansion and oppression, and united hundreds of thousands of Indigenous Americans under the Tecumseh Confederacy, the influence of which spanned most of the American and Canadian Great Lakes regions.

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Sequoyah -

Cherokee silversmith, artist, and linguist Sequoyah was born around 1770, in present-day Tennessee. Sequoyah gave his Cherokee people one of the greatest gifts conceivable: a written language. Sequoyah worked for more than a decade developing a written language to accompany the ancient and widely-spoken Cherokee language.

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Sequoyah -

Sequoyah's Cherokee syllabary consisted of 85 characters to match spoken Cherokee linguistics. This development made it possible for colonial literature and publications to be translated into an indigenous language for the first time, allowing Cherokee speakers to inform themselves on the activity, news, and plans of their colonizers.

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Chief Black Kettle -

A chief of the Southern Cheyenne tribes near the Black Hills of present-day South Dakota, Chief Black Kettle was a generational hero of the American Frontier Wars that began in 1609. Black Kettle was known to always prioritizing the safety of his people, and helped pen numerous treaties that saved the lives of thousands.

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Cochise -

Cochise is undoubtedly one of the most famous Indigenous Americans in the history of the continent. The leader of the Chiricahua Apache, Cochise led a valiant and often successful resistance against invading European forces from the south and the east. In 1861, during the Apache Wars, Cochise sparked a decade-long militant uprising against European occupation until they submitted to a peace treaty in 1872.

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Chief Gall -

Born around 1840, Chief Gall of the Lakota people of the American West was one of the primary heroes of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, which is known in indigenous communities as the Battle of the Greasy Grass. Fighting alongside chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, Gall successfully defeated the United States military forces in what is remembered today as one of the greatest Native American victories of post-Columbian American history.

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Crazy Horse -

There was no greater hero of Little Bighorn, however, than Chief Crazy Horse of the Oglala Lakota tribe. The proud and skilled leader not only led the war party to victory on that day, but was also instrumental in the success of the Fetterman Fight a decade earlier, where indigenous forces wiped out no less than 80 US soldiers, only losing a tenth of that number themselves.

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Chief Victorio -

Chief Victorio, of the Tchihendeh Apaches, led a small band of Indigenous Americans in a long and solitary fight of resistance against the colonial forces of what is now New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, and parts of Northern Mexico. After leaving the reservation land they had been relegated to, for an entire year between 1879 and 1880, Victorio and his impossibly small army of less than 200 warriors clashed with US and Mexican militaries in more than two dozen battles, successfully waging guerilla warfare against their far better equipped enemies. This conflict is now known as Victorio's War, in honor of the man who refused to give up his fight for liberation.

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Lozen -

Victorio's winning streak surely would not have lasted as long as it did if it weren't for his courageous and enigmatic sister, Lozen. Known as both a warrior and a wisewoman amongst the indigenous communities whom she encountered, Lozen is believed to have been granted the spiritual gift of anticipating the movements of colonial military factions. Not only a clairvoyant,  Lozen was also one of the bravest warriors in Victorio's band and was instrumental in many of their victories. Lozen outlived her brother, and remained a prominent leader and protector until she was eventually captured and died of tuberculosis in captivity.

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Wovoka and the Ghost Dance -

Wovoka was born into the Paiute culture of the Californian and Nevadan desert. Unlike many other heroes on this list, Wovoka wasn't a leader in physical battles, but was a militant spiritual leader who developed one of the most prominent ceremonies in an otherwise ancient religious system: the Ghost Dance. The Ghost Dance was developed by Wovoka to call on the spirits of the dead, and to allow the living to draw upon their strength in an explicit effort to stop the spread of colonialism. Since Wovoka's days in the late 19th century, the Ghost Dance was been performed before some of the most important events in modern Native American history.

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The Battle of Wounded Knee -

Wounded Knee Creek, in present-day South Dakota, is one of the most important sites in the indigenous fight for liberation. In 1890, it was the site of a massacre known as the Battle of Wounded Knee. In the cold dead of winter, nearly 300 indigenous warriors and civilians were rounded up in the Wounded Knee compound and summarily murdered by a US Army force of nearly 500.

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The Wounded Knee Occupation -

More than a century later, American Indian Movement (AIM) activists and members of the Oglala Lakota returned to the site of the massacre, now the town of Wounded Knee, and staged an occupation for no less than 71 days, fending off pressure from the US Marshals and the FBI. The federal government shut off the water and electricity to the town, and numerous shootouts between activists and authorities occurred during the siege, resulting in the deaths of two activists.

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Wilma Mankiller -

Wilma Mankiller, born in 1945, was the first woman to be elected as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. She was one of the greatest Native American heroes of the 20th century, having participated in the Occupation of Alcatraz as a young woman and later championing the construction of water works over vast amounts of reservation land that previously had had no access to clean water.

Sources: (Native Hope) (Biography) (Legends of America)

See also: A history of Thanksgiving from the Native American perspective

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