A SURVEY OF AMERICAN HISTORY

Unit 1: Colonialism and NationhoodPart 2: Native American Civilizations

NATIVE AMERICAN CIVILIZATIONS

Native Americans were hunter-gatherers organized into tribes. Each tribe was ruled by a chief or sachem who rose to leadership based largely on his successes in warfare.

Tribes were comprised of clans that established villages throughout tribal territory. Clans were understood to be related members of a tribal family, and so they could not attack or arrange marriage with other clans in the tribe.

Social Structures

IMPORTANT TRIBES AND LANGUAGE GROUPS

Algonquian (Pequot and Powhatan)Iroquois (Mohawk)Muskogean (Cherokee and Choctaw)Sioux (Lakota)

Algonquian Tribes of the NortheastMassachusettQuinnipacPequotNarragansettMoheganWampanoagLenape / Delaware

Algonquian Tribes of the WestShawneeMiamiOjibwe / Chippewa OttawaArapahoBlackfootCheyenne

ALGONQUIAN TRIBES

The Five Nations of the Iroquois ConfederacySenecaCayugaOnondagaOneidaMohawkTuscarora (after 1722)

IROQUOIS TRIBES

POLITICAL STATUS OF THE IROQUOIS

• The Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee) established a formal political union between the Seneca, the Cayuga, the Onondaga, the Oneida, and the Mohawk tribes, and later the Tuscarora tribe as well.

• According to tribal legend, the Haudenosaunee was created by a thirteenth century Huron prophet known as the Great Peacemaker (Deganawida) and his first convert and follower, a Mohawk or Onondaga man known as Hiawatha.

POLITICAL STATUS OF THE IROQUOIS

• The legend holds that the Great Peacemaker received a vision of the Five Nations working together in peace and harmony. He then made the first steps towards unifying the five warring tribes, but he suffered from a speech impediment that stopped him from persuading them to establish a lasting peace. Hiawatha, however, was a charismatic and persuasive orator, and so he managed to succeed where the Great Peacemaker had failed.

POLITICAL STATUS OF THE IROQUOIS

• The final result was a union of various political entities who shared an official constitution that outlined a formal power structure to which they were required to submit.

• This constitution stands as a record of the first political arrangement of this sort to emerge in North America, and eventually it would go on to influence the union of the colonies that became the United States of America.

IMPORTANT TRIBES OF NEW ENGLAND

The Pequot and the Wampanoag

IMPORTANT TRIBES OF CHESAPEAKE BAY

The Powhatan Confederacy

A SURVEY OF AMERICAN HISTORY

Unit 1: Colonialism and NationhoodPart 2: Native American Civilizations