Fun Fact 2: The Native Americans lived in North America for thousands of years before European explorers settled in the region. The culture and lifestyle of the Native Americans had remained primitive and had little changed before the arrival of the Europeans
Fun Fact 3: Native American experts categorized the Native American Indians by location into to ten main groups. The groups are shown by area on the map in the image above
Fun Fact 4: The names of the ten main Native American groups are: the Great Plains Indians, the Northwest Native Americans, the Northeast Woodland Indians, the Southwest Indians, the Southeast Native Americans, the Great Basin Indians, the Plateau Indians, the Arctic and Sub-Arctic Indians and the Native Americans of California
Fun Fact 5: The different Native American groups led different lifestyles which varied depending on the local landscape and weather conditions in the location of each group. Read our facts sheet on Native Indian Homes for more information
Fun Fact 6: Various Native American Tribes spoke different languages - It is estimated that there were many different languages spoken in around 600 different dialects
Fun Fact 7: Native American Language experts grouped the languages of the Native American Tribes into six main regional language groups; Siouan, Aleut, Algonquian, Athabascan, Chinookan and Uto-Azteca
Fun Fact 8: Two of the most famous Indian tribe chiefs are Sitting Bull (Teton Dakota Indian chief) and Crazy Horse (Oglala Sioux Indian chief). Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse fought against the forced removal of Indian tribes from their homes to new territories
Fun Fact 9: Thousands of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors including the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes battled against American forces led by General George Armstrong Custer on June 25-26 1876. The Americans suffered a severe defeat; the battle is commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand
Fun Fact 10: What was the Trail of Tears? Definition: The Trail of Tears was the name chosen to describe to the journey that native American tribes were forced to take as a result of the 1830 Indian Removal Act
Fun Fact 11: The 1830 Removal Act led to the relocation of native Indian populations to Oklahoma. The U.S. government forced tribes from their homes in 1838
Fun Fact 12: The Trail of Tears was a gruesome journey that began in the South-eastern United States and ended in Oklahoma; covering a distance over 1,600 kilometres (1000 miles)
Fun Fact 13: Indian tribes including Cherokee Indians, Chickasaw Indians, Seminole Indians and Choctaw Indians travelled the Trail of tears. Around 100,000 Native Americans survived the gruelling journey; however many thousands died
Fun Fact 14: Some Native American people avoided relocation by hiding in the Allegheny Mountains. During the mid 1800's a protected reservation was set up for them in North Carolina. Two groups of Cherokee tribes still live there; they are called the Eastern and Western Cherokee
Fun Fact 15: How many recognised American tribes are in the U.S. today? There are around 562 federally recognized Indian tribes living in the U.S. today. The largest of these tribes are the Navajo people, followed by the Cherokee and Sioux nation |
