Pre-Columbian Civilization - North American Indians Before Europeans

Pre-Columbian Civilization - North American Indians Before Europeans
Watch this video for an overview of the cultural groups of Native Americans as they lived at the time of first contact with Europeans. Some of these groupings, like the tribes of the plains, changed so much due to the addition of European influences, such as horses, that there is only conjecture as to how exactly they lived before European contact.
A Vast Land with Many Peoples
First, we have to recognize that this is a U.S. History course - to give complete details of the many nations that existed in what is today the U.S. is far beyond our scope. To give you an idea of the diverse cultures that inhabited the land before Europeans arrived, we'll be discussing the cultural groups of Native Americans, not in all of North America, but instead just those within the Lower 48. We'll be looking at the following cultural groups: Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, Northwest Coast, and Great Plains.

There are a few more groupings, but this is a manageable list that should illustrate how unique these different groups are.

The Tribes of the Northeast
First, the tribes of the Northeast - these are the tribes that encountered the Pilgrims. Remember, Columbus never even touched the shores of what is today the U.S., so these people are completely different from those who were first encountered by the early explorers.

The tribes of the Northeast lived in the territory from the Atlantic shores to the Mississippi Valley and from the Great Lakes to as far south as the Cumberland River in Tennessee. The people in this group include the Iroquois and the Algonquian. These tribes relied on each other for a very long time for trade but also spent a great deal of time as warring enemies.

Depiction of Native Americans belonging to Northeast tribes
Northeast Tribe Images
The Northeast tribes cleared forests to plant crops and used the lumber to build homes and make tools. The women of many of these tribes did all of the work with crops, while the men primarily hunted and fished.

An interesting note on the Iroquois social structure is that it was matrilineal. This means when a couple married, the man joined the woman's family. After marriage, the man was no longer considered a part of his birth family. This family structure was not completely unique to the Iroquois, but it certainly would have seemed odd to European settlers.

The Iroquois League is quite famous because it is believed that the coming together of the 13 colonies was based on this coming together of this group consisting of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, and the Mohawk tribes. The League of the Iroquois was feared by all other tribes of the region.

The Tribes of the Southeast
Next, the tribes of the Southeast - the Southeast cultural group stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Trinity River in what is today Texas and from the Gulf of Mexico north as far as points in modern-day Missouri, Kentucky, and West Virginia.

The tribes in this group included the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole. These are the people who would be referred to by whites as 'the Five Civilized Tribes.' They were given this title because many of them decided to adopt customs of the colonists. They are also the people who later were victims of the forced relocation known as the Trail of Tears.

The Southeastern tribes settled in river valleys. They were first and foremost farmers with hunting and fishing coming in second as their source of sustenance. They lived in various styles of houses. They included thatched roofs and various styles for the sides.

A typical dwelling for the Southwestern Navajo
Southwest Indian Tribe Homes
The Tribes of the Southwest
Many people have interesting, or should I say very incorrect, images of this next group, the Southwestern tribes. This is because old movies oftentimes used images of these tribes, but the imagery was often incorrect. They would use imagery from the Plains Indians because they're so well-known. So many films show an Apache family happily standing next to their teepee… this could not be farther from accurate!

The Southwest cultural group territory goes from the south of present-day Utah and Colorado down through Arizona and New Mexico. This includes parts of Texas, California, and Oklahoma and continues into Mexico. These tribes all have the dry climate binding them together as a group.