Les Amérindiens / Native American History

How Hollywood has portrayed Native Americans

Selected tribes c. 1500

Source: Norton Anthology of American Literature, 8th ed.

Last Ice Age: 75,000-10,000 BCE(Before the Common Era).

Arrival of « first Americans »?

Clovis spear point

British Museum

For hunting large game: mammoth, mastodon, caribou, bison (also called buffalo)

Oldest points date to 10,000 BCE

Bison hunting

Painting by George Catlin, 1844

Desert Southwest

• 1500 BCE: maize (corn) introduced from Mexico

• 1000 BCE: squash and beans introduced from Mexico

• 200 CE: permanent villages• 500 CE: extensive irrigation: « Hohokam »

culture

Desert Southwest

Late 17th-early 18th century kiva in Pecos, New Mexico

Irrigation system

Casa Grande (1300s)

Compound, c. 1400

Ruins ofGreat House, c. 1890

Source: National Park Service

Desert Southwest

Chaco Canyon (10th-13th century CE)

Mesa Verde (550 CE- 1300 CE)

Source: National Park Service

After the drought

• Anasazi -> Pueblo Indians in New Mexico• Hohokam -> Pima and Papago Indians in

Arizona• Joined by new groups: Apache and Navajo

Eastern Woodlands

Poverty Point, 1000 BCE-700 BCE

Source: Louisiana State Parks

Source: Encyclopedia Britannica

Turn toward agriculture: 700 CE-1000 CEMaize, squash and beans

Mississippian trade center

Artistic reconstructions of Cahokia at its peak c. 1050 CE

Cahokia

Cahokia today

Artist reconstruction c. 1050 CE

Selected tribes c. 1500

Source: Norton Anthology of American Literature, 8th ed.

The Iroquois

• Mohawk• Oneida• Onondaga• Cayuga• Seneca (14th century?): The Iroquois Confederacy

Red Jacket (Sa-go-ye-wa-tha)

1835 lithograph after a painting by Charles Bird King