The Real-Life Stories Of Native American Warrior Women Print Collector/Getty Images Native American means
many things. There were an extraordinary number of cultures present within the Americas before European contact. And, unfortunately, there are very few historical records remaining today. Before the first European contact of 1492, there were approximately 60 million people living in the Americas. Today, sources such as the
Daily Herald tell us that there are 562 Native American tribes within the United States alone. It remains a mystery what happened to these cultures between 1492 and now, for a variety of reasons.
First, because histories were transferred orally, they were particularly disruptive to change. Initiatives such as the Trail of Tears led to widespread upheaval of Native American culture. Displaced Native Americans often had their cultures (and histories) erased and eradicated, and records by outsiders lumped them in together.
True West Magazine
The Sioux chief Sitting Bull was arguably the greatest Indian chief of all the tribes in the American West in the 19th century. In the decades since his death, his name has become known to most Americans and treasured by many as the supreme embodiment of Sioux values. He lived from 1831 to 1890. – D.F. Barry, Courtesy Library of Congress –
The Sioux Leader’s Final Flight to Freedom
Sunday, June 25, 1876, was a clear, hot, sunny day in the valley of Montana’s Greasy Grass River, which the white man’s maps labeled the Little Bighorn. Six tribal circles of Lakotas and one of Northern Cheyennes, the coalition of winter roamers, sprawled for nearly three miles down the narrow valley, rimmed on the east by the snow-fed river. The Hunkpapas occupied the extreme upper end of the village, the Cheyennes the lower. In between rose the lodges of Blackfeet, Miniconjou, Sans Arc, Oglala and Brule. It was an unusually large village: 7,000 people, 2,000 warriors, hous