
The Southeast Indian tribes occupied the area along the south of the eastern coast. This area was very fertile, so the tribes living in this area usually practiced agriculture. They grew a number of crops such as tobacco, maize and beans. Notable Native American tribes in the southeast included the Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Cherokee.
Full Answer
What Native American tribes lived on the eastern shore?
In 1668 the main tribes of the Eastern Shore were the Wicomiss, Choptanks, Nanticokes, and the Pocomokes and Assateagues. The Wicomiss lived near Chicone, situated close to the modern town of Vienna.
What are some facts about the southeast Indian tribes?
The Southeast Indian tribes occupied the area along the south of the eastern coast. This area was very fertile, so the tribes living in this area usually practiced agriculture. They grew a number of crops such as tobacco, maize and beans. Notable Native American tribes in the southeast included the Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Cherokee.
Where did Native Americans settle in North Carolina?
Native American ancestors walked on that land from present-day Siberia to Alaska. Evidence suggests that their population grew rapidly and that they settled throughout Canada, the Great Plains, and the Eastern Woodlands, which included the North Carolina area. The climate on the eastern seaboard was wetter and cooler twelve thousand years ago.
How many Native Americans lived on the Atlantic Coast?
The land along the Atlantic Coast was inhabited long before the first English settlers set foot in North America. There were more than two dozen Native American groups living in the southeast region, loosely defined as spreading from North Carolina to the Gulf of Mexico.

What Native Americans lived on the East coast?
The confederacy consists of the Mohawk, Cayuga, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca and Tuscarora tribes. The area that is now the states of New Jersey and Delaware was inhabited by the Lenni-Lenape or Delaware, who were also an Algonquian people.
When did Native Americans get to the East coast?
The ancestors of living Native Americans arrived in what is now the United States at least 15,000 years ago, possibly much earlier, from Asia via Beringia. A vast variety of peoples, societies and cultures subsequently developed.
Where did the Native Americans originally settle?
Native American ancestors walked on that land from present-day Siberia to Alaska. Evidence suggests that their population grew rapidly and that they settled throughout Canada, the Great Plains, and the Eastern Woodlands, which included the North Carolina area.
Where did the Eastern Native Americans live?
Where are the Eastern Woodlands? Eastern Woodlands Native American tribes lived in a region that began near the Atlantic Ocean in the East of America to the Mississippi River in the West. To the north, the region extended as far as Canada, and it went all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico in the south.
Where does Native American DNA come from?
Previous genetic work had suggested the ancestors of Native Americans split from Siberians and East Asians about 25,000 years ago, perhaps when they entered the now mostly drowned landmass of Beringia, which bridged the Russian Far East and North America.
Where did the Native Americans live?
American Indians are often further grouped by area of residence: Northern America (present-day United States and Canada), Middle America (present-day Mexico and Central America; sometimes called Mesoamerica), and South America.
How did the American Indian lose their land?
Within a few decades, the Supreme Court made rulings stripping Native American nations of their rights — including the right to be treated as foreign nations of equal sovereignty. In 1830, US Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, forcing many indigenous peoples east of the Mississippi from their lands.
Did Cherokee take scalps?
Eastern tribes such as the Creeks and Cherokees were known to have incorporated scalping into their activities, but it appears to have been most common among the Plains Indians. For all Native Americans who practiced scalping, it was important for purposes of symbolism and retribution.
Who were the first Native Americans?
The earliest populations in the Americas, before roughly 10,000 years ago, are known as Paleo-Indians. Indigenous peoples of the Americas have been linked to Siberian populations by linguistic factors, the distribution of blood types, and in genetic composition as reflected by molecular data, such as DNA.
What happened to Native Americans on the East Coast?
Indian removal was the United States government policy of forced displacement of self-governing tribes of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands in the eastern United States to lands west of the Mississippi River – specifically, to a designated Indian Territory (roughly, present-day Oklahoma).
How many tribes are on the East Coast?
The Eastern Region encompasses a dynamic and diverse mix of Tribes and natural resources. There are over 62,000 Tribal Members that make up the 34 Tribes under the Eastern Region's jurisdiction.
What do Native Americans call themselves?
The consensus, however, is that whenever possible, Native people prefer to be called by their specific tribal name. In the United States, Native American has been widely used but is falling out of favor with some groups, and the terms American Indian or Indigenous American are preferred by many Native people.
When did the Trail of Tears start?
1831 – 1850Trail of Tears / Period
How many Native American tribes were there before 1492?
The People. In 1492 the native population of North America north of the Rio Grande was seven million to ten million. These people grouped themselves into approximately six hundred tribes and spoke diverse dialects.
Why did Native American population decline so rapidly after 1492?
War and violence. While epidemic disease was by far the leading cause of the population decline of the American indigenous peoples after 1492, there were other contributing factors, all of them related to European contact and colonization. One of these factors was warfare.
How did the American Indian lose their land?
Within a few decades, the Supreme Court made rulings stripping Native American nations of their rights — including the right to be treated as foreign nations of equal sovereignty. In 1830, US Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, forcing many indigenous peoples east of the Mississippi from their lands.
What were the Nanticoke Native Americans known for?
The Nanticoke Native Americans were known as the ‘tidewater people’ or ‘ the people of the tidewaters’. It makes sense – they occupied areas along the water of the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The same area many call ‘home’ today was once home to nearly 200 warriors.
What is the totem pole in Ocean City?
The 25-foot hand-chiseled totem pole that stands watching over the incoming ships, tourists, and fisherman at Inlet Park in downtown Ocean City was a gift to the State of Maryland. The carving, completed in 1976, represents an Assateague Indian. The Assateague Indians called the shores of Maryland and Virginia home until the mid-1700’s.
What are the teepees at Fort Whaley?
The teepees outside of the campground are a quite the site. Although local Indian tribes built wigwams to shelter their belongings and themselves from Eastern Shore weather, the teepees are an icon of Native American tradition. Campers can sleep in teepees or wigwams of other sorts at Fort Whaley – tents. A primitive pitched tent can be set up at the campground for only $22 per night.
Why did Peter Toth create 50 totem poles?
World-famous artist, Peter Toth, created 50 totem poles – one in each state – to promote unity among all people. The carving of the Assateague Indian was placed in the Inlet Park as a tribute to the Native American Culture that once thrived in Ocean City.
Is the Nanticoke Indian Center open?
The Nanticoke Indian Center is utilized for regular monthly tribal meetings and is open to members for family dinners or gatherings. It is also open for church and community events and youth group meetings and practices by reservation. The Native American Museum has seasonal hours. The museum in open for free tours: Tuesday – Saturday from 10 am – 4 pm and on Sunday from 12 – 4 pm.
Why did Native Americans resist the Europeans?
They resisted the efforts of the Europeans to gain more of their land and control through both warfare and diplomacy. But problems arose for the Native Americans, which held them back from their goal, including new diseases, the slave trade, and the ever-growing European population in North America. In the 17 th century, as European nations ...
What made Native Americans vulnerable?
Another aspect of the colonial era that made the Native Americans vulnerable was the slave trade. As a result of the wars between the European nations, Native Americans allied with the losing side were often indentured or enslaved. There were even Native Americans shipped out of colonies like South Carolina into slavery in other places, like Canada.
What is the definition of colonialism?
Noun. people or groups united for a specific purpose. colonial expansion. Noun. spread of a foreign authority over other territories, usually through the establishment of settlement communities. colonialism. Noun. type of government where a geographic area is ruled by a foreign power. confine.
Which two groups were allied in the French and Indian War?
Some famous alliances were formed during the French and Indian War of 1754–1763. The English allied with the Iroquois Confederacy, while the Algonquian-speaking tribes joined forces with the French and the Spanish. The English won the war, and claimed all of the land east of the Mississippi River.
What were the consequences of allying with Europeans?
Another consequence of allying with Europeans was that Native Americans were often fighting neighboring tribes. This caused rifts that kept some Native American tribes from working together to stop European takeover.
How did European settlement affect Native Americans?
Settlement by European Americans also pushed many Native Americans off their land. Some made treaties with the Whites, giving up land and moving farther west. Others fought back in battle but lost and were forced to give up their lands. These battles, as well as war with other Native American tribes, also killed many.
Where did the Woodland Indians live?
Though remains of their settlements can be found throughout North Carolina, these Indians tended to live in semi permanent villages in stream valleys.
What happened to the Tuscarora after the war?
As a result, while returning to South Carolina, Barnwell’s troops killed some Tuscarora, captured about two hundred Tuscarora women and children, and sold them into slavery for the money. The Tuscarora retaliated by attacking more towns. The Tuscarora were defeated in a 1713 battle at Fort Noherooka (in present-day Greene County ). Up to one thousand four hundred Tuscarora had been killed in the war . Another one thousand had been captured and sold into slavery. Many of the surviving Tuscarora left North Carolina and settled in New York and Canada.
What was the name of the settlement that took up more of the Tuscarora land?
The settlement of New Bern in 1710 took up even more of the Tuscarora land and may have provoked the Tuscarora Indian War (1711–1714). In 1711 the Tuscarora attacked White settlements along the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers. They were defeated in 1712 by an army led by Colonel John Barnwell of South Carolina.
Where did the Tuscarora live?
But the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora stayed, living in villages along the Pamlico and Neuse River s.
Where do the Cherokee live?
Together, their descendants make up the Eastern Band of the Cherokee and now live in the Qualla Boundary, a reservation in five different counties in western North Carolina. Several other modern Native American groups, such as the Lumbee, the Haliwa-Saponi, and the Coharie, live in North Carolina.
What did the Archaic people do?
They traveled widely on foot to gather food, to obtain raw materials for making tools or shelters, and to visit and trade with neighbors. Some Archaic people may have used watercraft, particularly canoes made by digging out the centers of trees.
Who inhabited the Americas?
Long before Christopher Columbus stepped foot on what would come to be known as the Americas, the expansive territory was inhabited by Native Americans. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries, as more explorers sought to colonize their land, Native Americans responded in various ...read more
Why did the Southeast lose its native people?
By the time the U.S. had won its independence from Britain, the Southeast culture area had already lost many of its native people to disease and displacement . In 1830, the federal Indian Removal Act compelled the relocation of what remained of the Five Civilized Tribes so that white settlers could have their land.
What did the Inuit and Aleut people use to make their homes?
The Inuit and Aleut had a great deal in common. Many lived in dome-shaped houses made of sod or timber (or, in the North, ice blocks). They used seal and otter skins to make warm, weatherproof clothing, aerodynamic dogsleds and long, open fishing boats (kayaks in Inuit; baidarkas in Aleut).
How did the fur trade disrupt the Subarctic?
The growth of the fur trade in the 17th and 18th centuries disrupted the Subarctic way of life—now, instead of hunting and gathering for subsistence, the Indians focused on supplying pelts to the European traders—and eventually led to the displacement and extermination of many of the region’s native communities.
What were the main means of transportation in the subarctic?
In the Subarctic, travel was difficult—toboggans, snowshoes and lightweight canoes were the primary means of transportation—and population was sparse. In general, the peoples of the Subarctic did not form large permanent settlements; instead, small family groups stuck together as they traipsed after herds of caribou.
What is the Arctic culture?
The Arctic culture area, a cold, flat, treeless region (actually a frozen desert) near the Arctic Circle in present-day Alaska, Canada and Greenland, was home to the Inuit and the Aleut. Both groups spoke, and continue to speak, dialects descended from what scholars call the Eskimo-Aleut language family. Because it is such an inhospitable landscape, the Arctic’s population was comparatively small and scattered. Some of its peoples, especially the Inuit in the northern part of the region, were nomads, following seals, polar bears and other game as they migrated across the tundra. In the southern part of the region, the Aleut were a bit more settled, living in small fishing villages along the shore.
How many people lived in the Americas?
In fact, by the time European adventurers arrived in the 15th century A.D., scholars estimate that more than 50 million people were already living in the Americas. Of these, some 10 million lived in the area that would become the United States. As time passed, these migrants and their descendants pushed south and east, adapting as they went.
Where did the Northeast Indians live?
The Northeast Indians lived near the coastal areas and adjacent inlands in the northeast. Since the European settlers first arrived at the northeast, the Northeast Indians were among the first to encounter them.
What tribes were forced to relocate to government settlements?
Others, such as the warlike Apache and the Navajo, relied more on hunting and raiding. Once the southwest became a part of USA, the Native American tribes soon found themselves confronted by the U.S. armies. They put up a fight for sometime before being forced to relocate to government settlements.
What are the subarctic Indians?
Subarctic Indians are the Native Americans who have traditionally lived close to the arctic region. They occupied an area which mostly comprised of tundra, forests of pines as well as swampy areas. Notable subarctic Native American tribes include the Cree, Naskapi and Ojibwa.
What tribes lived in the subarctic?
Notable subarctic Native American tribes include the Cree, Naskapi and Ojibwa. Living in the subarctic region was hard, so each tribe had a small population.
What tribes lived in California?
These tribes mainly practiced hunting to sustain themselves. Notable California tribes included Chumash, Karuk, Hupa, Miwok, and Mohave. Spanish explorers arrived in the region as early as 16th century.
What tribes lived in the Great Plains?
Notable Native American tribes living in the area included Crow, Dakota, Comanche, Blackfoot, Lakota, Pawnee, Omaha and Missouri. When white settlers started arriving in the Great Plains, they also started hunting the buffaloes in large numbers.
What are the Native American tribes in North America?
The Native American tribes in North America are usually categorized by region. The region in which each tribe lived had a great effect on the lifestyle and other aspects of that tribe. In all, the tribes are usually divided up into the following areas by region.
What did tribes do in the spring?
In the spring and summer, many tribes lived in temporary shelters that could be moved around while they hunted, fished, and gathered berries and roots. During winter, people moved into cedar houses that were large enough for many families to share. Often these homes had totem poles outside.
Where did people live in the past 10,000 years?
About 10,000 years ago, people began living on North America’s Northwest Coast, a narrow area along the Pacific Ocean that stretches across parts of modern-day Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Yukon and British Columbia in Canada. By 3,000 B.C., people had set up permanent villages along the rivers, peninsulas, ...
What tribes have totem poles?
Many tribes, such as the Tlingit (KLIN-kit) and Haida (HY-dah), showed off their status with totem poles. These carved and painted poles represented a family’s history or honored a chief or other important person. The totem poles featured carvings of animals or supernatural creatures associated with family clans.
Why did the tribes have a salmon ceremony?
Salmon was such an important food source that these fish featured in many of their stories, and many tribes held a First Salmon Ceremony to celebrate the salmon’s return to freshwater rivers from the ocean.
Where is the whale sculpture in Washington?
This whale sculpture sits outside the S’Klallam community center in Washington.
What tribes have a YouTube channel?
For instance, the Puyallup (pyoo-AH-lup) tribe has a YouTube channel with videos of events such as the Puyallup powwow. Fish have become part of many of modern tribal businesses: The S’klallam (SKLAH-lum) and the Stillaguamish (stil-AG-wa-mish) operate fish hatcheries.
What Native American tribes lived in the southeast?
These groups included the Chickasaw (CHIK-uh-saw), Choctaw (CHAWK-taw), Creek (CREEK), Cherokee (CHAIR-oh-kee), and Seminole (SEH-min-ohl). By the time of European contact, most ...
What did Europeans see as inferior to Native Americans?
Europeans viewed even the most “civilized” tribes as inferior, however, and waves of European immigrants encroached on the Native Americans’ land. The southeastern groups signed treaties to cede land to the colonies and moved, only to be followed by new settlers looking for new land.
What did the Cherokee do with the colonization?
With colonization came a desire to convert Native Americans to Christianity and to encourage (or force) them to adopt European cultures and traditions. These efforts were more successful in the Southeast than most parts of North America; indeed, ...
What did the Native Americans grow?
By the time of European contact, most of these Native American groups had settled in villages of 500 people or fewer, and grew corn, beans, squash, sunflowers, greens, tobacco, and other crops. The southeast Native Americans also gathered berries, nuts, wild plants, and roots from the surrounding forests. For the most part, women tended the fields ...
What are the 5 southeastern nations?
These efforts were more successful in the Southeast than most parts of North America; indeed, five southeastern nations (the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole) later became known as the “Five Civilized Tribes.”. Europeans viewed even the most “civilized” tribes as inferior, however, and waves of European immigrants encroached on ...
What tribes lived in the Northeast?
Although many Siouan-speaking tribes once lived in the Northeast culture area, only the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) people continue to reside there in large numbers. Most tribes within the Sioux nation moved west in the 16th and 17th centuries, as the effects of colonialism rippled across the continent.
What is Northeast Indian?
Northeast Indian, member of any of the Native American peoples living at the time of European contact in the area roughly bounded in the north by the transition from predominantly deciduous forest to the taiga, in the east by the Atlantic Ocean, in the west by the Mississippi River valley, and in the south by an arc from ...
Why did the Iroquois Confederacy free the tribes?
The Iroquois Confederacy was a league of peace to its members, yet peace within the league also freed the tribes of the Confederacy to focus their military power on the conquest of other indigenous groups. Military activities were a primary occupation among men throughout the Northeast, and military honours were the primary gauge of a man’s status within many tribes. Raids provided room for expansion as well as captive women and children; such captives were often adopted into the tribe in order to replace family members lost to death or capture. Captive adult men, however, generally fared less well than women and children. Among the Iroquois Confederacy, other Iroquoian speakers, and perhaps a few Algonquian groups, men taken during raids might be either tortured to death or adopted into the tribe. If the captive had been taken to compensate for a murder, his fate was usually determined by the family of the deceased. If their decision was to torture, the captive tried to avoid crying out, a practice that contributed to the stereotypeof the stoicism among indigenous Americans. Among the Iroquois it was not uncommon to close the event by cannibalizing the body, a practice that alienated surrounding tribes.
What tribes were put on the defensive to repel the Confederacy?
A prominent example was an alliance known as the Wendat Confederacy, which comprised several Huron bands and the Tionontati. The Wenrohronon and the Neutral tribes also formed loose defensive coalitions. Ultimately, however, these alliances proved ineffective. The Iroquois Confederacy conquered the Wendat in 1648–50, the Neutrals in 1651, the Erie in 1656, and the Susquehannock in 1676.
What was the original intent of the Iroquois Confederacy?
Library of Congress, Rare Book Division, Washington, D.C. The original intent of the coalition was to establish peace among the member tribes.
What was the most powerful political organization in the Northeast?
The most elaborate and powerful political organization in the Northeast was that of the Iroquois Confederacy. A loose coalition of tribes, it originally comprised the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca. Later the Tuscarora joined as well.
What languages were spoken in the Northeast?
Of the three language families represented in the Northeast, Algonquian groups were the most widely distributed. Their territories comprised the entire region except the areas immediately surrounding Lakes Erie and Ontario, some parts of the present-day states of Wisconsin and Minnesota, and a portion of the interior of present-day Virginia and North Carolina. The major speakers of Algonquian languages include the Passamaquoddy, Malecite, Mi’kmaq (Micmac) Abenaki, Penobscot, Pennacook, Massachuset, Nauset, Wampanoag, Narragansett, Niantic, Pequot, Mohegan, Nipmuc, Pocomtuc, Mohican (Mahican), Wappinger, Montauk, Delaware, Powhatan, Ojibwa, Menominee, Sauk, Kickapoo, Miami, Shawnee, and Illinois.

The Native People of The Eastern Shore, as Told by…
Native American Way of Life
- In the 17thcentury the Native Americans of the Eastern Shore were very matriarchal society, and women did most of the planting and gathering, which included mainly corn, beans, and squash. They prepared other foods like smoked fish, shellfish, ground nuts, corn and Tuckahoe tubers for baking bread. They made meals out of rabbit, beaver, deer, squirrels, birds, and even woodchuck…
The Quest For Land
- From the time Captain John Smith first made contact and encountered Powhatan, relations between the Europeans and the Indians went through alternating periods of peace and upheaval. Initially, the colonists relied heavily on the Indians for food when they began to make settlements—as was the case in Jamestown, VA, and the more famous story of the Pilgrims an…
Indian Towns, and Where Are They Now?
- In 1668 the main tribes of the Eastern Shore were the Wicomiss, Choptanks, Nanticokes, and the Pocomokes and Assateagues. The Wicomiss lived near Chicone, situated close to the modern town of Vienna. The Choptanks occupied the South Side of the Choptank River around what is now Cambridge. The Nanticoke, the largest tribe, were located on the Nantic...
The Final Outcome, and The Return of Pocahontas
- The devastation of the Indian Tribes on the Eastern Shore was only in part due to fighting and colonization. The largest factor in destruction was the unseen threat the English brought with them in the form of viruses – small pox, measles, influenza and whooping cough as the main culprits, killed an alarming number of Indians. They had no natural or acquired immunity to thes…
Modern Day Traces
- Today, The Nabb Center in Salisbury has a great number of artifacts gathered from area farms. But for an area once covered with towns and camps of native people, there should be more evidence. Dr. Thompson explained, “As the land was taken over by farmers, there would be artifacts and pottery that would be tilled up, and they thought nothing of it. It wasn’t until the mi…
Prehistoric Native Americans
Historic Native Americans
- Most of the Indian groups met by early European explorers were practicing economic and settlement patterns of the Woodland culture. They grew crops of maize, tobacco, beans, and squash, spent considerable time hunting and fishing, and lived in small villages. In 1550, before the arrival of the first permanent European settlers, more than one hundre...
Tuscarora
- In the Coastal Plain Region, most of the smaller Algonquian-speaking tribes moved westward in the face of growing numbers of white settlers. But the Iroquoian-speaking Tuscarora stayed, living in villages along the Pamlico and Neuse Rivers. Tensions between White settlers and the Tuscarora increased as White settlements in the Coastal Plain grew. European settlers would no…
Catawba
- In the Piedmont Region, the Siouan-speaking Catawba Indians were friendly to the settlers. But disease, especially smallpox, killed many. War with neighboring tribes also reduced their number. Of the five thousand Catawba estimated to have been living in the Carolinas in the early 1600s, fewer than three hundred remained in 1784.
Cherokee
- In the Mountain Region lived the Cherokee. At the start of the French and Indian War (1754–1763), they joined the British and the colonists in fighting the French. But when some Cherokee were killed by Virginia settlers, the Cherokee began attacking White settlements along the Yadkin and Catawba Rivers. They were defeated and made peace in 1761. In return for this peace, the Britis…