Native American
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Native Americans in the United States
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Native Americans
and Alaska Natives
Collection of Native American Images
Total population
American Indian and Alaska Native
One race: 2.5 million[1]
In combination with one or more other races: 1.6 million[2]
Regions with significant populations
United States
(predominantly the West and South)
Languages
American English
Native American languages
Religion
Native American Church
Protestant
Sacred Pipe
Kiva Religion
Long House
Roman Catholic
Russian Orthodox
Related ethnic groups
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska. They comprise a large number of distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as intact political communities. There has been a wide range of terms used to describe them and no consensus has been reached among indigenous members as to what they prefer to be called collectively. They have been known as American Indians, Amerindians, Amerinds, Aboriginal, Indians, Indigenous, Original Americans, Red Indians, or Red Men.
European colonization of the Americas was a period of conflict between Old and New World cultures. Most of the written historical record about Native Americans began with European contact. Ideologies clashed, old world diseases decimated, religious institutions challenged, and technologies were exchanged in what would be one of the greatest and most devastating meetings of cultures in the history of the world. Native Americans lived in hunter/farmer subsistence societies with much fewer societal constraints and institutional structures, and much less focus on material goods and market transactions, than the rigid, institutionalized,...
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