Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico

Hodge, Frederick Webb, Compiler. The Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico. Bureau of American Ethnology, Government Printing Office. 1906.

Clatsop Tribe

Clatsop Indians. A Chinookan tribe formerly about Creek Adams on the south side of the Columbia River and extending up the river as far as Tongue Point and south along the coast to Tillamook Head, Oregon.

Clallam Tribe

Clallam Indians (strong people). A Salish tribe living on the south side of Puget Sound, Washington, formerly extending from Port Discovery to Hoko River.

Clackama Tribe

Clackama Indians. A Chinookan tribe formerly occupying several villages on Clackamas Alaska river, in Clackamas County, Oregon…

Chumashan Family

Chumashan Family. A linguistic family on the coast of south California, known also as Santa Barbara Indians. Like most Californian aborigines, they appear to have lacked an appellation of general significance, and the term Chumash, the name of the Santa Rosa islanders, is arbitrarily chosen for convenience to designate the linguistic stock. Seven dialects of this family are known, those of San Luis Obispo, Purísima, Santa Inez, Santa Barbara, and San Buenaventura missions, and of Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz islands. These are fairly similar except the San Luis Obispo, which stands apart. It is probable that there were other … Read more

Christian Tribe

Christanna Indians. A group of Siouan tribes of Virginia, which were collected for a time in the early years of the 18th century at Ft Christanna, on Meherrin river, near the present Gholsonville, Va. Gov. Spotswood settled these tribes there about 1700 in the belief that they would form a barrier on that side against hostile Indians. The tribes were the Meipontsky, Occaneechi, Saponi, Stegaraki, and Tutelo. See Mooney, Siouan Tribes of the East, Bull. B. A. E., 1894.

Chowchilla Tribe

Chowchilla Indians. A name applied in various forms to two distinct divisions of California, one belonging to the Miwok (Moquelumnan family), the other to the Yokuts (Mariposan family). The former lived on the upper waters of Fresno and Chowchilla rivers, and the latter, properly called Chaushila, probably on lower Chowchilla river, in the plains and lowest foothills. Recorded under many forms of the same name from the time of the gold excitement, the two divisions have been inextricably confused. A treaty was made with them and numerous other tribes Apr. 29, 1851, by which a tract between Chowchilla and Kaweah … Read more

Chowanoc Tribe

Chowanoc Indians (Algonquian: shawŭni ‘south’; shawŭnogi‘they of the south,’ ‘southerners.’ W. J. ). A tribe formerly living on Chowan river, north east North Carolina, about the junction of Meherrin and Nottoway rivers. In 1584-85, when first known, they were the leading tribe in that region. Two of their villages at that time were Ohanoak and Maraton, and they probably occupied also Catoking and Metocaum. Ohanoak alone was said to have 700 warriors. They gradually dwindled away before the whites, and in 1701 were reduced to a single village on Bennetts Creek. They joined in the Tuscarora War against the whites … Read more

Chorruco Tribe

Chorruco. A tribe, formerly on the Texas coast, to whom Cabeza de Vaca fled from the Coaque with whom he had lived nearly a year after shipwreck on Malhado Island in 1528. The people, he said, took their name from the woods in which they lived. He stayed with this tribe about 6 years, traveling and trading with others in the vicinity and inland. The region was probably the home of the Karankawan family at that time. The Chorruco are now extinct. For Further Study The following articles and manuscripts will shed additional light on the Chorruco as both an … Read more

Choptank Tribe

Choptank Indians. Apparently a tribe consisting of 3 sub-tribes the Ababco, Hutsawap, and Tequassimo formerly living on Choptank River in Maryland. In 1741 they were given a reserve near Secretary Creek, on the south side of Choptank River, in Dorchester County, on the Eastern shore, where a few of mixed Indian and Negro blood still remained in 1837. See: Bozman, Maryland, i, 115, 1837.

Choptank Indian Clans, Bands and Gens

Many tribes have sub-tribes, bands, gens, clans and phratry.  Often very little information is known or they no longer exist.  We have included them here to provide more information about the tribes. Hutsawap. One of the divisions or sub-tribes of the Choptank, formerly in Dorchester co., Md. Bozman, Maryland, i, 115, 1837.

Choctaw Indian Villages

1900 Map of the Choctaw Nation

Nearly all of the Choctaw towns were in the southeastern part of Mississippi though they controlled the adjoining territory in the present State of Alabama. From the earliest times of which we have any knowledge the Choctaw villages were distributed into three divisions: a southern, a northeastern, and a western, though a central group may also be distinguished.

Choctaw Indian Chiefs and Leaders

Dukes, Joseph. An interpreter, the son of half-blood Choctaw parents, born in the old Choctaw country, in the present Mississippi, in 1811. He attended one of the early mission schools at Mayhew, where he made such progress that he of ten acted as interpreter for Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury, the pioneer missionary, who never learned the Choctaw language. After the Choctaw had ceded to the United States their lands in the E., he remained in Mississippi for some years, helping Rev. Cyrus Byington prepare a Choc taw grammar and dictionary. In 1851 or 1852 he preached under the direction of Rev. … Read more

Choctaw Indian Bands, Gens and Clans

A Choctaw Woman, George Catlin, 1834

The Choctaws were divided into various clans called Iksa, established and regulated upon principles of unity, fidelity and charity. They held this to be a necessary and important custom to be sacredly kept and inviolably observed by them at all times and under all circumstances, and never to be forgotten. If one should be found in a strange place far from home, and should be placed in a situation to need assistance, all he had to do was to give the necessary intimation of his membership of one of those Iksas, and upon the mention of the name of that clan he would never fail to meet one or more, who would immediately extend to him the hand of friendship.

Choctaw Genealogy

Choctaw Eagle Dance, George Catlin, 1845-8

Think you have Choctaw in your ancestry? This page will provide some background history and locations the tribe resided in as well as the rolls and census they were enumerated on.

Chitimacha Tribe

Chitimacha Indians (Choctaw: chúti’cooking pot’ másha ‘they possess’: `they have cooking vessels’). A tribe, forming the Chitimachan linguistic family, whose earliest known habitat was the shores of Grand Lake, formerly Lake of the Shetimasha, and the banks of Grand River, Louisiana. Some 16 or 18 of the tribe were living on Grand river in 1881, but the majority, about 35, lived at Charenton, on the south side of Bayou Tèche, in St Mary’s parish, about 10 miles from the gulf. The remnant resides in the same district, but the present population is not known. The name of these Indians for … Read more

Chiricahua Apache Tribe

Chiricahua Indians, Chiricahua Apache Indians (Apache: `great mountain’). An important division of the Apache Indians, so called from their former mountain home in southeast Arizona. Their own name is Aiaha. The Chiricahua were the most warlike of the Arizona Indians, their raids extending into New Mexico, south Arizona, and north Sonora, among their most noted leaders being Cochise, Victorio, Loco, Chato, Nahche, Bonito and Geronimo. Physically they do not differ materially from the other Apache. The men are well built, muscular, with well-developed chests, sound and regular teeth, and abundant hair. The women are even more vigorous and strongly built, with … Read more

Chippewa Tribe

Chippewa Indians, Ojibway Indians, Ojibway Tribe (popular adaptation of Ojibway, ‘to roast till puckered up,’ referring, to the puckered seam on their moccasins; from ojib ‘to pucker up,’ ub-way ‘to roast’). One of the largest tribes North of Mexico, whose range was formerly along both shores of Lake Huron and Superior, extending across Minnesota Turtle Mountains, North Dakota. Although strong in numbers and occupying an extensive territory, the Chippewa were never prominent in history, owing to their remoteness from the frontier during the period of the colonial wars.  According tradition they are part of an Algonquian body, including the Ottawa and Potawatomi, … Read more