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.

Aquackanonk Tribe

Aquackanonk Indians (from ach-quoa-k-kan-nonk, a place in a rapid stream where fishing is done with a bush-net. Nelson). A division of the Unami Delawares which occupied lands on Passaic River, New Jersey, and a considerable territory in the interior, including the tract known as Dundee, in Passaic, just below the Dundee Dam, in 1678. In 1679 the name was used to describe a tract in Saddle River Township, Bergen County, as well as to designate “the old territory, which included all of Paterson’s of the Passaic River, and the city of Paterson.” The Aquackanonk sold lands in 1676 and 1679.

Appomattoc Tribe

Appomattoc Indians. A tribe of the Powhatan confederacy formerly living on lower Appomattox River, Virginia. They had 60 warriors in 1608, and were of some importance as late as 1671, but were extinct by 1722. Their principal village, which bore the same name was on the site of Bermuda Hundred, Prince George County, was burned by the English in 1611.  Appomatox was also one of the terms applied to the Matchotic, a later combination of remnants of the same confederacy.

Apalachicola Tribe

Apalachicola Indians (meaning: possibly people on the other side). A Hitchiti town formerly situate on the west bank of lower Chattahoochee River, Alabama, a short distance below Chiaha, nearly opposite the present Columbus, Georgia. Formerly one of the most important Hitchiti settlements, it had lost its importance by 1799. It was a peace town and received the name Talua-hlako, ‘great town’. Bartram states that about 1750 it was moved up the river, and that the people spoke the Hitchiti dialect. In the abbreviated form Palatchukla the name is applied to part of Chattahoochee River below the junction with Flint River. … Read more

Apalachee Tribe

The Apalachee Indians are of Muskhogean stock and linguistically are closely related to the Choctaw. Their first known inhabitation of North America is found around Lake Jackson, Louisiana, where they appeared to have resided from about 1100-1511. Archeologists have studied the mortuary evidence found in the mounds in the Lake Jackson region, and have identified a complex chiefdom of the Apalachee people. When Narváez and De Soto encountered them in the 16th century, they were found in Florida, but there is no evidence that there was a large scale migration of people to the Floridian peninsula. Rather it appears from … Read more

Apache Tribe

Apache Indians (probably from ápachu, ‘enemy,’ the Zuñi name for the Navaho, who were designated “Apaches de Nabaju” by the early Spaniards in New Mexico). A number of tribes forming the most southerly group of the Athapascan family. The name has been applied also to some unrelated Yuman tribes, as the Apache Mohave (Yavapai) and Apache Yuma. The Apache call themselves N’de, Dĭnë, Tĭnde, or Inde, `people.’ They were evidently not so numerous about the beginning of the 17th century as in recent times, their numbers apparently having been increased by captives from other tribes, particularly the Pueblos, Pima, Papago, … Read more

Apache Indian Bands, Gens and Clans

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. Akonye (people of the canyon). An Apache band at San Carlos agency and Ft Apache, Ariz., in 1881; probably coordinate with the Khonagani clan of the Navaho. Bourke in Journ. Am. Folk-Lore, III, 111, 1890. Apaches del Perrillo (Span.: Apaches of the little dog ). A band of Apache occupying, in the 16th and 17th centuries, the region of the Jornada del Muerto, near the Rio Grande, in … Read more

Apache Chiefs and Leaders

Nahche

Geronimo Geronimo (Spanish for Jerome, applied by the Mexicans as a nickname; native name Goyathlay, `one who yawns’). A medicine man and prophet of the Chiricahua Apache who, in the latter part of the 19th century, acquired notoriety through his opposition to the authorities and by systematic and sensational advertising; born about 1834 at the headwaters of Gila River, New Mexico, near old Ft Tulerosa. His father was Taklishim, ‘The Gray One,’ who was not a chief, although his father (Geronimo’s grandfather) assumed to be a chief without heredity or election. Geronimo’s mother was known as Juana. When it was … Read more

Aondironon Tribe

Aondironon First Nation, Aondironon Indians. A branch of the Neutrals whose territory bordered on that of the Huron in west Ontario. In 1648, owing to an alleged breach of neutrality, the chief town of this tribe was sacked by 300 Iroquois, mainly Seneca, who killed a large number of its inhabitants and carried away many others in captivity. Jesuit Relations for 1640, 35, 1858.

Anadarko Tribe

Anadarko Indians (from Nädä´ko, their own name). A tribe of the Caddo confederacy whose dialect was spoken by the Kadohadacho, Hainai and Adai.  The earliest mention of the people is in the relation of Biedma (1544); who writes that Moscoso in 1542 led his men during their southward march through a province that lay east of the Anadarko.  The territory occupied by the tribe was southwest of the Kadohadacho.  Their villages were scattered along Trinity and Brazos Rivers, Texas, higher up than those of the Hainai, and do not seem to have been visited so early as theirs by the … Read more

Amerind

Amer+Ind. A word composed of the first syllables of “American Indian,” suggested in 1899 by an American lexicographer as a substitute for the inappropriate terms used to designate the race of man inhabiting the New World before its occupancy by Europeans. The convenience of such derivatives as Amerindic, Amerindize, Amerindian, proto-Amerind, pre-Amerindic, pseudo-Amerind, etc., argues in favor of the new word. The introduction of “Amerind” was urged by the late Maj. J. W. Powell, and it has the support of several anthropologists. A plea by Dr W J McGee for its general adoption appeared in 1900 in the Journal of … Read more

American Indian Reservations

A list of Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Utah and Wymoning Indian reservations showing the Indian tribes the land was set aside for, the amount of acres if known, and the acts, treaties, and executive orders used to establish the reservation.

Allakaweah Tribe

Allakaweah Indians (Al-la-ká’-we-áh, ‘Paunch Indians’) The name applied by a tribe which Lewis and Clark located on Yellowstone and Bighorn Rivers, Montana, with 800 warriors and 2,300 souls. This is exactly the country occupied at the same time by the Crows, and although these latter are mentioned as distinct, it is probably that they were meant, or perhaps a Crow band, more particularly as the Crows are known to their cousins, the Hidatsa, q. v., as the “people who refused the paunch.” The name seems not to have reference to the Gros Ventres.

Algonquian Indians

Algonquian Family (adapted from the name of the Algonkin tribe). A linguistic stock which formerly occupied a more extended area than any other in North America. Their territory reached from the east shore of Newfoundland to the Rocky Mountains and front Churchill River to Pamlico sound. The east parts of this territory were separated by an area occupied by Iroquoian tribes. On the east Algonquian tribes skirted the Atlantic coast from Newfoundland to Neuse River; on the south they touched on the territories of the eastern Siouan, southern Iroquoian, and the Muskhogean families; on the west they bordered on the … Read more