Columbus discovered America in 1492.  But it wasn't an empty country.  Ten million people already lived there.  He called them Indians.  Why?  Because he thought he was in the East Indies.   

Today we usually call these people Native Americans or American Indians. They were The First Americans.

Their ancestors came to America more than 25,000 years ago.  Back then, a land bridge joined Russia and Alaska.  This land bridge crossed over a body of water called the Bering Straits.  People walked over it from Asia to North America.   

These people spread south and east. They developed separate languages and cultures. These cultures were often based on the soil and climate in the places they settled.   

Some became nomadic hunters and food gatherers.  Others lived in permanent communities and they grew crops like maize (corn).   But they all had a deep respect for the land and they wanted to live in harmony with nature. 

Scholars divide them into six major culture areas.  Those areas are:

• Northwest Coast
• Plains
• Plateau
• Eastern Woodlands
• Northern
• Southwest

In this Instruction and the next, we'll tell you how people lived in each area.  This Instruction is about their physical situation.   

The next is about their culture, tradition, economics and government.

The American Indians of the Pacific Northwest This area extended from southern Alaska to northern California.  It had a temperate climate. It also had heavy rainfall and thick forests.  This meant it could support a large Native population.   

Salmon was the most common food.  But people also ate seal and sea lion, deer, bear, elk, wild berries and fruit.  

Wood was plentiful, so people used wood to build houses, canoes and special boats called dugouts.  These dugouts were used to hunt seals, sea lions and whales. 

The Plains Area 

This area extended from the Canadian border to Texas.  It included all the grasslands between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains.  Both sedentary and nomadic tribes lived there.  Sedentary tribes stayed put.  Nomadic tribes roamed over large territories. 

The sedentary tribes were farmers.  These farmers raised corn, squash and beans.  They lived in dome-shaped lodges made of earth.  These lodges were surrounded by earthen walls.   

The nomadic tribes followed the buffalo.  They often moved about with their goods on dogcarts.  These dogcarts were called travois.  The nomads traded meat and hides to the farmers for corn.

 In the 18th century, the Spanish brought horses to America. This changed everything. Many other Native Americans left their homes and came to the Plains to hunt buffalo. This included the Apache and the Sioux. The Sioux became the largest and most important tribe north of Mexico.  

These hunters lived on horseback and in portable teepees, which they carried with them.  They made clothes from deer and buffalo hide.  They ate buffalo meat, which they preserved by pounding and drying it.   We still eat meat that way today. 

Do you like jerky?

 
The Columbia Plateau Indian Tribes - Area

This area extended from above the Canadian border to parts of the Rocky Mountains. It included much of California. It had a challenging environment. This meant that survival was the main thing on people's minds.

Most Plateau Natives were sedentary.  They gathered edible plants, roots and fruit.  They hunted wild game.  They ate ants and other insects.  They made a special bread out of pounded acorns.  This bread was cooked in baskets filled with hot stones and water. 

In their winter villages, they built houses that were partly underground.  These houses had cone-shaped roofs.  Some people lived in bark-covered longhouses.

The Eastern Woodlands Area

The Eastern Woodlands covered the eastern part of the United States.  This area extended from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River.   

The Natchez, Choctaw, Cherokee and Creek were typical Eastern Woodland peoples. They were deer hunters and farmers. The women tended small plots of corn, squash and beans. Cooking was done in vessels of wood, bark or pottery. Most people lived in longhouses.

The southeastern part of the Eastern Woodlands extended from the Ohio River to the Gulf of Mexico.  At first, the people there were nomads.  They fished and hunted.  They also gathered seeds, fruits and berries.   

Eventually they became farmers. They made hoes with blades of stone, bone or shell. They also smoked tobacco, made pottery and built burial mounds. This gave them the name Mound Builders. You can still see many of these mounds today.

These Native Americans fought frequent wars with their neighbors, so they lived in villages surrounded by high wooden fences.

The Northern Area

This area covered most of Canada. It was too cold for farming, so the people lived by hunting, gathering, trapping and fishing.

The people were nomads. They moved from forest to frozen tundra.  They followed the caribou.  They ate caribou meat.  They made tents and clothing from caribou hide.   They also made snowshoes, which were probably the most important single item in their lives. 

The Southwest Area 

The Southwest area extended over much of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. At first, the people were nomadic but then they began to live in pit houses. These houses were built partly underground. The walls were lined with stone slabs. That's why they're called slab houses.

Eventually, new people moved into the area. These people were the ancestors of today's Pueblo Indians. They were called Anasazi ("ancient ones"). They lived in large terraced houses. These houses were set on the edges of cliffs or canyons. You can still see many of these houses today. Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado has some spectacular examples.

Eventually, the Anasazi disappeared, but their descendants reappeared as Pueblo ("village") Indians. They cultivated corn, beans, squash, cotton and tobacco. To this day, many Pueblo Indians live in terraced houses made of adobe.

If you want to know what these houses looked like, look for a picture of Taos Pueblo. It's considered the oldest, continuously inhabited community in North America.

PUEBLOS: North American Native American Indian Pre-Contact Housing

Video Instruction
*Availability of You Tube video links may vary. eTAP has no control of these materials. 

• America The Story of Us — Life in Jamestown [2:45]

• Native America: Conflict [ 14:30 - mute for first 30 seconds]