- BATTLE OF LITTLE BIGHORN - In June of 1876, the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne combined forces to resist Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and members of the 7th Cavalry. Known as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, to Native Americans, the fighting near Little Bighorn River (in eastern Montana Territory) became "Custer's Last Stand." (See the links in the third paragraph)
- BUFFALO - Scholars believe that ancestors of the American Bison - called "tatanka" by some Native Americans - originated in Southern Asia. It is believed that these mammals first made their way to America by crossing the
Bering Land Bridge which once
connected the Asian and North American continents. To learn more about the species so important to Native Americans, see the links in the third paragraph.
- CAVE and MOUNTAIN DWELLINGS - In centuries past, people of the Navajo Nation constructed homes in, or near, shallow caves located on Navajo land. Some of those dwellings still exist. To view them, see the links in the third bullet of this chapter.
- CHEROKEE "TRAIL OF TEARS" - Between 1838-39, the U.S. federal government forced the relocation of the Cherokee people from their homelands to the Oklahoma Territory. As the Navajo people tell their children about The Long Walk, so do the Cherokee tell succeeding generations about their ancestors’ Trail of Tears.
- CHEROKEE, TREATY with TEXAS (1836) - While Texas was a Republic, Sam Houston negotiated a treaty with the Cherokee, confirming their land grants. Although Houston honored those claims, others did not. (See the first paragraph of this chapter.)
- CODE TALKERS - The Navajo language was used as a code during World War Two. Twenty-nine Navajo men, recruited as United States Marines, created a code which was taught to other Navajos serving as Marines in the Pacific. The twenty-nine code creators were awarded America's highest medal of honor in July of 2001. All but five medals were posthumously awarded. (See chapters 7-8, 11, 15-16)
- CODE TALKERS at IWO JIMA - Military leaders agreed that pivotal battles, such as Iwo Jima, would not have been won by the Allies had it not been for the Navajo “Code Talkers.” Existence of the code remained a national secret until 1968. In this story you will see pictures from the official military record.
- CODE TALKERS at SAIPAN - In June of 1944, Navajo Code Talkers were able to prevent disaster at key moments during the vicious battle of Saipan.
- CODE TALKERS: WHO WERE THEY? - Learn the names of the original Navajo Code Talkers, and virtually meet some of them.
- DICTIONARY, NAVAJO CODE - The Navajo Code was a closely guarded secret for decades. No longer needed (with the advent of computerized codes), it has now been made public. To view its dictionary, click on "the code" in the last paragraph.
- "ENCOUNTERING NATIVE AMERICANS" - Artists of the American frontier often created studies of Native Americans whom they met. Some of their work is included in the The Illustrating Traveler: Adventure and Illustration in North America and the Caribbean 1760-1895. Examine these works of art by clicking on "own lands" in the third paragraph of this chapter. (Be sure to scroll to the end of the link to view Part II and Part III.)
- "FREE LAND" - As the U.S. federal government encouraged settlers to forge westward, officials gave "free land" to people who completed the long, difficult journey. Native Americans, whose lives were forever changed as a direct result, paid a significant price. An animated power-point map, created by the United States Military Academy, depicts how Native Americans lost their land when the transcontinental railroad was constructed. (Click on the first link - “Indians lost their land” - to see the drastically shrinking landscape of territory once owned by Native Americans.) See, also, chapter 7 of this story.
- HIDATSA NATION - Native Americans (also known as the Minitari and the Gros Ventre), the Hidatsa kidnapped Sacagawea (an interpreter for Lewis and Clark) and sold her to the Mandan Sioux. To learn about the Hidatsa people, see the fourth paragraph of this chapter.
- HOMELANDS, WESTERN - View a map, depicting the homelands of the western Native Americans, by clicking on "homelands" in the last paragraph of this chapter. The map also provides information about languages.
- “THE LONG WALK” - In 1864, during America's war between the states, the federal government sent soldiers to “tame” the Navajo. At least 9,000 people, uprooted from their ancestral homelands in northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico, were forced to walk hundreds of miles to Bosque Redondo, a parched tract of land in eastern New Mexico. Many died. Although conditions were difficult, it was the first time that various Navajo clans were together as a people and the idea of a Navajo Nation was first envisioned.
- NAVAJO LANGUAGE - To hear the Navajo language, go to the second paragraph of chapter 7 and click on “language.” Each highlighted word in that link will take you to an audio clip. At the bottom of the page is a link to a Navajo-language song. The first part of the recording translates the song into English.
- NAVAJO NATION - After keeping the Navajo at Bosque Redondo four years, the federal government allowed them to return to their ancestral homelands. The Navajo were one of the few Native-American nations allowed to keep some of their own territory. Westward-expanding Americans did not want to settle on the inhospitable Navajo land. In school, Navajo children were taught English and were forbidden to speak their native language.
- NAVAJO PEOPLE in the NINETEENTH CENTURY - In the late 19th century, the U.S. government also sent a Corps of Engineers to explore and survey territory west of the 100th meridian. Members of that expedition took hundreds of photographs, now at the National Archives, which show Navajo living conditions at that time. (See chapters 3-5)
- NATIVE-AMERICAN TERRITORIES - Before America's westward expansion, the United States government hired artists to document the unspoiled western wilderness. Native Americans lived in many of these beautiful places. (See chapters 2- 4)
- NINETEENTH-CENTURY ATTITUDES - As the ninteenth century neared its end, Native Americans no longer possessed all the lands they had owned at the beginning of the century. Patronizing attitudes continued toward them, as reflected in contemporary periodicals. For example, see the February 1898 issue of "New England Magazine," linked in this chapter.
- SACAJAWEA - The teenaged Shoshone, whose name is also spelled "Sacagawea," served as an interpretor for Lewis and Clark and their "Corps of Discovery."
- UPPER-MISSOURI, NATIVE AMERICANS - Who were the people of the Upper Missouri, at the time Lewis and Clark led the Corps of Discovery? To learn about them, click on "Mandan-Hidatsa" in the last paragraph of this chapter.