Lifestyles varied greatly among tribes. While they had many things in common, there were many differences as well. For example, most tribes were domestic, but the Lakota followed the buffalo as nomads. Most tribes engaged in war, but the Apache were particularly feared, while the Hopis were pacifistic. Most societies were ruled by men, but the Iroquois women chose the leaders.
Native Americans lived in wigwams, hogans, igloos, tepees, and longhouses. Some relied chiefly on hunting and fishing, while others domesticated crops. The Algonkian chiefs tried to achieve consensus, but the Natchez "Sun" was an absolute monarch. The totem pole was not a universal Native American symbol, but it was used by tribes such as the Chinook in the Pacific Northwest to ward off evil spirits and represent family history. Take a closer look at the Anasazi, Algonkian, and Iroquios tribes and note their similarities and differences.
The Anasazi lived between 1 C.E. to 1300 C.E., in the area known as the Four Corners (the meeting place of the present-day states of Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico). There they built great stone dwellings that the Spanish explorers later called pueblos or villages. Pueblo Bonito, one of the most amazing of the Anasazi pueblos, can still be seen in New Mexico. The huge semicircular structure of stone and sun-dried earth resembles an apartment building. It is four stories high and has hundreds of rooms. Archaeologists have found traces of a complex road system linking Pueblo Bonito with other villages. This suggests that Pueblo Bonito was an important trade or religious center for the Anasazi.
The Anasazi also built dwellings in the walls of steep cliffs. Cliff dwellings were easy to defend and offered protection from winter weather. Mesa Verde in Colorado, one of the largest and most elaborate cliff dwellings, held several thousand inhabitants. In about 1300, the Anasazi began leaving the pueblos and cliff dwellings to settle in smaller communities. Their large villages may have been abandoned because of droughts, long periods of little rainfall, during which their crops dried up.
An engraved print depicting Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island, meeting with the Narragansett people
The Algonquin, or Algonkian, peoples of the Northeast and Atlantic seaboard, were collection of various tribes that spoke a similar or common language. Tribes include the Delaware (Lenape), Narragansetts, Pequot, and Wampanoag. The Algonquin relied as much on hunting and fishing for food as working the land. These tribes used canoes to travel the inland waterways. Using the bow and arrow allowed taking small and large game, and the spear generated ample supplies of fish for the Algonkian peoples. Corn and squash were a few of the crops they cultivated.
Early European settlers, like the English at Jamestown, had a very rough relationship with natives, mostly from a very different worldview that revolved around land ownership and the views of the English. The Algonquin, like other native tribes, didn’t not have a central concept of owning land, holding it common. Europeans, however, were in North America to acquire land directly. As well, the English thought of Native Americans as subhuman in most cases, more of a pest to be cleared from the land they wanted to take over. There were attempts by both natives and English to get along, but often peace was short-lived.
In the Northeast, for example, the English Pilgrims would not have survived without them. Their first winter in America, almost half the Pilgrims died of malnutrition, disease, and cold. In the spring a few Native Americans approached the settlement. Two of them, Squanto and Samoset, befriended the colonists. Squanto was a Pawtuxet who had been kidnapped to Europe and had learned English. Squanto and Samoset showed the Pilgrims how to grow corn, beans, and pumpkins and where to hunt and fish. Without their help the Pilgrims might not have survived. Squanto and Samoset also helped the Pilgrims make a treaty with the Wampanoag people who lived in the area. Massasoit, a Wampanoag leader, signed a treaty with the Pilgrims in March 1621, and the two groups lived in harmony.
The natives and the English exchanged furs for goods such as iron pots, blankets, and guns. In Virginia, the colonists had frequent encounters with the many tribes of the Powhatan confederacy. In New England the settlers met the Wampanoags, Narragansets, and other groups. Conflicts arose, however. Usually settlers moved onto Native American lands without permission or payment. Throughout the colonial period, English settlers and Native Americans competed fiercely for control of the land. In 1636 war broke out between the settlers and the Pequot people. After two traders were killed in Pequot territory, Massachusetts sent troops to punish the Pequot. The Pequot then attacked a town in Connecticut killing nine people. In May 1637, troops from Connecticut attacked the main Pequot fort with the help of the Narraganset people. They burned the fort, killing hundreds.
In 1675 New England went to war against the Wampanoag people and their allies. Metacomet, the Wampanoag chief, was known to settlers as King Philip. He wanted to stop the settlers from moving onto Native American lands. The war began after settlers executed three Wampanoags for murder. Metacomet’s forces attacked towns across the region, killing hundreds of people. The settlers and their Native American allies fought back. King Philip’s War, as the conflict was called, ended in defeat for the Wampanoag and their allies. The war destroyed the power of the Native Americans in New England, leaving the colonists free to expand their settlements.
A 1664 engraving of Iroquois women doing agricultural work, grinding corn or dried berries
The Iroquois peoples lived in the Northeast near Canada in what is now northern New York State for nearly 4,000 years. A group of independent tribes the name really refers to their language group. Internally, they referred to themselves as the Haudenosaunee. There were five Iroquois groups or nations: the Onondaga, the Seneca, the Mohawk, the Oneida, and the Cayuga. These groups warred with each other until the late 1500s, when they joined to form the Iroquois League, also called the Iroquois Confederacy. Iroquois women occupied positions of power in their communities. According to the constitution of the Iroquois League, women chose the 50 men who served on the league council.
The Iroquois constitution was written down after the Europeans came to North America. It describes the Iroquois peoples’ desire for peace: “I am Dekanawidah and with the Five Nations’ Confederate Lords I plant the Tree of Great Peace... Roots have spread out from the Tree of the Great Peace, one to the north, one to the east, one to the south and one to the west.” Their government was advanced, with a bicameral, or two0house, legislature and leaders called sachems who could veto decisions, just like a modern U.S. president.
Culturally, they were a very progressive society, with a great respect for the rule and ideas of women. They lived in longhouses, which were home to many members of a Haudenosaunee family. These buildings were the center of Iroquois life. Archaeologists have unearthed longhouse remains that extend more than the length of a football field.
