Indian Headdress

American Indians is the collective term used for the indigenous peoples of the Americas, with the exception of the Eskimo peoples, the Aleuts of the Arctic regions, and the people of the American Pacific Islands. Their ancestors settled the Americas from Asia in prehistoric times and developed a variety of cultures and languages there. Indian is a foreign designation by the colonialists; there is no corresponding self-titling of the well over two thousand groups. Their ancestors first developed the hunter-gatherer culture they had brought with them, soon living mainly on land mammals such as bison, caribou and guanacos, or on birds such as nandus.

But they also traveled along the Pacific coast shortly after or already during the last cold period. Ceramics, agriculture (such as the cultivation of pumpkins, which began before 4000 B.C.) and graduated forms of sedentarism, as well as very early long-distance trade, characterized the cultures in the north of the continent, while in the south of North America, livestock breeding and irrigation farming led to higher yields and, before 3000 B.C., to urban cultures that extended northward to the Mississippi River and into southern Canada.  The outstanding breeding successes of the farming Indians of Central and South America are credited with the cultivation of avocado, potato, tomato, corn, pineapple, peppers, tobacco, as well as alpaca wool and the guinea pig, among others.

In addition, many wild prey cultures continued to exist in large parts of the double continent, mostly organized nomadically in small hordes or larger segmentary or tribal societies. In what is now Latin America, the Spanish conquistadors destroyed the great empires of Central and South America within a few decades in the 16th century.  Even more destructive, were the diseases introduced by the Europeans, most notably smallpox. In some regions, such as the Caribbean, genocide took place against the indigenous population, which was then replaced by African slaves; in other regions, such as South America, Indian and European populations intermingled. Only in some areas, such as Bolivia and southern Mexico, are Indians still in the majority today. In Bolivia, from 2006 to 2019, Evo Morales was the first indigenous president and leader of the ruling socialist party.