Native American tribes loom large in the imagination: Their fearless warriors, their tragic, romantic, and noble histories told and retold in movies and books.
How many can you name? Certainly these: Cherokee, Shawnee, Cheyenne, Chippewa, Navajo, Pawnee, Apache, Sioux, Arapaho, Comanche, Choctaw.
But there are so many more officially recognized tribes: 574 to be specific and many of their names are memorialized as place names throughout the country. About 26 states are named for Native American tribes. Literally thousands of towns, counties, rivers, beaches and forests have Native American names.
There are more than 5 million recognized Native Americans in the U.S. today, according to the US Census.
According to Wikipedia, "The Navajo, with 286,000 full-blood individuals, is the largest tribe if only full-blood individuals are counted; the Navajo are the tribe with the highest proportion of full-blood individuals, 86.3%. The Cherokee have a different history; it is the largest tribe with 819,000 individuals, and it has 284,000 full-blood individuals."
The question of how many Native American peoples existed pre-European migration is hotly debated. Some put the number in both North and South America at 112 million.
Rick Good spent ten years in the newspaper business, including with The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) and The Greenville News (Greenville, SC). He co-wrote, with Melinda Coleman, Rutledge to Riley: Governors of South Carolina, 1776–Present (Published by The Greenville News), and is the author of Mind Games Trivia #1 (Amazon). He has recently spent 15 years creating original trivia content through Sounds Good Mobile Entertainment and continues that with his new company, SGME Software. He edits The Smart Reader’s money, real estate, and business coverage.