Covers the prevailing social structures and predominant language groups of Native American civilizations, as well as focusing on the Iroquois Confederacy (Haudenosaunee) and its legendary establishment by Hiawatha.

1. A SURVEY OF
AMERICAN HISTORY
Unit 1: Colonialism and Nationhood
Part 2: Native American Civilizations

2. NATIVE AMERICAN CIVILIZATIONS
Native Americans were
hunter-gatherers
organized into tribes.
Each tribe was ruled by
a chief or sachem who
rose to leadership
based largely on his
successes in warfare.
Tribes were comprised
of clans that established
villages throughout
tribal territory. Clans
were understood to be
related members of a
tribal family, and so they
could not attack or
arrange marriage with
other clans in the tribe.
Social Structures

3. IMPORTANT TRIBES AND
LANGUAGE GROUPS
Algonquian (Pequot and Powhatan)
Iroquois (Mohawk)
Muskogean (Cherokee and Choctaw)
Sioux (Lakota)

4. Algonquian Tribes
of the Northeast
Massachusett
Quinnipac
Pequot
Narragansett
Mohegan
Wampanoag
Lenape / Delaware
Algonquian Tribes
of the West
Shawnee
Miami
Ojibwe / Chippewa
Ottawa
Arapaho
Blackfoot
Cheyenne
ALGONQUIAN TRIBES

5. The Five Nations
of the Iroquois
Confederacy
Seneca
Cayuga
Onondaga
Oneida
Mohawk
Tuscarora (after 1722)
IROQUOIS TRIBES

6. POLITICAL STATUS
OF THE IROQUOIS
• The Iroquois Confederacy
(Haudenosaunee) established a
formal political union between
the Seneca, the Cayuga, the
Onondaga, the Oneida, and the
Mohawk tribes, and later the
Tuscarora tribe as well.
• According to tribal legend, the
Haudenosaunee was created
by a thirteenth century Huron
prophet known as the Great
Peacemaker (Deganawida) and
his first convert and follower, a
Mohawk or Onondaga man
known as Hiawatha.

7. POLITICAL STATUS
OF THE IROQUOIS
• The legend holds that the Great
Peacemaker received a vision
of the Five Nations working
together in peace and harmony.
He then made the first steps
towards unifying the five
warring tribes, but he suffered
from a speech impediment that
stopped him from persuading
them to establish a lasting
peace. Hiawatha, however, was
a charismatic and persuasive
orator, and so he managed to
succeed where the Great
Peacemaker had failed.

8. POLITICAL STATUS
OF THE IROQUOIS
• The final result was a union of
various political entities who
shared an official constitution
that outlined a formal power
structure to which they were
required to submit.
• This constitution stands as a
record of the first political
arrangement of this sort to
emerge in North America, and
eventually it would go on to
influence the union of the
colonies that became the
United States of America.

9. IMPORTANT TRIBES OF
NEW ENGLAND
The Pequot and the Wampanoag

10. IMPORTANT TRIBES OF
CHESAPEAKE BAY
The Powhatan Confederacy

11. A SURVEY OF
AMERICAN HISTORY
Unit 1: Colonialism and Nationhood
Part 2: Native American Civilizations