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David Moniac: West Point’s First American Indian Graduate
David Moniac graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point in 1822. He was the academy’s first American Indian graduate and the first graduate from the state of Alabama. He lived as a civilian and died a soldier.
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Indian Tribes of the Northwest Coast: An Affluent Anomaly
The Northwestern Indian tribes differed from the tribes in the rest of North America. Rather than live in tepees, wigwams, or pits, these peoples took advantage of the abundance of natural resources they had and built large, comfortable houses of wooden planks. They also built, canoes, totem poles, and elaborate crafts. But perhaps the greatest anomaly of the Northwest Coast Indians is that they achieved such a level of wealth and technological and artistic advancement as hunter-gatherer societies.
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Indian Tribes of the American Northwest
The Indians who lived in today’s northwestern United States represented three distinct cultures based on their geography. The arid, mountainous region of present-day Utah, Nevada, and southern Wyoming make up what archeologists refer to as the Great Basin. The tribes of the Plateau Culture lived directly to the north of this region. Those who lived along the Pacific coast—from northern California to southeastern Alaska—are referred to as the Northwest Coast Culture. These tribes were marked by contrasts in lifestyle, wealth, and power. These contrasts were caused by their different locations, climates, and cultures, which affected transportation costs, disease, and agricultural productivity.
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Indian Tribes of the American Southwest
The pre-Columbian history of the southwestern United States has been easier to trace than pre-columbian history of other regions. In this article, I’ll cover the four main ethnicities of Indians who inhabited the Southwest in the period immediately before European discovery. They included the Anasazi (Pueblos), the Hohokams, the Yumans, and the Athapascans—which include the Navajo and Apache.
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Native American Population Estimates When Columbus Arrived In 1492
Pre-Columbian population estimates range from eight million to Henry Dobyns’s high count of 142 million, with the average estimate of Native American demographers over the past century remaining steady at about 40 million.[2] The high estimates can easily be discounted as exaggerations, considering that the Aztec Empire—one of the most densely populated regions in the Americas—had only about six million on the eve of European contact.
