First things first, a Native American is an ancestor that lived within the modern boundaries. They were composed of distinct tribes, bands, and ethnic groups. A few of these groups are intact today. Native American is a term used to discriminate regionally, and generationally. Several older Native Americans are identifying themselves as “Indians”, or “American Indians”, the younger Native Americans are calling themselves"Indigenous" or "Aboriginal." Terms for Native Americans has been highly controversial …show more content…
Some of the Northeastern and Southwestern cultures in particular were matrilnealand operated on a more collective basis than the Europeans were familiar with. Most of the Indigenous American tribes maintained their hunting grounds and agricultural lands forus of the entire tribe. Europeans at that time had patriarchal cultures and had developed concents of individual property rights with respect to land that were extremely different. “The differences in cultures between the established Native Americans and immigrant Europeans, as well as shifting alliances among different nations in times of war, caused extensive political tension, ethnic violence, and social disruption. Even before the European settlement of what is now the United States, Native Americans suffered high fatalities from contact with European diseases spread throughout the Americas by the Spanish to which they had yet not acquired immunity. Smallpox epidemics are thought to have caused the greatest loss of life for indigenous populations, although estimates of the pre-Columbian population of what today constitutes the U.S. vary significantly, from one million to eighteen million.”-