New Mexico is home to 23 federally recognized tribal nations, including 19 Pueblos that have been continuously inhabited for more than a thousand years. These communities wake up every morning in the same places their ancestors did a millennium ago. In 1680, a Tewa religious leader named Popé organized the…
No state in New England has more Indigenous place names on its map than New Hampshire, and almost none of those names belong to tribes who still hold land here. That contradiction is the starting point for any honest visit. The Pennacook Confederacy once governed this entire river valley, eighteen…
West Virginia has zero federally recognized tribes and zero reservations, but Indigenous people lived here for at least 12,000 years before that was even a legal category that mattered. The land that colonists called “nobody’s territory” was in fact the most fiercely contested hunting ground in eastern North America. The…
Maryland has 120,000 Native residents and no federally recognized tribes. That’s the contradiction you walk into when you cross the state line, and it says everything about how this country has treated the nations who built life here first. The Piscataway people lived along the western shore of the Chesapeake…
South Dakota is home to nine federally recognized tribal nations and more than 71,000 American Indian people, a concentration of Indigenous presence that makes this one of the most significant Native homelands in North America. Most visitors drive straight to Mount Rushmore and miss everything that actually matters. The Oceti…
Museums Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana Cultural Center and Museum Prepare yourself for a captivating journey that will immerse you in the fascinating story of the Chitimacha Tribe. Located in Charenton, Louisiana, the Chitimacha Museum overlooks scenic Bayou Teche, and it boasts displays of the tribe’s artwork and artifacts from over…
New York is home to eight federally recognized Native nations, and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy — the Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, Oneida, Seneca, and Tuscarora — built a democracy on this land centuries before Europeans arrived with their ships and smallpox. Most visitors come for the skyline or the waterfalls; the ones…
Vermont has no federally recognized tribes. Not because the Abenaki aren’t here; because the federal government decided they weren’t Indigenous enough. The Abenaki have called this land home for at least 13,000 years, long before Vermont was a word or a state. European colonization brought disease, war, land theft, and…
Utah has eight federally recognized nations, more than 3,000 documented ancient sites, and a canyon that holds the largest concentration of rock art on the planet — yet most visitors drive straight to the five national parks without stopping to ask who built the trails they’re hiking. The Ute, Paiute,…
Texas sits on territory that was home to more than 65 distinct tribal groups before European contact, yet only three nations hold federally recognized reservation land in the state today. That gap between what was here and what remains is the first thing to understand before you arrive. The Republic…