This map layer was created using data from the United States Census Bureau. It depicts Federal American Indian reservations. According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a reservation is “an area of land reserved for a tribe or tribes under treaty or other agreement with the United States, executive order, or federal statute or administrative action as permanent tribal homelands, and where the federal government holds title to the land in trust on behalf of the tribe.” As well as being reserved for use by the Indigenous American nation and its people, reservations are areas where Indigenous American nations have sovereignty, meaning they can self-govern and make their own laws, use their own legal and judicial systems, and more. However, some federally recognized Indigenous American groups have no reserved land. The largest reservation (16 million acres/6.5 million hectares) is the Navajo Nation Reservation. It spans parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, and is around the same size as West Virginia.

Use of Names

The people who lived in what is now the United States before European contact are often referred to as Native American, American Indian or Indigenous Peoples. This text uses Indigenous American because it refers to people who have lived in North America for thousands of years. These people are of many nations and affiliations. However, an individual or group’s nation name should be used when known. Additionally, individuals and groups have their own preferences about how they would like to be addressed, and it is always best to ask what they would prefer. For example, members of the Navajo Nation often refer to themselves as Diné.

History of Reservations

The Americas were home to millions of people before European contact and colonization. Although the exact number of Indigenous Americans at that time is unknown, several historians pose that there were roughly 10 million. These people had varied cultures, customs, languages and religions, all of which were largely ignored by European colonizers.

Though there is a prevailing myth that Indigenous Americans had no concept of land ownership when white colonizers began settling on the land, the reality is much more complex. Both Europeans and Indigenous Americans at that time had multifaceted views of land. Not all Europeans looked at land and property the same way, and neither did all Indigenous Americans. Generally, the Indigenous American concept of land ownership was communal, leaning toward stewardship of the land to protect resources shared by the entire group. Europeans were far more likely to divide land and consider it the property of one individual, but colonial settlements also had communal land. Additionally, despite being more communal, Indigenous societies still had their own complex concepts of individual property rights. The idea that Indigenous Americans did not believe in property ownership was the result of a colonizers’ vested interest in claiming the land for themselves. As the colonial ambitions of European nations grew, religious and political leaders argued that it was morally sound to take land from Indigenous Americans. Those leaders believed that Indigenous Americans did not make full use of the land for farming and did not understand or appreciate the importance of land ownership. This attempt to justify colonization of inhabited lands helped create the myth of Indigenous Americans having no concept of owning land.

When European people came to the Americas, their desire for land and resources grew steadily, propelling settlers to attack and expel Indigenous Americans from their ancestral lands. Native Americans responded in different ways. Some Indigenous groups initially welcomed European settlers and worked with their leaders. They entered into agreements intended to offer Europeans use of the land and access to its resources, but historians argue that the agreements were never intended to give away rights to the land itself. Colonial leaders, on the other hand, believed—or pretended to believe—that the Indigenous Americans were agreeing to cede ownership of the land. They took advantage of this misunderstanding to make deals that were disadvantageous to exploit Indigenous Americans and seize their land.

Not all Indigenous Americans agreed to the terms proposed by European settlers. Some fought to protect their lands from being settled or seized. A few held out for a while but lost in the end, due to a variety of factors. Among them was the fact that Europeans brought diseases that decimated many Indigenous American communities. During the colonization of the Americas, diseases such as the flu, measles and smallpox killed an estimated 90 percent or more Indigenous Americans. This reduced their numbers and their ability to fend off conquest and had a devastating impact on their culture.

After the American Revolution, the assault on Indigenous American land became formalized through the creation of reservations for Indigenous Americans. On March 28, 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act. This act authorized the president of the United States to grant desirable tribal land to white colonizers and remove Indigenous Americans living east of the Mississippi River to land further west—largely undesirable land unsuitable for farming. Again, Indigenous American nations responded in different ways. Some Indigenous Americans went voluntarily, albeit reluctantly, to settle on new land in the so-called Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). Others refused, taking up arms to protect their homes and families. The Seminole of Florida, for example, fought U.S. troops for years in an attempt to keep their homeland. After the Indian Removal Act was passed, the U.S. government coerced the Seminole to sign treaties that required them to move west. The Seminole argued that the treaties had been signed under duress by people without authority to speak on their behalf. In short, they denied that they had agreed to relocate. Many of the Seminole participated in a series of armed conflicts as they resisted the government’s forced removal. Although the Seminole and a few other groups fought diligently in an attempt to retain their land, they inevitably were overpowered by the greater numbers and resources of the U.S. military.

Some nations, most notably Cherokee groups living in North Carolina and Georgia, fought removal in court. Many of these people had assimilated into the European culture, adopting European customs and farming methods. These nations fought back through legal action in the U.S. courts, creating lawsuits to protect their land. The Supreme Court ruled twice in favor of the Cherokee Nation, arguing that it was a distinct sovereign nation. The state of Georgia and President Jackson ignored the Court’s ruling. The U.S. military forced Cherokee and other Indigenous Americans living in the southeast from their homes and led them on a journey more than 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) to the designated “Indian Territory.” They traveled most of the journey on foot, carrying only what they could. An estimated 3,500–4,000 people died along what is now known as the Trail of Tears. In addition to the loss of life, cultural knowledge tied to the ancestral land, including language and sacred spaces, was damaged or lost completely.

On their reservations, many Indigenous American nations continued to hold land communally, as they had for thousands of years before European contact. Indigenous Americans also held on to their cultural traditions as much as possible. For example, Smohalla, a Wanapum leader and teacher, founded an Indigenous American religion in the 1850s that encouraged Indigenous Americans to live according to traditional ways. Maintaining their traditions strengthened the nations and helped them maintain social cohesion.

In an effort to weaken Indigenous American nations’ political and cultural power, Congress passed the Dawes Act of 1887 (also called the Dawes Severalty Act or the General Allotment Act). The law broke up tribal lands into individual parcels awarded to the head of each family. Upon receiving their parcel of land, Indigenous Americans would become citizens of the United States and were expected to farm the land using European American methods. The Dawes Act was part of the government’s plan to assimilate Indigenous Americans into white culture.

The Dawes Act also contributed to the transfer of land from Indigenous Americans to non-native settlers. If Indigenous Americans did not accept the government’s terms, their allotments were sold to other (white) settlers. Moreover, after the land had been divided up among the Indigenous American families, extra or “surplus” land was sold to non-native people. Indigenous Americans lost more than half of their land in these transactions. In addition, some of the land distributed as a result of the Dawes Act was not suitable for farming. Many Indigenous American families lost their livelihoods, as well as their ancestral knowledge of plants. For example, the Ute nation of Colorado used plants on their ancestral lands for a wide variety of purposes, including medicine, but much of this knowledge was lost when they were forced off their land.

The U.S. government intentionally destroyed Indigenous cultures in other ways too. During this time period, the U.S. government created Indian Boarding Schools, which removed Indigenous American children from their families, sometimes by force, and sent them to schools away from home. As part of the stated policy to “kill the Indian, save the man,” children were forced to learn English, convert to Christianity and practice other European traditions. They were not allowed to practice their culture and were often beaten or starved if they spoke their Native languages. The schools operated for more than 150 years and housed hundreds of thousands of Indigenous American children, contributing to the systematic destruction of Indigenous cultures.

While not initially affected by the Dawes Act, the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole were eventually forced to agree to end their tribal governments in exchange for being allowed to keep some communally held land, with legislation a few years later called the Curtis Act. Though some nations were ultimately able to keep their tribal governments, their power was weakened. Some Indigenous American nations fought back using political negotiations and violence. For example, Chitto Harjo, a Creek leader, led a multi-decade campaign that demanded the U.S. government honor its treaties. When the United States refused, his followers staged a rebellion, resulting in violent clashes with the U.S. Army. During the Great Depression and the New Deal era, the Indian Reorganization Act—also called the Wheeler-Howard Act—was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 18, 1934. This law was passed with the intent to correct the damage done to Indigenous American communities by the assimilation dictates of the Dawes Act. The Wheeler-Howard Act ended the future allotment of tribal land and in some cases returned land to Indigenous Americans. It also returned some power to Indigenous American nations to self-govern. However, it also encouraged further assimilation into white culture by offering federal subsidies to Indigenous American nations that modeled their governments after the city councils instead of their traditional tribal government. Because the act was meant to provide reparations to Indigenous Americans, it was written into the act that the tribal leaders needed to vote to accept the new laws. Many Indigenous American nations resisted adopting the act, with nearly a third rejecting it in a formal vote.

The Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) also offered credit to Indigenous Americans to help them start businesses. While this helped some nations improve their economic standing, the results were mixed. For example, the grazing policies implemented under the IRA reduced the Navajo nation’s livestock, causing financial harm. The IRA also did little to make up for the wealth of cultural traditions and knowledge that were lost during forced relocation.

Despite these challenges, Indigenous American nations have maintained their cultural traditions on the reservations. Reservation schools teach children to learn native languages and about their heritage. Indigenous Americans have continued to fight for their self-governance on the reservations, such as by advocating for the passing of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975. This act allowed nations to use government funds in the way they see fit, to fund their own on-reservation schools, and to better service their community.