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Home / Historical Periods / American History / Native American History

Period

Native American History

c. 1,700–1,890

Native American History encompasses the histories of the many Indigenous nations and communities of North America. It begins with the earliest settlement of the continent and includes changing languages, political systems, trade networks, farming traditions, hunting societies, towns, cities and religious worlds developed over thousands of years.

This history is not a single period or culture. Peoples living in the Arctic, the Pacific coast, the Great Plains, the Southwest, the Eastern Woodlands and the Mississippi Valley created distinct societies and responded differently to climate change, migration, warfare, diplomacy and European colonisation. Specific nations and archaeological cultures should be used whenever the catalogue contains a more precise context.

For historical fiction, this parent context supports novels set among Indigenous North American communities before and after European contact. It provides a responsible general category for books about early migration, mound-building cities, Pueblo communities, Haudenosaunee history, Great Plains societies and later Native experiences without treating all of these peoples as one culture.

Related people for Native American History

Aaron Burr1756–1836 George Armstrong Custer1839–1876 Manuel Lisa1772–1820 Sitting Bull1831–1890 William Holland Thomas1805–1893

Series

Series about Native American History (4 series)

North America’s Forgotten Past in Order

by W. Michael Gear 24 books 4.2

North America’s Forgotten Past is a sequence of historical novels set among Indigenous peoples across North America, from Ice Age migration and environmental change to mound-building cities, Pueblo centres, Great Lakes trade, Atlantic communities and the formation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Most volumes use a new location, period…

The Earliest Americans in Order

by W. Michael Gear 7 books 4.6

The Earliest Americans presents newly divided and revised editions of several major stories from North America’s Forgotten Past. Its linked arcs move from the political struggle surrounding Salamander in an early Mississippi Valley town, through conflict among Ice Age peoples of the Pacific Northwest and upper Midwest, to…

The Peacemaker’s Tale in Order

by W. Michael Gear 8 books 4.5

The Peacemaker’s Tale follows families and captives living through prolonged warfare among the Iroquoian nations before the formation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. The first four volumes centre on Koracoo and Gonda’s pursuit of the child trader Gannajero, while the later books return to the surviving children as adults…

Books

30 Best Novels About Native American History

Bestselling authors first, then star rating.