"The great question has arisen from whence came those aboriginals of America?"
"I suppose the settlement of our continent is of the most remote antiquity."
- Thomas Jefferson, American Diplomat and President, 1784, 1786
Early European scholars believed that all people had to be accounted for in the Bible and speculated that Native Americans were descended from groups such as the Egyptians, Israelites, and Canaanites. Other scholars suggested origins in China, Wales, Africa, mythical Atlantis and Mu, and even the Americas.
"From the most exact observations I could make in the long time I traded among the Indian Americans, I was forced to believe them lineally descended from the Israelites...."
- James Adair, Trader, 1775
In the 1800s, scientists believed that blood carried both genetic and cultural traits, and that the amount of "blood" you had from a "race" determined how much you would look or behave like the people of that "race." This false racist concept was used by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to determine someone's "indianness."
For NAGPRA and other legal purposes, the federal government defines Native Americans as any tribe, people, or culture that resided in the territory of the United States before historic European contact and exploration. Today, there are more than 2,000,000 Native Americans in the United States, represented by 769 federally recognized tribes.
"I was born a redskin, raised an Indian, and now I'm a Native American, an indigenous person, a 'skin', or a citizen of an Indian nation."
- Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Flathead Salish Artist, 1998
After 1492, European contact brought warfare, disease, and genocide, which killed as many as 95% of all Native Americans within a few hundred years. By 1800, only 600,000 Native Americans were left in the United States; this number dropped to only 250,000 by 1900. Many tribal groups simply ceased to exist.