Alaska Natives
Traditional Territory
Alaska, including the Aleutian Islands, Arctic and circumpolar north regions
Overview
Alaska Natives are the Indigenous peoples of Alaska in the United States. They encompass diverse cultural and linguistic groups, including Inupiat, Aleut, Yupik peoples, and American Indians such as the Eyak, Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian, and various Northern Athabaskan. Most Alaska Natives are enrolled in federally recognized Alaska Native tribes, which are members of the 13 Alaska Native Regional Corporations responsible for managing land and financial claims.
Historical Notes
Migration of Alaska Natives' ancestors into the Alaskan region occurred thousands of years ago in multiple waves. Evidence from archaeology indicates that the ancestors of Alaska Natives migrated from Asia, possibly through the Bering land bridge or by traveling across the sea.
Language and Culture
The Alaska Natives speak a language belonging to the Eskaleut and Na Dene language family, with historical presence recorded across Georgia. Language family affiliation is one of the primary means by which historians and anthropologists identify historical connections between Indigenous peoples across time and geography.
Federal Recognition
The Alaska Natives hold federal recognition from the United States government, administered through the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Federally recognized tribes have a government-to-government relationship with the United States and are eligible for services and protections under federal Indian law. There are currently 574 federally recognized tribal nations in the United States.
Indigenous peoples had inhabited North America for at least 15,000 years before European contact, developing complex societies across every region of the continent. The Mississippian culture, centered on the city of Cahokia near present-day St. Louis, reached its peak around 1100 AD with a population estimated at 10,000 to 20,000 — larger than contemporary London. The Ancestral Puebloans built multi-story stone complexes at Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde between the 9th and 13th centuries. The Iroquois Confederacy, formed between roughly 1450 and 1600, united five nations under a constitution that influenced later American democratic thinking. Across the eastern woodlands, the Great Plains, the Pacific Coast, and the Southwest, hundreds of distinct nations maintained sophisticated trade networks, agricultural systems, and governance structures. European contact beginning in the late 15th century introduced epidemic disease — smallpox, measles, influenza — which devastated Indigenous populations by an estimated 50 to 90 percent within a century.
Content adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source: Wikipedia.
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