Indigenous Peoples of the United States Reservations

United States American Indians  Reservations

Reservations are land set aside by the United States or individual states for use as American Indian home lands. Some reservations are for one tribe or band, and some reservations are shared by two or more tribes. There are 310 reservations in the United States and about 550 recognized tribes, so not every tribe has a reservation. A few tribes have more than one reservation. The largest is the Navajo Nation Reservation consisting of a significant portion of several counties in Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. Some reservations are on tiny pieces of land not much more than a acre surrounded by large urban areas, for example Las Vegas, Nevada. Reservations are distributed unevenly in the United States with the bulk of them in the mountain west states.

Less than half live on reservations. In 2012 only about 1 million of the approximately 2.5 million American Indians lived on reservations. Nevertheless, many researchers can identify a reservation where their ancestors once lived.

Records. If you know the reservation where an ancestor lived, use that information to determine the Bureau of Indian Affiars agency and the tribe associated with that reservation. Almost all records useful for genealogical research were created by the BIA agency, or sometimes by the tribe. Many BIA agency records also are available from the National Archives, its branches, or at the Family History Library.