Glossary of Terms Related to Indigenous Peoples of the United States

There are terms which are somewhat unique to American Indian research. Some are common terms with meanings unique to Indian research. This is an attempt to define some of those terms.

A
Agency -- the local office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, usually responsible one or more tribes residing on a reservation

Agent -- a person appointed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to administer its local office on or near a reservation.

Allotment Record -- the policy of the federal government was to allot land on a reservation to individuals; the records of these allotments provides information about the individual and the family relationships

Annuity Rolls --an annual payment to a tribe, and later to individuals, as stipulated by most treaties

Area Office -- an administrative office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the United States.

B
Band -- a subdivision of a tribe

BIA -- The Bureau of Indian Affairs in the United States.

Boarding Schools

C
Certified Degree of Indian Blood --

Cherokee by Blood --

Claims Commission --

Commissioner of Indian Affairs --

Confederacy --

Confederation --

Consolidation --

D
Dawes Commission - The U.S. Congress approved the act on March 3, 1893. The purpose was to negotiate treaties with the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole Indian tribes. The aim was to divide tribal land into plots which were then distributed to approved members of the tribe.

Dawes Roll -- the enrollment record for the Five Civilized Tribes, compiled between 1895 and 1914.

Day Schools --

E
Eastern Cherokee

Enrollment Records -- the federal government wanted to classify all Indians into a tribe for the purpose of negotiating treaties with the various Indian tribes. One example is the Dawes Commission.

Emigration Rolls

F
Factory -- another name for a trading post; the name was used primarily in the United States between 1800 and 1825.

Federally Recognized Tribal Entities --

Five Civilized Tribes --a loose federation of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole tribes formed in 1859 in what is now Oklahoma

Freedman -- term applied to African-American slaves held by members of the Five Civilized Tribes, or former slaves who lived among them

G
General Allotment Act of 1887 -- An Act passed by the United States government by which specific parcels of land were allotted to individual Indians on many of the reservations.

Guion Miller rolls

I
Indian Schools --

M
Missions --

N
Nation -- after the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, a term often used to mean a tribe which had organized under that Act

O
Office of Indian Affairs -- the forerunner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs

R
Rancheria -- a term used almost exclusively in California for a small reservation, often to describe a parcel of land purchased by a tribe and subsequently recognized by the federal or state government.

Register of Families --

Removal -- an official U.S. government policy in the early to mid-1800s, intended to remove American Indians from areas where conlfict between them and non-Indian settlers may have arisen.

Reservation -- a parcel of land reserved by the United States government upon which a tribe or tribes were to reside.

S
Sanitary Record of Sick, Injured, Burths, Deaths, etc. --

Subagency -- an office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs usually under the jurisdiction of an agency, serving a smaller jurisdiction than the agency.

Superintendency -- an office under the U.S. Office of Indian Affairs, usually covering a specific locality, including a supervisory role over agencies and subagencies in that locality.

T
Termination --

Treaties -- agreements between governments and Indian tribes. There are treaties between tribes and the:


 * U.S. government
 * Canadian government
 * British government

Tribe -- a term applied by non-Indians to a group of Native Americans, usually of a common linguistic or cultural stock