These organizations, located within the United States, self-identify as Native American tribes, heritage groups, or descendant communities, but they are not federally recognized or state-recognized as Native American tribes. The U.S. Governmental Accountability Office states: "Non-federally recognized tribes fall into two distinct categories: (1) state-recognized tribes that are not also federally recognized and (2) other groups that self-identify as Indian tribes but are neither federally nor state recognized." [1] The following list includes the latter.
For organizations that are recognized by the government of the United States as Native American tribes and tribal nations, see List of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States and List of Alaska Native tribal entities. For groups that are recognized by state governments as Native American tribes, see State-recognized tribes in the United States.
Many of these organizations are not accepted as being Native American by established Native American tribes. Exceptions exist, including tribes whose previous recognition was terminated, especially in California under the California Rancheria Termination Acts. Certain historic tribes in California signed treaties in 1851 and 1852 that the U.S. Senate secretly rejected after being pressured by the state of California; many of these historic tribes remain unrecognized. [2]
The following groups claim to be of Native American, which includes American Indian and Alaska Native, or Métis heritage by ethnicity but have no federal recognition through the United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Federal Acknowledgment (OFA), [3] United States Department of the Interior Office of the Solicitor (SOL), and are not recognized by any state government in the United States.
Some of the organizations are regarded as fraudulent. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] Some organizations are described as Corporations Posing as Indigenous Nations (CPAIN). [10] [11] [12] [13] [14]
Non-recognized tribes is a term for "groups that have no federal designation and are not accepted as sovereign entities under U.S. law," which includes state-recognized tribes. "An additional sub-designation under this classification are 'Federally Non-Recognized' tribes, which includes groups that have previously held federal recognition, either under governments prior to the U.S. Federal Government or as Nations that are no longer in existence and/or no longer meet the criteria as a Nation to have sovereignty status." [15]
Indigenous communities in the Pacific such as Native Hawaiians, Samoan Americans, Chamorro people of Guam, and Indigenous peoples of the Northern Mariana Islands are classified as Pacific Indigenous Communities and are not organized into tribes. [16]
This list also includes some groups from non-sovereign U.S. territories outside the contiguous United States, especially Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, that identify as having Caribbean Indigenous heritage and which also lack formal recognition. Groups outside the 48 contiguous states and Alaska are currently ineligible for federal recognition. [17] [18] [19] Some of these groups are represented on the International Indian Treaty Council under the United Confederation of Taíno People, which has campaigned nationally and at the United Nations for the United States to recognize such groups. [20] [21] [22]
Following is a list of groups known to self-identify as Native American tribes but that are not recognized by the U.S. federal government (Bureau of Indian Affairs) or by any state government.
South Carolina recognizes some Native American entities as groups or special interest organizations, but not as tribes. [152]
Unrecognized organizations include:
As journalists Graham Lee Brewer (Cherokee Nation) and Tristan Ahtone (Kiowa) reported, Texas has "no legal mechanism to recognize tribes." [169]
Following is a list of groups known to self-identify as Caribbean Indigenous tribes but that have been recognized neither by the federal government (Bureau of Indian Affairs) nor by any state, territory or tribal government.
The Cherokee people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, edges of western South Carolina, northern Georgia and northeastern Alabama consisting of around 40,000 square miles.
Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States government for the relocation of Native Americans who held original Indian title to their land as an independent nation-state. The concept of an Indian territory was an outcome of the U.S. federal government's 18th- and 19th-century policy of Indian removal. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), the policy of the U.S. government was one of assimilation.
The Shawnee are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language.
The Yuchi people are a Native American tribe based in Oklahoma, though their original homeland was in the southeastern United States.
The United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma is a federally recognized tribe of Cherokee Native Americans headquartered in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. According to the UKB website, its members are mostly descendants of "Old Settlers" or "Western Cherokees," those Cherokees who migrated from the Southeast to present-day Arkansas and Oklahoma around 1817. Some reports estimate that Old Settlers began migrating west by 1800, before the forced relocation of Cherokees by the United States in the late 1830s under the Indian Removal Act.
State-recognized tribes in the United States are organizations that identify as Native American tribes or heritage groups that do not meet the criteria for federally recognized Indian tribes but have been recognized by a process established under assorted state government laws for varying purposes or by governor's executive orders. State recognition does not dictate whether or not they are recognized as Native American tribes by continually existing tribal nations.
The Shawnee Tribe is a federally recognized Native American tribe in Oklahoma. Formerly known as the Loyal Shawnee, they are one of three federally recognized Shawnee tribes. The others are the Absentee-Shawnee Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma and the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma.
The Cherokee Nation, formerly known as the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is the largest of three federally recognized tribes of Cherokees in the United States. It includes people descended from members of the Old Cherokee Nation who relocated, due to increasing pressure, from the Southeast to Indian Territory and Cherokees who were forced to relocate on the Trail of Tears. The tribe also includes descendants of Cherokee Freedmen and Natchez Nation. As of 2024, over 466,000 people were enrolled in the Cherokee Nation.
The Native American tribes in Virginia are the Indigenous peoples whose tribal nations historically or currently are based in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States of America.
The Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma is one of three federally recognized tribes of Shawnee people. Historically residing in what became organized as the upper part of the Eastern United States, the original Shawnee lived in the large territory now made up of Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and neighboring states. In total, they occupied and traveled through lands ranging from Canada to Florida, and from the Mississippi River to the eastern continental coast.
Several Native American tribes within the United States register motor vehicles and issue license plates to those vehicles.
The Northern Cherokee Nation of the Old Louisiana Territory is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of individuals who self-identify as Cherokee but are not state or federally recognized as a Native American tribe or government. The headquarters for the NCNOLT is in Columbia, Missouri.
The Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma is one of three federally recognized Shawnee tribes. They are located in Oklahoma and Missouri.
The Cherokee people of the southeastern United States, and later Oklahoma and surrounding areas, have a long military history. Since European contact, Cherokee military activity has been documented in European records. Cherokee tribes and bands had a number of conflicts during the 18th century with Europeans, primarily British colonists from the Southern Colonies. The Eastern Band and Cherokees from the Indian Territory fought in the American Civil War, with bands allying with the Union or the Confederacy. Because many Cherokees allied with the Confederacy, the United States government required a new treaty with the nation after the war. Cherokees have also served in the United States military during the 20th and 21st centuries.
The Cherokee Nation was a legal, autonomous, tribal government in North America recognized from 1794 to 1907. It was often referred to simply as "The Nation" by its inhabitants. The government was effectively disbanded in 1907, after its land rights had been extinguished, prior to the admission of Oklahoma as a state. During the late 20th century, the Cherokee people reorganized, instituting a government with sovereign jurisdiction known as the Cherokee Nation. On July 9, 2020, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation had never been disestablished in the years before allotment and Oklahoma Statehood.
On the eve of the American Civil War in 1861, a significant number of Indigenous peoples of the Americas had been relocated from the Southeastern United States to Indian Territory, west of the Mississippi. The inhabitants of the eastern part of the Indian Territory, the Five Civilized Tribes, were suzerain nations with established tribal governments, well established cultures, and legal systems that allowed for slavery. Before European Contact these tribes were generally matriarchial societies, with agriculture being the primary economic pursuit. The bulk of the tribes lived in towns with planned streets, residential and public areas. The people were ruled by complex hereditary chiefdoms of varying size and complexity with high levels of military organization.
The Echota Cherokee Tribe of Alabama is a state-recognized tribe in Alabama and Cherokee heritage group. It is based in northern Alabama and gained state-recognition under the Davis-Strong Act in 1984.
The Cherokee Tribe of Northeast Alabama (CTNEAL), formerly the Cherokees of Jackson County, is a state-recognized tribe in Alabama. They have about 3,000 members. The tribe has a representative on the Alabama Indian Affairs Commission and the Inter-Tribal Council of Alabama. They are not federally recognized as a Native American tribe.
Leaders of the Inter-Tribal Council of the Five Tribes announced Tuesday that they had passed a resolution calling on the Major League Baseball team to apologize for "honoring fraudulent groups that pose as tribes without federal recognition" and urging the team to conduct "meaningful consultations" with federally recognized tribes on "how to properly engage with Native Americans."
More than 200 unrecognized tribes that claim to be Cherokee exist across the country, some of them selling fraudulent tribal ID cards, representing "Native culture" to non-Natives, and selling counterfeit "Native art."
The bill has been pitched at least a dozen times since 2000, but has always stalled in the Senate over worries that relaxing DOI standards could allow fraudulent "tribes" access federal funds.
The National Congress of American Indians called the group [The Kaweah Indian Nation] "fraudulent" and its leaders "impostors."
But in an elaborate scam, Mr Roberts, who lives in upstate New York, created an entire lineage of a fake Native American clan spanning eight generations.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Stephen P. Friot of Oklahoma ordered the men to stop pretending to be American Indians and pay Uintah County damages. He called their tribe a "complete sham." ... Uintah County, in turn, filed a counterclaim alleging racketeering and fraud.
'We call them C-PAINs: Corporations Posing As Indigenous Nations,' said Deborah Dotson, the president of the Delaware Nation, a federally recognized tribe based in Oklahoma.
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