The Ten Native American Tribes of the Southeastern US

In our first blog of this series, we discussed some of the challenges that Native American groups face in the Federal recognition process. The government has since announced changes to the recognition process that will address some of those challenges.

In this series we will discuss the struggle of the ten southeastern tribes to maintain their cultures, their land and their families and gain their recognition and sovereignty while the U.S. Government and State Governments attempted to eliminate and exterminate them. Ten Tribes did succeed in surviving and maintaining their cultures following The Indian Removal Act of 1830 which targeted the tribes of the southeast.

In order to gain federal recognition, a tribe was forced to present documentation detailing their continued existence and proving their ties to their homeland. This was an excruciating task for groups who were forcefully removed from their homeland, may not have had a written history and whose oral histories were disrupted by the removal of their children and the eradication of their native languages.

We will present the tribes in chronological order according to the year they gained their sovereignty and federal recognition from the United States Government:

• 1916 – Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana
• 1924 – Eastern Band of Cherokee
• 1945 – Mississippi Band of Choctaw
• 1957 – Seminole Tribe of Florida
• 1962 – Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida
• 1973 – Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana
• 1981 – Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana
• 1984 – Poarch Band of Creek Indians of Alabama
• 1993 – Catawba Indian nation of South Carolina
• 1995 – Jena Band of Choctaw of Louisiana