The American Indians is a name given to pre-European inhabitants of America. There is a great cultural diversity : the culture of Indians of Northern coast of South America, the Eskimos and other civilisations of Mayas (later adopted by the Aztecs) and the Incas of Peru.
Toward the end of the 1960s Indians, aswell as other minorities had to fight against discrimination. They wanted to keep their tribal traditions and own homeland but they had to fight with assimilation. Many times the tribes were forced to move to a different part of coutry to live in reservations. A large number of people died. Indians of the South America belong to more than 552 recognized Indian etnities. The term Indian etnity includes Indian tribes, bands, villages, groups and pueblos, also including Eskimos and Aleut village tribes. A number of 1,937,391 American Indians live in reservations all over United states. An area is counted a reservation in a state, where that population is predominant and/or tribal headquarters are located. The largest number of reservations is located in California (96- Chereokee, Hoopa, Karok tribes), Oklahoma (36- Chereokee, Creek, Choctaw, Comanche tribes), Washington and New Mexico. The biggest are in Arizona (19,775,959 tribally owned acreage) and the highest number of Indians lives in Oklahoma (252,420 persons).
There are many different tribes of Indians living in these areas. The greatest tribe is the Chereokee tribe with 359,035 persons (19%), Navajo (11,6%) and Sioux (5,5%). Rememberance weights heavy on the minds of Native Americans as they seek for their cultural identity in this hi-tech world. Success depends on knowing where one came from and never forgetting it. Many of them left their reservations, live in cities and slowly assimilate to white men´s ways. .