Native American populations in New England, with no immunity to European diseases, were nearly eradicated by a mysterious epidemic—likely smallpox. Between 1616 and 1619, the population of the Massachusett and other Algonquin tribes was reduced by as much as 90 percent by disease.

Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act to grant citizenship to “all non citizen Indians born within the territorial limits of the United States.”

Members of the militant American Indian Movement staged an armed occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, the site of a massacre of Lakota Indians at the hands of the US Army in 1890. The occupiers were led by Russell Means and Dennis Banks. They declared an independent Sioux nation and held the area for seventy-one days, surrendering after an AIM member was shot and killed by federal authorities.

Powhatan (unknown–1618), or Wahunsonakok, was a chief of the Powhatan people in what is now Virginia. Powhatan ruled over several Algonquian tribes during the English settlement of Jamestown. He negotiated and sometimes clashed with Jamestown colonists and John Smith. Though Powhatan at first cooperated with English colonists, he later cut off trade and became hostile to them. His daughter, Pocahontas, was captured by an English expedition in 1613, however, and Powhatan approved her...