An alphabetical list of extinct American indian tribes of the United States A to Z. Each tribal profile explains who they were, where they lived, how they lived, an account of first contact with Europeans, population if known, and a brief explanation of what happed to them.
The Koroa Indians are one of many “small tribes” of the Southeastern United States that are mentioned briefly in historic accounts and then fade from the records during the colonial period. There is evidence that some Koroa may have resided in present-day Arkansas in the late seventeenth century, but the ancestral homeland, cultural roots, and historic fate of the Koroa remain issues of disagreement among today’s scholars.
The Beothuk were the aboriginal inhabitants of Newfoundland when Europeans arrived, and were the first indigenous people the Europeans encountered in North America. They are now an extinct tribe, at least as a culture. Recently, dna has been found in Iceland that indicates, they may, indeed, have some descendants still living.
The Pensacola Indians were a Native American people who lived in the western part of what is now the Florida Panhandle and eastern Alabama for centuries before first contact with Europeans until early in the 18th century. They spoke a Muskogean language. They are the source of the name of Pensacola Bay and the city of Pensacola. They lived in the area until the mid-18th century, but were thereafter assimilated into other groups.
The Westo Indians lived in South Carolina along the central Savannah River in Colleton County. They apparently became extinct sometime before the early 1700s.
Aberginian is a collective term used by the early settlers on Massachusetts Bay for the tribes to the north. They were described in 1654 as consisting of the Massachusett, Wippanap, and Tarratine tribes.
The Ababco were an eastern Algonquian tribe or sub-tribe.
The Calusa Indians were a formidable Florida tribe who formerly held the southwest coast from about Tampa Bay to Cape Sable and Cape Florida, together with all the outlying keys, and extending inland to Lake Okeechobee. They also claimed authority over the tribes of the east coast, north to about Cape Canaveral.
The city of Tampa, Florida is named after and on the site of one of their principle villages.
The Utina, with the possible exception of the Potano, was the leading Timucua division in Florida and gave its name to the whole. They lived along the Suwannee River to the St. Johns and eastward, though some of the subdivisions given should be rated as independent tribes.
The Agna Dulce Indians were often referred to as the Freshwater Tribe. This name applied to the people of seven to nine neighboring towns which were related to the Acuera Indians. They lived along the coast of eastern Florida between St. Augustine and Cape Canaveral.
The Acuera Indians belonged to the Timucuan linguistic division of the Muskhogean linguistic family. They lived near the the headwaters of the Ocklawaha River in what is now Florida.
The Acolapissa disappeared as a separate tribe during 1765, and their subsequent history is identical with the Houma with whom they merged. The Houma remained in Ascension Parish until 1776 when they were overrun by settlement. They sold their land to two French Creoles that year, but small groups of them remained in the vicinity until 1840. However, by 1785 the majority had moved southwest and concentrated in La Fourche and Terrebonne Parishes (Houma, Louisiana) about 25 miles from New Orleans.
Originally hunter-gatherers, the Chimariko are possibly the earliest residents of their region in California. They had good reliations with Wintu people and were enemies of the Hupa, a Southern Athabaskan people. Conflict between Chimariko and white miners led to almost total extinction of the entire population. The surviving Chimariko fled to live with the Hupa and Shasta and became extinct by 1900.
The Nacisi tribe were a small tribe, possibly of Caddoan stock, formerly dwelling in the region of Red River, Louisiana. They were first mentioned by Joutel in 1687, at which time they were at odds with the Cenis (Caddo confederacy). When Bienville and St Denis were exploring the Red River of Louisiana in 1700, they found a village of the Nacisi consisting of 8 houses along the river. They were still in this neighborhood in 1741, but during the 18th century, the Nacisi seem to have drifted southward beyond the border of the French province. From 1790 they are mentioned among the tribes under the jurisdiction of Nacogdoches, in Texas.
When Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492, and “discovered” the Americas, he brought many changes. Over the next seventy years, the Spanish sent ships up the east coast of North America, but focused on Florida’s west coast and Central and South America. Although the Spanish did meet the Timucuas, much of our information about these Native Americans comes from the French. The French explorers lived in the Jacksonville area, near Chief Saturiwa and his people, for a little over a year.
The Tocobago Indians were a group of prehistoric and historic Native Americans living near Tampa Bay, Florida up until roughly 1760. The archaeological name for this and adjacent groups in late prehistoric (pre-European) times is the Safety Harbor culture.
In the early sixteenth century native people who spoke the Timucua language occupied most of the northern one-third of peninsular Florida (east of the Aucilla River), apparently not including the Gulf of Mexico coast. The Timucua also inhabited southeastern Georgia as far north as the Altamaha River. In 1492 this large area, about 19,200 square miles, was home to approximately 200,000 people.