Native Americans are the indigenous peoples of the Americas, descended from the pre-Columbian peoples. The Native Americans in North America are mostly descended from the Asian-descended Inuit people, who would also migrate to South America. The natives lived in tribes and in accordance with nature until the European colonists arrived in the Americas and ended the natives' ways of life, decimating their population by bringing disease and war to the tribes. Today, around 65,000,000 Native Americans live in the Americas, with 25,694,928 living in Mexico, 13,800,000 in Peru, 6,000,000 in Bolivia, 5,800,000 in Guatemala, 3,400,000 in Ecuador, as many as 5,000,000 in the United States, 1,800,000 in Chile, 1,400,000 in Canada, 1,400,000 in Colombia, 955,032 in Argentina, 817,963 in Brazil, 524,000 in Venezuela, 520,000 in Honduras, 443,847 in Nicaragua, 204,000 in Panama, 95,235 in Paraguay, 70,000 in El Salvador, 114,000 in Costa Rica, 60,000 in Guyana, 51,000 in Greenland, 24,501 in Belize, 19,000 in French Guiana, and 24,000 in Suriname, with many traditional natives adhering to animism, but modernized and assimilated natives practice Christianity, namely Catholicism in Latin America and Protestantism in Canada and America.
In the United States, by the 21st century, most Native Americans supported the Democratic Party. Before then, however, Native Americans and Native Alaskans had been more successful as Republican candidates, with around 87 of the 185 Native American elected officials by 2019 being elected as Republicans. From the 1950s to 1980s, most New Mexico Native Americans voted Republican due to the local GOP's support for their voting rights at a time when the local Democratic Party was ideologically akin to the racist Southern Democrats, and due to Richard Nixon's support of the return of Taos Pueblo lands to the tribe. However, by the 2000s, the GOP had shifted too far to the right, while the Democrats had become more racially inclusive. 70% of Native Americans voted for Barack Obama due to his support for educational and healthcare improvements, and 150 Native delegates attended the 2016 Democratic National Convention. Only in Oklahoma did significant numbers of Natives still vote Republican during the 2010s; Oklahoma congressmen Tom Cole and Markwayne Mullin were Republicans.
Gallery[]
