SUMMARY
1. The Indians were divided into tribes, and the tribes into clans.
2. Each tribe had its own language or dialect, and usually lived by itself.
3. Members of a clan traced descent from some common imaginary ancestor, usually an animal. The civil head of a clan was the sachem; the military heads were the chiefs.
4. As the clans were united into tribes, so the tribes were in some places joined in confederacies.
5. The chief occupations of Indian men were hunting and waging war.
6. Their ways of life varied greatly with the locality in which they lived: as in the wooded regions of the East or on the great plains of the West; in the cold country of the North or in the warmer South.
7. The growth of white settlements, crowding back the Indians, led to
several notable wars in early colonial times, in all of which the Indians
were beaten:—
In Virginia: uprisings in 1622 and in 1644; border war in 1676.
In New England: Pequot War, 1636-37; King Philip's War, 1675-78.
In New Netherland: several wars with Algonquin tribes.
In North Carolina: Algonquin-Tuscarora uprising, 1711-13.
In South Carolina: Yamassee uprising, 1715-16.