A comprehensive listing of the national parks, monuments, historic sites, and trails that preserve the heritage and culture of Native Americans.
Top National Parks to Commemorate American Indian Heritage during Native American Heritage Month 2009
For more than 10,000 years, pre-Columbian Indians dug agatized dolomite from quarries here to make projectile points, knives, scrapers, and other tools. Today this area is protected by the National Park Service and is the only National Monument in Texas.
Ruins of this large 12th-century Pueblo Indian community have been partially excavated. Contrary to the name, these structures were not built by the Aztecs of central Mexico, but centuries earlier.
On the canyon-slashed slopes of the Pajarito Plateau are the ruins of many cliff houses and villages of 13th-century Pueblo Indians.
An Anglo-American outpost on the Southern Plains, the fort was an Indian trading center and a center of civilization on the Santa Fe Trail. Disasters and disease caused the fort's abandonment in 1849. Today's fort is a reconstruction of the original fort).
Considered to be one of the most remote areas in the national park system, the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve spans 2.7 million acres of the Seward Peninsula in northwest Alaska.
The freshwaters of the Big Cypress Swamp, essential to the health of the neighboring Everglades, support the rich marine estuaries along Florida’s southwest coast.
Park memorializes the Nez Perce Indians, the soldiers of the 7th U.S. Infantry, and the Bitterroot Volunteers who clashed at the Battle of the Big Hole in August of 1877 -- a dramatic episode in the long struggle to confine the Nez Perce and other Indians to reservations.
Bighorn Lake, formed by Yellowtail Dam on the Bighorn River, extends 71 miles through Wyoming and Montana, including 55 miles through spectacular Bighorn Canyon. The Crow Indian Reservation borders a large part of the area.
At the base of sheer red cliffs and in canyon wall caves are ruins of Indian villages built between AD 350 and 1300. Modern Navajo Indians live and farm here today.
The monument includes a representative example of the Arctic coastline along the Chukchi Sea, and archaeological sites located along a succession of 114 lateral beach ridges provide evidence of an estimated 9,000 years of prehistoric human use of this coastline.
The nation's first archeological preserve protects the Casa Grande (Big House), one of the largest and most mysterious prehistoric structures ever built in North America.
The canyon contains 13 major prehistoric sites and hundreds of smaller ones, built by the Ancestral Puebloan People during the 9th through 12th centuries.
This park encompasses most of Jamestown Island, site of the first permanent English settlement; Yorktown, scene of the culminating battle of the American Revolution in 1781; a 23-mile parkway connecting these and other colonial sites with Williamsburg; and Cape Henry Memorial, which marks the approximate site of the first landing of Jamestown's colonists in 1607.
This scenic area preserves relatively unspoiled land on both the New Jersey and Pennsylvania sides of the Middle Delaware River. The river segment flows through the famous gap in the Appalachian Mountains.
The monument preserves 200 prehistoric American Indian mound sites built along the Mississippi River between 450 BC and AD 1300, including 26 effigy mounds in the shapes of birds and bears.
El Malpais ("the badlands" in Spanish) is a spectacular volcanic area, featuring cinder cones, a 17 mile-long lava tube system, and ice caves. The area is also rich in ancient Pueblo and Navajo Indian history, and features diverse ecosystems.
Unlike other parks, Everglades National Park was created the preserve a portion of the ecosystem as a wildlife habitat. With such a unique mixture of tropical and temperate plants and animals, Everglades contains over 700 plant and 300 bird species. It also gives as home to endangered species such as the manatee, crocodile, and Florida panther.
Established in 1862, this fort was the focal point of military operations against Geronimo and his band of Apaches. The site also preserves part of the Butterfield Overland Mail Route. The ruins can be reached only by trail.
Fort Laramie, on the eastern Wyoming prairie, was a fur-trade post from 1834 to 1849 and a major military post from 1849 to 1890. It figured prominently in the covered wagon migrations to Oregon and California.
The first English settlement in North America was attempted here (1585-1587). The fate of Sir Walter Raleigh's "Lost Colony" remains a mystery.
This was one of the first U.S. military posts in the Louisiana Territory and served as a base of operations for enforcing federal Indian policy from 1817 to 1896. The park contains the remains of two frontier military forts and a federal court.
he American stand here in 1777 was a major factor in repulsing the British invasion from Canada. The fort was also the site of the treaty of Fort Stanwix with the Iroquois on November 5, 1768.
The principal fur-trading post of the American Fur Company in the Upper Missouri River region from 1829 to 1867, Fort Union served the Assiniboine, Crow, Cree, Ojibway, and Blackfeet tribes.
Walking into the Gates of the Arctic is as grandiose as you may imagine it. The land is virtually untouched and visitors will be surrounded by untouched lands that are more stunning than can be described. If you are looking for an intimate encounter with nature, this national park delivers 8.5 million acres of it.
These well-preserved cliff dwellings in natural cavities on the face of an overhanging cliff were inhabited from about AD 1280 to the early 1300s.
This 9-mile portage was a vital link on one of the principal routes for Indians, explorers, missionaries, and fur traders heading for the Northwest.
With 800 miles of hiking trails it is surprising that relatively few visitors actually walk the trails; most choose the scenic view from their cars. But the designated international biosphere reserve is home to an incomparable variety of plants and animals, and is worth a more than a passing by.
Preserved here are the archeological remains of the Hohokam culture, including artwork, homes, irrigation canals, and tools dating from about 300 BC to AD 1200. Hohokam is a Pima Indian word meaning "those who have gone."
Park contains nationally significant archeological resources including large earthwork and mound complexes that provide an insight into the social, ceremonial, political, and economic life of the Hopewell people.
On March 27, 1814, at the "horseshoe bend" in the Tallapoosa River, General Andrew Jackson's forces broke the power of the Upper Creek Indian Confederacy and opened large parts of Alabama and Georgia for settlement.
Pre-Columbian Indians built these 6 groups of towers, pueblos, and cliff dwellings. The first reports of these structures were made by W.D. Huntington, the leader of a Mormon expedition into southeastern Utah in 1854.
Established in 1878, Hubbell Trading Post is the oldest continuously operating trading post in the Navajo Nation. The trading post has served as a bridge between cultures for generations.
This park on Saint Louis' Mississippi riverfront memorializes Thomas Jefferson and others who directed territorial expansion of the United States. Eero Saarinen's prize-winning, stainless steel gateway arch commemorates westward pioneers.
Variety marks this vast land with lakes, forests, mountains, and marshlands that all abound in wildlife. Here, in 1912, Novarupta Volcano erupted violently, forming the ash-filled "Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes" where steam rose from countless fumaroles
Park preserves historic and archeological remnants of the culture and agricultural lifestyle of the Northern Plains Indians. More than 50 archeological sites suggest a possible 8,000 year span of inhabitation, ending with five centuries of Hidatsa earthlodge village occupation.
Embracing the central valley of the Kobuk River, the park, located entirely north of the Arctic Circle, includes a blend of biological, geological, and cultural resources.
Lake Clark National Park and Preserve was established on December 2, 1980 to protect scenic beauty (volcanoes, glaciers, wild rivers and waterfalls), populations of fish and wildlife, watershed essential for red salmon, and the traditional lifestyle of local residents.
Volcanic activity spewed forth molten rock and lava here, creating an incredibly rugged landscape — a natural fortress used by the Indians in the Modoc Indian War, 1872-1873
The area memorializes one of the last armed efforts of the Northern Plains Indians to preserve their ancestral way of life. Here, the famous Battle of the Little Big Horn was fought between the 7th U.S. Cavalry and the Lakota and Cheyenne Indians on June 25-26, 1876. Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer and more than 260 soldiers and attached personnel were killed.
Mesa Verde, Spanish for "green table," offers a unique opportunity to see and experience 700 years of history. From approximately A.D. 600 through A.D. 1300 people lived and flourished in communities throughout the area.
Built in the 12th and 13th centuries by Sinagua farmers, this 5-story, 20-room cliff dwelling is one of the best preserved in the United States. Early settlers to the area assumed that the imposing structure was associated with the Aztec emperor Montezuma, but the structure was abandoned almost a century before Montezuma was born.
This historic route generally follows the old Indian trace or trail between Nashville, Tennessee, and Natchez, Mississippi. It encompasses portions of Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi.
Monument preserves Betatakin, Keet Seel, and Inscription House, three cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Puebloan People. The monument is surrounded by Navajo Nation land.
The history and culture of the Nez Perce Indian country are preserved, commemorated, and interpreted here.
Ocmulgee National Monument is a memorial to the relationship of people and natural resources in this corner of North America. We preserve a continuous record of human life in the Southeast from the earliest times to the present, there is evidence here of more than 12,000 years of human habitation.
The park represents what might be the most well preserved Civil War battlefield in the United States. The Union victory here on March 7-8, 1862, in one of the major engagements of the Civil War west of the Mississippi, led to the Union's total control of Missouri.
Park preserves 12,000 years of human history, including the ruins of the Pecos Pueblo and many other American Indian structures, Spanish colonial missions, homesteads of the Mexican era, a section of the Santa Fe Trail, sites related to the Civil War Battle of Glorieta Pass, and a 20th-century ranch.
More than 15,000 prehistoric and historic Native American and Hispanic petroglyphs (images carved in rock) stretch 17 miles along Albuquerque's West Mesa escarpment.
For centuries American Indians have been obtaining materials for pipe making from these quarries, a practice that continues today. Although painter George Catlin was not the first white person to visit the quarries, he was the first person to describe them in print. Pipestone is known as Catlinite in his honor.
The tranquil view from Mount Vernon of the Maryland shore of the Potomac is preserved as a pilot project in the use of easements to protect parklands from obtrusive urban expansion.
Park commemorates a culture that thrived during the first and second millennia, BC. Today erosion and more than a century of agriculture have reduced what may have been the largest and most intricate geometrical earthwork in North America.
Thousands of Archaic sites have been identified and uncovered throughout the southeastern United States, ranging from permanent cave dwellings to campfire remains. Russell Cave National Monument offers one of the largest and most complete archeological records of human habitation in this part of the country, dating back more than 10,000 years.
Park preserves and interprets the best remaining examples of 17th-century Spanish Franciscan mission churches and conventos remaining in the United States and three large Pueblo Indian villages. The Salinas sites have been abandoned since the 1670s.
Four Spanish frontier missions (Concepción, San Jose, San Juan, and Espada), part of a colonization system that stretched across the Spanish Southwest in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, are preserved here.
The bitter battle fought here April 6-7, 1862, prepared the way for Major General U.S. Grant's successful siege of Vicksburg. Well-preserved prehistoric Indian mounds overlook the river and the Shiloh (Pittsburg Landing) National Cemetery adjoins the park.
Alaska's oldest federally-designated park is the site of the 1804 fort and battle that marked the last major Tlingit Indian resistance to Russian colonization. Tlingit totem poles and crafts are exhibited.
Named for the American Indians who lived here for more than 3,000 years, the preserve encompasses Atlantic coastal marshes, islands, mudflats, tidal creeks, and the estuaries of the Saint Johns and Nassau rivers. Besides traces of Indian life, remains of Spanish, French, and English colonial ventures can be found as well as southern plantation life and 19th-century military activities.
These well-preserved cliff dwellings were occupied during the 13th and 14th centuries by the Salado Culture who farmed the Salt River Basin.
The Trail of Tears National Historic Trail commemorates the the removal of the Cherokee Indian people from their homelands in Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, and Georgia by the federal government, and the paths that 17 Cherokee detachments followed westward.
This historic Spanish Catholic mission building stands near the site first visited by Jesuit Father Kino in 1691.
Tuzigoot includes a large pueblo built by the Sinagua culture that flourished in the Verde Valley between AD 1100 and 1450. The Sinagua were agriculturalists with trade connections that spanned hundreds of miles.
These cliff dwellings were built in shallow caves under ledges of limestone by the Sinagua People about 800 years ago. Though the Sinagua were the canyon's only permanent residents, artifacts found here indicate that they were preceded by Archaic peoples who traveled throughout the Southwest thousands of years ago.
Site protects and interprets the site of the Southern Cheyenne village of Peace Chief Black Kettle that was attacked by the 7th US Cavalry under Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer just before dawn on November 27, 1868. The controversial strike has been described as both a battle and a massacre.
The mission of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman at Waiilatpu was an important way station in the early days of the Oregon Trail. The Whitmans labored to bring Christianity to the Cayuse, but deep cultural differences and a measles epidemic led to violence in which the Cayuse killed the Whitmans and 11 others.
Ruins of red sandstone pueblos built by farming Ancestral Puebloan People between 1120 and 1250 are preserved here.
It may be popular for its unbelievable valleys, but Yosemite is much more than a valley. In fact, it is home to some of the nation’s most spectacular waterfalls, meadows, and ancient sequoia trees.
Ruins of these large prehistoric Indian pueblos are as yet unexcavated. Due to the size and extent of mounds, it is believed that, when excavated, they will prove of great archeological significance and educational interest.
