Who are the 90%?
The myth that Native families have always stayed in one place is just that — a myth. Even before colonization, many Native families moved frequently along trade routes, by season for agricultural or hunting purposes, and in response to shifting territories caused by changing political boundaries.
In the centuries since colonization began, Native families have moved into and out of tight-knit urban and reservation communities for myriad reasons. Sometimes, it’s been in response to federal policies, like the policies of the 1800s which removed thousands of Native people from their homes in the interests of Manifest Destiny or the shipping off of Native children to boarding schools for educational assimilation. In other circumstances, government orders indirectly caused Native families to relocate by creating unbearable living conditions on the reservation (like requiring agriculture in rural areas with poor soil and withholding rations to ensure compliance with Indian agent orders). Since the 1940s, many Native people have moved to cities to find work, sometimes at the encouragement of the federal government, resulting in large urban Native communities in cities like Denver, Seattle, Baltimore, Detroit, and Los Angeles. As cities nation-wide extended into suburbs, many Indians also moved to the ‘burbs. Today, about 90% of Native people live off-reservation.
In Everything You Know About Indians is Wrong, Paul Chaat Smith wrote that “Only when we recognize that our own individual, crazy personal histories, like those of every other Indian person of this century, are a tumble of extraordinary contradictions, can we begin making sense of lives.” This site is devoted to sharing the individual, crazy personal histories that don’t fit into the typical molds of what is expected of Native people.
In the centuries since colonization began, Native families have moved into and out of tight-knit urban and reservation communities for myriad reasons. Sometimes, it’s been in response to federal policies, like the policies of the 1800s which removed thousands of Native people from their homes in the interests of Manifest Destiny or the shipping off of Native children to boarding schools for educational assimilation. In other circumstances, government orders indirectly caused Native families to relocate by creating unbearable living conditions on the reservation (like requiring agriculture in rural areas with poor soil and withholding rations to ensure compliance with Indian agent orders). Since the 1940s, many Native people have moved to cities to find work, sometimes at the encouragement of the federal government, resulting in large urban Native communities in cities like Denver, Seattle, Baltimore, Detroit, and Los Angeles. As cities nation-wide extended into suburbs, many Indians also moved to the ‘burbs. Today, about 90% of Native people live off-reservation.
In Everything You Know About Indians is Wrong, Paul Chaat Smith wrote that “Only when we recognize that our own individual, crazy personal histories, like those of every other Indian person of this century, are a tumble of extraordinary contradictions, can we begin making sense of lives.” This site is devoted to sharing the individual, crazy personal histories that don’t fit into the typical molds of what is expected of Native people.
site curator
The 90% was started by Meredith McCoy. Meredith founded The 90% after she realized how many Native people in the United States had family stories much like her own. This site celebrates the "individual, crazy personal histories" that make Indian Country the vibrant, diverse place it is today.
The 90% was started by Meredith McCoy. Meredith founded The 90% after she realized how many Native people in the United States had family stories much like her own. This site celebrates the "individual, crazy personal histories" that make Indian Country the vibrant, diverse place it is today.
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