20 BANNED Native American Facts So Surprising You’ll Think They’re Fake

Hollywood spent decades [music]

portraying native people as background

extras in westerns, but the real history

stayed locked away in archives.

Empires that rivaled Europe, military

tactics that American generals copied,

and massacres the government preferred

to forget. These aren't campfire

legends. They're 20 documented facts

that schools never taught and studios

never filmed. Subscribe to our channel

to keep watching videos like this.

Number one, long before Columbus ever

set foot in America, a busy city already

existed where Illinois is today. Cahokia

near present-day St. Louis had as many

as 20,000 people around 1050. To give

you an idea, London around the same time

had fewer [music] people. The residents

built massive earthn pyramids. some

bigger than any European structure of

that era. They developed agriculture

that fed huge crowds and created an

organized society with trade that

reached the Gulf [music] of Mexico. So

what happened to this civilization?

Around 1350, Cahokia [music] was empty.

Researchers believe overpopulation

drained the region's [music] resources.

The land couldn't support that many

people. When Europeans arrived centuries

[music] later, they found only

weedcovered mounds with no idea what had

existed [music] there. Number two,

during World War II, the US military had

a serious problem. The Japanese were

breaking every communication code within

hours. Then came the most unlikely

solution. Young Navajo men were

recruited to create a code based on

their own language. The result, a

language with more than 400 military

terms that the Japanese [music] never

managed to crack. These men sent

messages at Ewima and Okinawa, while

bullets flew all around them. Without

them, a lot of battles would have ended

differently.

Here's the part most people don't know.

When they got back home, they [music]

were forbidden to talk about what they

did. The code stayed secret until the

1960s

and the official recognition it only

came in 2000 when most of them were

already gone. This image [music] shows

these warriors in uniform, a record that

stayed hidden for decades. Number three.

Long before the founding fathers met in

Philadelphia, six native nations had

already worked out a problem that would

keep Washington [music] and Jefferson up

at night. How to unite different peoples

without anyone losing their voice. The

Hownos known as the Irakcoy [music]

created a confederacy with councils

where each nation had veto power.

Benjamin Franklin saw this system up

close [music] and was impressed. In

1754, he proposed the Albany plan,

clearly inspired by this native [music]

structure. When delegates debated the

Constitution decades later, that model

was already on the table. Senators and

representatives, states with autonomy,

[music] but united under a federation.

Coincidence? Historians still argue

about how directly the Irakcoy

influenced [music] things, but one thing

is certain, representative democracy

already existed in America centuries

before 1776.

Number four, when Columbus arrived, the

Americas had around 100 million people,

maybe even more than all of Europe.

organized cities, advanced farming

systems, trade routes that cross

continents. In less than 150 years,

diseases brought by Europeans wiped out

about 90% of that population. It was the

biggest population [music] collapse ever

recorded in human history.

But here's what few people talk about.

For centuries, school books taught that

colonizers found lands that were

basically empty, ready to be taken. The

truth is [music] very different.

Explorers described dense villages along

rivers, fields under cultivation for

miles. Decades later, [music] other

travelers passed through the same places

and found only forest, ruins [music]

swallowed up by vegetation.

The empty land story didn't come out of

nowhere. It was more convenient than

admitting what really happened. Number

five, the US [music] government created

a system that lasted nearly 100 years to

completely erase the identity of

indigenous peoples.

Beginning in 1879,

more than 400 boarding schools were

established across the country with a

clear mission to turn indigenous

children into civilized Americans. The

official slogan was brutal. Kill the

Indian, save the man. Here's how it

worked. Federal agents showed up on

reservations and took children away,

often by force. Some families never saw

their children again. At the schools,

boys hair was cut, speaking even a

single word in indigenous languages was

forbidden, and harsh punishments were

used against anyone who disobeyed.

What few people know is that many of

these children lost their connection to

their roots and communities.

Recent investigations are uncovering

records that are only now being properly

[music] documented and understood. The

last boarding school didn't close until

1978.

That's right, less than 50 years ago.

Number six, the dance that terrified the

US government.

In 1890, an indigenous ceremony sent

Washington into total [music] panic. The

Lakota practiced the ghost dance, a

ritual that promised [music] something

deeply unsettling to settlers. The land

would be renewed, the buffalo would

return by the millions, and white

[music] men would simply vanish. Not

through war, but through [music]

spiritual power.

The movement spread like wildfire among

different peoples, and the army didn't

wait to see whether the prophecy would

come true. Fear of a coordinated

uprising [music] brought troops to

Wounded Knee, resulting in one of the

most tragic and welldocumented losses of

life of that era [music] in December of

that year. This image shows the dancers

in a trance captured shortly before the

tragic events at Wounded Knee.

Authorities confiscated records like

this, fearing they would inspire other

indigenous peoples to join the movement

that promised to wipe white America off

the map. Number seven, did you know that

in several Native American tribes, the

women were the ones who really ran

things? Yep, that might surprise a lot

of people. Among the Cherokee, for

example, clans were organized through

the mothers. They controlled the land,

the homes, and even [music] made

decisions about war and peace. The men

fought, of course, but the final word on

a lot of issues came from the clan's

older women. And there's more. Some

women weren't just behind the scenes.

Lozen, an Apache warrior, rode alongside

Geronimo in battles against [music] the

US Army in the late 1800s.

She was known for her tracking [music]

skills, and people say she could sense

enemies coming. Geronimo called her the

shield of his people. This female power

structure was something [music]

Europeans simply couldn't understand

when they arrived here. Number eight,

imagine dozens of tribes speaking

[music] completely different languages,

still being able to make deals, organize

hunts, and even form military alliances

without understanding a single spoken

word from each other. That's how it

worked on the Great Plains. Native

peoples developed a handsign system so

effective, it worked better than a lot

of written treaties. Traders swapped

horses for weapons. Warriors coordinated

strategies. [music]

And rival tribes negotiated peace, all

in silence. Historians estimate that

more than 30 different nations [music]

knew and used this code. The wildest

part is that when the first white

explorers showed up, many of them

learned these signs before they learned

any spoken native language. It was

simply the most practical way to survive

and do business across [music] that huge

territory where every valley could have

a different language.

Number nine, lacrosse among the Irakcoy.

Did you know lacrosse started as

something very different from the

college sport we know today? The Irakcoy

called this game little war and they

[music] had good reason for it. Matches

could last for whole days with hundreds

of men on each side [music] on a field

that stretched for miles. There were no

rules against physical [music] contact.

Broken bones were common, and deaths

sometimes happened. Tribes used these

games to settle territorial disputes,

train warriors, and even get men ready

for real battles. It was violent, yes,

but it also had deep spiritual meaning.

Native people believed playing pleased

the creator. When French colonizers saw

the game for the first time, they were

shocked by how intense it was. The sport

we see today on well-kept fields was

born as something close to actual

combat. Number 10. Long before

pharmacies even [music] existed, Native

Americans already knew something science

would take centuries [music] to confirm.

They chewed willow bark to ease pain and

fevers. The secret? A substance we now

know as salicylic acid, the basis of

aspirin. When colonizers arrived, they

noticed [music] this knowledge and took

it back to Europe. In 1897,

Byer patented aspirin and made billions.

But here's the detail few people [music]

mention. No credit was given to the

peoples who discovered it first. It was

shamans and healers who passed this

knowledge down from generation to

generation. They also treated infections

[music]

and wounds with plants that modern

medicine studies today.

Think about it. How many medicines in

your cabinet trace back to knowledge

[music] that was basically taken and

renamed with scientific labels? Number

11.

Before Columbus arrived, slavery already

existed here.

Long before Europeans set foot on this

continent, native tribes were already

practicing something that few history

books mention. When one tribe won a

battle against another, the losers

didn't just walk away. Captives became

the property of the winners.

This happened from Canada all the way

down to South America. The Aztecs, for

example, kept thousands of enslaved

people from neighboring tribes. In the

Pacific Northwest, some tribes passed

enslaved people down from one generation

[music]

to the next. It wasn't the same as the

system that came later with Europeans,

but it was slavery. Captives worked, had

no freedom, [music] and could be traded

like goods. When colonizers arrived,

some tribes even sold their enslaved

people to them. The full story is more

complicated than what we were told in

school. Number 12. In 1680, something

happened in New Mexico [music] that

history books almost forgot. A leader

named Poe pulled off what seemed

impossible. He united Pueblo tribes that

spoke different [music] languages and

had old rivalries. On August 10th, they

attacked at the same time on multiple

fronts. Around 400 Spanish colonizers

were killed and the survivors fled south

in desperation.

What came next is the part few people

know. The PBLO ruled their own land for

a full 12 years. They burned churches,

destroyed colonial documents, and

brought back their traditional

practices.

It was the biggest defeat the Spanish

Empire suffered in the Americas at the

hands of native peoples.

When the Spanish finally returned in

1692, they found a people who had proven

they could win. Number 13. For decades,

diggers went on to tribal lands and just

took whatever they found. Ancestors

bones, ceremonial items, pieces [music]

tribes had protected for generations. It

all ended up in museums and private

[music] collections across the country.

It's estimated that US institutions

still hold hundreds of thousands of

these items. In 1990, Congress passed a

law requiring their return, but the

process drags on to this day. Many

tribes don't even know exactly what was

taken or where it is. Some items have

been gone for so long that young [music]

people on reservations have never seen

objects their greatgrandparents used in

rituals.

Museums claim it's bogged down in red

tape, but critics say the slow pace is

convenient. Meanwhile, whole communities

are waiting to get back pieces of their

own history that never should have left

their hands. Number 14, the gamecher

nobody saw coming. For centuries, Native

Americans lost pretty much everything,

land, [music] rights, dignity. But in

1988, a federal law literally changed

the rules of the game. The Indian Gaming

Regulatory Act allowed tribes to operate

casinos on their reservations, areas

where state laws didn't have authority.

The result, a historic turnaround.

Today, the native gaming industry

[music] brings in more than $40 billion

a year, beating Las Vegas and Atlantic

City combined. Some tribes went from

extreme poverty to building schools,

hospitals, and [music] giving

scholarships to their young people. Of

course, not everyone benefited equally,

and the money came with its own

problems. But the irony is impossible to

miss. The same government that tried to

erase these communities ended up

creating the legal loophole for their

economic comeback. Number 15. Did you

know the United States signed more than

500 treaties with indigenous nations and

broke every single one of them? Not

some, everyone. Since 1778, the federal

government promised land protection and

[music] sovereignty to native peoples.

In return, tribes peacefully gave up

millions [music] of acres. But every

time gold, oil, or railroads showed up,

the agreements turned into worthless

paper. The most famous case happened in

1868 when the Fort Laram treaty [music]

guaranteed the Black Hills to the Sue

forever. It lasted 8 years. Gold was

discovered and the army moved in. The

Supreme Court recognized in 1980 that it

was theft. It offered money. The sue

refused. They want the land back. Today,

the amount is over a billion dollars

sitting in an account. This is the story

they don't teach [music] in schools.

Number 16. Long before there was any

debate about controlled substances,

[music]

Native American tribes had been using

peyote for thousands of years. And it

wasn't for fun. It was serious religion.

Shamans consumed this cactus in sacred

rituals to connect with the spiritual

world and receive visions that guided

the whole tribe. Decisions about war,

hunting, and even marriages depended on

these ceremonies. The interesting part

is that the US government tried to ban

the practice several times, but in 1994,

a federal law finally protected the

religious use of peyote by tribes.

Scientists today study these substances

to treat depression and trauma. What

native people knew for centuries,

[music]

modern medicine is only rediscovering

now. Number 17, intertribal wars before

white people. A lot [music] of people

think native peoples lived in total

peace before Europeans showed up. That's

[music] not really true. Tribes fought

each other over territory, resources,

and power long before Columbus was even

on the map. The Comanche, [music] for

example, dominated the plains and pushed

the Apache to the southwest.

The Irakquoy built an empire in the

northeast [music] through conquest.

There were alliances, betrayals, and

battles that lasted for generations.

That doesn't lessen the [music]

devastating impact of colonization, of

course. But understanding the full

history shows they were complex

societies with politics, military

strategy, and power struggles like any

civilization.

The arrival of horses and firearms later

on only intensified conflicts that had

already existed for centuries. Number

18. Check out this fact most people

don't know. 60% of everything you eat

today came from the Americas before

Columbus arrived. Corn, potatoes,

tomatoes, squash, peanuts. Native

peoples had been growing all of that for

thousands of years. Italy didn't have

tomato sauce. Ireland didn't know

potatoes. Africa didn't have corn. These

foods crossed the ocean and changed the

way the whole [music] planet eats. But

here's the problem. For centuries,

history books [music] gave credit to

Europeans who simply took these plants

away. The real farmers who developed

these methods [music] over generations

were forgotten.

Think about that next time you're eating

corn off the cob at a summer barbecue.

This farming knowledge goes back [music]

at least 9,000 years. Number 19. Here's

something that'll make you think.

Scientists studying ancient DNA found

something [music] surprising in Native

American genes. They found genetic

traces that suggest contact with

European populations long before

Columbus ever set foot in the Americas.

We're talking thousands of years ago.

How is that possible? Some researchers

believe groups from what's now Iceland

or Scandinavia may have crossed the

North Atlantic using ice roots during

the Ice Age. Others point to the

Vikings, who we know reached North

America around the year 1000. The fact

is, our DNA tells stories that history

books are still trying to catch up with.

The truth about who really got to this

continent first may be a lot more

complicated than what we were taught in

school. Number 20. In 1680, a man

[music] named Po Pi did something few

people ever managed to do. He kicked the

Spanish out of New Mexico [music] for 12

years. He united Pueblo tribes that

didn't always get along and led [music]

a revolt that caught the colonizers

offguard. The Spanish only came back

after he died. Today, his statue is in

the US capital in Washington. He's the

only Native American in the National

Statuary Hall. Each state can place two

statues there, and New Mexico chose Pope

in 2005. [music]

For centuries, history books barely

mentioned him. Now he shares space with

famous presidents [music] and generals.

History doesn't always remember who it

should, but sometimes it corrects

itself. These facts are real, researched

in archives.

Hollywood buried them because they don't

sell tickets. Like if you learned

something, share if you were shocked.

Subscribe if you want to know more about

the dirty truth.