Diversity.

In 1800 the United States contained only sixteen states. Vermont, Kentucky, and Tennessee had joined the original thirteen in the 1790s, but the young nation was still bounded on the west by the Mississippi River and on the south by Spanish Florida. Both within the United States and in the lands that it would acquire lived indigenous people who called the land their own. Americans called these people Indians, but the name concealed the diversity of the native peoples. Native Americans were not politically united and did not view themselves as one people. They had created many cultures and spoke hundreds of languages. These cultures were not static. Rather they were constantly changing as native peoples traded and fought with each other, migrated into lands new to them, and assimilated foreigners and captives into their worlds.

The Pueblos.

By the 1500s, when...