American Indians by the numbers

By Gannett News Service

Demographers estimate that 6 million to 9 million American Indians lived in what became the United States when Christopher Columbus arrived. By 1900, barely 250,000 had survived.

In the 2000 U.S. census, about 2.4 million people identified themselves as American Indian or Alaska Native and 1.8 million more said they were American Indian plus one or more other races.

The most often cited tribes that American Indians and mixed-race Indians said they belong to:

• Cherokee: 729,533
• Navajo: 298,197
• Canadian/Latin American Indians: 192,770
• Choctaw: 158,774
• Sioux: 153,360
• Chippewa: 149,669
• Apache: 96,833
• Blackfeet: 85,750
• Iroquois: 80,822
• Pueblo: 74,085