Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct Native American tribes and ethnic groups, many of which survive as intact political communities. The terms used to refer to Native Americans have been controversial. According to a 1995 U.S. Census Bureau set of home interviews, most of the respondents with an expressed preference refer to themselves as American Indians (or simply Indians), and this term has been adopted by major newspapers and some academic groups; however, this term does not typically include Native Hawaiians or certain Alaskan Natives, such as Aleut, Yup'ik, or Inuit peoples.

Since the end of the 15th century, the migration of Europeans to the Americas, and their importation of Africans as slaves, has led to centuries of conflict and adjustment between Old and New World societies. Europeans created most of the early written historical record about Native Americans after the colonists' immigration to the Americas. Many Native Americans lived as hunter-gatherer societies and told their histories by oral traditions. In many groups, women carried out sophisticated cultivation of numerous varieties of staple crops: maize, beans and squash. The indigenous cultures were quite different from those of the agrarian, proto-industrial, mostly Christian immigrants from western Eurasia. Many Native cultures were matrilineal; the people occupied lands for use of the entire community, for hunting or agriculture. Europeans at that time had patriarchal cultures and had developed concepts of individual property rights with respect to land that were extremely different.
The differences in cultures between the established Native Americans and immigrant Europeans, as well as shifting alliances among different nations of each culture through the centuries, caused extensive political tension, ethnic violence and social disruption. The Native Americans suffered high fatalities from the contact with infectious Eurasian diseases, to which they had no acquired immunity. Epidemics after European contact caused the greatest loss of life for indigenous populations. Estimates of the pre-Columbian population of what today constitutes the U.S. vary significantly, ranging from 1 million to 18 million.

After the colonies revolted against Great Britain and established the United States of America, President George Washington and Henry Knox conceived of the idea of "civilizing" Native Americans in preparation for assimilation as U.S. citizens. Assimilation (whether voluntary as with the Choctaw,or forced) became a consistent policy through American administrations. During the 19th century, the ideology of manifest destiny became integral to the American nationalist movement. Expansion of European-American populations to the west after the American Revolution resulted in increasing pressure on Native American lands, warfare between the groups, and rising tensions. In 1830, the U.S. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, authorizing the government to relocate Native Americans from their homelands within established states to lands west of the Mississippi River, accommodating European-American expansion.

The first European Americans to encounter the western interior tribes were generally fur traders and trappers. There were also Jesuit missionaries active in the Northern Tier. As United States expansion reached into the American West, settler and miner migrants came into increasing conflict with the Great Basin, Great Plains, and other Western tribes. These were complex nomadic cultures based on horse culture and seasonal bison hunting. They carried out strong resistance to United States incursions in the decades after the American Civil War, in a series of Indian Wars, which were frequent up until the 1890s, but continued into the 20th century. The transcontinental railroad brought more non-Natives into tribal land in the west. Over time, the U.S. forced a series of treaties and land cessions by the tribes, and established reservations for them in many western states. U.S. agents encouraged Native Americans to adopt European-style farming and similar pursuits, but European-American agricultural technology of the time was inadequate for often dry reservation lands. In 1924, Native Americans who were not already U.S. citizens were granted citizenship by Congress.

Contemporary Native Americans have a unique relationship with the United States because they may be members of nations, tribes, or bands with sovereignty and treaty rights. Since the late 1960s, Native American activism has led to the building of cultural infrastructure and wider recognition: they have founded independent newspapers and online media; FNX, the first Native American television channel (2011)community schools, tribal colleges, and tribal museums and language programs; Native American studies programs in major universities; and national and state museums. Native American and Alaskan Native authors have been increasingly published; they work as academics, policymakers, doctors, and in a wide variety of occupations. Cultural activism has led to an expansion of efforts to teach and preserve indigenous languages for younger generations. Their societies and cultures flourish within a larger population of descendants of immigrants (both voluntary and involuntary): African, Asian, Middle Eastern, European, and other peoples.

Quanah Parker was an influence in the creation of the Native American Church. The movement started in the 1880s, and was formally incorporated in 1918 in Oklahoma. Parker adopted the peyote religion after being gored by a bull in South Texas and surviving the attack with the help of peyote.[citation needed] Parker was given strong peyote tea by a Coahuiltecan Native American curandera who healed him and showed him the proper way to run peyote ceremonies. Therefore, the genesis of modern NAC ceremonies have deep roots in Mexican Native American culture and ritual, due to the natural locality of peyote and the dissemination by Parker to the Comanche and other plains tribes located in Indian Territory.[4][5]
Parker taught that the sacred peyote medicine was the sacrament given to all peoples by the creator, and was to be used with water when taking communion in some Native American Church medicine ceremonies. Parker learned the "half-moon" style of the peyote ceremony from the Lipan Apache leader Chiwat. The Lipan Apache learned the ceremony from the Carrizo Coahuilteco tribe of Southern Texas (Peyote Religion by Omer Stewart). The "cross fire" ceremony (originally called the "Big Moon" ceremony) later evolved in Oklahoma (initially among the Kiowa Native American) due to influences introduced by John Wilson, a Caddo Native American who traveled extensively around the same time as Parker during the early days of the Native American Church movement.

The peyote religion evolved an elaborate trade network which has persisted since pre-Columbian times, in South Texas, with designated harvesters of the peyote in Rio Grande City, Texas, and Mirando City, Texas. The Peyoteros are a group of closely knit families of Mexican ancestry who have harvested peyote for Native Americans since the early 18th century. The modern peyoteros still harvest peyote in the same manner as their ancestors, with a machete and a very small work crew of young and sometimes old men. Peyote is harvested and dried after the crowns of the plants are removed at ground level; cut at an angle, to allow water to run off. The peyoteros never dig up peyote, but rather cut the tops of the cactus crowns at ground level with a machete. Peyote plants create large taproots with an extensive root system, and the plants slowly regenerate new heads after harvest, often producing a much larger plant after several years of regrowth. Currently, peyote is being overharvested, seriously endangering the existence of the local populations of peyote. There are only 3 licensed Peyoteros left in Texas due to overharvesting, illegal poaching, and strict licensing and tax regulations by the Texas Department of Public Safety and the U.S. Federal government. Two Peyoteros in South Texas are Mauro Morales of Rio Grande City, Texas, and Salvador Johnson of Mirando City, Texas.
Native American are permitted to purchase peyote to supply the Native American Church both in person and via US Mails "Restricted Delivery" procedures. Special ceremonies are performed with the harvested and dried peyote medicine in order to bless it for use as a sacrament for Native American Church rituals and ceremonies.
All three of the peyoteros are licensed by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration and operate under DEA 225 permits. Peyoteros are also required to be registered with the State of Texas Department of Public Safety, for a fee over $1,200 per year. Legitimate Native American Church Branches are required to register with the Texas Department of Public Safety in order to purchase, harvest, transport, or cultivate peyote. Non-Native American churches not affiliated with federally-recognized tribal entities are not eligible for registration with the Texas Department of Public Safety at this time.