Plains Indians

Those American Indian tribes that occupied that area of the United States that has the Mississippi as its eastern boundary and the foothills of the Rocky Mountains as its western limits, and stretches from the forty ninth parallel in the north to south-central Texas in the south. Originally this region was sparsely inhabited by a few tribes of agriculturists who didn't rely on the buffalo for sustenance and it was only after the horse culture had been established itself among the tribes living beyond the perimeter of this area in the last decade of the eighteenth century that these non-plains dwellers began to move into the area described and take up permanent residence. These new arrivals, who most of whom had been farming peoples, would, at some later date, be classified as plains Indians-mainly teepee dwelling nomads who made the buffalo their commissariat and did little if any farming.