Black Indians are Native American people — defined as Native American due to being affiliated with Native American communities and being culturally Native American – who have significant African American heritage. Many Indigenous peoples of the Eastern Woodlands, such as the Narragansett, Pequot and Shinnecock, as well as people from the nations from the Southeast, such as Choctaw and Cherokee, have a significant degree of African and European ancestry as well. Certain Native American tribes have had close relations with African Americans in regions where slavery was prevalent, or where free people of color have resided. Members of the Five Civilized Tribes participated in holding enslaved African Americans in the Southeast, some enslaved or enslaved people migrated with them to the West on the Trail of Tears in 1830 and during the period of Indian Removal. In peace treaties with the US after the American Civil War, the slaveholding tribes, which had sided with the Confederacy, were required to emancipate slaves and give them full citizenship rights in their nations.

In controversial actions, since the late 20th century, the Cherokee and Seminole nations tightened their rules for membership and at times excluded Freedmen who did not have at least one ancestor listed as Native American on the early 20th-century Dawes Rolls. This exclusion was appealed in the courts, both because of the treaty conditions and in some cases because of possible inaccuracies in some of the Rolls; the Chickasaw Nation never extended citizenship to Chickasaw Freedmen. Until historic relations between Native Americans and African Americans were neglected in mainstream United States history studies. At various times, Africans had varying degrees of contact with Native Americans, although they did not live together in as great number as with Europeans. African slaves brought to the United States and their descendants have had a history of cultural exchange and intermarriage with Native Americans, as well as with other enslaved mixed-race persons who had some Native American and European ancestry.

Most interaction took place in New England where contact was early and the Southern United States, where the largest number of African-descended people were enslaved. In the 21st century, a significant number of African Americans have some Native American ancestry, but most have not grown up within those cultures and do not have current social, cultural or linguistic ties to Native peoples. Relationships among different Native Americans and African Americans have been varied and complex; some tribes or bands were more accepting of ethnic Africans than others and welcomed them as full members of their respective cultures and communities. Native peoples disagreed about the role of ethnic African people in their communities. Other Native Americans did not oppose it for others; some Native Americans and people of African descent fought alongside one another in armed struggles of resistance against U. S. expansion into Native territories, as in the Seminole Wars in Florida. After the American Civil War, some African Americans continued as members of the US Army.

Many were assigned to fight against Native Americans in the wars in the Western frontier states. Their military units became known as a nickname given by Native Americans. Black Seminole men in particular were recruited from Indian Territory to work as Native American scouts for the Army. Records of contacts between Africans and Native Americans date to April 1502, when the first enslaved African arrived in Hispaniola; some Africans escaped inland from the colony of Santo Domingo. In the lands which became part of the United States of America, the first recorded example of an African slave escaping from European colonists and being absorbed by Native Americans dates to 1526. In June of that year, Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón established a Spanish colony near the mouth of the Pee Dee River in present-day South Carolina; the Spanish settlement was named San Miguel de Guadalupe. In 1526 the first enslaved African took refuge with local Native Americans. In 1534 Pueblo peoples of the Southwest had contact with the Moroccan slave Esteban de Dorantes before any contact with the remainder of survivors of his Spanish expedition.

As part of the Spanish Pánfilo de Narváez expedition, Esteban traveled from Florida in 1528 to what is now New Mexico in 1539, with a few other survivors. He is thought have been killed by Zuni. More than a century when the Pueblos united to rid their homelands of the Spanish colonists during the 1690 Pueblo Revolt, one of the organizers of the revolt, Domingo Naranjo was a Santa Clara Pueblo man of African ancestry. In 1622 Algonquian Native Americans attacked the English colony of Jamestown, they killed the Europeans but brought some of the few African slaves as captives back to their own communities assimilating them. Interracial relationships continued to take place between Africans and members of Native American tribes in the coastal states. Although the colonists tried to enslave Native Americans in the early years, they gave it up in the early 18th century. Several colonial advertisements for runaway slaves made direct reference to the connections which Africans had in Native American communities.

"Reward notices in colonial newspapers now told of African slaves who'ran off with his Indian wife' or'had kin among the Indians' or is'part-Indian and speaks their language good'."The British passed laws prohibiting the c

On February 14, 2017, the bodies of Abigail Williams and Liberty German were discovered near the Monon High Bridge Trail, part of the Delphi Historic Trails in Delphi, United States, after the young girls had disappeared from the same trail the previous day. The murders have received significant media coverage because a photo and audio recording of an individual believed to be the girls' murderer was found on German's smartphone. Despite the audio and video recordings of the suspect that have been circulated and the more than 26,000 tips that police have received, no arrest in the case has been made. At 1:35 p.m. on February 13, 2017, 13-year-old Abigail J. "Abby" Williams and 14-year-old Liberty Rose Lynn "Libby" German were dropped off by German's older sister, Kelsi German, at a trail-head on County Road 300 North, west of the Hoosier Heartland Highway. The girls were hiking on the Monon High Bridge over Deer Creek, among woodland in remote Deer Creek Township, when they were last seen.

They were reported missing at 5:30 p.m.. Authorities who searched the area did not suspect foul play in the disappearance. However, this changed when the bodies of the girls were found around noon the next day, about 0.5 miles east of the abandoned deck girder bridge. The bodies were about 50 feet from the north bank of Deer Creek. Police have not publicly released details of how the girls were murdered; as early as February 15, 2017, Indiana State Police began circulating a still image of an individual seen on the Monon High Bridge Trail near where the two friends were slain. A few days the person in the photograph was named the prime suspect in the double-homicide. On February 22, law enforcement released an audio recording where the voice of the assailant, though in some degree muffled, is heard to say, "Down the hill." It was at this news conference that officials credited the source of the audio and imagery to German's smartphone, further, regarded her as a hero for having had the uncanny foresight and fortitude to record the exchange in secret.

Police indicated that additional evidence from the phone had been secured, but that they did not release it so as not to "compromise any future trial." By this time, the reward offered in the case was set at $41,000. On July 17, officers distributed a composite sketch of someone who, at that time in the investigation, was sought as a person of prime interest in the murders, it had been drawn by police from eyewitnesses to a certain hiker of the Delphi Historic Trails on the day that the girls vanished. On April 19, 2019, Indiana State Police announced a "new direction" in the case. On behalf of State Police and the Multi-Agency Taskforce, Superintendent Doug Carter released more materials a few days in a press for tips; the new materials included a short video recording in which the blue-jeaned and jacketed suspect is seen walking along the rail bridge for a little over a second. An updated sketch of the suspect was unveiled, as well as an extended version of the audio recording, in which a slight rise in the suspect's voice can be detected as he utters the word "Guys...", before the phrase "Down the hill."

It was further explained that the previously-released sketch, showing an older man with goatee and cap, depicted a different person of secondary interest. Police say this person may range from his 20s to his 30s, but caution that his "youthful appearance" could make him look younger than his true age. On April 22, law enforcement reached out to the public urging all tolook at the sketch, listen to the audio, watch how this coward walks on the high bridge and send your tip to this email: Abbyandlibbytip@cacoshrf.com. Investigators revealed they have reason to believe that the suspect might well be hiding in plain sight, that the person is certainly familiar with the area of Delphi, whether it be from living or working there or for another reason. An additional plea was made for help in identifying the driver of a vehicle left abandoned off the Hoosier Heartland Highway in Delphi, at the former Child Services office, between noon and 5 p.m. on the day of the murders. On July 23, 2019, after receiving a tip, authorities announced that Paul Etter was being considered a suspect in the murders.

Etter was wanted for the kidnapping and rape of a 26-year-old woman on June 22 in Tippecanoe County, Indiana. Five days Etter was surrounded by police, after a five hour stand-off, Etter killed himself. Nations, a registered sex offender from Indiana, was arrested in Woodland Park, Colorado, in September 2017 and charged with threatening strangers on a Monument trail with a hatchet; the expired Indiana plates on the car Nations was driving gave him up to police, who subsequently noticed an outstanding warrant under his name. Fanning public speculation still further, it was reported that a bicyclist had been fatally shot on the same trail at around the time that Nations was purportedly terrifying passersby. An El Paso County Sheriff's official told reporters that, however "many similarities" there were between the cases, he was not at liberty to disclose them, since Indiana investigators did not want any more information released. On January 5, 2018, Nations was sentenced to three years of probation for threatening members of the public in Colorado.

On January 24, Nations was transferred to Indiana officials' custody on an unrelated charge, fai

Roger Huerta, is an American mixed martial artist fighting in the lightweight division of Bellator MMA. He gained exposure by competing in the lightweight division of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Bellator Fighting Championships and ONE Championship, his childhood and formative years have been the subject of several publications. Huerta was born in California, he had an arduous childhood with life continuing to be difficult throughout his teen years. Despite adversity, he has overcome many challenges living what has been described as a "life that Hollywood producers make movies about". Born to Lydia and Rogelio Huerta in Los Angeles, California, he spent the first 6 years of his life in Texas, his father became involved in drugs and alcohol and began an affair with another woman that led to a separation with Lydia. Huerta's mother became physically abusive, when Huerta came to school with bruises covering his body, Child Protective Services intervened, placing him in a foster home for a short time.

In 1990, Lydia lost the custody battle for Huerta and fled the United States with Huerta, age 7, to her parents’ home in El Salvador. Shortly upon arriving, Lydia abandoned Huerta leaving him in the care of his grandparents at the time of the El Salvadoran Civil War, she returned a year only to leave him on his father's doorstep in Texas. That was the last time. Huerta talks about the mental and physical abuse he endured from his father and stepmother in that year; the next year he was left with his father's parents living in poverty. They would send him out into the streets selling picture frames to tourists to make money. For a brief time, his father and stepmother came back into his life where they moved to the Rio Grande Valley and enrolled him halfway through the year into 3rd grade. At 12 his father left home, soon after Roger was kicked out by his stepmother, he survived by joining a youth gang. He slept in alleys and on rooftops, but was encouraged by his friends to remain in school where he could eat a provided breakfast and lunch.

He stayed with friends and just before his freshman year, his life began to turn around for the better. Maria King, his friend's mother, obtained legal custody of him and the three moved to Austin, Texas where he attended David Crockett High School. For one of the first times in his life he found himself in a stable environment and became quite popular in school and joined many of the school's sports teams including football and wrestling, it was there he met Jo Ramirez, his English teacher, where she learned about his troubled childhood in a conversation discussing his future ambitions. Furthermore, Bryan Ashford, the school's wrestling coach, took a special interest in Huerta and continued to support him in division wrestling. Ramirez a mother of seven, adopted Huerta in 2002 at the age of 19. Ashford coached Huerta and with the help of Ramirez, aided him in applying for a collegiate wrestling scholarship. Huerta attends Augsburg University in Minneapolis, Minnesota with one year remaining in a Business Management bachelor's degree and resided in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Huerta worked for a time as a construction worker. In Huerta's pre-UFC career, his first loss came as a result of a dislocated jaw early in the finals of the SuperBrawl 36 tournament against Ryan Schultz on June 18, 2004, his third match of the day. Huerta was slated to make his UFC debut against Hermes Franca at UFC 61, but was forced to withdraw from the fight as the result of an elbow injury, he won his first six fights in the UFC, the first at UFC 63 against Jason Dent, declared "Fight of the Night". His next fight was against UFC newcomer John Halverson at UFC 67; the fight ended by TKO after 19 seconds of round one after Huerta landed a knee to the shoulder/head area of a grounded Halverson, knocking him down and finishing him with punches. The end of the bout was controversial as knees to the head of grounded opponents are illegal under UFC rules, it was shown in a replay that Huerta's knee was to the shoulder rather than to the head. Next he fought in a three-round war with Leonard Garcia at UFC 69.

Winning via unanimous decision. After the fight, in May 2007, Huerta became the first mixed martial artist to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated Magazine, for a story on the rising popularity of mixed martial arts. Huerta won his next two fights against Alberto Crane, he faced Clay Guida in the 2007's The Ultimate Fighter 6 Finale. Huerta was visibly frustrated at losing in the grappling exchanges from Guida's wrestling offensive, spending a large part of the bout on his back fending off "ground and pound" from his opponent. Late in the second round, Huerta was stunned by a punch to the face while trying to get to his feet, but managed to survive until the end of the round. Early in the third round, Huerta looked to engage Guida on his feet, connecting with a knee to the face while attempting a kick Guida. After a brief flurry, Huerta took his back and submitted Guida by rear naked choke late in the fight for an impressive come-from-behind win. Huerta lost his next fight by unanimous decision at UFC 87 against Kenny Florian.

On January 9, 2009, Huerta announced an indefinite hiatus from MMA to further pursue opportunities in acting. In order to complete his UFC contract, Huerta returned on September 16, 2009, but lost to Gray Maynard at UFC Fight Night 19. After a back-and-forth fight, he would end up losing a split decision in his bout against Maynard. Despite having announced on his personal Twitter account that he was in talks with Strikeforce, H