Native American in the United States are the indigenous people from the regions of North America now encompassed by the continental United States, including parts of Alaska.

When Christopher Columbus arrived in the New World, he described the people he encountered as "Indians" because he mistakenly believed that he had reached the Indies, the original destination of his voyage. Despite Columbus's mistake, the name "Indian" or "American Indian" stuck and for centuries the people who first came to the americas were collectively called Indians in America, and similar terms in Europe. The problem with this traditional term is that the people of  India are, of course, also known as Indians. The term "Red Man" was common among the early settlers of New England because the northeastern tribes colored their bodies with red pigments, but later this term became a pejorative and insulting during the western push into America,with the corruption redskin becoming its most virulent form. A usage in British English was to refer to natives of North America as Red Indians, though now old fashioned, it is still widely used.