My US History book refers to Native Americans as "Indians". Is this accurate and/or racist?

It is accurate.

Native American is a legal term....NOT an anthropological one. It was coined by the US government and is defined by the....gasp.....Bureau of INDIAN Affairs, as the citizens of federally recognized tribes of the US.

Columbus was looking for a faster trade route to the East Indies....NOT India. India did not exist at the time. The Euros called it Hindustan. It's peoples were called Hindus, regardless of religious affiliation. When he arrived here, he dubbed the people he met.....the Tainos......Los Indios. Which is Indian, phonetically in English. WE were called Indians long before the people of Indian. A couple hundred years before. It is NOT racist in the least. The only people who think it is, are non-Natives.

In the US, a Native must carry a Certificate of Indian Blood, to prove their identity. Here in Canada, I have to carry a Certificate of Indian Status. WE ARE Indians, regardless of what others have to say about it.

* I NEVER hear 'First Peoples' here in Canada. Its First Nations. Aboriginal is a Canadian government lump term, that covers Inuit, Metis and Status Indians. It was the Inuit who stated they did NOT like being called Eskimo. That isn't what they have ever called themselves.

The word "Indian" was once common to describe the natives of the Americas - thanks to Columbus, who thought he had found India.

But, "Native American" is just as bad, as there are natives in all the countries of North and South America. I have seen Americans refer to Natives in Canada as Native American - they aren't American at all! We call them First Peoples, or Aboriginals.

As correctly stated above, Indian are from the Indian (from the Indus river valley) mistakenly named by a disoriented Columbus; although I personally prefer being called and identified by my tribe,I realize that in this hemisphere, for many years we have been called such and even my parents I'd as such without taking offense thereby. "Injun" or "redskin" or "savage native" however, would be an entirely different matter. I currently ID as "indigenously challenged" and then wait for the reaction.

They wouldn't have called it the "American Indian Movement" if the Indians involved thought it was inaccurate or racist. It's just semantics-in the US "American Eskimo" is perfectly acceptable, but in Canada "Eskimo" is no longer used to refer to Inuit people because it's "racist".

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Ajidamoon covered this, but............. Poncho, lol, nice trying to act like your native. What you didnt know cheif pretendian is that india was not what inspired columbus to call us indians..<---correction--- Butcher that and act like you know.

I made a mistake in what i typed above.

i meant to say columbus named us indians because of the indies.

no, Indians refer to the term of somebody who comes from the Indian sub-content, you call somebody who came from the America's native Americans

They're referred to as "Indians" because when that butcher Columbus arrived, he stupidly believed that he'd arrived in India -- so he called the native peoples here "Indians" ... and the name stuck. That's all ...

Yeah, the guy above said it all pretty much. Except I would add that we really don't use "Indians" any more, it's not really racist so much as just plain wrong.