Maps made by non-Native Americans to depict Native American land tenure, resources, and population distributions appeared almost as early as Europeans' first encounters with Native Americans and took many forms: missionaries' field sketches, explorers' drawings, and surveyors' maps, as well as maps rendered in connection with treaties involving land transfers. Most existing maps of Native American lands are reconstructions that are based largely on archaeology, oral reports, and evidence gathered from observers' accounts in letters, diaries, and official reports; accordingly, the accuracy of these maps is especially dependent on the mapmakers' own interpretive abilities.

Many existing maps also reflect the 150-year role of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in administering tribal lands. Though these maps incorporate some information gleaned directly from Native Americans, rarely has Native American cartography contributed to this official record, which has been compiled, surveyed, and authenticated by non-Native Americans. Thus our current cartographic record relating to Native American tribes and their migrations and cultural features, as well as territoriality and contemporary trust lands, reflects the origins of the data, the mixed purposes for which the maps have been prepared, and changes both in United States government policy and in non-Native Americans' attitudes toward an understanding of Native Americans.