I write here as a First Nation (FN) person in Québec (Canada).

I would say that, in Canada, the first part of your question does not entirely fit with our reality for two reasons:

First, in Canada, there is a strong distinction between FN (Indians) and Inuit. Both are considered Indigenous or Aboriginals (Autochtones in French). Inuit are not under the Indian Act, as such, they do not have the Indian Status. There are also the Métis, who are a people born of the mixing of FN and settlers in the West. So they are an exemple of a change in culture.

Second, I have a bachelor in High School Education (Social Sciences). Education is a responsability of the provincial governments. As I am from Québec, the history taught in schools is from a French perspective. In classes, we do a clear distinction between Algonquian and Iroquoian peoples. There are two reasons behing that: 1) French settlers mainly colonized Algonquian territories, traded and allied with Algonquian peoples (with the exception of the Hurons, who are Iroquoian). However, French, Algonquian and Hurons were in a bloody war with the Iroquois Confederacy. As such, today, Algonquian are presented in class as Noble Savages and Iroquois as Barbaric Savages. 2) Historians and anthropologists generalized patterns in both families, leading to oversimplification and opposition between Algonquian and Iroquoian. As for the Inuit, even though Québec covers Nunavik, an Inuit land, Inuit people are barely seen in classes, as they are too far away from the main settlements in the South. But, they are clearly presented as completly different from Algonquians and Iroquoians.

However, there is a lot of generalization about FN in Canada. One explication is the construction of an ''otherness'' by the settler state to justify a Canadian Manifest Destiny and legitimize the Indian Act, which has for goal the assimilation of FN into the Canadian culture, and thus, the extinction of their rights. The Indian Act gives the responsibility to the Federal government of deciding what is an Indian, who is an Indian. This created identity of ''Indian'' is now one that is strong with FN. So much that there are conflicts between ''Real Indians'' and ''False Indians''. One lives in a reserve and have their status, the other lives off reserve and doesn't have a status. So, you can see that this settler idea of a monolithic Indian people is becoming true for some.

As for the second part of your question, I would give you three reasons also.

First, the Indian Act, as I said, gives the government of Canada the power to decide what is an Indian. As the goal was the assimilation, once an Indian was acting White, they lost their status through ''emancipation''. You want to go to the university ? Emancipation. You want to vote ? Emancipation ? You are hunting with a rifle, and not a bow ? Emancipation ! You marry a White man ? Emancipation? You live off reserve ? Emancipation ! And so, people who wanted to keep their Indian status had to live in an identity made by the Canadian government and based on stereotypes and settler imagination.

Second, the myth of progress. Mainstream progress and development are rooted in White Supremacy. We are prensented as stagnant because we do not conform to settlers ideas of progress and development.

Third, us. FN are part of the problem. We are trying to reconstruct our cultures, but sometimes we are hanging to traditions that are no longer relevent or that are settler inventions. Or, some of us don't want settler culture or tech, because it is associated with genocide. As such, we cling to an idealized past that is no longer.

This is the first time I answer a question on this website. I hope it helps.

For more:

Retzlaff, S. (2005). What’s in a name ? The politics of labelling and Native identity constructions. The Canadian Journal of Native Studies*,* 25(2), 609-626

Palmater, P. D. (2011). Beyond blood: Rethinking Aboriginal identity and belonging. Purich Publishing Limited: Saskatoon

Lawrence, B. (2004). ‘Real’ Indians and Others : Mixed-blood urban Native peoples and Indigenous nationhood. Lincoln: University of Nebraska

Edit: I have a bachelor degree in High School Education (Social Sciences) and I am doing a Master in Education on Indigenous Science, Identity and Education.

That is a great question. I'd like to give some background on the Latin America part of your question - hopefully others can speak to the modern-day US.

While you're right that specific groups are distinguished, I would say that at least in Western countries and in non-Academic discourse, the focus is often still very much on two groups: The Aztecs and the Inca. These were the largest states in the pre-Hispanic Americas. Still their predominance tends to sideline the many diverse other indigenous groups that lived and live in Latin America. Even but not only in central Mexico and the Andes.

In his classic study on this, Benjamin Keen looks at views of the Aztecs and Inca in the West, from the 16th to 20th century in various genres. For him, in early colonial times stereotypes of these two groups developed that in many ways are still relevant today.

In brief, some of the most influential texts on the Aztecs were by Spanish conquistadors and historians like Cortés and Díaz delivery Castillo. They would usually focus mostly on the Mexica, the dominant group of the Aztec Triple Alliance; highlight their warfare and sacrifices; describe Moctezuma as a coward, among many other simplifications. This of course leaves mostly aside tributaries and enemies of the Mexica, and also many other large states in Mesoamerica at the time (including the Purepecha). These simplified versions were further popularised by American and European historians like Prescott at least from the 19th century on. At the same time, more complex views by native historians from Mexico were not published until the late 19th century.

I'm less familiar with the Inca, but Keen describes a similar process where accounts by Spanish conquistadors and missionaries remained influential over centuries. One difference is than author of mixed Incan and Spanish descent was published and succesfull in 16th c Europe: El Inca Garcilaso de la Vega as he called himself. I won't go into detail here, but basically Garcilaso presented his Inca ancestors as heading a highly developed state, on par with European monarchs. His success was one reason why the Inca remained probably the best-known native American group in Europe.

So for your question at least a partial answer would be that the Inca and Aztecs had caught Western imaginations very early on - and their romanticised images would remain highly influential. For sure in both British and Spanish America the European accounts of a static pre-colonial past neglected the important, diverse native cultures that continued to thrive in spite of colonial exploitation.

At the same time, the newly independent Latin American states would from the mid 19th century similarly focus strongly on these two groups for their national building projects - adding an earlier answer of mine on this, seems relevant.

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The answer depends quite a bit on which Latin American region we're talking about. Generally though, the harking back to pre-hispanic cultures by national elites has been tied to the early independence period. Creole elites (meaning American elites of European origin) used pre-hispanic histories for building national identities in order to distinguish their «new» countries from European influence. This process had already begun in regions like colonial Mexico in colonial times, with these elites developing a « creole patriotism » that helped to air their grievances against a colonial order that did not allow them to hold the highest social positions. At the same time, contemporary indigenous people were since early colonial times excluded in many ways. These pseudo-Indian national identities also very much simplified the complex relations between native population groups of pre-Hispanic times that continue in different forms to this day.

Earlier scholarship like the important work of DA Brading has described colonial Mexico (New Spain) as developing such a creole patriotism especially early, going back to the 17th century at least. More current work, especially Rebecca Earle's great « The Return of the Native » has highlighted similarities in how creole elites in many Latin American regions looked to the pre-Hispanic past.

Earle argues, for example, that from the early 19th century elites in newly independent countries like Peru, Colombia and later Argentina looked to specific pre-Hispanic cultures while downplaying the achievements of other native groups – including the continuing discrimination of native people in their time, that even increased in many parts of Spanish America during the 19th century, with previous colonial protections being taken away. This for Earle partly explains why creole elites throughout Latin America would use especially the Aztecs (of Mexico) and the (Andean) Inca as national symbols – even though they often had little to no connection to these groups and their descendants. This included using pre-Hispanic ruler like Moctezuma, Cuautehmoc or Atahualpa on stamps, statues, literary works and (only briefly) anthems in such diverse countries as Chile, Argentina and Bolivia.

So in different phases of Latin American history, elites drew on pre-Hispanic histories for changing reasons. However, history writing by native authors had continued in places like Mexico and Peru throughout colonial times, and would also be drawn upon by creole elites in the independent period, reifying elements of it in the process. At the same time, the independence period saw an increasing appropriation of native territories and loss of judicial protections that in many ways continues to this day.

For the Mexican case, which I'm more familiar with, you might also be interested in this earlier answer I wrote on this related question : Are native Mexicans considered an indigenous people?.