Scholarly journals are journals that publish peer reviewed articles. A peer reviewed article is one that has been scrutinized by other scholars or experts (peer reviewers) in a field prior to publication. Peer reviewers look to see that an article
Popular, non-peer-reviewed articles are ones that do not undergo academic scrutiny; these kinds of articles are generally found in news magazines like Time and National Geographic.
America: History & Life is a database focusing on the history and culture of North American places covering prehistory to the present. The database includes citations, from the early 20th century to the present, to articles in history journals and other allied social sciences disciplines as they relate to the study of history. It indexes both peer-reviewed articles and articles from popular history journals.
It is often difficult to tell from the database record if an article is peer-reviewed, but look for two things:
If there is no full text available, click on Access Options, then the Find It link to see if the article is available somewhere else in full text, or to request the article via interlibrary loan.
While many journals centering on United States history will have articles about Indigenous Peoples and events, some journals are more comprehensive in publishing articles related to Indigenous studies. Sometimes it's helpful to browse these journals to get a sense of what scholars are researching--this activity can give you topic ideas.