The Assembly of First Nations (French: Assemblée des Premières Nations, AFN) is an assembly of Canadian First Nations (Indian bands) represented by their chiefs. Established in 1982 and modelled on the United Nations General Assembly, it emerged from the National Indian Brotherhood, which dissolved in the late 1970s.

The aims of the organization are to protect and advance the aboriginal and treaty rights and interests of First Nations in Canada, including health, education, culture and language. It represents primarily status Indians.

The Métis and non-status Indians have organized in the same period as the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples (CAP). Reflecting changes in where Aboriginal peoples are living, it represents primarily urban Indians, including off-reserve status Indians and Inuit.

Indigenous peoples of North America have created a variety of political organizations. Examples preceding European contact include the Iroquois Confederacy, or Haudenosaunee, the Blackfoot Confederacy, and Powhatan Confederacy in three different regions. There were other confederacies in New England, New York, and in the Southeast British colonies. Other groups formed later to enter into treaties with colonial governments led by ethnic French, Spanish and English.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a number of regional Indigenous organizations were formed in Canada, such as the Grand Indian Council of Ontario and Quebec, and the Allied Tribes of B.C. After World War II, additional provincial and territorial organizations were founded and continued to expand their memberships in an effort to assert their rights to land and to protect their cultures.

Indigenous activists under the leadership of controversial lawyer William Wuttunee from Red Pheasant First Nation founded the National Indian Council (NIC) in 1961 to represent their peoples of Canada, including treaty/status Indians, non-status Indians, and the Métis, though not the Inuit, who took a different path. This organization, however, collapsed in 1967 as the three groups failed to achieve consensus on their positions.

In February 1968, Chief Andrew Delisle stated the need for a collective and unified Indian voice, first on a regional and provincial basis, and then on a national level. In March, eight provincial leaders of Indian organizations from Nova Scotia to British Columbia gathered to form the Canadian Indian Brotherhood. At a meeting in Winnipeg in April attended by more than 2000 status Indians and Metis from BC to New Brunswick, a meeting of the newly-formed Canadian National Indian Brotherhood was called for in May with the objective of consolidating all Indian and Metis tribes and Bands into a national brotherhood.

Following the Canadian government's publication of its 1969 White Paper, in 1970 George Manuel, Noel Doucette, Andrew Delisle, Omer Peters, Jack Sark, David Courchene, Roy Sam, Harold Sappier, David Ahenakew, Harold Cardinal, and Roy Daniels founded and incorporated the National Indian Brotherhood. It was intended as an umbrella organization for the various provincial and territorial organizations of status Indians, such as the Indian Association of Alberta.