As a result of a miscommunication and a scuffle, Crazy Horse was killed while he was being arrested by the a government agent.

On June 25, 1876, seven Lakota bands, a large contingent of Cheyennes, and others were attacked by Custer’s forces. Initially, they were thrown into disarray. However, they soon regrouped and launched a determined counterattack on Custer’s forces, utilizing bows, arrows, knives, hatchets, clubs, and forty different kinds of firearms. In addition to their superior numbers, the Native forces also outgunned Custer’s command. Custer and 268 of his men were killed in the fight. This event shocked the nation, and Americans began to cry for a military response.

. They refused to sell, and once again, war broke out among the Lakota and the US Army in early 1876, as the Army tried to force all Lakotas to relocate to the reservation. 

Postings to osa’s discussion page included discussion about potential and actual lawsuits, all of which expressed concern with the idea that the Osage Mineral Estate had been diminished by its new placement within the larger Osage Nation.

hese fears were often introduced during community meetings, where it was argued that dur-ing colonial history change had led to a loss of Osage authority. Whereas many Osage viewed change as a fundamental part of their history, some feared that the U.S. government would use this change to terminate the Mineral Estate and even the Nation.

repeatedly pounding his fist on the table and yelling, “It’s ours!,” asserting that all of the natural resources on the Osage Reservation, and even the gaming proceeds, belonged to the Osage annuitants alone

they shall also be protected against interruption and intrusion from citizens of the United States, who may attempt to settle in the country without their consent; and all such persons shall be removed from the same by order of the President o"f the United States.

The United States hereby covenant and agree that theceded to the nation. lands ceded to the Cherokee nation in the forgoing article shall, in no future time without their consent, be included within the territorial limits or jurisdiction of any State or Territory.

Fear of Native economic and political power

the freedom that comes from economic success is undeniable.

By 2006, tribal net income from gaming surpassed $600 million.

ICERR Pamphlet, Source: Alexandra Harmon, Rich Indians

Some pronounced Native peoples’ pursuit of economic interests to be greedy.

They have been…the least conspicuous and most docile of minorities—until recently.

“could not be trusted to act in the best interest of monolingual full-blood Cherokee people.”

$300 million in tax money from their pockets. And they are using that money to fund an election to discriminate against their own citizens, and I think it would be incumbent upon every U.S. citizen to approach their representative and ask them, “Is this an appropriate use of my tax money?

Ross Swimmer, who is currently serving in a trust position with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, that he believed there was a bloc vote of Freedmen who would vote against him in the upcoming chief ’s race. And in order to prevent them

and to control all their local affairs, and to establish all necessary police regulations and rules for the administration of justice in said district, not inconsistent with the constitution of the Cherokee Nation or the laws of the United States;

“The worst forms of undesirables born amongst us are those when parents are of different races. The intermarriage of the white race with mixed stock must be made impossible.”

He demonstrated how to farm various crops, made and repaired tools, and offered instructions on how to efficiently manage a slave labor force.

They could enter American society as “civilized” members. However, they also believed that as Indians became more like Americans, they would need less land, and would be happy to sell to settlers the “surplus.”

Americans didn’t take the agricultural role of women seriously enough to change their assumption that tribes were mainly nomadic and didn’t have an investment in the land

the United States will from time to time furnish gratuitously the said nation with useful domestic animals and implements of husbandry.”

some families sent their children to the schools to make sure they had adequate meals, shelter, and clothing

They argued that without the necessary skills to survive independently outside of school, students had no choice but to return to reservations, where they remained “dependent” upon the federal government.

For example, as a result of the emergency recommendation of the Meriam Report, President Herbert Hoover requested additional funds to supply adequate food and clothing for pupils in boarding schools.

“These Indians are our responsibility--we took every thing away from them and pushed them out on reservations so arid that it takes 10 acres to graze one sheep, and expect them to eke out an existence…Now I do not know to whom to appeal for help, but it should be forthcoming. We have sent millions to Europe to feed the destitute and now we should send aid to our fellow Americans who are just as hungary [sic] and cold as they are in Europe. Besides they are our responsibility.”

andwithasinceredesiretoencouragesaidnationsinacquiringtheartsandhabitsofcivilizedlife,theUnitedStateswillalsofurnishthemwiththefollowingarticles,(tobedividedamongthembytheagentaccordingtotheirrespectivenumbersandwants,)duringeachofthetwoyearssuc-ceedingthesaidratification,viz:onepairstrongpantaloonsandoneredflannelshirtforeachmanandboy;onelinseygownforeachwomanandgirl;

yourobedientservant

Sometreaties(forexample"A"-'D")were"signed'byIndianswho,almostwithoutexception,hadSpanishgivennames.WemayassumethatthetreatywasreadtotheminSpanishbyaninterpreterwhowasattachedtothetreaty-makingparty,

EighteentreatiesweremadebuttheSenateonJuly8,1852refusedtoratifytheminexecutivesessionandorderedthemfiledunderaninjunctionofsecrecywhichwasnotremoveduntilJanuary18,1905

For what mattered more than the dissolution of the occupation of Alcatraz Island or the disappointing end to the Trail of Broken Treaties occupation was the realization among Indigenous peoples everywhere that they were nations and that, even when the headlines have ended and Americans have moved on to other things, tribes still have a way of understanding their self- determination

Neither the United States nor the Indian tribes were able to control the actions of their subjects, as aggressive white settlers moved illegally into lands reserved for the Indians and as young Indian warriors continued their raids on white settlements after the chiefs had agreed to permanent peace

More exactly, Deloria argued that the basis of federal Indian policy, which was subsequently turned into public laws, was a triad of perfidy, theft, and exploitation.

More specifically, they have been led to believe by generations of historians that the march toward nationhood and status as a global power was the result of triumphant moments of conquest and progress in which a more perfect nation ultimately was created for all

Somehow I manage to always really screw it up.” Still. Dwanna is safe,for today. She also has a palpable bond with at least her two youngest children. In trying to give them a different perspective, she tells them theyare all having “adventures.”

My nephew wants to shoot me, the FBI wants me to turn state’s evidenceagainst all the drug dealers, and I’ve got nowhere to live, no money in mypocket.

how youwant to live.”

And I was in love with her. That seems pretty odd to say, given thestory I just told you.”

Heath said hestayed because he did not want to leave his mother alone with the boyfriend,but then became him. “I was the re-creation of what I grew up with,

Adding to the misery was what she called a chemical weapon in a genoci-dal war against Native peoples. Alcohol

Native Americans proving “they are better American citizens and morepatriotic than any American,” she believed, is an extension of bonding withone’s oppressor

Her] father, who was a chronic alcoholic,sobered up and got a PhD in education and teaches at Iowa State University

She mocked the term “domestic” violence as “such a nice word. Even nicer is ‘relationship’ violence. Whatdoes that mean? This relationship isn’t violent, heis violent.

Why would your brother send you money

‘Let’s go eat. I’m scared to go to the cafeteria, there’s too many whitepeople. I’ve been eating out of the machines, I’m starving to death.’

He used to claim his family was welloff even in the Depression, that with a team of horses and a buggy, they“lived like white people.”

Theunemployment rate is over 75percent, the alcoholism rate 85percent, Karensaid. Among the population of 5,000are some forty gangs.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs should be replaced by a new unit in the federal government which represents an equality of responsibility among and between the President, the Congress, and the Governments of the separate Indian Nations (or their respective people collectively), and equal standing in the control of relations between the Federal Government and Indian Nations. The following standards and conditions should be obtained:

ABOLITION OF THE BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS BY 1976:

The Congress should eliminate the immunity of non-Indians to the general application of law and law enforcement within Reservation Boundaries, without regard to land or property title. Title 18 of the U.S. Code should be amended to clarify and compel that all persons within the originally-established boundaries of an Indian Reservation are subject to the laws of the sovereign Indian Nation in the exercise of its autonomous governing authority. A system of concurrent jurisdiction should be minimum requirement in incorporated towns.

to restore a permanent non-diminishing Native American land base of not less than 110-million acres by July 4, 1976.

Indians have paid attorneys and lawyers more than $40,000,000 since 1962

We seek a new American majority - a majority that is not content merely to confirm itself by superiority in numbers, but which by conscience is committed toward prevailing upon the public will in ceasing wrongs and in doing right.

His killer was charged with second-degree manslaughter and allowed to go free after one day in jail.

a caravan of about five hundred protestors who traveled from the West Coast to Washington DC in November 1972 to

“Urban Indians will most likely be creating more confrontations with federal, state, and city authorities over the next two years.”

The press coverage of the protest focused on the destruction of property and minimized Native fishing rights protestors’ demands to recognize their treaty rights. One article asserted that the “violence against the court” grew out of Natives’ demands for “a special privilege denied to others and not granted in their treaty.” Newsweek described the event as “a raggedy, window-smashing siege on that unlikeliest target of all—the US Supreme Court.”

a coalition of Native activists including Hank Adams, an Assiniboine activist and leader in the fishing rights movement, Tillie Walker (Mandan-Hidatsa), director of the United Scholarship Service, Mel Thom (Walker River Paiute), leader of the National Indian Youth Council, journeyed to Washington DC to participate in the Poor People’s Campaign. This campaign was conceived of by Martin Luther King Jr.

If the Indians will quit crying about oppression and begin to vote and get educated, there will be no problem.”

for our Indian identity is at stake

She asked how non-Indians might respond to the prospect of being forced to live under Soviet rule: “Many would cry, ‘Better dead than Red.’ And yet, another battle between the Reds and the Whites is being fought within our own borders.

if the United States expected to prevail in its ideological contest with the Soviet Union in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, it would have to demonstrate to the rest of the world that it treated its indigenous peoples within its own borders with justice and honor.

they were subject to state laws and taxes

After President Eisenhower signed the Menominee Termination Act in 1954, the tribe had four years to establish their own municipal, educational, health, and other services previously provided by the federal government.

a man named Dillon Myer took over as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. He was the former head of the War Relocation Authority, which had overseen the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII.

However, he also notes that even with such lofty intentions, non-Natives could not understand a Native-centered (or Native-authored) solution to the problems they faced.

n the mid-twentieth century (1940s-1960s), the US government decided to hasten the process of Native assimilation by ending or "terminating" its relationship with Native nations by instituting new legislation known as “termination policy.

This act means that you have chosen to live the life of the white man—and the white man lives by work.

From that date will begin their real and permanent progress.”

Many Indian people have been strong enough or fortunate enough to cling to family, community, clan, and tribe through this half millennium of deliberate, orchestrated, colonially and federally designed physical and cultural genocide. But a great many have not

involved those men who attempted to marry into the tribe, kill their wives' families so that she would inherit their shares, and then kill their wives and children so that they would inherit all accrued head rights

. They were able to stave off being se- lected for allotment because of the reputed barrenness of their lands until oil was discovered in 1897.

Those enrolled with less than 50 percent Indian blood and who spoke English were taken to be assimilated enough into U.S. society that they no longer required fed- eral guardianship and were issued full land title and U.S. citizenship; those enrolled with 50 percent or more Indian blood and who either did not speak English or English was their second language were as- sumed to be still too much tied to their tribal customs so that they were in need of federal protection and were issued trust patent

Those who were deemed "competent," usually meaning that the person spoke English and so allegedly understood the property taxes for which they would be made responsible on receiving land title u and U.S. citizenship, received fee pate

" North Carolina possessed a code that prohibited marriages be- tween white persons and "an Indian, Negro, Mustee, or Mulatto ... or any person of Mixed Blood to the Third Generation.

cels. Even more specifically, the policies were 3 27 coded through blood as a criterion not only for protecting the idea of m racial purity but also for anticipating the eventual dissolvement of the ? Indian so identif

$250,000 and five years in prison for the first offense by an individual and $1 mil- lion for the first offense by other than an individual. For subsequent violations, the fine is $1 million for an individual and $5 million for other than an individua

his x mark

all which said sums of money shall be applied to the use and benefit of the said Indians, under the direction of the President of the United States

For the first year after the ratification hereof, three thousand two hundred and fifty dollars; for the next two years, three thousand dollars each year; for the next three years, two thousand dollars each year; for the next four years fifteen hundred dollars each year; for the next five years twelve hundred dollars each year; and for the next five years one thousand dollars each year

In consideration of the above session, the United States agree to pay to the said tribes and bands the sum of thirty-two thousand five hundred dollars,

And the said tribes and bands agree to remove to and settle upon the same within one year after the ratification of this treaty, or sooner if the means are furnished them

Native people were thus told there was no place for them as Native in contemporary American society, yet the material culture identifying their tribal uniqueness was highly valued

collectors were searching for the “most authentic” or oldest types of artifacts for their collections.

a group of Makah fishermen exercised their treaty rights and revived a traditional gray whale hunt.

Native people took 6.5 percent of the total catch, sportfishers 12.2 percent, and commercial operations 81.3 percent.

“Have you abandoned tribal life and adopted the habits and customs of the white community?” with “No, except as compelled to do so by economic necessity.”

I do not see how we could justify the granting of a land assignment when a white person is involved. Too many Indians have yet to be provided for.”

For those who did not have information of one or both parents, or who didn’t know the level of detail required about their family history, or who were confused about the whole concept of a “degree of blood” it would have been formidable. Some applicants were illiterate, or were worried that they did not fill out questions correctly.

The BIA’s default position was that mixed-descent applicants were undeserving of Indian status.

to reorganize relations with the federal government on their own terms and to construct an American community of their own design.

Even though Collier assured that tribes could vote against a constitution or charter, there was worry among tribes that if they did not adopt the recommendations of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, their tribe would be penalized in some way. 

For example, women retained custody of children in Cherokee families after divorce, which was the opposite of US practice.

Stremlau writes about how elderly women were extremely important to Cherokee families, but often treated as marginal by commissioners

However, with allotment, some hardened their views about black Creeks, thinking about tribal membership in the language of blood. 

woman was recorded as “full-blood” Creek and her husband as “full-blood” Seminole, their children would be placed on the Creek rolls as only “one-half” Creek “by blood,” based on the matrilineal rule that tribal affiliation should be decided through the mother

The creation of the tribal membership rolls entangled the federal government in racial politics and provoked controversies over the rights of the tribes to determine their own criteria for membership. 

our stories are being heard.

The only excep-tion to that is Native women, and Native women— almost 80 percent, anywhere between 60 and 80 percent of Native women— report that their perpetrator was non- Indian.

And the interesting thing is that neither one of us is Navajo. Politically, we don’t have any connection with that tribe, but I could be prosecuted and he couldn’t,

Prior to that time, tribal governments had been exercising criminal jurisdiction over anyone who came into their com-munity and committed crime.

but I went in a different direction and started thinking more about policy and how federal law really impedes the ability of Native women to find justice.

if you’re so devastated and so hurt by what has happened that you’re not able to contrib-ute?

Well, I think each community needs to decide for itself what the appropriate response to rape should be in their community, and I would hope that women would be at the center of that discussion.

anyone on staff that understands how to perform a forensic exam to preserve evidence of the assault.

that this is expected, that you will be raped in your lifetime, probably more than once.

that a woman who had a sexual background of perhaps having had sex before marriage or was not a virgin could not be seen as a victim under the eyes of the law.

and other kinds of very gendered terms when examining their “right” to the land and the Manifest Destiny, etc.

many tribal languages don’t even have a word for rape,

have viewed Native women as less that human, as rape- able

Amer-ican Indian and Alaska Native women are two and one- half times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than women overall in the United States

This sense of cooperation and a shared future is on display in this very case. The Creek Nation is supported by an array of leaders of other Tribes and the State of Oklahoma, many of whom had a role in negotiating exactly these agreements.

Now, the State accepts for argument’s sake that the Creek land is a reservation and thus “Indian country” for purposes of the Major Crimes Act.

when the federal government agreed to offer more protection for tribal lands, it really provided less.

All this continues for long enough that a reservation that was once beyond doubt becomes questionable, and then even farfetched

But this history proves no more helpful in discerning statutory meaning. Maybe, as Oklahoma supposes, it suggests that some white settlers in good faith thought the Creek lands no longer constituted a reservation.

So it should be no surprise that some Creek might have resorted to state courts in hope of resolving their disputes. 

it says, show that even the Creek understood their reservation was under threat. And there’s no doubt about that

Oklahoma tells us, is that it thought the eastern half of the State was always categorically exempt from the terms of the federal MCA.

Both cases emphasized that what value such evidence has can only be interpretative

Congress empowered the President to remove and replace the principal chief of the Creek,

cede[d]” their original homelands east of the Mississippi for a reservation promised in what is now Oklahoma.

many other federal laws also expressly referred to the Creek Reservation

at a price of 30 cents an acre.

Start with what should be obvious: Congress established a reservation for the Creeks. In a series of treaties, Con-[p. 4]gress not only “solemnly guarantied” the land but also “establish[ed] boundary lines which will secure a country and permanent home to the whole Creek Nation of Indians.” 1832 Treaty

Oklahoma

He seeks a new trial, which, he contends, must take place in federal court.

The problem, then, became one of understanding the Indian, not as one to be civilized and to be lived with, but rather as one whose nature and whose way of life was an obstacle to civilized progress westward.

where they had their mouths washed out with soap for speaking their languages and had even worse forms of abuse inflicted upon them.

he was cruelly whipped with a leather strap in front of a school assembly “to make an example out of me.”

Such was a common Indian story dur-ing the early twentieth century, because tuberculosis had raged through many Native communities in northern Minnesota and hit Bena as well.

The first Lyons to receive American citizenship—in 1924—

If you are a non-Native, or an Indian hailing from elsewhere, you fall under the jurisdiction of the state of Minnesota, in keeping with Public Law 280.

The frontier was traditionally conceived as the line where Civilization meets Wilderness, the latter as yet untamed by the former, so the concept is inseparable from imperialism

and no fewer than 10 percent of its population serving hard time for felonies.

Native people have a lot to forgive. When Columbus came there were around ten million people living north of the Rio Grande; by 1900, only 250,000 Natives survived in the United States.

Torn fingernails are a sign of malnutrition and possibly starvation

The United States had failed to pay them the annuities and goods they had been promised in exchange for earlier land cessions, and reservoir dam projects had flooded huge sections of hunting and gathering territory. In a startlingly short period of time, quality of life at White Oak Point had plummeted from prosperity to impoverishment; their sad condition reflected it,

It had also been planned to remove all Ojibwe to a single reserva-tion, White Earth, but that goal was never realized.)

Diversity, home, stopping points, and the power of the small: these are the lessons of the Great Migration insofar as it reveals something we might call the “spirit of a people.”

It is a decision one makes when some-thing has already been decided for you, but it is still a decision.

Smaller groups became larger, more nominative, and more abstractly defined as political entities, assuming a “soul” or “spiritual principle” that in all likelihood did not exist

communities dealt respectfully with each other in a way that encouraged different peoples to retain their ways of life, while at the same time establishing territorial boundaries

little choice isn’t the quite same thing as no choice,

Three thousand dollars, to be expended as the President may direc

nor shall any State orTerritory ever have a right to pass laws for the government of such Indians, but they shall be allowed to govern themselves, so far asmay be compatible with the general jurisdiction which Congress may think proper to exercise over them.

The Creek tribe of Indians cede to the United States all their land, East of the Mississippi river

has become a hodge-podge of personal grudges, ad-hoc policies, inconsistent judicial decisions, and a general exercise of ignorance about Indians, framed in statutory language.”

he most controversial change was the restoration of tribal jurisdiction over non-Indians who commit acts of domestic violence on tribal lands.

The precedents that Rehnquist used trafficked in the language and assumptions of Native lawlessness, and the idea that they were not “civilized” enough to exercise criminal jurisdiction over non-Natives.

He drew a lot on nineteenth century legal assumptions and decisions about Native people in his opinion. (In fact, of the nineteen Supreme Court cases cited in Oliphant, all but five were issued between 1810 and 1916.

By submitting to the overriding sovereignty of the United States, Indian tribes therefore necessarily give up their power to try non-Indian citizens of the United States except in a manner acceptable to Congress.”

if the state or federal systems choose not to prosecute, the victim is left without options.

In Idaho a decade ago, some Indian boys were sentenced fourteen years for stealing sheep.”

n about 1956, there was a case of an Indian shot in the Platte Valley of Nebraska; only when courageous citizens in the valley persisted for months in the face of entrenched authorities did justice finally prevail.

or in lieu of that kind of support, the right to tax Native lands. Congress would not give the states power to tax the reservations, and the federal courts zealously protected Native tax immunities from state intrusions. In many instances states simply refused to provide law enforcement over the reservations, leaving the tribe helpless and without any recourse.

Termination policy sought to abolish the Bureau of Indian Affairs, dissolve the trust relationship between tribes and the federal government, and bring Native people under the jurisdiction of the states.

essentially providing the federal government with the authority it had exercised in Crow Dog’s case.

Because the federal government’s position was so vague, the states were freer to be vague in explaining why they were permitted to act as they did.

The Georgia state legislature voted to defy the writ and proceeded with the execution.

The court ruled that it was impossible for a sovereign nation to exist when it could not hold the title to the land—only the right of occupancy.

Although the crime was committed by a Cherokee against another Cherokee within Cherokee country, Corn Tassel was tried in 1830 in Georgia courts, found guilty, and sentenced to hang.

Land not occupied by Creek families could be purchased by whites, which it was. Creek families could also sell their land, which many, in dire economic straits, did.

R]egardless of the motivations of the originators of the trust, one would expect, or at least hope, that the modern Interior department and its modern administrators would manage it in a way that reflects our modern understandings of how the government should treat people.

"You leave it open and sooner or later it's going to tempt somebody. If you don't have records and you don't have management, you don't have much.

In violation of federal law, the BIA failed often failed to invest money in interest bearing accounts, and failed to getcompound interestwhen it did. There was no policy of telling or compensatingaccount holders when theagencywrongly lost their money—officials just waited for the individual to complain.

The officials told her she should learn to read a financial statemen

refusingto leave until she could attend

But she was the great-granddaughter of Mountain Chief, who had led his people first on the battlefield and then in negotiations in Washington, D.C. Her parents raised her to be a strong woman, and, like Mountain Chief, her determination took her to D.C. to fight for her people.

The chief justice then quoted directly from his earlier opinion in Johnson

would be considered by all as an invasion of our territory,

denominated domestic dependent nations.

and were ready to repel by arms every attempt on their independence

To leave them in possession of their country, was to leave the country a wilderness

It therefore became “necessary in order to avoid confl icting settlements, and consequent war with each other, to establish a principle, which all should acknowl-edge as the law by which the right of acquisition, which they all as-serted, should be regulated as between themselves.”

hey have been taught to believe that when used and interpreted correctly, the principles and doctrines derived from these foundational cases can work reliably and steadily enough to protect Indian rights in a legal system constructed upon a Founding- era vision of white racial supremacy and dictatorship intend-ed to be established over the entire continent of North America.

it is not surprising to fi nd it being used by the justices of the Supreme Court when they were fi rst asked to address important questions of Indian rights

the idea of the Indian as hostile savage was received and perpetuated by the Founders through a diverse and infl uential set of sources, texts, and narrative traditions.2This archive of incommensurable and alienated forms of human other-ness reinforced the notion that the American Indian was a paradigm example of uncivilized savage humanity.

The stereotypes of the Indian tribes on the frontiers of white settlement as uncivilized, war- loving, and irreconcilably savage enemies had been used by colonizing Europeans since their fi rst encoun-ters with the native peoples of the New World

, and the peace given by the United States

. The said Indians shall give notice to the citizens of the United States, of anydesigns which they may know or suspect to be formed in any neighbouring tribe, or by anyperson whosoever, against the peace, trade or interest of the United States

shall be considered as parties in such war, and bepunished accordingly: and the United States shall in like manner inform the Shawanoes ofany injury designed against them

manner any citizen of the United States who shalldo an injury to any Indian of the Shawanoe nation, or to any other Indian Indians residingin their towns, and under their protection, shall be punished according to the laws of theUnited States

“The Indians must conform to ‘the white man’s ways,’ peaceably if they will, forcibly if they must. They must adjust themselves to their environment, and conform their mode of living substantially to our civilization. This civilization may not be the best possible, but it is the best the Indians can get. They can not escape it, and must either conform to it or be crushed by it.”

they needed to cement alliances with them to guard against incursion by other colonial powers.

without a license to do so.

Native people were warlike, and too uncivilized to be recognized under the US Constitution as a foreign state.

Both Presidents John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson refused to provide assistance to tribes who appealed to the federal government for protection from the states,

Indian would enjoy ‘any political or civil rights’ under state law. In 1832, they passed a law which prohibited the functioning of Creek national government.

“a race not admitted to be equal to the rest of the community…not yet entitled, and probably never will be entitled, to equal civil and political rights.”

Creator delivered to men upon his formation—be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it.”

It is almost unthinkable that anyone living in the 1820s wouldn’t look back at the last thirty years and see just how wrong this idea was. But it was pitched not only as historical fact, but also inevitable historical fact.

Utilizing a lot of racist presumptions and false historical narratives, Chief Justice John Marshall established that Native people could not be seen as having the same property rights as American

The international component specifies that whichever European nation got to a portion of the “New World” first, they had “prior claim.”

Ultimately, John Marshall held that because the United States had acquired the land of the Illinois and Piankeshaws in the Revolution,

Rather, the US was supposed to negotiate with the tribes who owned the land and purchase the land via treaty.

The Cobell case resolves claims that the federal government violated its trust duties by not providing proper accounting, mismanaging individual trust funds, and mismanaged management of land, oil, natural gas, mineral, timber, grazing, and other resources. You’ll read much more about the case and the lead plaintiff, Elouise Cobell, in the short reading by Bethany Berger.

the trust relationship is all about land and money.

No person who denies the existence of God or a future state of rewards and punishment, shall hold any office in the civil departments of this Indian Territory, nor shall be allowed his oath in any court of justice, neither shall the Bible ever be pro-hibited as a text book in any school in this Territory.