In lieu of all sums of money or other annuities provided to be paid to the Indians herein named under any treaty or treaties heretofore made, the United States agrees to deliver at the agency house on the reservation herein named, on or before the first day of August of each year, for thirty years, the following articles, to wit:

In order to insure the civilization of the Indians entering into this treaty, the necessity of education is admitted, especially of such of them as are or may be settled on said agricultural reservations, and they, therefore, pledge themselves to compel their children, male and female, between the ages of six and sixteen years, to attend school, and it is hereby made the duty of the agent for said Indians to see that this stipulation is strictly complied with; and the United States agrees that for every thirty children between said ages, who can be induced or compelled to attend school, a house shall be provided, and a teacher competent to teach the elementary branches of an English education shall be furnished, who will reside among said Indians and faithfully discharge his or her duties as a teacher. The provisions of this article to continue for not less than twenty years.

The President may, at any time, order a survey of the reservation, and, when so surveyed, Congress shall provide for protecting the rights of said settlers in their improvements, and may fix the character of the title held by each.

If it should appear from actual survey or other satisfactory examination of said tract of land that it contains less than 160 acres of tillable land for each person who, at the time, may be authorized to reside on it under the provisions of this treaty, and a very considerable number of such persons hsall be disposed to comence cultivating the soil as farmers, the United States agrees to set apart, for the use of said Indians, as herein provided, such additional quantity of arable land, adjoining to said reservation, or as near to the same as it can be obtained, as may be required to provide the necessary amount.

From this day forward all war between the parties to this agreement shall for ever cease. The government of the United States desires peace, and its honor is hereby pledged to keep it. The Indians desire peace, and they now pledge their honor to maintain it.

We will seek to restore fish and animal life to the area and to revitalize sea-life which has been threatened by the white man’s way.

Although some Navajos became rich, most Navajos benefited little from the power they were producing for other people. Navajo energy resources provided power for Albuquerque, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and other Southwestern cities, but many Navajo homes lacked running water or electricity. 

It is estimated that reservations contain one third of all low-sulphur coal in the western US, one-fifth of the country’s reserves of oil and natural gas, and more than half of the nation’s uranium deposits.

as they consider the killing of women and children an unpardonable offense.”

The US soldiers massacred between two and three hundred men, women, and children. Many of the wounded were left to die in subzero temperatures.

The movement itself was peaceful. However, non-Natives became alarmed by reports of warriors performing a strange new dance which would supposedly result in the disappearance of whites. Government agents working with the Lakota began to see the dance as a preparation for an uprising.

The practice of the Sun Dance was denounced as a “heathen” right because it was classified as self-torture.

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. 

It banned Americans from entering Lakota land without permission, precluded any further land sales without agreement from three quarters of Lakota males, and recognized a massive stretch of the northern Great Plains as belonging to the Lakotas. 

The government envisioned that once they were confined to isolated reservations, Native people could be taught to live in houses, become farmers, and speak, read, and write English. [1]

who were afraid that, once outside of their full control, the new government would in some way harm the Mineral Estate.

government is good for one thing; you can pass a resolution one day and then do away with it the next.

This his-tory also worked to instill in some Osage a sense that their headrights were personal property rather than an asset of the Nation, from which they received annuity checks

My grandfather—and more frequently my grandmother—often voiced disapproval of non-headright-owning Osage, who were “just trying to get our money.

The 1906 Osage Allotment Act created the Osage Mineral Estate as part of the unique deal struck between the Osage and the oIa, who wanted to open up Indian Country for white settlement and statehood. The surface of the Osage reservation was allotted, but the subsurface, including rights to oil, natural gas, and other minerals, was left under national control, to be distributed to those listed on the 1906 Osage roll.

and since these facts have also been corroborated to us by a communication recently received by the commissioner from the Government of the United States and read and explained to the people in open council and therefore believ­ing said delegation can effect nothing and since our difficulties are daily increasing and our situation is rendered more and more precarious uncertain and insecure in consequence of the legislation of the States; and seeing no effectual way of relief, but in accepting the liberal over­tures of the United States.

and with a view to reuniting their people in one body and securing a permanent home for themselves and their posterity in the country selected by their forefathers without the ter­ritorial limifa of the State sovereignties, and where they can establish and enjoy a government of their choice and perpetuate such a state of society as may be most consonant with their views, habits and condi­tion; and as may tend to their individual comfort and their advance­ment in civilization.

Foxwoods Casino is immense, in addition to gaming space, it has 2,266 hotel rooms, restaurants, high-end shopping facilities, and conference space.

However, many Seminoles associate casinos with new cultural opportunities. As tribal budgets have increased, so has tribal cultural programming. For example, Seminoles established a charter school in 2007 which offers instruction in Seminole language, culture, and history. The tribal museum records and archives oral histories, and there are sponsored reservation-wide activities which bring people together for sports tournaments, charity events, and celebrations

Nearby off-reservation communities also benefit from tribal gaming.

Many states also use gambling to raise revenues—dating back to 1963, when New Hampshire legalized the state lottery

The tribal gaming sector generates 45 percent of all gaming revenue in the US. According to an economic impact study conducted for the American Gaming Association, the tribal gaming industry provides 676,000 jobs, $36 billion in wages to employees, and $15 billion in taxes and revenue share payments to federal, state, and local governments.

Similarly, in 1977, a headline in Time magazine asked, “Should We Give the US Back to the Indians?” The article read:

For example, Robert Burnette, president of the NCAI talked of Native families’ incomes as being one-third of the national average, reservation unemployment rates at 50%

urban unrest stemmed from a lack of opportunity that could be remedied by redirecting young people’s energy away from criminal activities and toward projects to enhance community life.

Money and power have long been tools of colonization.

And all rules or regulations in said district, or in any other district of the nation, discriminating against the citizens of other districts, are prohibited, and shall be void.

The Cherokee Nation having, voluntarily, in February, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, by an act of the national council, forever abolished slavery, hereby covenant and agree that never hereafter shall either slavery or involuntary servitude exist in their nation otherwise than in the punishment of crime,

nd so that’s when I filed a case for a woman named Bernice Riggs, who also had Cherokee blood, and the final ruling of the court was that she had Cherokee blood, but because her ancestors were on the Freedmen Roll she was excluded from enrollment.

because in the era in which that roll was made it was believed that African blood tainted you to a degree that your other blood didn’t count

it should be noted that many enslaved black people accompanied the Cherokee when the U.S. federal government forcibly removed the tribe from their tradi-tional homeland in what became North Carolina and Georgia in the 1830s.

The Bureau’s use of anthropometry was inaccurate and potentially destructive. Physical anthropologists defined a “race” as a group of individuals whose phenotypes varied around a set of well-defined physical characteristics that pervaded the group. They observed that different races possessed distinct physical features and believed that measuring those features elucidated the mental capacity and cultural advancement of each racial group. Thus, physical characteristics were tied to expectations about the intelligence and cultural abilities of people. 

Pamunkeys refused the label of “colored” and built segregated institutions for themselves, including churches and schools, born out of their need to define Native identity in this racially charged context. 

McKennon enrolled applicants whom he believed were half white and half Choctaw, but rejected those who appeared to have African American parentage, regardless of their claims to Choctaw ancestry.

The simple definition of blood quantum is the amount of “Indian blood” an individual possesses. It is a fraction of blood that is derived going back to the original enrollees of a tribe who were counted on Census rolls.

Now Cherokee fought Cherokee. The war reduced their numbers from 22,000 to 15,000, more than a quarter of their people.

In 1860, they formed a secret Loyal League to promote Cherokee treaty rights, friendly relations with the United States, and the abolition of slavery. [5]

They could not survive in close proximity to “civilized” Americans, and would die out if they remained uncivilized

Their recent history is one of dark and bloody conflicts with the whites. To Americans, the phrase, •·Another redskin bit the dust." means a scene from a Western movie. To the Indian, it is the remembrance of something that happened to h is father and mother.

The Schoolchi ldren Are Pit iful

The Indian Wars Cost More · ~ If the cost seems high (although it is pea-nuts compared to irrigation projects put in for farmers in California, Arizona and other states) remember this: Only 80 years ago, in a serie5 of running battles that we had with the Navahoa, Sioux and Cheyenne, the U . S. gov-ernment spent more than $100,000,000. It cost us that much money, and five years ot war-fare, to force the Indians back into the worth-le ss land they now occupy. Surely today, on a depreciated dollar, we should be able to afford $80,000,000 so that they can start making their own living

The United States may pass such laws on the sub3'ect of alienation and descent of property between the Indians and then· descendants as may be thought proper.

. , • • United States. t10n upon the person or property of any one, white, blac y' or Indian, subject to the authority of the United States and at peace therewith

She recalled, “I was kind of sick then…and I didn’t know what I was signing.” The social worker then refused to return her now four-month-old son, as soon as she signed the papers. [30]

Moreover, placing Native children in non-Native homes was keeping in step with the overarching policy goals of the termination era: to terminate Native nations, and assimilate Native people solely as US citizens.

Despite the traumatic history of education, many Native people are firmly committed to the belief that formal education, if properly applied, can advance and help the maintenance of tribal identity—formal education is a way of maintaining sovereignty, culture, and language. Since the passage of the ISDEAA, which provides for tribal- and community-based schools, Native nations have considered formal education to be a primary force in their cultures’ survival.

Education as Survival

In the battle for Navajo children’s education (and really, the battle for Navajo children) we see the “plight narrative” and Navajo families real economic hardships coalescing into policy that ultimately damaged Navajo sovereignty.  

The program often tried to limit contact between Native children and their families. In a letter to Navajo parents written in December 1969, a social worker with the program wrote, “Many of you may be thinking of visiting your child and his foster family sometime during the Holidays. I hope you will not do this. Most of the time it is not good for you or your child. It makes you both homesick and your child must adjust again after you leave.

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.

The lease money, though generally small in amount, gave the Indians further unearned income to permit the continuance of a life of idleness.

The authors of the report concluded, “both the government and missionaries have often failed to study, understand, and take a sympathetic attitude toward Indian ways, Indian ethics, and Indian religion.”

They amassed a litany of grim statistics on the poor economic and social conditions that afflicted most Indian reservations and urban communities

We’re doingit because we have a belief. That makes it much more powerful, because it’snot just a job.

I looked at her and I didn’t say anything

Any Indian tribe, or tribes, residing on the same reservation, shall have the right to organize for its common welfare.

But this does not mean that sovereignty is a meaningless concept.

Yet, even at the lowest point in the history of Indian- white relations, which occurred during the 1870s to 1930s, Indigenous nations still made an effort at affirming the covenants between themselves and the United States.

In the spirit of their British— or, more specifically, English— forebears, the United States established a form of feudalism over Indigenous lands and peoples, in which, as noted above, Indigenous nations possessed no more than usufructuary rights to the lands they had inhabited for countless generations.

No Indian shall be forced to cut their hair by any institution or public agency or official, including military authorities or prison regulation, for example.

The government of the United States knows the reasons for our going to its capital city. Unfortunately, they don't know how to greet us. We go because America has been only too ready to express shame, and suffer none from the expression - while remaining wholly unwilling to change to allow life for Indian people.

It took me a while to realize that the police raided only the Indian bars and never the white ones.” [27]

Nixon argued that the US needed to do away with federal paternalism and stop termination—removing the threat of termination would be the “only way that self-determination can effectively be fostered.”  

This is an Indian thing, and we want to be by ourselves and get down to making it into our center.” [24]

“It is not that Indians reject white culture, per se. It is that they reject white culture when they are forced to adapt to it by losing what they are and [what] they value.

And, in cooperation with other nations, we should foster capital investment in areas needing development.”

so that Native people could be more like whites, because that was ultimately held up as the pinnacle of self-sufficiency and progress

from every tribe, in every state and in every community where Indians reside, have beseeched their representatives in the Senate and the House to pass legislation granting them equal rights of citizenship with their white neighbors."

I guess if the character was not in you, savage or otherwise, Education could not make you the man you are today. Education has developed possibilities in me—were they not there, no school could put them in!” [9]

She used her experiences of Carlisle as the basis for her essay, “An Indian Teacher Among Indians.” In that essay, she writes of the loneliness and isolation she felt in her work.

This organization and others like it shared a commitment to “save” Native people by assimilating them.

That every Indian born within the territorial limits of the United States who has voluntarily taken up within said limits his residence, separate and apart from any tribe of Indians therein, and has adopted the habits of civilized life is hereby declared to be a citizen of the United States, and is entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities of such citizens

As an incentive for agreeing to allot their reservations, the US offered citizenship.

For example, in Colorado, non-Natives were becoming increasingly hostile towards the Utes because they had very valuable mining land in their possession. Government agents persuaded the Utes to accept allotments and cede most of their reservation except for much smaller tracts of agricultural and grazing land. 

As long as Indians live in villages they will retain many of their old and injurious habits. Frequent feasts, community in food, heathen ceremonies and dances, constant visiting

Throughout the nineteenth century, federal courts had ruled that "white" husbands of tribal women could acquire their wives' prop- 38 3 erty by virtue of entitlement, though they were not allowed to adopt tribal citizenshi

They claimed that as Santa Clara Pueblo women they were not afforded the same rights within the tribe as male members and that, consequently, the 1939 amendment violated their civil rights as guaranteed by the ICRA.

ts and domestic appropriations. Accordingly, it ex- ~ 25 tends the authority of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, created under the 1935 act, "to promote the development of Indian arts and crafts, for improving the econ

The above tribes and bands are desirous to exclude from their reservations the use of ardent spirits, and to prevent their people from drinking the same

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;

The said tribes and bands of Indians hereby cede, relinquish, and convey to the United States, all their right, title, and interest in and to the lands and country occupied by them

not only how and why it was made, but also how it came to be housed in museum collections—helps us to understand the ethical issues that arise today over the ownership and display of many Native objects.

The Dawes Act would be terminated. Further allotments of Native land would be prohibited. The bill provided for a consolidation of allotted lands into units for community use and provided $2 million each year to purchase lands for the tribes. Any “surplus” land remaining from allotment would be restored to the reservations

The Dawes Commission also segregated young unmarried men onto separate enrollment cards, reflecting the assumption that these men would leave home and establish their own households. However, many Cherokee men lived with their parents well into adulthood

one drop” of African blood meant that person was black, even that concept of race was not dominant in Indian Territory. 

Once enrolled you were enrolled as a member of the tribal nation, but also enrolled as a member of a racial group – “full blood,” “mixed-blood,” or “negro.” 

There were other kinds of restrictions put on the tribe, but by and large, tribes had the authority and exercised the authority against anyone, regardless of who they were, what color their skin was

No, this behavior is not acceptable.” And as long as the legal response includes that, I think we’re going to see a vast improvement over the Anglo- American legal system

So, I think giving women the power to speak and the power to engage at that level is the key to holding accountability

but we also need to make sure that all of those women who don’t report

Does this differ from other kinds of rapes in the United States?

from literally Columbus on— have viewed Native women as less that human, as rape- able: people that are, you know, non- people; people that didn’t matter; people that needed to be done away with.

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, and that more than one in three Native women experience rape in their lifetime.

the Creek inadvertently made their tribal sovereignty easier to divest rather than harder. 

patent the Creek received somehow made their tribal sovereignty easier to divest. Congress established a reservation, not a dependent Indian community, for the Creek Nation.

First, from 1609 to the 1770s Indians were generally described as the same as other people, as capable of sin and seduction by Satan as anyone else, and just as open to God’s salva-tion and grace

the removal of livelihood and language, the removal of security and self-esteem, the removal of religion and respect. Bit by bit, change by change, loss by ever-exacting loss, removalism has been as much a legacy of our history as migration, and colonialism was its cause

The legend of the Great Migration passed down through the oral tradition begins in a time when anishinaabeg were liv-ing as one large, undifferentiated group

On an Indian reservation, [a jury is] going to be made up of Indians, right? So the non-Indian doesn’t get a fair trial

The boy responsible for that got three months in jail. In 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.

Of the 14,000 Choctaws who left Mississippi, 2,500 people died in the move. About 6,000 of them remained in the East—some of whom moved themselves west over the next several years.

if they did not agree to remove, the president would declare war on them and send in the army. They agreed to sell their land, signing the first removal treaty of the Five Nations in the Southeast.

Time takes a toll,” she said,“especially on elders living in abject poverty. Many of them died as we continued to struggle to settle this suit. Many more would not survive long to see a financial gain, if we had not settled now

The litigation dragged on for another ten years.

As a result, the BIA had little idea of what money came in, what should go out, or who should get it.

Reservation Indians often have trouble getting loans from traditional banks

When Cobellwas four years old, her father managed to get a one-room schoolhouse built so localchildren would not have to go away to boarding school

Although the United States was supposed to provide rations under its treaties with the Blackfeet Nation, the local federal agent hoarded therations to sell on the black market

and based its holding on a racist language that described Indians as bloodthirsty

The European Law of Nations’ discovery doctrine and the system of colonial governmentality perpetuated under it refl ected the distilled legal experience of more than two centuries

Steadfast beliefs in white superiority and Indian savagery can in fact be identifi ed as central organizing principles in the Court’s fi rst set of landmark decisions on Indian rights.

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

For the benefit and comfort of the Indians, and for the prevention of injuriesor oppressions on the part of the citizens or Indians; the United States in Congressassembled shall have the sole and exclusive right of regulating the trade with the Indians,and managing all their affairs in such manners as they think proper

The Commissioners of the United States in Congress assembled, shall restore allthe prisoners taken from the Indians, during the late war, to the Head-Men and Warriors ofthe Cherokees, as early as is practicable

If any citizen or citizens of the United States, shall presume to settle upon the landsallotted to the Shawanoes by this treaty, he or they shall be put out of the protection of theUnited States

The Shawanoe nation, do acknowledge the United States to be the sole andabsolute sovereigns of all the territory ceded to them by a treaty of peac

agree and declare that they foreverdisclaim all right and title in or to any unappropriated public lands lying within theboundaries thereof, and to all lands lying within said limits owned or held by any Indian,tribe, or nation; and that until the title to any such public land shall have been extinguishedby the United States, the same shall be and remain subject to the jurisdiction, disposal andcontrol of the United States.55

Treaties are never mentioned in the Sequoyah Constitution as a collectivetribal right.

The people inhabiting the State do agree and declare that they forever disclaim all right andtitle in or to any unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries thereof, and to alllands lying within said limits owned or held by any Indian, tribe, or nation; and that untilthe title to any such public land shall have been extinguished by the United States,

Ineach of these stories, the United States ignores the tribal diplomatic efforts of the time,engages in unilateral federal action, and tribal autonomy is forever diminished.

I can work and I will work. I have four boys. I will send them to school, so they may learn to read and write. Every day I dont know what to do. Even' day the children cry for something to eat, and if I go to work like my brothers, my children will always get something to eat. I never feel tired. I used to run about in every direc

DECLATCATTON OF TCIGHTS

heirintention, which in any other people would be consid-ered a laudable one, is falsified, and then turned against',them to cover aid forward the design of the strong torob the weak

But nevertheless these Indians have rightswhich should be respected, and these rights the pro -posed legislation would treat with utter disregard.

practically independent of the United StatesGovernment but operating under its sanction, withoutany modification of the tribal relations alreadyexisting among the

And whereas the United States are engaged in a just and necessary war, in defence and support of life, liberty and independence, against the King of England and his adherents, and as said King is yet possessed of several posts and forts on the lakes and other places,

That all offences or acts of hostilities by one, or either of the contracting parties against the other, be mutually forgiven, and buried in the depth of oblivion, never more to be had in remembrance.

Would a Native state be the best way to protect the territories and rights of Native residents of Indian Territory?

Would a Native state, a political entity recognized by the US and devoted to tribal needs, have been the best way to safeguard tribal sovereignty?

The Cherokees refused to ratify because they feared how it would be interpreted by the US Congress.

Native land was believed to ultimately belong to the United States, although it was also recognized that Natives occupied the land, and that they could cede it to the US without duress.Natives were considered to be culturally and intellectually inferior to whites.Native tribes must nevertheless be treated as nations capable of entering into diplomatic negotiations and making war. [15]

And it is further agreed on between the contracting parties should it for the future be conducive for the mutual interest of both parties to invite any other tribes who have been friends to the interest of the United States, to join the present confederation, and to form a state whereof the Delaware nation shall be the head, and have a representation in Congress.

Wunder notes that, as the war neared its end, General George Washington avoided using Natives in his regiments and distanced himself from any commitments to them.

Supporters of Pontiac’s armed resistance found powerful, spiritual support for their movement through Neolin’s proclamation that the creator favored Natives and regarded white settlers as intruders.

But what if they sided with the Americans?

they invited chiefs from the Senecas, the largest nation in the British-allied Haudenosaunee Confederacy

Militant factions of different tribes coming as far as the Senecas in New York, the Chippewas in Minnesota and Natives from Illinois came together to remove the British from posts recently occupied by the French.

Yet, over time they switch and they calm down.  They end up learning more once they aren’t feeling the pressure” from grades.

Without grades, “I think my relationships with students are better,” Drier says.

If people find that idea alarming, it’s probably because they realize it creates a more democratic classroom, one in which teachers must create a pedagogy and a curriculum that will truly engage students rather than allow teachers to coerce them into doing whatever they’re told. 

Moreover, these schools point out that their students are often more motivated and proficient learners, thus better prepared for college, than their counterparts at traditional schools who have been preoccupied with grades.

It’s not enough to disseminate grades more efficiently — for example, by posting them on-line. 

If you’re sorting students into four or five piles, you’re still grading them.  Rubrics typically include numbers as well as labels, which is only one of several reasons they merit our skepticism

If you have one eye on how close you are to achieving your goal, that leaves only one eye for your task.”

Grades tend to diminish students’ interest in whatever they’re learning.

“I remember the first time that a grading rubric was attached to a piece of my writing….Suddenly all the joy was taken away.  I was writing for a grade