It is hereby expressly understood and agreed by and between the respective parties to this treaty that the execution of this treaty and its ratification by the United States Senate shall have the effect, and shall be construed as abrogating and annulling all treaties and agreements heretofore entered into between the respective parties hereto, so far as such treaties and agreements obligate the United States to furnish and provide money, clothing, or other articles of property to such Indians and bands of Indians as become parties to this treaty, but no further. In testimony of all which, we, the said commissioners, and we, the chiefs and headmen of the Brule band of the Sioux nation, have hereunto set our hands and seals at Fort Laramie, Dakota Territory, this twenty-ninth day of April, in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-eight.

If bad men among the whites, or among other people subject to the authority of the United States, shall commit any wrong upon the person or property of the Indians, the United States will, upon proof made to the agent, and forwarded to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at Washington city, proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States, and also reimburse the injured person for the loss sustained. If bad men among the Indians shall commit a wrong or depredation upon the person or property of nay one, white, black, or Indian, subject to the authority of the United States, and at peace therewith, the Indians herein named solemnly agree that they will, upon proof made to their agent, and notice by him, deliver up the wrongdoer to the United States, to be tried and punished according to its laws, and, in case they willfully refuse so to do, the person injured shall be reimbursed for his loss from the annuities, or other moneys due or to become due to them under this or other treaties made with the United States; and the President, on advising with the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, shall prescribe such rules and regulations for ascertaining damages under the provisions of this article as in his judgment may be proper, but no one sustaining loss while violating the provisions of this treaty, or the laws of the United States, shall be reimbursed therefor.

“They say the Indians must join the market economy, but they force us into a colonial economy. This is not economic development. This is economic termination.

In the late 1890s, Joseph Horn Cloud (Celane Not Help Him’s great grandfather) and Dewey Beard (her grandfather) had filed two claims demanding compensation for the losses incurred by their families as a result of the massacre.

Wounded Knee MassacreIn late December 1890, the Seventh Cavalry—the same unit who had been defeated by Lakotas at Little Bighorn fourteen years earlier—intercepted a band of about 350 Lakotas at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. The Lakotas, led by Chief Spotted Elk (also known as Big Foot) were making their way to the Pine Ridge Reservation for safe haven. Just two weeks earlier, Sitting Bull had been killed on the Standing Rock Reservation as he was being arrested

Ghost DanceThroughout the 1870s and 1880s, Native people on the Plains continued to resist US expansion through both military measures and spiritual measures. At the end of the 1880s, a religious movement known as the Ghost Dance swept through the Plains. It originated in Nevada with a Paiute preacher named Wovoka. He promised a return of the old ways and a reunion of practitioners with their departed ancestors if they abstained from alcohol, lived in peace, and followed ritual practices, including a specific dance known as the Ghost Dance.A “return of the old ways” also meant that there would no longer be any white men. Lakotas sent messengers by train to hear Wovoka’s message. They embraced it as a religious response to the harsh conditions they experienced on the reservations. [6]Ghost Dancers hoped to restore their world by dancing. 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. They sent increasingly intense warnings to Washington, expressing fears of an impending war with the Lakota. In response, President Benjamin Harrison mobilized troops and ordered them onto the Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations in South Dakota.  <img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/570fe928c2ea518f457619ed/1607372320606-KHZXAJWLY4S3KVFLPKME/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kOs4wROyiENd1S-cqaAcKDh7gQa3H78H3Y0txjaiv_0fDoOvxcdMmMKkDsyUqMSsMWxHk725yiiHCCLfrh8O1z5QPOohDIaIeljMHgDF5CVlOqpeNLcJ80NK65_fV7S1Ud-vO8SdyUOLkzkYvx9wSi73Tc-xCvMMMkqtOhiMjcVEqDzyZARcY56O8UKZO-r0kw/Arapaho+Ghost+Dance.jpg" alt="Arapaho Ghost Dance, 1900. Source: National Archives" />

Although Tear tried to get Sitting Bull to recount his role in the Battle of Little Bighorn, he refused. He continually asserted that he was fighting in defense of his homeland. He emphasized: “I did not hunt Custer. I thought I had a right to protect my own women and children. If he had taken our village he would have killed our women and children. It was a fair fight.”

Sitting Bull, a well-respected Lakota warrior and political leader, was a staunch opponent of all government programs. He refused to sign the Treaty of Fort Laramie, remaining in the “unceded” western territory. Sitting Bull’s followers, which we could call “nontreaty” Lakotas, were labeled as “hostiles” by the US Army and government officials

Congress created the Indian Peace Commission, which was designed to negotiate peace treaties with tribes on the Plains. The Commission focused on the crucial section of the Plains between the Platte and Arkansas rivers, the projected settings for the Union Pacific and Kansas Pacific railroad lines

that the constitutional rights of all Americans must supersede treaty rights of some Americans,’ that Indian reservations not be enlarged, that tribal governments should not have jurisdiction over non-Indians who have no voice in tribal government, and that grants of public funds to any group of people based on race be prohibited.”

Coverage of poverty by the mass media as well as popular books essentially created the basic “fact” of Native poverty as common knowledge. We’ve discussed this in our conversation about child welfare in Week 7—the “forgotten” Native child deserved attention and adoption mainly because if he or she was “left behind” on the reservation, they too would become victim to the inherent poverty of Native culture.  

For Native people, OEO money flowed directly to reservation governments and tribal organizations, bypassing the BIA. Harmon writes that “wherever the money went, jobs houses, health care services, and other economic essentials sprang up.” [5]One of the most significant effects of the OEO and Community Action was that tribal governments gained more legitimacy in the eyes of non-Natives, serving as a catalyst for political revitalization and self-determination movements in the 1970s. 

Money and power have long been tools of colonization. This week, we’re looking critically at how ideas of wealth continue to intersect with sovereignty. The readings for this week, the Treaty of New Echota, and a chapter from Jean Dennison’s book, Colonial Entanglements, on the Osage’s fight over mineral rights, get into some of the internal conflicts between tribal citizens over issues of wealth, power, and tribal authority.

I had followed online discussions during the reform process, but it was not until I was away from the reservation that I truly appreciated the Osage territory that existed on the World Wide Web. No Osage group was more active on the web than the members of the osa, whose membership consisted primarily of off-reservation Osage annuitants.

Not all Osage, however, agreed that change was dangerous. By 2004, it was clear to most Osage that the otc had done a great deal of damage to the Osage as a nation. Only those Osage who had inherited a share in the Mineral Estate had the right to vote for elected officials, and many voters had only a fraction of a vote. While in 2004 all lineal descendants of the 1906 roll were eligible for membership cards and for many tribal services such as health care and partial college scholarships, they could not elect tribal officials or run for office unless they held a headright. Nonshare-holding Osage were counted in order to gain access to more federal grant dollars, but these same individuals had no say in how those funds were spent.31 Furthermore, all informal institutions, from Osage naming to the five-person committees in the districts, were open to and included all Osage descendants, not just headright holders. It was less clear who the bIa recognized as the Osage Nation, with some evidence pointing only to the original annuitants (see appendix 4).Because of these factors, a

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. While the most com-mon narrative about the Osage allotment is that Chief Bigheart was able to negotiate a better allotment because the Osage ha

It is stipulated and agreed between the United States and the Chero­kee people that John Ross James Starr George Hicks John Gunter George Chambers John Ridge Elias Boudinot George Sanders John Martin William Rogers Roman Nose Situwake and John Timpson shall be a committee on the part of the Cherokees to recommend such persons for the privilege of pre-emption rights as may be deemed entitled to the same under the above articles and to select the mission­aries who shall be removed with the nation

the interest of their people to have all their funds and annuities under their own direction and future disposition hereby agree to commute their permanent annuity of ten thousand dollars for the sum of two hundred and fourteen thousand dollars, the same to be invested by the President of the United States as a part of the general fund of the nation; and their present school fund amounting to about fifty thou­sand dollars shall constitute a part of the permanent school fund of the nation. · Provisionrespecting ARTICL

And whereas it is apprehended bv the Cherokees that in the above Additional land · th · · d ·m . . f l d f h conveyed to the na­cess1on . ere 1s not contame a su cient quantity o an or t e tion, etc. accommodation of the whole nation on their removal west of the Mis­sissippi the United States in consideration of the sum of five hundred thousand dollars therefore hereby covenant and agree to convey to the said Indians, and their descendants by patent, in fee simple the fol­lowing additional tract of land situated between the west line of the State of Missouri and. the Osage reservation beginning at the southeast corner of the same and runs north along the east line of the Osage lands fifty miles to the northeast comer thereof; and thence east to the west line of the State of Missouri; thence with said line south fifty miles; thence west to the place of beginning; estimated to contain eight hundred thousand acres of land; but it is expressly understood that if any of the lands assigned the Quapaws shal fall within the aforesaid bounds the same shall be reserved and excepted out of the lands above granted and a pro rata reduction shall be made in the price to be allowed to the United States for the same by the Cherokees

And whereas on such submission the Senate advised "that a sum not exceeding five millions of dollars be paid to the Cherokee Indians for all their lands and possessions east of the Mississippi river."

The Cherokee signed the 1866 treaty in defeat, after the Civil War, since they had fought for the Confederacy. The treaty committed that the slaves, who had been freed by tribal decree during the war, would be absorbed as citizens in the Cherokee Nation. However, by the late 1880s, during the allotment period, when the U.S. government opened up tribal lands in Oklahoma to white settlers, thus breaking its agreement with the tribes,

paying any tax thereon which is now or may be levied by the United States on the quantity sold outside of the Indian Territory.

All the Cherokees and freed persons who were formerly slaves to any Cherokee, and all free negroes not having been such slaves, who resided in the Cherokee Nation prior to June first, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, who may within two years elect not to reside northeast of the Arkansas River and southeast of Grand River, shall have the right to settle in and occupy the Canadian district southwest of the Arkansas River, and also all that tract of country lying northwest of Grand River, and bounded on the southeast by Grand River and west by the Creek reservation to the northeast corner thereof; from thence west on the north line of the Creek reservation to the ninety-sixth degree of west longitude; and thence north on said line of longitude so far that a line due east to Grand River will include a quantity of land equal to one hundred and sixty acres for each person who may so elect to reside in the territory above-described in this article: Provided, That that part of said district north of the Arkansas River shall not be set apart until it shall be found that the Canadian district is not sufficiently large to allow one hundred and sixty acres to each person desiring to obtain settlement under the provisions of this article

hey took drastic steps to maintain their distance from African Americans—even going so far as to shun tribal members who married Blacks. The question of Black ancestry in the tribe became a deeply sensitive issue that they avoided talking about with outsiders and even within the tribe. As they rejected relationships with Blacks, Pamunkeys encouraged intermarriage with people from other Native communities

That just because the Freedmen can be looked at and identified phenotypically differently from us—they may have curly hair or African features—when you look at the paperwork, you find that the Freedmen are inextricably intertwined in the Cherokee Nation. What we have done, we have basically cut off an arm of our nation, and I believe in so doing we face the possibility of a national hemorrhage, because once you start chopping pieces of yourself away, what part is next?”[14

officials

The Confederate treaty was not all that was promised. The annuity payments were scant and infrequent. Eight months after the treaty was signed, the Confederate high command ordered Cherokee forces to Arkansas to take part in a Confederate offensive aimed at capturing the state of Missouri. When the Confederates were defeated there, the 2nd Indian Mounted Rifles defected to the Union.

She explains the “survival strategy” of tribes in the Southeast to turn to slave holding as a way of demonstrating their “civilization” and right to remain on their lands. However, she notes, this “survival strategy” came at the expense of Black human rights and the kinship bonds that had been formed among Black and Native people. (Watch from 13:30 to 25:00, unless you want to watch the whole thing!) 

Washington and others in his administration believed that there were only two options for Native people in the future of the United States: They could not survive in close proximity to “civilized” Americans, and would die out if they remained uncivilized.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.

Barefooted and virtually naked on the mow-otrewn -, thlll unhappy Navaho Indian baby itanda u an lndlclmenl of our cruel nellect of bis people. • I _. I STARVATION WITHOllt REPRESENTA1lON .. The Navaho Indians need immediate relief . One half of their children die befo

They will make no opposition to the military posts or roads .roads. · now established, or that may be established, not in violation of treaties heretofore made or hereafter to be made with any of the Indian tribes

When the head of a family shall have selected lands and received his certificate as above directed, and the agent shall be satis­fied that he intends in good faith to commence cultivating the soil for a living, he shall be entitled to receive seeds and agricultural imple­ments for the first year, not exceeding in value one hundred dollars, and for each succeeding year he shall continue to farm, for a period of two years, he shall be entitled to receive seeds and implements to the· value of twenty-five dollars.

to admit among them; and the United States agrees that no persons except those herein so authorized to do, and except such officers, soldiers, agents, and employes of the Govern­ment, or of the Indians, as may be authorized to enter upon Indian reservations in discharge of duties imposed by law, or the orders of the President, shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in, the territory described in this article

Amid the horrors, Dwanna managed a peaceful closure with her motherin the months before she died. “I think most of all she needed to forgive herself, but she wanted me around to get that approval” and offer her own forgiveness. Dwanna seemed empathetic as she related her mother’sown story of being raped and beaten by her stepfather

In his all but forgotten 1971 anthology, Of Utmost Good Faith, Deloria argued with respect to the government documents that he assembled for the purpose of indicting the U.S. federal government of multiple treaty and trust violations that Americans have been the victim of a grave historical hoax. 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. In the case of the American Indian’s role in this narrative, when it was acknowledged at all, it was typically recounted in “unbiased,” “neutral” tones. “It is not so,” Deloria asserted. “Each and every incident, every treaty, statute and case is loaded with values, viewpoints and biases.” As such, the history of federal Indian law and policy, and the documents they generated, was overflowing with wisdom, courage, and justice, as much as they were with greed, selfishness, and cruelty. To focus, then, on the

PRIORITIES AND PURPOSE OF THE PROPOSED NEW OFFIC

Consolidation of Indians' Land, Water, Natural and Economic Resources:

he 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.

kenalltogether,onecannotimagineamorepoorlyconceived,moreinaccurate,lessinformed,andlessdemocraticprocessthanthemakingofthe18treatiesin1851-52withtheCaliforniaIndians.Itwasafarcefrombeginningtoend,thoughapparentlytheCommissioners,PresidentFillmoreandthemembersoftheUnitedStatesSenatewerequiteunawareofthat

4Butthedistancebetweentheoryandpracticewentevenfurther.NoneoftheCommissionershadanyknowledgewhatsoeverofCaliforniaIndiansortheirculturalpractices,especiallythoseregardinglandownershipanduse.AstreatymakerstheywereunderorderstomakecertainarrangementswithCaliforniaIndiantribes.

Sometreaties(forexample"A"-'D")were"signed'byIndianswho,almostwithoutexception,hadSpanishgivennames.WemayassumethatthetreatywasreadtotheminSpanishbyaninterpreterwhowasattachedtothetreaty-makingparty,andthattheprovisionsinthetreatywereunderstoodbythesignatories.Ontheotherhand,anumberoftreatieswere"signed"byIndianswhodidnothaveSpanishgivennamesandwho,forthemostpart,probablydidnotknoweitherSpanishorEnglish.Insomeoftheseinstances,itseemshighlyunlikelythattheso-calledinterpretersknewtheseveralnativetonguesofthepeoplewhowerebeingparlayedwith.Andwhiletheremayhavebeensomekindofcommuni-cation,thereisgreatprobabilitythattheliteralwordingofthetreatiesoftenwasnot,andindeedcouldnotbe,madeintelligibletotheIndianspresen

THEEIGHTEENUNRATIFIEDTREATIESOF1851-1852BETWEENTHECALIFORNIAINDIANSANDTHEUNITEDSTATESGOVERNMENT.IntroductionBetweenApril29,1851,andAugust22,1852,aseriesofeighteentreaties"offriendshipandpeace"werenegotiatedwithalargenumberofwhatweresaidtobe"tribes"ofCaliforniaIndiansbythreetreatyCommis-sionerswhoseappointmentsbyPresidentMillardFillmorewereauthorizedbytheU.S.SenateonSeptember29,1850.EighteentreatiesweremadebuttheSenateonJuly8,1852refusedtoratifytheminexecutivesessionandorderedthemfiledunderaninjunctionofsecrecywhichwasnotremoveduntilJanuary18,1905(Ellison1922,1925).AdetailedaccountofthewholematteroftheappointmentofthethreeCommissioners(GeorgeW.Barbour,RedickMcKeeand0.M.Wozencraft),theirtravelsandananalysisoftheactualnatureofthegroupslistedas"tribes"hasbeenprepared(HeizerandAnderson,n.d.)andwill,Ihope,somedaybepublished.C.HartMerriamin1926prepared,attherequestoftheSubcommitteeoftheHouseofRepresentativesCommitteeonIndianAffairs,adetailedidentificationofwhathecalled"allegedtribes"signingthe18treaties.HisworkingpapersarefiledintheC.HartMerriamCollection(identifiedmorefullyintheappendedreferences:MerriamCollection[1926]).Asimilarandwhollyindependentanalysisofthissortwasmadein1955forthePlaintiff'scounselintheIndianClaimsCommissionhearingsonDockets31/37.ThiswasintroducedasExhibitALK-8.Acopyofthisanalysiswithamap(Heizer[1955])isfiledasMs.No.443inthearchivesoftheArchaeologicalResearchFacility,DepartmentofAnthropology,UniversityofCalifornia,Berkeley.Useofbothdocumentsispresentlyrestricted

BetweenApril29,1851,andAugust22,1852,aseriesofeighteentreaties"offriendshipandpeace"werenegotiatedwithalargenumberofwhatweresaidtobe"tribes"ofCaliforniaIndiansbythreetreatyCommis-sionerswhoseappointmentsbyPresidentMillardFillmorewereauthorizedbytheU.S.SenateonSeptember29,1850.EighteentreatiesweremadebuttheSenateonJuly8,1852refusedtoratifytheminexecutivesessionandorderedthemfiledunderaninjunctionofsecrecywhichwasnotremoveduntilJanuary18,1905(Ellison1922,1925)

“We didn’t have a lot of money and the best meals and all that. But those young people knew when they went to bed, no one was going to beat them up or molest them. There was always food; it might have been pretty slim sometimes, but there was always food. It was like they found some place where they were safe and treated well.” [38] Listen/view oral histories fr

Some Native leaders and activists criticized AIM because they argued that apart from offering temporary visibility in the media, their methods did not resolve deeper issues between Native people and the United States.

Drawing on the examples of the Black Panthers’ police patrol, AIM members used observation, documentation, and physical presence to prevent police mistreatment of Native people. They documented incidents of harassment, recorded the license plate numbers of offending officers and filed complaints with evidence at precinct headquarters. Inside and outside of bars they offered intoxicated people rides home and broke up fights, intervening before police could make arrests. When people were arrested they recorded police behavior and provided those arrested with free legal assistance. They wore bright red jackets with “Indian Patrol” on the back.

The Indians of All Tribes welcomed almost any kind of support, and sought out all favorable media attention. They began broadcasting from the Pacifica Radio Network, a progressive radio group out of Los Angeles. The broadcasts originated from the prison’s main cellblock using equipment donated by employees of Berkeley’s KPFA radio station. In their grant request for  more financial support to continue the broadcasts from the San Francisco Cambrium Fund, leaders wrote, “These activities will, for the first time, give Native Americans an uncensored voice in the mass media (via the Pacifica Radio Network) allowing urban and reservation Indians to communicate directly and regularly with one another.” They labeled their broadcasts, “Radio Free Alcatraz,” a nod to the State Department’s “Radio Free Europe,” a Cold War era broadcast meant to reach people in the Soviet bloc about American-style democrac

From June 13-20, 1961, the conference drew an estimated 400 Native people and another 150 non-Natives to the University of Chicago. For three days, representatives from nearly 100 Native communities separated into nine discussion groups to rework the Declaration of Indian Purpose.

hrough summer workshops, McNickle planned to encourage tribal leaders to make their communities economically more self-sufficient. In 1960, AID sponsored the Workshop on American Indian Affairs, a six-week program for Native college students, initiated by an anthropologist at the University of Chicago named Sol Tax in 1956. The workshops offered college credit, provided an incentive for Native students to finish their degrees, and cultivated a new generation of tribal leaders. [13]

Others testified that reservations were an untapped business opportunity within the United States.

It is declared that this program shall be offered to the American Indian communities without exacting termination of the federal protection of Indian property or of any other Indian rights as its price; that Indian culture and identity should not be restricted or destroyed; that technical guidance and financial assistance shall be made available; that the request for assistance shall come from the Indians themselves after each Indian group has studied itself in terms of its own needs.

The basis for selecting tribes for termination remains unclear even today. Following the hearings, Congress approved six termination acts. The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), a pan-tribal organization formed in 1944, went on the offensive to prevent other tribes from being terminated. In the midst of the joint hearings, they called an emergency conference in Washington, DC, coinciding with a break in the termination hearings, which ensured that many Native people would be able to attend the conference. Representing more than one-third of the nation’s Native population, delegates from 43 tribes and 21 states and the territory of Alaska were present at the emergency conference. The primary objective of the conference was to unify Native support against termination and to provide a forum for public relations.

Throughout the entire termination period, which lasted into the 1960s, 109 cases of termination were initiated, which affected a minimum of 1,352,155 acres of land and 11,466 individuals.

Myer’s whole philosophy was to get the BIA out of the lives of Native people.

“The real tragedy is that many whites then and now still cannot comprehend that Indian people could want anything other than a white existence."

oliticians consistently returned to the idea that the Bureau of Indian Affairs' (BIA), the governmental agency in charge of holding Native money and land in trust, forced them to live, as Hugh Butler claimed, in conditions of “racial segregation,” “inferior status,” and subject to “control by race legislation.” They argued that Native people were held back from living their lives unencumbered by federal oversight

From this perspective, which finds iterations, if not outright support, in vari-ous sources, Indian voting is seen as a long but ultimately successful politi cal pro cess. Having won the franchise, Native Americans could then secure and safeguard their other civil right

Reservations, built on the ruins of indigenous economies, were created to control American Indians. Their lives were regulated through the surveillance of reser-vation agents, passes issued for off-reservation hunting, government commodities, isolation, and a local military presence. Regardless of environment, the United States’ policy required that Indians make the transformation through forms of work, specifically farming, that justi-fied the practices of the government’s civilization program. That Plains Indians were not, for the most part, farming people did not disturb the United States and its citizens’ vision of tribal Indians transformed into independent farmers. The delusional vision was preferable to the proposal to exterminate the Indians. Together, the flawed idea and the realities of reservation life strapped Indians to the Americans’ hypo-thetical trajectory of progress

The said Apache tribe of Indians agree to confederate and become incorporated with the said Kiowa and Comanche Indians, and to accept as their permanent home the reservation described in the aforesaid treaty with said Kiowa and Comanche tribes, concluded as aforesaid at this place, and they pledge themselves to make no permanent settlement at any place, nor on any lands, outside of said reservation. ARTICLE 2. The Kiowa and Comanche tribes, on their part, agree that all the benefits and advantages arising from the employment of physicians, teachers, carpenters, millers, engineers, farmers, and blacksmiths, agreed to be furnished under the provisions of their said treaty, together with all the advantages to be derived from the construction of agency buildings, warehouses, mills, and other structures, and also from the establishment of schools upon their said reservation, shall be jointly and equally shared and enjoyed by the said Apache Indians, as though they had been originally a part of said tribes; and they further agree that all other benefits arising from said treaty shall be jointly and equally shared as aforesaid. ARTICLE 3. The United States, on its part, agrees that clothing and other articles named in Article X. of said original treaty, together with all money or other annuities agreed to be furnished under any of the provisions of said treaty, to the Kiowa and Comanches, shall be shared equally by the Apaches. In all cases where specific articles of clothing are agreed to be furnished to the Kiowas and Comanches, similar articles shall be furnished to the Apaches, and a separate census of the Apaches shall be annually taken and returned by the agent, as provided for the other tribes. And the United States further agrees, in consideration of the incorporation of said Apaches, to increase the annual appropriation of money, as provided for in Article X. of said treaty, from twenty-five thousand to thirty thousand dollars; and the latter amount shall be annually appropriated, for the period therein named, for the use and benefit of said three tribes, confederated as herein declared; and the clothing and other annuities, which may from time to time be furnished to the Apaches, shall be based upon the census of the three tribes, annually to be taken by the agent, and shall be separately marked, forwarded, and delivered to them at the agency house, to be built under the provisions of said original treaty.

The Porter decision held until after WWII, and it was veterans who played a large role in overruling it. For example, in 1946, an all-Native American Legion post located on the Navajo reservation issued a resolution to Arizona’s governor and members of the state legislature demanding “assistance be given the Indian people in obtaining from the various states equal civil rights with all other citizens of those states including the right to vote, in all city, county, state and federal elections.”

Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 Officially, all Native people became US citizens in 1924 when President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act (ICA). This act made 125,000 Native people citizens (about one-third of the population, as the rest were already citizens). Some had received citizenship through the allotment process. In 1919, Congress passed an act enabling Natives who served in the army or navy during WWI, and who had been honorably discharged, to become citizens. In order to take advantage of this, Natives had to choose to apply to be granted citizenship by a court. 

Parker placed his faith for the future of Native people in the hands of an educated Native elite. As a result, he—and other members of the SAI—were often disconnected from the needs of Native people who lived on the reservations

Carlisle’s efforts to “transform” Native people from savages to civilize

Native public intellectuals of the early twentieth century focused on the importance of education in order to train new Native leaders. However, “education” did not just mean the type of schooling children received at boarding schools which was heavily vocational in nature. Rather, Native public intellectuals wanted to create a path for young Native people to be able to compete successfully with non-Natives, helping to improve life for all of Indian country. 

hat all of these examples demonstrate are the dynamics of assimilation policy—BIA employees and reformers had extremely discriminatory, racialized views of Native people. However, Native people found ways to not only cope with an oppressive system, but ways to directly resist. They spoke out on behalf of their people, agitated for their personal freedom, and maintained cultural practices in the face of colonial oppression.

“After my first three years of school, I roamed again in the Western country through four strange summers. During this time I seemed to hang in the heart of chaos, beyond the touch or voice of human aid…My mother had never gone inside of a schoolhouse, and so she was not capable of comforting her daughter who could read and write. Even nature seemed to have no place for me. I was neither a wee girl nor a tall one; neither a wild Indian nor a tame one.

n her writings, she works to break down the dichotomy of “savage” Native students and “civilized” white teachers, which is especially clear in the passage about her hair being cut. In that experience, it is clear that it is the white teachers who are acting savagely, forcing her to lose her spiri

“I remember being dragged out, though I resisted by kicking and scratching wildly. In spite of myself, I was carried downstairs and tied fast in a chair. I cried aloud, shaking my head all the while until I felt the cold blades of the scissors against my neck, and heard them gnaw off one of my thick braids. Then I lost my spirit. Now I was only one of many little animals driven by a herder.”

“The reservation schools for Indians are the key holes. The reservation is the cellar and the Indian boys and girls are the plants who are dying for want of light. Carlisle says, carry the plant out into the light and atmosphere which breed English, industry, and incentive. Carry it out where it will grow and gain strength and amount to something; where it will soon be able to hold its own head up and care for itself.

In 1882, the Indian Rights Association was formed. This was an organization made up primarily of non-Natives who pledged to protect the rights and interests of Native people. This organization and others like it shared a commitment to “save” Native people by assimilating them. Members of reform groups like the Indian Rights Association thought of themselves as “Friends of the Indian.” This sentiment is famously captured in the quote by Captain Richard Henry Pratt, founder of the Carlisle Indian boarding school: “Kill the Indian and Save the Man.”

Kiowa headman Lone Wolf argued that this was a violation of their 1867 treaty establishing the reservation, especially because the majority of the residents had not voted to approve the plan. In response, the Supreme Court rejected Lone Wolf’s assertion, arguing that Congress had the right to alter the terms of treaties with tribes, because “authority over the tribal relations of the Indians has been exercised by Congress from the beginning, and the power has always been deemed a political one.”

On the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, allotment intersected with other Bureau of Indian Affairs plans to assimilate Native people by transforming them into cattle farmers. When the reservation was allotted in the early twentieth century, it was home to a tribal herd of cattle, a few private herds owned by prosperous Blackfeet, and private herds of non-Native ranchers who had leased significant portions of the reservation for open-range stock raising, about 20,000 head of cattle

What shall be his future status? Shall he remain a pauper savage, blocking the pathway of civilization, an increasing burden upon the people? Or shall he be converted into a civilized tax-payer, contributing toward the support of the Government and adding to the material prosperity of the country?”

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—these will continue as the people live together in close neighborhoods and villages…I trust that before another year is ended they will generally be located upon individual lands or farms. From that date will begin their real and permanent progress.”

It has struck me that those historical and social forces that lead to the radical displacement and fragmentation that marked my grandmother's life from her first breath to her last, as well as the lives of her children-especially that empty place where all records of her Cheroke

After our country was divided they would send the half breeds around-the half breed Indians-they would go out and hunt for the names of the full-blood Indians with- out their consent, and they would take the names down and go and present them before the Dawes Commission, and these half breeds that b

uly 1999, the Las Vegas Paiute council decided to disenroll fourteen of its fifty-four members. The decision was prompted by the attempt of one particular family within the tribe to enroll their step- children and other extended family members, who did not claim Paiute identity and had no cultural relationship with the Paiute except by marriage (the family had a reputation at the village for never part

of tribal members to justify the need for reviewing not only the deci- sions but also the entire structure of recognition. His real aim, as was Slade Gorton's (R.-Oreg.), was to reverse the "sovereign immunity" of tribes from lawsuits and taxation (Wilkins 2002, 78-81). In kind, anti-gaming Congressman Rob Simmons (R.) and Attor- ney General Richard Blumenthal (D.), both of Connecticut, have moved against the recognition applications of several tribes within the North- east on the grounds that their members are using allegedly question- able blood degrees to gain access to legal immunity, tax breaks, and gaming privileges reserved to tribes as sovereign entities. Already, several tribes in the area have been affected, with recognition appli- cations either suspended or reversed, including those for the Eastern Pequot, the Paucatuck Eastern Pequot, and the Nipmuc Nation ("Beware Blumenthal," 2001; Adams 2001). For Wolf, Simmons, and Blumenthal, the blood quantum of tribal members has figured their question about the legitimacy of tribal recognition, not only of the tribes in question but as a policy. Blood, it would seem, is useful for a range of political and economic interests aimed at undermining tribal rights to sover- eignty as provided for by recognition policies. Tribal Identification Policies Tribal identification policies have carried the onerous burden of having to negotiate the multiple efforts by various political and economic forces-within and without the tribes-seeking to usurp the founda- tions of indigenous sovereignty and to control the terms of its exercise. Initially, these policies were formalized in agreements to allot during the administration of the General Allotment Act (Bledsoe [1909] 1979). Indigenous governments have also developed enrollment criteria in a myriad of other contexts, including those times when they have chosen to document their laws (such as the Iroquois Book of the Great Law), the constitutional processes established by the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934 (Deloria and Lytle 1984), and in applications for re- > instatement or acknowledgment of existing recognition status under the federal acknowledgment program initiated by the BIA in 1978 0 (regulations issued by the BIA established seven specific criteria that tribes had to meet in order to gain recognition status, including a roll of u members based on criteria approved

Because the total number of head rights was fixed at 2,229, the only way for an individual to receive a share was by inheritance. The Osage's wealth and the initiation of the allotment process brought re- 3 33 newed violence against the Osage people (Hogan 1998). Many moved into the area and attempted to gain access to the tribe's resources through various kinds of fraud and theft, including everything from land purchases to grave robbing. However, because a direct share in tribal profits from mineral extraction could only be acquired by inheri- tance, the more insidious plans to defraud the Osage of their

lent admittance of nonindigenous people from around the country to the rolls, Congress consistently upheld their legal status. Through sev- eral court cases well into the 1930s, Congress ruled that the rolls were "conclusive evidence" of indigenous membership, solidifying all of the information on the rolls as legal proof of tribal identity (Bledsoe [ 1909] 1979, 75-76; Debo 1940, 90). Consequently, all of the problems with the production of the rolls were legally secured, as were the land titles and leases that had been issued on their bas

The General Allotment Act broke up communally owned reser- vations in severalty and issued single parcels of land to individuals who were determined to be members of the tribes (Otis 1973; Washburn 1975; Bledsoe [1909] 1979; Carlson 1980; McDonnell 1991; Harring 1994; Burton 1995; Carter 1999; LaVelle 1999). There was a 160-acre norm for determining the size of a parcel, but other factors were also taken into consideration, like the value of the land and the status of the individual with regard to age, marriage, and dependency. Conse- quently, parcels ranged in size from about forty to seven hundred acres (McDonnell 1991; Carlson 1980). Once the allotment process was com- pleted for a given reservation, the "surplus" lands were opened up for sale. The overall result of allotment was the gross reduction of Ameri- can Indian land tenure, the checkerboarding of tribal tenure and juris- diction on and near reservation lands, and a complicated series of leases and inheritance titles that virtually nullified the kind of economic self- sufficiency for Indians that the act promised (McDonnell 1991; Harring 1994; Burton 1995; Carter 1999).

As part of ongoing efforts by indigenous peoples in the United States to en- trench their rights to sovereignty in federal law, the IACA becomes an important marker for understanding indigenous perspectives about membership, nationhood, and trade. Just who were the individual and collective actors involved in, implicated by, or otherwise mobilized t

The IACA requires that anyone who wants to display or sell their work as Indian-made must show the government-issued trademark, to be developed and distributed by the Board, in order to guarantee the authenticity and quality of the product (PL 101-644, sec. 102; Guest 1997, 135). Those defined as Indian by the statute, and accordingly qualified to receive the trademark, are enrolled members of federally recognized tribes. All members of unrecognized tribes are excluded, as well as those who fail to meet enrollment criteria, those who are unable to enroll (such as those who do not have proper documentation), those who are unable to gain "special artisan status," and those who refuse to enroll for political or other reasons.4

The IACAs stated purpose is to protect American Indian and Alaskan Native artists and their patrons from the fraud and misrepre- v sentation of imports 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 economic st

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,

The right of taking fish, at all usual and accustomed grounds and stations, is further secured to said Indians in common with all citizens of the Territory, and of erecting temporary houses for the purpose of curing, together with the privilege of hunting, gathering roots and berries, and pasturing their horses on open and unclaimed lands: Provided, however, That they shall not take shellfish from any beds staked or cultivated by citizens, and that they shall alter all stallions not intended for breeding-horses, and shall keep up and confine the latter.

ative 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. The collecting of material objects during this era contributed to the overall sense of loss which we are familiar with in this era. Historian Douglas Cole, author of Captured Heritage, the history of collecting on the Northwest Coast, described the amount of material that was removed from tribes and placed into museums in this way: By the time the heyday of anthropological collecting ended, around the Great Depression, “The city of Washington contained more Northwest Coast material than the state of Washington, and New York City probably housed more British Columbia material than British Columbia herself.”

Collection of Native Art and ObjectsThe history of Native people, art, and museums is shaped by colonial relationships. When we discuss Native historical objects and art in museums today, we have to take into account how the collection of these objects shaped their preservation, study, display, and value. The majority of objects in museum collections that survive today were selected because they appealed to collectors’ criteria of value and beauty. Taking the history of each object into account—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. [24]

Fishing rights activists also pursued a legal strategy, bringing a lawsuit against the State of Washington. In September 1970, several hundred local police and Washington State troopers had attacked Puyallup fishing rights activists, arresting sixty of them. The assault on the fishing camp was the most violent and publicized to that point—police used tear gas, the State Game Department wielded clubs, some Native folks carried guns and knives. Crucially, a US attorney witnessed the violence, and moved to support the Native protestors, bringing the Department of Justice into the lawsuit against Washington state. With the federal government now behind them, most of the state’s tribes joined the litigation in US v. Washington. It was a momentous turning point, because now the Native protestors had the resources and power of the federal government behind them. In February 1974, the judge, George Boldt decided in favor of the tribes, in an almost complete vindication of all the tribes had claimed as theirs. He agreed with them on every major point. He also declared that the tribes’ “fair share” of the salmon constituted one half of the fish and that the tribes had sovereign rights as governments to regulate their members’ participation in that harvest. The decision was affirmed by the federal court of appeals in 1975, and the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal one year later.

Nisqually and Puyallup men and women fished, endured harassment and arrests, kept up the camp, raised bail for arrested fishers, and contacted sympathetic people to contribute food and supplies. Fish-in protestors wanted to recruit people from all over the country to come to Frank’s Landing. Sometimes this could backfire. Newspaper accounts of the protests often led with sentences noting the presence of Black Panthers and SDSers, as a way to underscore the presence of radicals and perhaps discredit the position of Native people. However, when a reporter asked Bob Satiacum (Puyallup-Yakama) how he liked “such volunteers” he responded, “Well, you don’t see any of the good church people down here helping us, do you?”

ven Gregory’s Native allies became critical of his actions and rhetoric. Janet McCloud was disappointed that his activities received publicity in primarily black magazines, which, she argued advanced his career more than their cause. She believed that “the American Negro’s revolution has necessitated a change in the white man’s mental picture of the colored people of the world.” But, she argued that the treaty rights issue was being lost in the mix.

Two bills were proposed by Senator Warren Magnuson to give states power to pass conservation measures, which were challenged by the NIYC, who argued that the measures would chip away at Native treaty rights. Proponents of the legislation pinned the depleted state of salmon and trout on Native fishers. The Oregon Fish Commission argued that the treaty makers of the nineteenth century did not intend for Indians to “take all the fish.” They set up a dichotomy between Native fishers—unregulated and an unsupervised, taking all the fish, while others were restricted and more conservation minded.

A decline in salmon runs due to pollution, sportfishing, and massive fisheries led state authorities to enact conservation measures, restricting fishing in certain areas or during certain times of year. Although during the first of these restrictions, in the late nineteenth-century, Native subsistence fishing was overlooked as authorities recognized the validity of those treaties, into the twentieth century, non-Native fishers began to call for more sweeping restrictions to bring Native people in line with state fish and game laws. Many white fishers blamed Pacific Northwest tribes for the declining numbers of trout and salmon. After WWII, the Washington State Sportsmen’s Council, a political lobbying group of recreational fishers, took the lead in opposing Native fishing. Many employees of the Washington State Department of Game and Fish attended meetings and involved themselves in the affairs of the council. The group argued that Native people needed to be educated on conservation principles just like other Americans

Fishing Rights in the Pacific NorthwestAs a result of allotment policies, Native nations in the Pacific Northwest, such as the Nisquallys, Puyallups, and Salish lost the majority of their land and raised questions about Native fishing rights. Could Native people fish within the reservation boundaries as they had existed in the 1850s when they had signed treaties like the Treaty of Medicine Creek with the government of the Washington Territory? Could they fish undisturbed within the boundaries of the reservations which existed in the 1960s?

How to Define “Indian”In 1936, a memo outlined the policy the BIA had adopted in determining an applicant’s degree of Indian blood. It began, “Determination of the degree of Indian blood is entirely dependent on circumstantial evidence; there is no known sure or scientific proof. Nor has any legal standard of universal applicability been set up by statute for the determination of who is, and who is not, an Indian.” In order to make a decision, the office was supposed to use five possible forms of evidence: Documentary evidence on tribal rollsTestimony of the applicant, supported by family records, official records other than tribal rolls showing blood degree, and similar documentsAffidavits from persons who know the applicantFindings of a qualified physical anthropologist based on examination of the applicant Testimony of the applicant and supporting witnesses, tending to show that the applicant has retained a considerable measure of Indian culture and habits of livingThe memo advised, “Where genealogical or biological data still leave doubt as to the applicant’s claim, the Commissioner may consider whether or not the attitude of the applicant and his manner of living tend to show the inheritance of Indian characteristics.” Thus, Native people, who had outwardly done what they had been encouraged to do by the government for the previous four decades—assimilate—they were not considered to be “Indian” enough for New Deal era agents who understood Native people to be “traditional.” In their applications, people referenced the impact of previous government policies on their abilities to answer the questions on their application forms. For example, one man who applied to be recognized as a Kawich of full descent, answered the question, “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.” Another noted that she had not been to any schools because she was “not allowed to attend because of being Indian blood.” She was refused recognition of her Indian status, but had not been sheltered from prejudice. [17]

Application for Registration as an IndianA four-page application form asked for details of any ancestors “ever enrolled for land, annuities, or other benefits by the United States or any State,” whether they were parents, grandparents, or other relatives, and the degree of blood for each enrollee, as well as names of “tribal officers, members, or organizations which believed you to be a person of Indian blood.”There were a series of questions aiming at ascertaining the degree of acculturation. For example, “Have you abandoned tribal life and adopted the habits and customs of the white community? Have you voted in State, county, or city elections? What Indian languages, if any, do you speak? How well?” In addition, there were questions about education and occupation, amount of property owned, and annual income, as well as a space for attaching photographs that “should be head study, front and profile views.

Eventually, 174 tribes accepted the Indian Reorganization Act, and of those 135 drafted tribal constitutions. Seventy-eight tribes rejected the IRA, including the tribes of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy and the Navajos. 

Commissioners assumed that relationships between spouses were the most important relationships for the Cherokees. Thus, they grouped heterosexual couples together on the rolls, suggesting that those bonds were more permanent than others. In reality, Stremlau writes about how Cherokee adults commonly separated and remarried before, during, and after their enrollment. Commissioners sought to subdivide and organize Cherokee households into nuclear family units rather than organizing the rolls around extended families. Adult males were designated as heads of household, while wives and biological children, and occasionally grandparents and stepchildren were beneath them. So even if elderly parents and adult siblings shared a home, they were relegated to separate units.  <img src="https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/570fe928c2ea518f457619ed/1603746796353-EKMKQ6PQUR89VGGQTGJ8/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kCRx6_9FxItQOYTjA6-D1y57gQa3H78H3Y0txjaiv_0fDoOvxcdMmMKkDsyUqMSsMWxHk725yiiHCCLfrh8O1z5QHyNOqBUUEtDDsRWrJLTmzZHn3PYdZUow1T0ZeZQrhYefqZx0d81PMyJ7JzXqWroQ5jLaUqMFt-3vt7N6soR7/Indian+Territory.jpg" alt="Map of Indian Territory, 1891 (National Archives)" />

llotment required the cataloguing and segmenting of both families and land. Before members of the Dawes Commission could divide up tribal property into individual units, they had to determine who was enrolled in the tribe under question, and who “belonged” to who—making sure each family unit had their own allotment. 

Sarah Deer: Well, I think a number of factors come into play, but I think the most obvious one is that colonial projects that from the get- go— 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. Part of that colonial project, Native women have consistently, over the last five hundred years, seen very high rates of rape. My colleague and coworker Bonnie Clairmont, who is a Ho- Chunk woman and a survivor, an advocate in her own right, in her capacity of doing advocacy work in Indian Country, many tribal languages don’t even have a word for rape, because there wasn’t a need for a word for

arah Deer (Muscogee [Creek] Nation) gave two interviews on the program, presented back- to- back here. She was the lead writer of an April 24, 2007, report issued by Amnesty International USA titled “Maze of Injustice: The Failure to Protect Indigenous Women from Sexual Violence in the USA.” In it, Amnesty International cited U.S. Justice Department figures which indicate that 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 report also details how that neglect is exacerbated by structural barriers such as jurisdictional questio

b) Congress has since broken more than a few promises to the Tribe. Nevertheless, the Creek Reservation persists today. Pp. 6–28. (1) Once a federal reservation is established, only Congress can diminish or disestablish it. Doing so requires a clear expression of congressional intent. Pp. 6–8. (2) Oklahoma claims that Congress ended the Creek Reservation during the so-called “allotment era”—a period when Congress sought to pressure many tribes to abandon their communal lifestyles and parcel their lands into smaller lots owned by individual tribal members. Missing from the allotment-era agreement with the Creek, see 31 Stat. 862–864, however, is any statute evincing anything like the “present and total surrender of all tribal interests” in the affected lands. And this Court has already rejected the argument that allotments automatically ended reservations. Pp. 8–13.

hen Columbus arrived to what quickly became the New World, he lacked a point of reference for understanding the people he saw—these folks being something of a great surprise, as we know—so he drew upon existing discourses that were already in use in Western Europe, for ex-ample, concepts and words like heathen, infidel, indio, and so on. Early visual representations of Natives by Theodorus de Bry and other en-gravers exemplified how existing discursive formations influenced what could be said and known about Indians.

As for modernity, I have in mind a general sense of the new, a feeling regarding one’s life in “modern times” that can be distinguished from “the way we used to live.”

The Great Migration not only included these humble things but followed them as guiding visions. 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.”

ARTICLE 1. The Creek tribe of Indians cede to the United States all their land, East of the Mississippi river

Marshall utilized the same racist language of Indian “savagery” to speculate about the Founders’ original intention toward Indian tribes when they drafted Article III of the Constitution. As quoted in Williams:“At the time the Constitution was framed, the idea of appealing to an American court of justice for an assertion of right or a redress of wrong, had perhaps never entered the mind of an Indian or of his tribe. Their appeal was to the tomahawk, or to the government. This was well understood by the statesmen who framed the Constitution of the United States, and might furnish some reason for omitting to enumerate them among the parties who might sue in the courts of the union.” [10]

After President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act into law in 1830—and after the Georgia state legislature had enacted more and more laws infringing on Cherokees’ rights to self-government, the Cherokee Nation turned to the Court to uphold their treaty rights against the State of Georgia

Indian Removal Act, 1830The removal act, signed into law on May 28, 1830 authorized the president to enter into negotiations with all the Eastern tribes. If the tribes agreed, removal treaties would stipulate an exchange of their land in the East for equal or greater amounts in the West.

The Georgia State Assembly passed a law in 1829 which declared Cherokee laws null and void, and extended Georgia jurisdiction into the Cherokee Nation. Other legislation enacted in 1828 and 1830 also imposed penalties on Cherokees who attempted to serve in a governmental capacity, and appointed a special police force to enforce Georgia law in Cherokee country.

“Treaties were expedients by which ignorant, intractable, and savage people were induced without bloodshed to yield up what civilized people had a right to possess by virtue of that comment of the Creator delivered to men upon his formation—be fruitful, multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue i

Marshall utilized this racist view of Native people to assert that colonization of the Americas and dispossession of Indian land was an “inevitable process.” For example, Marshall states, “As the white population advanced, that of the Indians necessarily receded. The country in the immediate neighborhood of agriculturalists became unfit for them. The game fled into thicker and more unbroken forests, and the Indians followed.” [

In 1818, the US government conveyed 11,560 acres of this land to William McIntosh, who took possession of it before the lawsuit by Johnson was initiated. The Court framed the issue in this way: “What is ‘the power of Indians to give, and private individuals to receive, a title which can be sustained in the Courts of the country?’” The Court ruled that they had no such power.Basically, the question came down to did Native people have the right to give a title to land to a private individual and have that title hold up in Court?Ultimately, John Marshall held that because the United States had acquired the land of the Illinois and Piankeshaws in the Revolution, the title of the land transferred to the United States—previous sales that had been negotiated by individuals and Native people had no standing.

obell didn’t get that rest. Six months after the signingceremony, she went to the Mayo Clinic for an operation for cancer. On October 16, 2011, the cancer killed her. The day before her funeral, the local radio station played her favorite singer, Elvis Presley,all day in her honor. On October 22, thousands gathered in the Browning High School Gym to mourn and remember her. The Crazy Dog Society together with uniformed Blackfeet veterans had escorted the casketto the high school the night before, stopping four times to pray and sing for the lost Blackfeet warrior. A line of cars traveledthe thirty milesto the family ranch, where she was buried amid Catholic and Blackfeet prayers. After her death, a small piece of paper remained taped to her office computer. It read: First they ignore you,Then they laugh at you,Then they fight you,Then you win.46

In December 2010, almost a year after the initial agreement, the bill passed the House. On December8, 2010, Cobell returned to Washington for the signing ceremony. President Obama credited her by name

inally, December 2009, the plaintiffs and new Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced a settlement. The United States would distribute $1.5billion among the plaintiffs to compensate for mismanagement of their accounts, provide $1.9billion dollars to purchase fractionated lands for consolidation in the tribe, and devote an addition$60 million for higher education scholarships. Cobell feltthatthe plaintiffs were due much more, but that they needed to accept the settlement. "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

Meanwhile, District Judge Lamberthhad become more and more frustrated with the defendants’inaction. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt was replaced by Secretary Gail Norton, and then Dirk Kempthorne, and the judge held each of them—as well as many other government officials and attorneys—in contempt, finding that they inexcusably failed to make progress toward compliance with their trust responsibilities, continued to destroy and fail to properly maintain records, and lied to the court about their progress. A Reagan appointee and native Texan who had been in charge of civil litigation for the United States for years before his his appointment, Lamberth was no bleeding heart liberal. But his extensive government experience had made him wise to the ways of government agencies as their attorneys. According to one attorney who knew him well, Lambert “was a master bureaucrat in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. . . . And as a judge, he hasn’t forgotten anything. He doesn’t just know where the bodies are buried, he knows how to bury the bodies.”36He already had a reputation for impatience with government evasion, but in the trust litigation his frustration reached a new lev

The caseinvolvedliterally miles of documents, government projects costing tens of millions of dollars, and dozens of experts and private firms working for the United States. By 2008, there were 3,504 entries in the judicial docket for the case and the case had been before the Court of Appeals nine times. It was a huge job just raising the moneynecessary to keep the lawsuit going. Cobell had funded the initial litigation with a $75,000 grant and a $600,000loan from the Otto Bremer Foundation.32She put in her $310,000 MacArthur Foundation grant as well. The Lannan Foundation donated another $4.1 million.33By the end, litigation had cost 11 million dollars—not including attorney fees—most of which Cobell raised from a variety of loans and grants.

Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) management of their lan

Elouise Cobell grew up hearing her relatives tell the story of Ghost Ridge. The risingnear her uncle’s house on the Blackfeet Reservation was a mass grave for over 500 Blackfeetwho died of starvation and disease in the Starvation Winter of 1883 and 1884. 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. Driven by such stories, Cobellspent her life seeking accountability for government abuse of Indian property and restoring Indian control of their financial futures. Before she died in 2011, she had founded the firstNative American bank, won a MacCarthur “genius” grant, been honored as a warrior by her tribe, and madethe United States to agree to pay 3.4 billion dollars—the largest federal class action settlement ever made--for its mismanagement of Indian property

Having laid out this detailed and judicially cautious rendition of the tangible, real- world legal effects of the doctrine of discovery on Indian rights, the chief justice then drew upon the jurispathic force of the lan-guage of Indian savagery to explain the reasons for recognizing this inherent right of self- government in the tribes. The tribes of America, as Worcester explains, were, “fi erce and warlike in their character,”their “principal occupation” was hunting, and their land was “moreused for that purpose than for any other.”61 T

First and foremost, the Marshall Model of Indian Rights recog nizes the exclusive right of the United States to exercise supremacy over Indian tribes on the basis of the Indians’ presumed racial and cultural inferiori-ty. The Marshall model then applies the European colonial- era doctrine of discovery as a regulative legal principle to defi ne the scope and con-tent of that right to white privilege as covering the entire continent of North America

whose occupation was war, and whose subsistence was drawn chiefl y from the forest.

Because of their savage “character and religion,” Indians were regarded as inferior peoples with lesser rights to land and territorial sovereignty under the European Law of Nations. They therefore could be lawfully conquered and colonized by any European- derived nation that desired to under-take the effort.19

The Mar-shall model’s organizing paradigm of Indian savagery and incommen-surability triumphantly inaugurates an authoritative legal discourse of empire and judicially sanctioned white racial dictatorship in which In-dians, so long as they remain in their backward state of civilization, are recognized as perpetually opposed colonial subjects possessing a hybrid form of inferior and diminished rights under U.S. law.

Given that this language of Indian savagery is so deeply embedded in the history and culture of the colonial era and given that it played such an important role in organizing the Founders’ fi rst Indian policy and in defi ning a national identity for the United States following the Revo-lutionary War

The organizing power of the idea of the Indian as incommensurable savage inspired a new art of imperial government administered by the West’s fi rst modern settler- state society, the United States of America.

The Founders’ organizing vision of a white racial dictatorship imposed over Indian tribes by the United States, so evocatively signifi ed by George Washington’s Indian policy paradigm of “the Savage as the Wolf,” refl ected the continuing force of a long- established language of racism in America. 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.The Indian policy metaphor of “the Savage as the Wolf” was there-fore no sudden inspiration of the Founders’ racial vision of America as a white Anglo- Saxon, fee- simple empire of liberty.1 Emerging out of the most ancient and widely disseminated stories of origin and myth ap-propriated by the Western colonial imagination, 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 Head-Men and Warriors of all the Cherokees, shall restore all the prisoners,citizens of the United States, or subjects of their allies, to their intire liberty: They shall alsorestore all the negroes, and all other property taken during the late war from the citizens, tosuch person, and at such time and place, as the commissioners shall appoin

HREE hostages shall be immediately delivered to the commissioners, to remainin the possession of the United States, until all the prisoners, white and black, taken in thelate war from among the citizens of the United States, by the Shawanoe nation, or by anyother Indian or Indians residing in their towns, shall be restored.Art. 2. 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 peace, made betweenthem and the King of Great-Britain, the fourteenth day of January, one thousand se

All prisoners shall be bailable before convci-tion by sufficient surety, except for a capital offence where the proof is evident or the presumption great. SEC. 8. Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel or unusual pun-ishment inflicted; and all courts shall be open, and every person, for an injury done him in person, repu-tation, or property, shall have remedy as the la

But nevertheless these Indians have rightswhich should be respected, and these rights the pro -posed legislation would treat with utter disregard.And this notwithstanding that there is every prospectthat the coveted country will be opened up to whitesettlement, under proper restrictions, by the Indiansthemselves, if they were permitted to go on in thei

Whereas the enemies of the United States have endeavored, by every artifice in their power, to possess the Indians in general with an opinion, that it is the design of the States aforesaid, to extirpate the Indians and take possession of their country to obviate such false suggestion, the United States do engage to guarantee to the aforesaid nation of Delawares, and their heirs, all their territorial rights in the fullest and most ample manner, as it bath been bounded by former treaties, as long as they the said Delaware nation shall abide by, and hold fast the chain of friendship now entered into. And it is further agreed on between the contracting parties should it for the future be found 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: Provided, nothing contained in this article to be considered as conclusive until it nneets with the approbation of Congress. And it is also the intent and meaning of this article, that no protection or countenance shall be afforded to any who are at present our enemies, by which they might escape the punishment they deserve.

ARTICLE IV. For the better security of the peace and friendship now entered into by the contracting parties, against all infractions of the same by the citizens of either party, to the prejudice of the other, neither party shall proceed to the infliction of punishments on the citizens of the other, otherwise than by securing the offender or offenders by imprisonment, or any other competent means, till a fair and impartial trial can be had by judges or juries of both parties, as near as can be to the laws, customs and usages of the contracting parties and natural justice. The mode of such trials to be hereafter fixed by the wise men of the United States in Congress assembled, with the assistance of such deputies of the Delaware nation, as may be appointed to act in concert with them in adjusting this matter to their mutual liking. And it is further agreed between the parties aforesaid, that neither shall entertain or give countenance to the enemies of the other, or protect in their respective states, criminal fugitives, servants or slaves, but the same to apprehend, and secure and deliver to the State or States, to which such enemies, criminals, servants or slaves respectively belong.

ARTICLE II. That a perpetual peace and friendship shall from henceforth take place, and subsist between the contracting: parties aforesaid, through all succeeding generations: and if either of the parties are engaged in a just and necessary war with any other nation or nations, that then each shall assist the other in due proportion to their abilities, till their enemies are brought to reasonable terms of accommodation: and that if either of them shall discover any hostile designs forming against the other, they shall give the earliest notice thereof that timeous measures may be taken to prevent their ill effect.

“From time immemorial, the Indians as a heritage of the original inhabitants have been promised a state, an empire of their own…they had taken on the dress, the customs, and the religion of the white man and they welcome him as a brother.” Now, “the national government must grant us separate statehood or make a confession.” [22]

The Okmulgee Constitution was patterned after the US Constitution. The consolidated government would consist of three branches of government, a popularly elected governor, tribal courts, and a General Assembly proportioned along the lines of the House of Representatives and the Senate, with one by population and the other equal representation. [19]Many eligible Native voters refused to ratify the Okmulgee Constitution. Nations with small populations, like the Seminoles and Chickasaws, feared that they would be subjected to the power of more populous nations. The Cherokees refused to ratify because they feared how it would be interpreted by the US Congress.

Native nations were by no means “conquered” by the Revolutionary War. Americans made treaties with Native nations who had sided with England between 1784 and 1786, including the Six Nations, the Wyandot, Delaware, Chippewa, Ottawa, Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Shawnee.In March 1788, Congress issued a report which stated:“That to establish a right to the lands claimed by the Indians, by virtue of an implied conquest, will require the constant employment of a large body of troops, or the utter extirpation of the Indians. That circumstanced as they are at present, being in alliance with, and favorably treated by, the British government, the doctrine of conquest is so repugnant to their feelings, that rather than submit thereto, they would prefer continual war.”

Who were these Virginian revolutionaries who wanted unfettered access to Native land west of the Appalachian Mountains? George Washington, who had bought thousands of acres in veterans’ claims to “bounty” land. Thomas Jefferson, who had participated in three different ventures that would have yielded him a total of 17,000 acres of land, were it not for the restrictions placed on the land from the Proclamation. Patrick Henry, who had joined in at least five land ventures between 1767 and 1773, and knew that his money would have been wasted if London had its way.

Proclamation of 1763In response to Pontiac’s Rebellion, officials in London issued the Proclamation of 1763, prohibiting further colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains, reserving those lands exclusively for Natives. It also banned the sale of Native land to private individuals.

“This land where ye dwell I have made for you and not for others. Whence comes it that ye permit the Whites upon your lands? Can ye not live without them? I know that those whom ye call the children of the Great Father supply your needs, but if ye were not evil as ye are, ye could surely do without them. You could live as ye did before knowing them,--before those whom ye call your brothers had come upon the land…When I saw that ye were given up to evil, I led the wild animals to the depths of the forests so that ye had to depend upon your brothers [the whites] to feed and shelter you. Ye have only to become good again and do what I wish, and I will send back the animals for your food.” [

Before we can start with Native peoples’ experiences of the Revolution, we have to backtrack a bit

Replacing letter and number grades with narrative assessments or conferences — qualitative summaries of student progress offered in writing or as part of a conversation — is not a utopian fantasy.  It has already been done successfully in many elementary and middle schools and even in some high schools, both public and private (Kohn, 1999c).  It’s important not only to realize that such schools exist but to investigate why they’ve eliminated grades, how they’ve managed to do so (hint: the process can be gradual), and what benefits they have realized.

Portfolios, for example, can be constructive if they replace grades rather than being used to yield them.  They offer a way to thoughtfully gather a variety of meaningful examples of learning for the students to review.  But what’s the point, “if instruction is dominated by worksheets so that every portfolio looks the same”? (Neill et al. 1995, p. 4).  Conversely, one sometimes finds a mismatch between more thoughtful forms of pedagogy — say, a workshop approach to teaching writing — and a depressingly standardized assessment tool like rubrics (Wilson, 200

Sometimes they sus-pected that they were being asked to carry false information, and they had to decide where their true loyalties lay

As the boys worked to convey the meanings of one group-their own original culture or their newly acquired one-to the other group, they had to improvise and try to make both sides understand. And they were so young themselves that they might not necessarily understand ev-erything about their own culture and the deeper meanings attached to words and concep

. In the margin next to White's name, it says, "He was a made man," which meant that his success was assured. 24

In 1571, Paquiquineo was finally brought back to Virginia. He ac-companied a small party of Jesuits who intended to found a mission on the York River, Werowocomoco's river. The Jesuits' goal was to begin the great work of converting all the American Natives to Christianity. They were so certain that Don Luis was completely converted to their faith that they refused to take any soldiers for protection. Their convert was all the protection they needed. But once Paquiquineo was back in his home territory, he was torn between his two loyalties. He returned to his own people, but he did come back and ask the priests to baptize his young brother, who was very sick, showing how much he valued Christianity.

no one equaled Pocahontas for her intelligence and personality. 2 She was certainly curious about the English and their lives and appar-ently liked coming to Jamestown,