The media has never been fair and balanced when it comes to serving Indian people and reporting on events which impact Indian lives. Many Indian leaders have felt that it is critical for Indians to have media which they control. One example of Indian media can be seen in The Indian Journal, a newspaper born in Indian Territory (later known as Oklahoma).
The nineteenth-century wild west shows did a great deal to firmly entrench the stereotype of the American Indian in American culture. This stereotype, loosely based on generic Plains Indian cultures, portrays Indians as savages, as a vanishing people destined to go extinct in the face of American superiority, and hindrances to the inevitability of Manifest Destiny.
When the Yavapai came under the jurisdiction of the United States following the acquisition of what was to become Arizona, they were a loose association of locally organized groups speaking mutually intelligible but nevertheless distinct sub-dialects. Traditional Yavapai territory stretched from the San Francisco Peaks in the north, to the Pinal Mountains in the east, and to the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers in the southwest. Following the discovery of gold in Yavapai territory in 1863, the American government and the Americans who settled in Yavapai territory began plotting the removal of the Yavapai from their traditional territory.
While the mainstream art world did not begin to recognize American Indian art as a distinctive art form until the twentieth century, during the late nineteenth century the market for American Indian arts-or more accurately, arts and crafts-began to develop. This market included pottery, weavings, drawings, paintings, and other items. The new market was driven by tourism, trading posts, museums, and wealthy collectors. During this time, American Indian art began to shift from tribal art in which artifacts were produced primarily for tribal members to ethnic art in which artifacts were purchased by non-Indians.
During the nineteenth century, expositions and world fairs were seen as a profitable way for communities to promote themselves while educating the masses. Since Indians were seen as a vanishing people at this time, Indians were often an important attraction at these events. The 1898 Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition held at Omaha, Nebraska, was no exception. The goal of the Exposition was to showcase the development of the West, from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast. Indians were, of course, a part of this story, though usually seen as hindrances to development.
While reservations were lands which were initially reserved for exclusive Indian use, the United States has often administered these lands with the intention of assimilating the Indians into American culture. In dealing with the Indian nations, which the Constitution and the Supreme Court had declared to be sovereign entities known as "domestic dependent nations," the United States government preferred to establish totalitarian dictatorships and to destroy any remnant of aboriginal democracy. The Bill of Rights, and the Constitution to which they were attached, were not seen as applicable on the reservations.
The oldest, largest, and most representative group of American Indians and Alaska Natives is the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI). Many people also feel that it is today the most politically influential Indian organization in the United States. The NCAI started in the 1940s.
When cultures are under stress, particularly when that stress is coming from forced change outside of the control of the people in the culture, a messiah or prophet may emerge who will provide a religious solution to the problems. In 1875, the Yavapai were forced by the United States government to walk from their homelands to the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona, a distance of nearly 200 miles. San Carlos had been established as a reservation for the Apache and the United States mistakenly believed that the Yavapai were an Apache band. Once on the reservation, their freedoms were reduced as the United States sought to impose cultural genocide on them.
In 1851, the U.S. Army sent out an exploratory party into northern Arizona. The Yavapai response to this party was to flee and stay out of sight. In one instance, the American scouts surprised a Yavapai party gathering piñon nuts. The Indians immediately fled and then watched from a distant hill as the invaders plundered their camp. When the Americans encountered a second abandoned camp, they left a tobacco offering instead of looting it.
For the American Indian nations east of the Mississippi River, the Revolutionary War was a time of great turmoil, deceit, and disaster. Both the British and the American rebels sought assistance from and alliance with the Indian nations. While both armies sought Indian warriors, both armies also attacked Indian villages, including those which were trying to stay neutral in the conflict. The war divided many Indian nations, with some Indians favoring one side, some favoring the other, and many expressing the idea that this was not their war. One of the Indian nations impacted by the Revolution was the Lenni Lenape (also known as the Delaware) whose traditional territory included New Jersey, New York (west of the Hudson River and the western end of Long Island), eastern Pennsylvania, northern Delaware, and northeastern Maryland.
The Black Hills in South Dakota is an area which is sacred to several tribes, including the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. Geologically, the Black Hills are the site of an ancient upheaval that pushed the rocky strata far above the surrounding plains. The resulting peaks trapped the clouds and gave the region its own climate. During the summers, this was an area which was often used for ceremonies-sweat lodges, vision quests, and Sun Dances-and for gathering medicinal plants.
During the second half of the nineteenth century, American policies regarding the "civilizing" of the Plains Indians called for them to be segregated in reservations where they could be trained to be Christian farmers. At the same time, non-Indians, obsessed with the idea of obtaining Indian land, strongly felt that because the Indians didn't know how to farm, the good farm land on the reservations should be opened to non-Indian settlement. In addition, since Indians didn't value gold, all mineral producing lands should be turned over to non-Indians so that it could be mined. Since it was imperative that Indians become Christians, sacred lands referred only to lands developed as Christian churches, while areas which had been sacred to Indians was simply considered vacant lands which needed to be developed.
The area along the Pacific Coast north of California and between the Cascade Mountains and the ocean is the home to many Indian nations who traditionally based their economy on the use of sea coast and river ecological resources. This is a region of immense physical complexity, an oceanic environment clothed in limitless forest covering the rugged and precipitous mountain ranges. The traditional Indian nations located in this region were oriented toward the sea and made large sea-going canoes.
During the nineteenth and part of the twentieth century, American policies regarding Indians focused on assimilation. Under these policies, the American government sought to destroy Indian cultures: their religions, their languages, their manner of dress, their government, their traditional economies, their traditional families, and anything that might be considered Indian. Individual Indians were to assimilate into American mainstream society. One of the primary mechanisms of assimilation was the boarding school.
Don't worry if you missed previous installments. This diary will serve as a stand-alone and as part of the series.
In the 20th century, there were two separate, legal, Modoc entities: the Klamath Tribes of Oregon, which includes the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahuskin peoples (a band of Snake Indians), created by an 1864 Treaty, and the Modoc Tribe of Oklahoma, who were created out of the US Army's POWs from the Modoc War of 1872-1873.
Blogging is a self-reflexive and responsive activity. Several commentators have appeared, calling these diaries "whining" about the past. Not relevant to present concerns. That is not true. This is a generational series, and by starting off with contact, we've worked our way with a context to the 20th century. We've covered the eras of (Fur) Trade, the First Reservation System (they stay over there) the Second Reservation System, (they move to there) the Indian Wars in the West, (kill the people) forced removal (we send them there) the Assimilation Era (save the man, kill the Indian) and now we come to a forgotten time. It's forgotten even though many of its survivors are still alive: The Termination Era. And many of you were alive then, too.
What is Termination? If I was to tell you that an Indian tribe legally existed and then it later didn't, you might find that a little surprising. But that's exactly what happened, multiple times, in modern American history. So along came a proponent of assimilation. He was a Western senator, a Mormon, moderately conservative, of the Republican Party. And he had a plan that would legally extinguish Modoc people in Oregon.
During the nineteenth century, some European and American explorers witnessed American Indian ceremonies which they found amazing. When these outside observers attempted to describe what they had seen to others, they were often met with disbelief, skepticism, and even ridicule. Four of these "amazing" ceremonies are described below.
There are many other examples of denial by perpetrators who wish to escape negative reactions to their deeds. More troubling are the later denials by people not directly involved in the genocidal events but who appear to have ideological reasons for their denials.
Is it that members of the New Apostolic Reformation engage in genocide denial, by inferring American Indians in one area deserved to be exterminated, since they were "cannibals?"
I want you to give all these chiefs of the soldiers here to understand that we are for peace, and that we have made peace, that we may not be mistaken by them for enemies.
Shortly after the Norse colonization of Greenland under Erik the Red in 986, there were reports by the Viking sea kings of three new lands to the west of Greenland: Helluland (Baffin Island and the northern part of Labrador); Markland (central and southern Labrador); and Vinland (Newfoundland and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. Over the past fifty years or so, archaeology has revealed over 300 years of sporadic contact between the Greenlandic Norse and various Indian, Inuit, and other Native American peoples, concentrated primarily in the Canadian Arctic.
For thousands of years Indian people left evidence of their presence on the land with rock art: pictographs and petroglyphs. Pictographs are created by painting on rock surfaces with natural pigments while petroglyphs are pecked, carved, or abraded into the surface of the rock.
In honor of my mother, THE FLORA SOMBRERO LIND NAVAJO ENDOWMENT FUND has been set up to accept your donations.
This scholarship endowment has been established at the American Indian College Fund to honor Flora Sombrero Lind, as an enrolled member of the Navajo Nation who was born at Inscription House, Arizona of the Many Goats clan circa 1925. This scholarship endowment is funded by Flora's family and friends who want to see Navajo students pursue higher education and carry on their great Navajo heritage.
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About
Native American Netroots
...a forum for the discussion of political, social and economic issues affecting the indigenous peoples of the United States, including their lack of political representation, economic deprivation, health care issues, and the on-going struggle for preservation of identity and cultural history
The Native American Rights Fund (NARF) is a non-profit 501c(3) organization that provides legal representation and technical assistance to Indian tribes, organizations and individuals nationwide - a constituency that often lacks access to the justice system. NARF focuses on applying existing laws and treaties to guarantee that national and state governments live up to their legal obligations.
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Indigenous Peoples and Human Rights News by Brenda Norrell
In honor of my mother, 
