Forty Thanksgivings ago Alcatraz Island was occupied by a number of Native American activists as a protest. The occupation lasted until June of 1971 The best place to learn about it is PBS's website for Alcatraz Is Not an Island, Jim Fortier's documentary about the Alcatraz Occupation. Besides an overview of the events it has video interviews with the people involved. [RealPlayer required] Here are photographs of the occupation, mostly from newspapers. For a flavor of how the local media covered the events, here's the San Francisco Bay Area Television Archive's Occupation of Alcatraz Collection which has over 40 contemporary newsreports [MPEG4]
posted by Kattullus on Nov 26, 2009 - 10 comments

Thanksgiving is a difficult time for some people to celebrate. The holiday that Lincoln gave us has been saddled with a wonderful mythology. The real story is a bit more problematic, and involves a vicious, genocidal war. Is it possible to reclaim the beauty of this holiday, or is it too tainted by its history? [more inside]
posted by cubby on Nov 22, 2009 - 135 comments

Native American Sites in the City of Philadelphia is a superbly illustrated exposition of the historical development of Philadelphia, with a focus on those few surviving Native American sites which lie under the urban fabric. Lots more excellent Public Archaeology is available from the Philadelphia Archaeological Forum. Bonus link: Philly's lost creeks and streams. [more inside]
posted by Rumple on Oct 5, 2009 - 12 comments

Powhatan's Mantle was the emblem of kingship worn by Wahunsenacawh, also known as Chief Powhatan, father of Pocahontas. A deerskin cloak ornamented with shell beadwork, it may at first appear to be only clothing but in fact it is also a map of the Powhatan Confederacy, which ruled most of eastern Virginia when the English first settled there. The mantle was acquired by one of the John Tradescants whose collection was the foundation of Oxford University's Ashmolean Collection and the mantle resides there still today. The first linked article is a fascination article about the mantle as well as a gallery of images of and related to Powhatan's Mantle.
posted by Kattullus on Feb 12, 2009 - 5 comments

Plains Indian Ledger Art is a website devoted to the art that Plains Indians developed in the latter half of the 19th Century when they got access to paper and modern painting tools. The gallery has 14 different ledgers, including the famous ledger by Black Hawk. The ledgers depict all kinds of scenes, amusing, violent, mythical, mundane and lots of other facets of life for the Plains Indians. There is also a short history of ledger art but for a bit more information read Drawing on Tribal History by Inga Kiderra.
posted by Kattullus on Jun 13, 2008 - 12 comments

Kumeyaay.info welcomes visitors and indigenous peoples of all tribal nations and provides a casual village environment to share and network their culturally relevant creative work, information and opinions. (previously)
posted by netbros on May 2, 2008 - 2 comments

“We try to follow the footsteps of our elders, who cleared the way for us with their clean minds, hearts, and bodies. They walked in clean land, drank clean water, breathed clean air, and ate clean food provided by Mother Earth. This is the Red Road.” The powwow is an integral part of Native American life, offering the opportunity for peoples to gather and celebrate their spiritual connections to their ancestors, the earth, community, and traditions through drum, song, and dance. The photography of Ben Marra.
posted by netbros on Apr 26, 2008 - 12 comments

Time Magazine's 25 Most Important Films On Race
posted by hadjiboy on Feb 8, 2008 - 69 comments

The Lakota People have withdrawn from their treaties with the United States, citing numerous violations of those treaties by the US. They plan to start their own country, issuing passports and drivers' licenses and living tax-free.
posted by JDHarper on Dec 20, 2007 - 222 comments

Between 1902 and 1905 representatives of five tribes in the Indian Territory of the southern United States lobbied for statehood. The tribes proposed creating a tribal state called Sequoyah (hi res image here). At the constiutional conference in 1905 a constitution was drafted and later forwarded to the federal Congress and President, but despite a successful ratification campaign, the effort died on the vine. The Indian Territory and Oklahoma were instead admitted to the Union two years later as one state.
posted by salishsea on Jul 27, 2007 - 19 comments

First Nations Histories is a site with compact histories of 48 first nations, from the Abenaki to the Winnebago, written by Lee Sultzman. They are primarily focused on nations in the Northeast, Midwest, with a smattering in the Plains and the Southeast. It also hosts two articles that aren't part of the project, Manifest Destiny and Western Canada and The Coree are Not Extinct.
posted by Kattullus on Feb 15, 2007 - 10 comments

Blighted Homeland. "From 1944 to 1986, 3.9 million tons of uranium ore were dug and blasted from Navajo soil, nearly all of it for America's atomic arsenal. Navajos inhaled radioactive dust, drank contaminated water and built homes using rock from the mines and mills. Many of the dangers persist to this day." A series of articles and photo galleries examines the legacy of uranium mining on the Navajo (previously discussed here.) [Via Gristmill, BugMeNot.]
posted by homunculus on Nov 24, 2006 - 13 comments

One hundred and thirty years ago today, George Armstrong Custer divided his forces in the face of a superior enemy and rode to his death at the Little Big Horn. The actual battle lasted about 15 minutes, but the fight over Custer's legacy is going into its second century. Visit the battle memorial (webcam view) explore the archeology of the site, or read an Indian account of the battle. The battle has attracted artists as varied as Charlie Russell (this poster of his painting was distributed by Anheiser Busch and hung in bars across the United States), Thomas Hart Benton, and Kicking Bear (Mato Wanartaka). Little Big Horn is a lonely place today.
posted by LarryC on Jun 25, 2006 - 33 comments

For Shame, For Shame!
posted by gilgamix on Mar 15, 2006 - 13 comments

Prehistoric art in the American Southwest.
posted by snsranch on Feb 6, 2006 - 9 comments

First People is a collection of artworks, vintage photographs, clipart, legends, essays, treaties, poems and more, relating to the first peoples of America and Canada (Turtle Island). [via]
posted by peacay on Dec 5, 2005 - 6 comments

Catalina Bison, lovingly returned. Montana Bison, not so much.
posted by xowie on Dec 16, 2004 - 3 comments

Tse-whit-zen. Excavation for the Hood Canal Bridge near Seattle has unearthed a huge prehistoric Indian village and alienated tribal spiritual leaders.
posted by xowie on Nov 21, 2004 - 18 comments

Research Vs. Religion: Scientists Win Lawsuit Against Native American Tribes The 9,000 year old remains, found in Kennewick, Washington in 1996, will be made available for study, rather than being buried by tribes who had hoped to assert the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act in this case.
posted by mcgraw on Feb 10, 2004 - 18 comments

Russell Means goes Republican. Strange times indeed.
posted by kablam on Feb 7, 2004 - 9 comments

Happy Thanksgiving! A friend told me the story of Corn Hill the other day (the house he grew up in is right across the street), so I decided to check out what the internet has to say about the situation. Not much apparently. This ugly website is the only other one I found that didn't say that the pilgrims "borrowed" from a "cache" of corn that they "stumbled upon". What's really crazy is that the pilgrims had never seen corn, nor native americans. This means that they either started digging for fun, or found out about the Wampanoag burial traditions and decided it was a good idea. Either way, happy Grave Robbing Day!
posted by magikeye on Nov 20, 2003 - 27 comments

The Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. "I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream. And I, to whom so great a vision was given in my youth,--you see me now a pitiful old man who has done nothing, for the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead."

Black Elk speaks.
posted by fold_and_mutilate on Jun 26, 2003 - 8 comments

The Crazy Horse Memorial is a monument in progress in the Black Hills of South Dakota (where Mount Rushmore is too.) Dedicated to Crazy Horse, the Oglala Lakota Sioux warrior famous for his role at Little Bighorn, it will be 641 feet long by 563 feet high when completed. There will be a night blast on June 26, weather permitting.
posted by homunculus on Jun 22, 2003 - 19 comments

US Bureau of Indian Affairs 'misplaces' about $137 billion "...hundreds of thousands of Indians in the largest-ever class-action lawsuit against the government have put the cumulative total at $137.2 billion owed [royalties due from BIA leasing of Indian land for lucrative mineral, oil, logging, cattle grazing, and other concessions]....Sometimes the checks might arrive for hundreds or thousands of dollars, and sometimes those checks might only amount to pennies on the dollar. On Indian reservations, the problem has reached crisis levels; a check written out for a smaller amount than expected—or no check at all—can mean the difference between housing and homelessness. " ....but we don't have the money, I told you: it must have fallen out through that hole in my pants' pocket... Treaty, what treaty? Oh, that treaty....
posted by troutfishing on Feb 13, 2003 - 9 comments

Some Good News for a Tuesday Now that a third cabinet official has been held in contempt over the handling of funds owed to Native Americans, is a big check in the mail? Or will the Interior Department claim that they are out of stamps?
posted by tommyspoon on Sep 17, 2002 - 25 comments

Interior department opens talks with Klamath Tribes that could lead to the return of 690,000 acres. Once the richest and most self sufficient tribe with land holdings of over 22 million acres, the Tribes fell victim to various land grabs over the years, the last being in 1954 when tribal status was terminated and they were (eventually) paid $220 million for 1.2 million acres of timber. By 1963, 28 percent of the tribe had died by age 25, 52 percent by age 40. Of those deaths, 40 percent were alcohol related. This is also about timber and water, but mostly it's an opportunity to do the right thing. Can the Bush administration and Congress do the right thing?
posted by Mack Twain on Mar 21, 2002 - 4 comments

Let's hear it for the Fighting Whities! Solomon Little Owl, director of Native American Student Services at the University of Northern Colorado, is a member of an intramural basketball team that has adopted the name "The Fighting Whities." Team members say they want to raise awareness of the issue of painful cultural stereotypes. The team, made up of American Indian, Anglo and Hispanic players, is protesting nearby Eaton's use of the team name "Fightin' Reds" and an Indian caricature as a mascot. Little Owl said, "The Fighting Whities" issue is "to make people understand what it's like to be on the other side of the fence. If people get offended by it, then they know how I feel, and we've made our point." Curiously, I'm not offended. Are any of you? link via yil daily net buzz
posted by David Dark on Mar 12, 2002 - 107 comments

People are reduced to cartoons says a Native American activist regarding sports teams with "Indian" mascots. The NFL's Redskins are dropping the Indian head from their helmets. Is this a sign they may one day consider changing the name? Maybe the designers of the Salt Lake City Olympic mascots can teach us Washingtonians something about honoring native traditions while respecting their wishes. (or maybe the SLC designs are just goofy. me, i just wanna be able to wear my team's logo without a crisis of conscience.)
posted by danOstuporStar on Feb 5, 2002 - 39 comments

Native American hip-hop runs the gamut from the prolific pioneer and activist Litefoot to the thuggish Natay. Most of it's more about liberation than bling-bling, and although it doesn't get much mainstream media attention yet, there's lots of artist's sites and music online. Be sure to learn about the gangs and check out the gear, too.
posted by liam on Nov 27, 2001 - 4 comments

Um, Bob, where did all the cows go ? So much for the theory of how Native Americans and Aborigines have lived in harmony with the land since time began.... Turns out they were just gluttonous killing machines who gorged themselves on steak till all the beasties disappeared (or something like that)
posted by zeoslap on Jun 8, 2001 - 15 comments

In 1545 and 1576, plagues swept across the Yucatan peninsual in Mexico and killed 17 million people, including 80 percent of the native Indians. The traditional view is that American Indians succumbed to European diseases to which they had no natural resistance. A new and subtle theory says that the plagues were not imported but were in fact of local origin. It doesn't let the Europeans off the hook though.
posted by lagado on Dec 29, 2000 - 2 comments