Indigenous Rights Movements & the Law

The following report, composed by the Lakota People’s Law Project, will delve deeper into what it means to seek justice for Native peoples, including but also moving beyond anecdotal evidence of police violence by presenting empirical data that demonstrates how the justice system disproportionately and cruelly punishes American Indians.

This month's Supreme Court ruling concerning tribal lands underscores the long, slow path for progress for Native Americans.

Tamisha Jensen requested a mail ballot in mid-September. Mail ballots don’t ship in Arizona until Oct. 7, but she’s worried her first absentee ballot won’t get to her. Jensen, a jeweler who lives in the Navajo Nation, doesn’t have a regular mailing address – she writes “a mile west of Cameron Chapter House” – and the

The Cherokee Nation Supreme Court ruled the nation must remove "by blood" from its tribal constitution in response to a U.S. government decision to include descendants of those enslaved by the tribe.

Stay on top of Indigenous Rights latest developments on the ground with Al Jazeera’s fact-based news, exclusive video footage, photos and updated maps.

The suit charges that diluting Indigenous power violates their voting rights and will handicap tribe members who run for office

One in every 475 Native Americans has died since the pandemic began: ‘Families have been decimated’

by Nick Estes Last June the Westmoreland County Historical Society reenacted the 1785 hanging of Mamachtaga, a Lenape man. In a viral video (now removed), jeering white onlookers shouted at … Continue reading Indian Killers: Crime, Punishment, and Empire

Support from Navajo voters may have been what pushed the Grand Canyon State to support its first Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton in 1996.

In Arizona and Wisconsin, Native turnout — which often leans liberal — made the difference in Biden’s slim but winning margin.

How did the pandemic affect the 576 tribal nations across the US? Due to a lack of government transparency, we may never know.

Amber Ortega was facing charges for refusing to leave an area where workers were building the border wall. Her acquittal was hailed as an unexpected win for Native American religious freedoms.

The FCC said the change is meant to encourage help tribal libraries get discounted broadband through the E-Rate program.

Arizona's racist history of voter suppression dates back to the state’s territorial period, and features tactics reminiscent of the Deep South

Navajo Birth Cohort Study will share participant data as part of major NIH research initiative.

In the United States, persons of Native American descent occupy a unique legal position. On the one hand, they are U.S. citizens and are entitled to the same legal rights and protections under the Constitution that all other U.S. citizens enjoy. On the other hand, they are members of self-governing tribes whose existence far predates the arrival of Europeans on American shores. They are the descendants of peoples who had their own inherent rights—rights that required no validation or legitimation from the newcomers who found their way onto their soil. Read more: Native American Rights - Tribal Sovereignty, Treaty Rights, Reserved Rights Doctrine, Federal Power Over Native American Rights, Hunting And Fishing Rights - JRank Articles https://law.jrank.org/pages/8754/Native-American-Rights.html#ixzz7vNsFDj9G

The Indian Health Service (IHS), an agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, is responsible for providing federal health services to American Indians and Alaska Natives. The provision of health services to members of federally-recognized Tribes grew out of the special government-to-government relationship between the federal government and Indian Tribes. The IHS is the principal federal health care provider and health advocate for Indian people, and provides a comprehensive health service delivery system for American Indians and Alaska Natives. The IHS Mission is to raise the physical, mental, social, and spiritual health of American Indians and Alaska Natives to the highest level.

A new Moments in History video, in recognition of Native American Heritage Month, recounts how Chief Standing Bear persuaded a federal judge in 1879 to recognize Native Americans as persons with the right to sue for their freedom, establishing him as one of the nation’s earliest civil rights heroes.

"A new report by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights finds that funding levels for Native American tribes are woefully inadequate despite the federal government’s responsibility to provide for education, public safety, health care and other services under treaties, laws and other acts." Felicia Fonseca, Associated Press,

The purpose of this document is to provide critical considerations for NIH reviewers as they assess applications focused on AI/AN populations. It provides context for applicants’ AI/AN-focused research to help reviewers interpret and understand the information being presented. While the primary audience is reviewers and the document is crafted to reflect this, applicants must ensure that they provide reviewers with the information necessary to assess an application, including appropriate justifications. As such, this document has implications for applicants as well.

Equipping all Indigenous Peoples with the tools needed to become architects of our future.

The Minnesota Indian Women's Resource Center (MIWRC) works with clients and partners to deliver a comprehensive array of services and maintain an extensive referral network to fully meet the needs of the women and families we serve.

First Nations Development Institute improves economic conditions for Native Americans through direct financial grants, technical assistance & training, and advocacy & policy.

The Handbook of North American Indians series—the most monumental summary of knowledge on indigenous peoples of the USA, Canada, and Northern Mexico—was designed by the staff of the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) Department of Anthropology in the 1960s and, in 2022, culminates with Volume 1, edited by Igor Krupnik. Involving more than 70 contributors from the United States, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and Germany, including indigenous contributors from across North America, with 35 chapters and more than 7,400 bibliography entries, Volume 1 presents new perspectives on the history of North America’s indigenous societies, issues facing North American indigenous communities in the 21st century, a thorough update of the studies of Native American indigenous peoples, and the first-ever history of the Handbook project. Volume 1 is an innovative collection of new contributions written in 2015–2017 and is organized in five sections that reflect the series’ three-pronged mission: to look forward, to update and assess developments in Native American research, and to account for the history of the Handbook initiative and its legacy. With Volume 1, the Handbook of North American Indians series concludes.   This open monograph is made available at no charge by the publisher, Smithsonian Scholarly Press. Print copies can be purchased at the GPO Bookstore (https://bookstore.gpo.gov).

During the 1920s and 1930s, Josephine Waggoner (1871-1943), a Lakota woman who had been educated at Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia, grew increasingly concerned that the history and culture of her people were being lost as elders died without passing along their knowledge. A skilled writer, Waggoner set out to record the lifeways of her people and correct much of the misinformation about them spread by white writers, journalists, and scholars of the day. To accomplish this task, she traveled to several Lakota and Dakota reservations to interview chiefs, elders, traditional tribal historians, and other tribal members, including women. Published for the first time and augmented by extensive annotations, Witness offers a rare participant's perspective on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Lakota and Dakota life.;The first of Waggoner's two manuscripts presented here includes firsthand and as-told-to historical stories by tribal members, such as accounts of life in the Powder River camps and at the agencies in the 1870s, the experiences of a mixed-blood Hunkpapha girl at the first off-reservation boarding school, and descriptions of traditional beliefs. The second manuscript consists of Waggoner's sixty biographies of Lakota and Dakota chiefs and headmen based on eyewitrness accounts and interviews with the men themselves.

Russell Means was the most controversial American Indian leader of our time.Where White Men Fear to Treadis the well-detailed, first-hand story of his life, in which he did everything possible to dramatize and justify the American Indian aim of self-determination, such as storming Mount Rushmore, seizing Plymouth Rock, running for President in 1988, and--most notoriously--leading a 71-day takeover of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1973. This visionary autobiography by one of our most magnetic personalities will fascinate, educate, and inspire. As Dee Brown has written, "A reading of Means's story is essential for any clear understanding of American Indians during the last half of the twentieth century."

The word Wasáse is the Kanienkeha (Mohawk) word for the ancient war dance ceremony of unity, strength, and commitment to action. The author notes, "This book traces the journey of those Indigenous people who have found a way to transcend the colonial identities which are the legacy of our history and live as Onkwehonwe, original people. It is dialogue and reflection on the process of transcending colonialism in a personal and collective sense: making meaningful change in our lives and transforming society by recreating our personalities, regenerating our cultures, and surging against forces that keep us bound to our colonial past."

The True Story of Pocahontas is the first public publication of the Powhatan perspective that has been maintained and passed down from generation to generation within the Mattaponi Tribe, and the first written history of Pocahontas by her own people.

A sixth-generation North Carolinian, highly-acclaimed author John Ehle grew up on former Cherokee hunting grounds. His experience as an accomplished novelist, combined with his extensive, meticulous research, culminates in this moving tragedy rich with historical detail. The Cherokee are a proud, ancient civilization. For hundreds of years they believed themselves to be the "Principle People" residing at the center of the earth. But by the 18th century, some of their leaders believed it was necessary to adapt to European ways in order to survive. Those chiefs sealed the fate of their tribes in 1875 when they signed a treaty relinquishing their land east of the Mississippi in return for promises of wealth and better land. The U.S. government used the treaty to justify the eviction of the Cherokee nation in an exodus that the Cherokee will forever remember as the "trail where they cried." The heroism and nobility of the Cherokee shine through this intricate story of American politics, ambition, and greed. B & W photographs

"This volume brings together an invaluable collection of vivid eyewitness accounts of the Minnesota Indian War of 1862 and its aftermath. Of greatest interest is the fact that all the narratives assembled here come from Dakota mixed-bloods and full-bloods. Speaking from a variety of viewpoints and enmeshed in complex webs of allegiances to Indian, white, and mixed-blood kin, these witnesses testify not only to the terrible casualties they all suffered, but also to the ways in which the events of 1862 tore at the social, cultural, and psychic fabrics of their familial and community lives. This rich contribution to Minnesota and Dakota history is enhanced by careful editing and annotation."--Jennifer S. H. Brown, University of Winnipeg Praise for Through Dakota Eyes: "For anyone interested in Minnesota history, Native-American history, and Civil War history in this forgotten theater of operations. Through Dakota Eyes is an absolute must read. . . . an extremely well-balanced and fascinating book that will take it's place at the forefront of Indian Historiography."--Civil War News "An important look at how the political dynamic of Minnesota's southern Dakota tribes erupted into a brief, futile blood bath. It is also a vital record of the death song of the Dakota's traditional, nomadic way of life."--Minnesota Daily "An appreciation for the diversity and complexity of Dakota culture and politics emerges from Through Dakota Eyes. . . . captures some of the human drama, tragedy, and confusion which must have surely characterized all American frontier wars."--American Indian Quarterly