Indigenous Rights Movements & the Law

In the late 1880s the Paiute shaman Wovoka gave the American Indians of the Great Plains some much needed hope. He taught that the traditional ways of the Native Americans could return. The spirits of the dead would return, the buffalo would come back...

Partnership with Native Americans focuses on underserved and geographically-isolated Native American communities with limited employment opportunities, addressing both immediate needs (material services) and working towards long-term solutions.

“. . . it takes human connections to make positive changes happen.” Sven Haakanson, Jr. (Alutiiq-Sugpiaq) Sherelyn Ogden. Caring for American Indian Objects: A Practical and Cultural Guide (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2004): 15. Native American communities are sovereign governments. This unique status and associated rights recognized by federal and state law impact the hundreds of organizations in the United States which hold archival collections documenting Native American lifeways. In April 2006 a group of nineteen Native American and non-Native American archivists, librarians, museum curators, historians, and anthropologists gathered at Northern Arizona University Cline Library in Flagstaff, Arizona. The participants included representatives from fifteen Native American, First Nation, and Aboriginal communities. The group met to identify best professional practices for culturally responsive care and use of American Indian archival material held by non-tribal organizations. The draft Protocols under development and discussion build upon numerous professional ethical codes as well as international declarations recognizing Indigenous rights and the ground-breaking Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Protocols for Libraries, Archives, and Information Services. The contributors encourage you to explore, comment upon, and adopt the best practices which can be accomplished by your institution or community. Intended to foster increased cooperation between tribal and non-tribal libraries and archives, the Protocols are presented as goals to which we all can aspire. This project has received generous support from the American Library Association Office for Diversity, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the National Library of Medicine, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, The Bay and Paul Foundations, the Northern Arizona University Institute for Native Americans, and Mary and P. David Seaman.

Nick Estes is a citizen of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe. He is an Assistant Professor in the American Studies Department at the University of New Mexico. In 2014, he co-founded The Red Nation, an Indigenous resistance organization. For 2017-2018, Estes was the American Democracy Fellow at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University. His research engages colonialism and global Indigenous histories, with a focus on decolonization, oral history, U.S. imperialism, environmental justice, anti-capitalism, and the Oceti Sakowin. Estes is a member of the Oak Lake Writers Society, a network of Indigenous writers committed to defend and advance Oceti Sakowin (Dakota, Nakota, and Lakota) sovereignty, cultures, and histories.

At times, U.S. governments have denied First Amendment rights to Native Americans. Indian religious beliefs have sometimes posed dilemmas for the application of such freedoms.

From ASU Library: “The ASU Library acknowledges the 22 Native Nations that have inhabited this land for centuries.” Thus begins the Arizona State University Library’s first Indigenous land acknowledgement – a five-sentence, 116-word statement about the place that the library and the university have inhabited for more than a century. “The statement represents the ASU Library’s intentions […]

Arizona State Museum (ASM) is the oldest and largest anthropological research facility in the U.S. Southwest, with expansive collections that are exceptional resources for the teaching, study, and understanding of the region’s 13,000-year human history. ASM serves the State of Arizona as its official archaeological repository and as the permitting authority for archaeological activity on state land. In addition to 38,000 cubic feet of archaeological research materials, ASM curates millions of archaeological, ethnographic, and modern objects created by the Indigenous peoples of the region. It holds the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of Native North American basketry, composed of 35,000 specimens of woven fiber, dating back some 7,000 years. ASM also holds the world’s largest, most comprehensive, and best documented collection of Southwest Indigenous pottery, with 24,000 whole-vessel specimens dating back more than 2,000 years. Its photographic and library/archive collections are similarly unparalleled. Its conservation laboratory and preservation program are world-renowned. Established in 1893, ASM is one of the University of Arizona’s original research units (UA was established in 1885). ASM scholars are leaders in their fields, with research cutting across many disciplines. Each year, ASM hosts students and researchers from around the globe who consult the collections to expand the frontiers of knowledge in archaeology, ethnology, ethnohistory, materials science, climate science, and other related fields; by students seeking to learn the current state of knowledge in those same fields; and by Native artists seeking to learn from and gain inspiration from ancestors and relatives. In addition to engaging university students through classroom, laboratory, and field instruction, ASM offers a full calendar of public programs celebrating the ancient and enduring Native cultures of the region, sharing its expertise and collections with visitors of all ages through exhibits, school programs, lectures, hands-on activities, master classes, and travel tours. ASM is an affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution and accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

Arizona is home to 22 tribes, each with its own rich history, culture, language and land base. In the last decade, the Heard Museum has worked to develop professional relationships with American Indian tribes. The relationships are based on mutual trust and active participation, and have repositioned the Heard away from the traditional museum role ...

Website of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage

The gruesome discovery took decades and for some survivors of the Kamloops Indian Residential School in Canada, the confirmation that children as young as 3 were buried on school grounds crystallizes the sorrow they have carried all their lives.

Administration seeks to transfer ownership of Arizona area to mining company with ties to the destruction of an Aboriginal site

Thursday's National Day of Mourning in Plymouth, Massachusetts, will honor Indigenous people who've suffered centuries of racism and mistreatment. It's the 52nd year the event has been observed.

The annual celebration is a good time to reflect on efforts made throughout the year to support and advance Native American communities.

One fifth of the world’s languages will be dormant or dead by the end of the century, scientists warn. And the pandemic made it worse

The American Indian Museum puts the 150-year-old Fort Laramie Treaty on view in its "Nation to Nation" exhibition

A Minneapolis community seeks to counteract centuries of federal policies that have put its people at a disadvantage.

Democracy’s indigenous origins in the Americas.

A growing movement recasts the second Monday in October as a day to appreciate the history of Indigenous communities. That visibility, say Native Americans, can help us see what else needs to change.

One of the criticisms of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act is that it puts a huge burden of proof on Tribes, which may not have access to the necessary records.

The announcement followed a 14-month campaign to stop the move out of state of the histories of 272 federally recognized tribes as well as all federal records generated in the Pacific Northwest, including military, land, court, tax and census documents.

Shumla leaders said they completed the first phase of their Alexandria Project, having documented 233 rock art sites along the Lower Pecos.

A librarian has developed citation templates for oral teachings shared by members of Indigenous communities.

Two men who falsely claimed to be tribal members sold counterfeit Native American art at galleries in downtown Seattle, officials said. Both are separately facing federal charges.

Official Web Site of theTohono O'odham Nation We are pleased to present to you, the members of the Tohono O'odham Nation and Internet communities, the official website of the Tohono O'odham Nation! With this site, we want to open a window to our world to educate others about our history, culture, governance, and other aspects […]

The official site of the Navajo Nation.

A letter report issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) required federal agencies and museums to (1) identify their Native American human remains and other objects, (2) try to culturally affiliate them with a present day Indian tribe or Native Hawaiian organization, and (3) repatriate them under the terms in the act. The National NAGPRA office, within the Department of the Interior's National Park Service (NPS), facilitates the government-wide implementation of NAGPRA. GAO was asked to determine, among other things, the (1) extent to which agencies have complied with their NAGPRA requirements, (2) actions taken by National NAGPRA, and (3) extent of repatriations reported by agencies. GAO reviewed records for eight key agencies with significant historical collections, surveyed agencies to obtain repatriation data, and interviewed agency, museum, and tribal officials."

NAGPRA, Bureau of Reclamation - Managing water and power in the West

This page contains links to American history relating to Native Americans. During November we celebrate Native American/Alaskan Native Heritage Month. Check out these statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, as well as the reference links below.

The first American Indian Day was celebrated in May 1916 in New York.