BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Museum of the American Indian -- Exhibit: Nation to Nation

DC -- Natl Museum of the American Indian -- Exhibit: Nation to Nation:

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Description of Pictures: Nation to Nation: Treaties between the United States and American Indian Nations
September 21, 2014 – December 2021
From a young age, most Americans learn about the Founding Fathers, but are told very little about equally important and influential Native diplomats and leaders of Indian nations. Treaties lie at the heart of the relationship between Indian nations and the United States and this exhibition tells the story of that relationship, including the history and legacy of U.S.—American Indian diplomacy from the colonial period through the present.

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. AMINN1_140926_001.JPG: Nation to Nation Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations
2. AMINN1_140926_007.JPG: Treaties lie at the heart of the relationship between Indian Nations and the United States. Treaties are solemn agreements between sovereign nations. Native Nations made treaties with one another long before Europeans came to the Western Hemisphere. The United States began making treaties with Native Peoples because they were independent nations. Often broken, sometimes coerced, treaties still define mutual obligations between the United States and Indian Nations.
3. AMINN1_140926_012.JPG: Guswenta Two-Row Wampum Belt (replica), 2014
4. AMINN1_140926_023.JPG: Two Ways of Being
5. AMINN1_140926_027.JPG: The first colonists and Native Peoples used treaties as one means of living side by side in the spirit of the Two-Row Wampum. Native North Americans found that European newcomers had very different ways of thinking and being. Some customs -- such as those related to land, leadership, language, and binding agreements -- were hard to reconcile. Both sides, however, shared the custom of making treaties between independent nations. Treaties were a way to reconcile contrasting values and objectives.
6. AMINN1_140926_030.JPG: Land Native Peoples and colonists thought differently about the land. Viewpoint: Native Nations: For Indian people, land was the foundation of their existence as nations. It shaped their identity, spiritual practices, and cultures. Tribes had national territories they defended from invaders, and individual families owned rights to particular places. But Indians did not have the deeds, titles, surveys, and institutions that proved land ownership to Europeans. When European colonists arrived in North America, the land was owned and used. At first, tribal leaders saw strategic advantage is having European trading partners, military support, and political allies -- so they offered unoccupied land in exchange. Viewpoint: European Nations: The first European colonists who came to North America wanted land of their own. Land meant personal independence and economic self-sufficiency -- impossible goals in Europe at that time. Through most o the colonial era, Euro-Americans recognized Indian ownership of the land. They based their own property rights on deeds showing purchases from Indians, and called Indians the Native Proprietors. Colonies, towns, and individuals all bought land from Native people. In 1763, the king of England decided that only sovereign governments should negotiate for land. Treaties replaced contracts as the way land was transferred. But the principle that Indians owned the land did not change.
7. AMINN1_140926_034.JPG: Leadership
8. AMINN1_140926_037.JPG: Leadership Contrasting political symbols gave Native Peoples and colonists different assumptions about who had authority to negotiate a treaty. Viewpoint: Native Nations: Native Nations were all self-governing. But systems varied in forms and in the way leaders rose to power. Some systems had hereditary titles and roles. Others were merit-based or led by councils. There were many kinds of leaders with overlapping powers. Most Indian Nations were federations of self-governing villages or bands. This decentralized, non-coercive system gave individuals more independence than the average European enjoyed. At first, the need to present a united face to colonial leaders enhanced the authority of sachems and chiefs. Later, non-Indians undermined those powers. Viewpoint: European Nations: Europeans had hierarchical societies in which superiors compelled subordinates to obey. Even democratic governments gave elected officials authority to make decisions for all. When colonists encountered tribal governments, they were frustrated that no one person could speak for all citizens of a given nation. Colonial leaders wrote disapprovingly about Indians' lack of subordination. Other political thinkers were inspired. The centralized organization of the colonies gave them the appearance of unity in negotiations with Indian Nations. In fact, they could not prevent their own citizens from trespassing on Indian lands.
9. AMINN1_140926_048.JPG: Language Neither Native Peoples nor the newcomers spoke just one language. Even with interpreters, speakers struggled to communicate foreign ideas. Viewpoint: Native Nations: To Native people, oral speech was more trustworthy than written words. "We... have Methods of transmitting from Father to Son an account of all these things, whereby you will find the Remembrance of them faithfully preserved," Kanickhungo (Seneca) assured some Pennsylvanians in 1736. You could say things in Indian languages that weren't translatable into European tongues, and vice versa. Viewpoint: European Nations: Europeans regarded written language as more authentic and trustworthy than memory. "The doing of business with beads might... do among Indians but not in their transactions with white people," said U.S. Indian Agent Benjamin Hawkins in 1808. "The beads may be forgotten, but an agreement written by a faithful agent could never be forgotten." But writing could not make language more truthful, or promises more binding.
10. AMINN1_140926_056.JPG: "You... who are sad of heart, and blinded by tears: I take this wampum into my hand... With it, as the emblem of the softest and whitest cloth, I wipe your eyes... that you may all see clear again." -- Speech of Tarhe (Wendat) at a treaty council, 1815
11. AMINN1_140926_059.JPG: Agreements: Both Native and European peoples had ancient and elaborate diplomatic traditions -- some similar, some different. Viewpoint: Native Nations: Native diplomatic traditions aimed to establish a relationship of trust that outlasted future disagreements. Successful treaties created a kind of kinship by bringing about a true change of heart in the participants. The meeting where reconciliation took place was the most important part of the negotiations. Many treaty councils began with a ritual to clear everyone's mind of distracting emotions and call on higher powers and witnesses. Because treaties were relationships, they had to be renewed from time to time with visits, gifts, and pledges. Viewpoint: European Nations: European international law was in its infancy, but treaties were emerging as a cornerstone. European diplomacy focused on bargaining to create a written agreement that could be enforced by either side and consulted if a dispute arose. Colonists wrote up treaties in their own languages to make it easier for their governments, courts, and laws to enforce the commitments. This gave the colonists power to set the rules. It was a crucial advantage -- until, much later, Indians began to use the legal system, too.
12. AMINN1_140926_073.JPG: Wendat (Huron) Wampum Belt, 1600-50 Indian Territory (Kansas) Wendat leaders brought this ancient peace and friendship belt from the Great Lakes when they were removed to Kansas in the 1840s
13. AMINN1_140926_084.JPG: Sacred Promises Native Nations used prayer, smoke, and gifts to symbolize the sacredness of promises. Tribal traditions varied. Some used sweetgrass, sage, or cedar smoke to purify people, their objects, and their thoughts. Offerings of tobacco and corn pollen summoned higher powers. Tobacco smoke could change the hearts of negotiators. Holding wampum while speaking ensured the truthfulness of an orator's words. The exchange of songs, dances, names, and stories preserved the memory of a treat commitment and created a relationship based on kinship and goodwill.
14. AMINN1_140926_086.JPG: Treaties are living documents that bind the Nations... in friendship and law, and are the foundation for keeping promises and realizing ideals today. -- Suzan Shown Harjo, 2014
15. AMINN1_140926_091.JPG: No people in the world understand and pursue their true national interest better than the Indians.... In their publick Treaties no people on earth are more open, explicit and direct. Nor are they excelled by any in the observance of them. -- Edmond Atkin, 1755
16. AMINN1_140926_097.JPG: Diplomatic Traditions Blend: As Native people and colonists worked out ways of getting along, they learned to honor each other's customs. Colonial officials used wampum and pipes. Native leaders signed treaties with symbols. Some objects blended the customs of both cultures. Non-Native silversmiths engraved and inlaid pipe tomahawks -- which combined the Native metaphors for war and peace -- as diplomatic gifts. European sovereigns gave Native leaders their likenesses and coats of arms on medals and gorgets. In return, Native diplomats presented gifts with their own symbols of war and peace.
17. AMINN1_140926_102.JPG: Audience Given by the Trustees of Georgia to a Delegation of Creek Indians, 1734-35 William Verelst A Muscogee delegation led by Tomochichi (standing belong the urn) visits the European financiers of the colony of Georgia. Tomochichi is accompanied by his wife, Serawli (in the red dress); nephew Tooanahowi (with the bear cub); and delegates Umphichi, Hillspilli, Santachi, Stimatechi, and Apokutchi.
18. AMINN1_140926_105.JPG: Treaty between England and the Delaware, Shawnee, and Mingo, 1765 Lenape (Delaware), Shawnee, and Seneca (Mingo) leaders signed this document with animal symbols that may represent their clans. The treaty was one of several that concluded peace after Pontiac's War in 1764. Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of Indians, signed for England.
19. AMINN1_140926_110.JPG: Gorget, ca 1780-1820 The gorget was a mark of military rank worn around the neck; this one is engraved with the British royal coat of arms.
20. AMINN1_140926_115.JPG: George III peace medal, ca 1790 This medal rewarded Britian's Indian allies after the Revolution.
21. AMINN1_140926_125.JPG: George II peace medal, restrike early- to mid-nineteenth century This medal rewarded Britain's Indian allies in the French and Indian War.
22. AMINN1_140926_132.JPG: 1682 The Lenape Treaty
23. AMINN1_140926_136.JPG: Land: Early in American history, when the Englih kind laid claim to Lenape land, the ideals of the Two-Row Wampum Belt were practiced to negotiate a treaty. Viewpoint: Lenape: The Lenape (called the Delaware by English colonists) lived in what is now New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The tribe's full name, Lenni Lenape, means "original people." The Lenape relate that the land of North America was created when a great turtle rose out of the ocean and water ran off its back. A tree grew in the center. A shoot from its roots became a Lenape man. Another from its branches became a Lenape woman. Viewpoint: Pennsylvania Colony: King Charles II of England claimed to own the Lenape homeland became English warships conquered Dutch colonists there in 1664. William Penn, a wealthy Quaker, wanted to found a "holy experiment" in America: a colony based on principles of justice, where religious and civic freedom would be guaranteed to all. When Penn offered to forgive a loan to the Crown, Charles II granted him a large section of Lenape land.
24. AMINN1_140926_143.JPG: Lenape (Delaware) mask, ca 1850-75
25. AMINN1_140926_148.JPG: "I desire to winn and gain your Love and freindship... I am very sensible of the unkindness and injustice that hath been too much exersised toward you... I am not such a man." -- William Penn to the Lenape, 1681
26. AMINN1_140926_157.JPG: NEGOTIATORS The chief negotiators for the Lenape and the Pennsylvania colonists approached the diplomatic discussions and each other with good faith and mutual respect. [Viewpoint] Lenape: Tamanend was a sachem (or chief) of the Unami (or southern Lenape). His leadership rested on great powers of persuasion and the respect of his people. Although William Penn called Tamenend a king, Tamenend made no move on matters of public interest without consulting a council of elders. "Tis admirable to consider, how Powerful the Kinds are," wrote Penn, "and yet how they move by the Breath of their People." [Viewpoint] Pennsylvania Colony: William Penn was a pacifist who wanted his colonists "to live soberly and kindly together" with the Lenape. Told that the Lenape were warlike, he said, "Don't abuse them, but let them have Justice and you win them." Unlike the king of England, Penn acknowledged that the Lenape had a "natural right" to their land. The king had granted Penn ownership. But Penn decided that the land must be purchased from its Native owners. By doing so, Penn set a precedent that later colonists would follow.
27. AMINN1_140926_160.JPG: TREATY Although the Lenape and the Quakers signed no written document in 1682, the oral tradition of both said their agreement was a treaty of peace and friendship. Describing a similar treaty council, William Penn said: "The King sits in the middle of an half Moon, and hath his council, the Old and Wise on each hand; behind them, or at a little distance sit the younger Fry... Not a man of them was observed to whisper or smile... I have never seen more natural Sagacity." The Quakers kept their word, and in later years the Lenape remembered the treaty as an honest one. "We have solemnly made for us and our Posterity as long as the Sun and the Moon shall endure, One head One Mouth, and one Heart." -- Chiefs of the Lenape to the king of England, 1701
28. AMINN1_140926_164.JPG: Penn's Treaty with the Indians, 1771-72 Benjamin West West portrayed Penn (center, hand outstretched) as a peacemaker in order to make a pacifist statement at a time when relations with Indian Nations were becoming increasingly hostile. West's father had come to Pennsylvania with Penn in 1699.
29. AMINN1_140926_168.JPG: Lenape (Delaware) "Penn" wampum belts, ca 1682 Lenape leaders presented both of these wampum belts to William Penn in the early 1680s as part of a land agreement or treaty of friendship.
30. AMINN1_140926_175.JPG: Aftermath
31. AMINN1_140926_179.JPG: Aftermath: After William Penn's death, his sons took charge of Pennsylvania. They did not share the ideals of their father or of the Two-Row Wampum Belt. The Lenape were driven away to the Susquehanna Valley, then to Ohio. During the Revolutionary War, the Lenape tried to side with the United States, but American militias drove them from their land. Some took refuge in Ontario, Indiana, and Missouri. In the 1800s, they were driven west again. Today there are Lenape communities in Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Ontario.
32. AMINN1_140926_181.JPG: Relocations of the Lenape, 1700-2014
33. AMINN1_140926_189.JPG: The Great Elm Tree Box, ca 1810-36 This commemorative box was made from the elm tree under which William Penn is believed to have negotiated with the Lenape.
34. AMINN1_140926_199.JPG: Land: The Americans and Spanish colonists surrounded Muscogee land. Treaties had been signed that led to widespread dissatisfaction and the threat of war. Viewpoint: Muscogee: The Muscogee (called Creeks by the British) lived in towns along rivers in what is now western Georgia and Alabama. By 1790, some Muscogees raised livestock, planted orchards, and lived in log cabins. Others preferred older ways revolving around agriculture, hunting, and religious events. To the east, American settlers threatened Muscogee land. To the south and west lay Spanish towns. The Muscogee played the competing nations against one another by signing treaties with both. Viewpoint: United States: The state of Georgia had negotiated treaties in 1783, 1785, and 1786 that acquired the eastern-most parts of Muscogee territory. But not all Muscogees had agreed. Some now denounced the treaties are fraudulent. And squatters were pushing west beyond Georgia's boundary into Muscogee land. The United States feared that the dispute with Georgia would drive the Muscogee to declare war and that Spain might intervene. To avoid war, the United States was willing to compromise on land. When you act and speak you must think of all your relatives -- known and unknown. You must also remember the plants, the animals, the living things, and the ancient ones -- those that have gone before you. -- Hiyvtke (Jean Chaudhuri, Muscogee), 2001
35. AMINN1_140926_202.JPG: 1790 The Muscogee Treaty
36. AMINN1_140926_206.JPG: We want nothing from you but justice. We want our hunting grounds preserved from encroachments. They have been ours from the beginning of time. -- Alexander McGillivray (Muscogee), 1785
37. AMINN1_140926_216.JPG: Muscogee Portraits: Trumbull wanted to paint the Muscogee treaty council delegates because they "possessed a dignity of manner, form, countenance and expression, worthy of Roman senators." They declined to sit for portraits, so he made these sketches "by stealth." The words "Coosades" and "Cusitahs" in Trumbull's titles probably refer to the Coushatta, a division of the Lower Muscogee. His use of king for mikko reflects a misunderstanding of the Muscogee governmental structure.
38. AMINN1_140926_217.JPG: Hysac, or the Woman's Man, 1790 John Trumbull
39. AMINN1_140926_221.JPG: Negotiators: The Muscogee negotiators sought unity within a large and sophisticated confederation, while the US negotiators faced a conflict between federal and state interests. Viewpoint: Muscogee: Alexander McGillivray was the lead negotiator for the Muscogee. Son of a Scottish merchant and Muscogee woman, he controlled trade with Muscogee county. His power was economic. McGillivray's ambition was to unite his people against the powers around them. But the Muscogee were a powerful confederation of independent towns with diverse languages, origins, and leaders and a complex political organization. No single person had authority to sign on behalf of the whole confederation. When the United States asked for a treaty, more than thirty leaders set out for New York. Viewpoint: United States: Henry Knox, Secretary of War, was the lead negotiator for the United States. Knox's policy was to preserve peace. He wrote: "The Indians being the prior occupants, possess the right of the soil. It cannot be taken from them unless by their free consent." But Georgia's interests conflicted with those of the United States. The state wanted land more than peace. If the federal government was to assert its constitutional power over Indian relations, it had to keep Georgia from interfering.
40. AMINN1_140926_226.JPG: Henry Knox
41. AMINN1_140926_233.JPG: Treaty: Both the Muscogee and the US government achieved their objectives in the treaty that was negotiated. When the Muscogee delegation arrived in New York City, gunboat salvos saluted them. The Tammany Society, dressed in Indian costumes, escorted the visitors up Wall Street to the president's house. English and Spanish agents tried to spy on the sessions, influence the Muscogee, and undermine the United States. The treaty gave back most of the land Georgia had taken, in exchange for lands the Muscogee delegates valued less. Alexandria McGillivray got a favorable trade deal and a brigadier general's commission. The United States got peace on its southern frontier and a barrier against Spain.
42. AMINN1_140926_236.JPG: A View of Broad Street, Wall Street, and the City Hall, 1797 The treaty negotiations took place in New York City, the capital of the United States in 1790. The Senate's ratification of the Muscogee Treaty was its last act in New York before moving to Philadelphia.
43. AMINN1_140926_242.JPG: Pocket Watch, ca 1790 This watch bears the inscription: "Alexander Mcgillivary [sic] / Treaty of New York 1790 / Present of G. Washington 1790"
44. AMINN1_140926_257.JPG: Aftermath: Within two years, the Georgians and Muscogee were at war again. Within forty years, the Muscogee had lost all their land in Georgia and Alabama. The treaty brought no peace, but some Muscogees still honored it by naming one of their towns for New York: Nuyakv (pronounced "nuyaukuh"). During the War of 1812, civil war broke out between Muscogees who advocated peace with the United States and those who supported armed resistance. A military force led by Major General Andrew Jackson intervened on the pro-American side. After the war, Jackson demanded that his former allies sign a punitive treaty giving up half the Muscogee homeland. In the 1830s, the tribe lost the rest of its land through Jackson's Indian removal policy. Force-marched west, the Muscogee re-established the town of Nuyakv in Oklahoma. It is still there.
45. AMINN1_140926_269.JPG: 1794 The Treaty of Canandaigua
46. AMINN1_140926_272.JPG: Land The Haudenosaunee had lost land to the United States following the Revolutionary War. Now the United States needed Haudenosaunee help to acquire more land. Viewpoint: Haudenosaunee: The Haudenosaunee (called Iroquois by the French) are a confederacy of six Nations -- Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora. They live in what is now upper New York, united under an age-old treaty called the Great Law of Peace. By 1794, some Haudenosaunee who supported Great Britain in the Revolution lived in Canada. Others had fought for the United States, only to have their lands forfeited after the war. Each Haudenosaunee Nation had its own territories, towns, and agriculture fields, but they shared other resources. Viewpoint: United States: The United States wanted Native lands in Ohio. It needed Haudenosaunee cooperation to get them. In 1794, the US Army was losing a war in the Ohio Valley against an intertribal alliance. In 1790 and 1791, the Ohio Valley tribes inflicted crushing defeats on US forces. To prevent the Haudenosaunee from aiding the combatants, US officials asked for a treaty. They knew they might have to compromise on land in New York to secure land in Ohio. "We can begin with our Mother Earth. We are instructed to refer to her as a relative. She is our Mother. We acknowledge her." -- Haudenosaunee Traditional Address Ohen:ton Karihwatehkwen (The Words That Come Before All Else)
47. AMINN1_140926_283.JPG: Negotiators: THe two lead Haudenosaunee negotiators sought to remedy past injustices. The US negotiator wanted to counter British influence. Viewpoint: Haudenosaunee: About 1,600 Haudenosaunee people gathered at the town of Canandaigua for the treaty council. Cornplanter, a war chief, and Red Jacket, speaker for the chiefs, took the lead. After the Revolution, the United States had demanded that the Haudenosaunee sign a punity treaty that took Seneca land as the price for peace. The state of New York then took Haudenosaunee land in a set of fraudulent treaties. Now, the Haudenosaunee wanted justice. Cornplanter and Red Jacket were not the only negotiators. The Haudenosaunee were matrilineal. The clan mothers chose the chiefs and could veto war. Women influenced everything behind the scenes. Viewpoint: United States: The United States was represented by Timothy Pickering. He knew that the British supported Indian resistance in US territory and that the US Army was about to fight a climactic battle in Ohio. Pickering had dealt with the Haudenosaunee before, and knew their concerns. "I did not come here to drive a bargain," he wrote, "but to manifest the real desires of the United States to live in friendship with the Six Nations. I therefore did not consider how much I could gain for the United States; but... how I should promote the true interests of the Six Nations."
48. AMINN1_140926_289.JPG: "When you gave us peace, we called you Father, because you promised to secure us in the possession of our lands. Do this, and, so long as the lands shall remain, that beloved name will live in the heart of every Seneca." -- Cornplanter to George Washington, 1790
49. AMINN1_140926_295.JPG: George Washington peace medal, 1792 This medal is similar to one Washington gave to Red Jacket in Philadelphia in 1792. Although Red Jacket proudly wore the medal, he advocated neutrality in disputes between Britain and the United States.
50. AMINN1_140926_301.JPG: Thomas Pickering, ca 1792 Charles Willson Peale Pickering had a strong sense of honor. "Indians have been so often deceived by white people that White Man is, among many of them, but another name for Liar," he wrote to President George Washington. "I am unwilling to be subjected to this infamy."
51. AMINN1_140926_306.JPG: Treaty: Both the Haudenosaunee and the United States ceded lands, and both gained important benefits in the 1794 treaty. An atmosphere of goodwill pervaded the treaty grounds during the twenty-three days of negotiations. As the parties talked, confirmation arrived that the United States had won a great victory over the western tribes at Fallen Timbers in present-day Ohio. The news strengthened the US position. Still, the treaty was a balanced one. The United States ceded back more than a million acres taken from the Seneca. The Haudenosaunee ceded all claims to Pennsylvania and the Ohio Valley. The United States won alliance with a powerful confederacy of Native Nations. The Haudenosaunee won restoration of lands and an annual payment of goods that is still being delivered.
52. AMINN1_140926_310.JPG: George Washington wampum belt (replica), 2014 Following Native protocol, Washington had this wampum belt made to ratify the Treaty of Canandaigua. The thirteen figures holding hands represent the thirteen states. The longhouse symbolizes the Haudenosaunee. The figures on either side are the Mohawk (Keepers of the Eastern Door) and Seneca (Keepers of the Western Door).
53. AMINN1_140926_320.JPG: Aftermath: The United States and New York both ate away at the land the Treaty of Canandaigua had guaranteed to the Haudenosaunee forever. Even the site of Cornplanter's grave was flooded when the Army Corps of Engineers built the Kinzua Dam in the 1960s. Nevertheless, the Haudenosaunee still honor the treaty. Scholar John C. Mohawk called it a "defining document" that established "a federal responsibility to guard the rights of the Indians against the ambitions and abuses of the states." "We have to take care of these treaty obligations," says Onandaga chief Oren Lyons. "We have to, as the treaty says, be friends, and allies, and brothers... to take on these terrible obligations of survival that we face today." Haudenosaunee leader Leon Shenandoah with bolts of treaty cloth, 1994 Every year, the US government sends the Haudenosaunee a bolt of cloth to fulfill one of its treaty obligations. Once, the government proposed sending money instead. The nations replied, "The cloth is more significant that money, because so long as you keep sending this to us, there's a chance you'll maybe remember all of the other articles of that treaty."
54. AMINN1_140926_324.JPG: Haudenosaunee Land Loss, 1783-1842
55. AMINN1_140926_330.JPG: 1851 The Horse Creek Treaty
56. AMINN1_140926_334.JPG: Land: In 1851, the United States invited all the Native Nations of the northern Great Plains to gather for a treaty council at the mouth of Horse Creek, near Fort Laramie, where Nebraska and Wyoming now meet. Viewpoint: Native Nations: The northern Plains Nations had traded with Europeans for more than a century. Using Spanish horses and British trade guns, many tribes had adopted a mobile lifestyle following the endless buffalo herds. Now eastern tribes, pushed out of their homelands, were moving to the plains. Non-Indian immigrants traveling to Oregon and California poached buffalo, cut down trees, and spread diseases. "We used to own all this country and went where we pleased," said Big Yankton (Sioux). "Now we are surrounded by other Indians, and the whites pass through our country." Viewpoint: United States: The United States wanted safe passage for trappers, miners, and immigrants traveling west, and a railroad to the West Coast. Only peace with the Native Nations would allow that. To keep the peace, the federal government wanted a right of way, permission to build forts, and a definition of each nation's territory to make it easier to determine who was at fault when attacks occurred.
57. AMINN1_140926_339.JPG: "Our relatives, the Pte-O-ya-te [Buffalo People] came up from... the heart of Un-ci-Ma-ka [Grandmother Earth]... They gave of themselves for our survival, as long as we respected their gift. They taught us how to live in an honorable and respectful way." -- Chief Arvol Looking Horse (Lakota), 2008
58. AMINN1_140926_346.JPG: Buffalo Bulls Fighting in Running Season, Upper Missouri, 1837-39 George Catlin
59. AMINN1_140926_352.JPG: Ma-ta-sa-be-zi-a or Smutty Bear (Yankton), ca 1858 Ma-ta-sa-be-zi-a's people were suffering from smallpox when Father Pierre-Jean De Smet brought them the invitation to the treaty gathering. Ma-ta-sa-be-zi-a was the only Yankton to sign the treaty.
60. AMINN1_140926_359.JPG: Negotiators: Two negotiators from the US Office of Indian Affairs met with delegations representing nine Native Nations that spoke different languages but shared common concerns. Viewpoint: Native Nations: Native Nations arrived from all across the plains: Lakota, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Assiniboine, Arikara, Hidatsa, Mandan, Shoshone. They made grand entries dressed in their finest regalia. They had no central leader, no one negotiator. Each delegation spoke a different language, so they needed interpreters to speak to one another. They were not all at peace, but they set aside differences while the council was in session. Though they did not speak one language, the nations had common goals: security from invasion and guarantees of their land rights. Viewpoint: United States: The United States negotiators were two men from the Office of Indian Affairs, David D. Mitchell and Thomas Fitzpatrick. A detachment of soldiers, fur traders, frontiersmen, missionaries, a journalist, and a lawyer provided support. Mitchell asked each Native delegation to name one "chief of the whole nation" for the United States to deal with, instructing them to "respect, obey, and maintain him in the exercise of his just authority." The Indians politely humored Mitchell, but the demand was so contrary to their existing political system that they did it just for show.
61. AMINN1_140926_361.JPG: (top) David Dawson Mitchell, c 1900 Mitchell was the superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Plains tribes. He had worked many years for the American Fur Company on the Missouri River. (bottom) Thomas Fitzpatrick, 1935 The US Indian agent, Fitzpatrick also had a long career as a fur trapper and frontier guide. He led the first expeditions over the Oregon Trail, the guided John C. Fremont and Stephen Watts Kearney.
62. AMINN1_140926_369.JPG: Treaty The United States asked for the right to build roads and forts as it expanded westward, and both sides offered peace. It was the largest gathering of Plains Nations in American history: ten thousand to fifteen thousand people attended. It was remembered as the Great Smoke due to the large quantities of tobacco, sweetgrass, and safe burned to consecrate the agreements. "We have nothing to sell to you and do not want to buy anything from you," Commissioner David D. Mitchell said to the headmen. "We do not want your lands, horses, robes, nor anything you have." Mitchell predicted that the treaty's pledges would "save the country from the ruinous and useless expenses of a war." It did not turn out that way.
63. AMINN1_140926_374.JPG: (left) Rev. Father Pierre-Jean de Smet, ca 1850-65 De Smet was a Jesuit missionary from Belgium who spent thirty years traveling through the West, earning the friendship of many tribes. During the Horse Creek Treaty sessions, he held mass baptisms for nearly twelve hundred people. (right) Jim Bridges, ca 1860s Legendary as a frontiersman and guide, Bridges came to the treaty council as interpreter for the Shoshone Indians. He was married to the daughter of Chief Washakie.
64. AMINN1_140926_378.JPG: Aftermath: The treaty that pledged eternal peace prevented war for only three years. Eight months after the Great Smoke, Congress amended the treaty to reduce the lifespan of annuity payments from fifty to ten years. Already, one promise was broken. Later, the roads authorized in the treaty became railroads that brought buffalo slaughter, disease, and immigrants seeking land. Native and non-Native people who signed the treaty had different methods of remembering the event. Native people passed down the memory orally and incorporated it in their winter counts -- pictorial chronicles of yearly events. Non-Native people used written documents.
65. AMINN1_140926_382.JPG: Land of the Horse Creek Treaty Nations, 2014
66. AMINN1_140926_384.JPG: Symbol for 1851 from the winter count of Lone Dog (Yankton), 1800-70 The artist's interpretation of this symbol was "Peace with the Crows." That peace was concluded at Horse Creek. This winter count was painted on buffalo hide.
67. AMINN1_140926_387.JPG: American Progress, 1872 John Gast Euro-Americans believed in manifest destiny -- the idea that inevitable social progress justified their conquest of the continent. There was little room for Indians in this vision. "Providence had laid out this country on a gigantic scale," wrote Father Pierre-Jean De Smet. "Its destiny is to march onward, and no power on earth can stop it."
68. AMINN1_140926_392.JPG: These two artworks show contrasting futures: Euro-Americans imagined expansion, progress, and prosperity. Indians experienced decades of violence -- and eventually, land loss and poverty.
69. AMINN1_140926_409.JPG: The three treaties in this section reflect good-faith bargaining and serious nation-to-nation diplomacy between the United States and powerful Native Nations. Viewpoint: Native Nations: Nation Nations played a crucial role in the American Revolution, fighting on both sides. A few tribes sided with the United States. Many others allied with Britain to keep land-hungry colonists east of the Appalachians. But in their treaty that ended the Revolutionary War, neither the United States nor Britain acknowledged Indian rights to the land. After the war, each Native Nation needed to decide on a strategy. Should it forge mutually respectful relations with the new United States, or resist it militarily? What was the best way to guarantee security, trade, land rights, and independence? Viewpoint: United States: The United States was a new, weak nation surrounded by unfriendly European rivals, Britain and Spain. Native Cations controlled the land on its borders. The United States needed Indian allies in war and partners in trade. The founders of the United States decided to deal with Native Peoples on a nation-to-nation basis. They did not do this solely out of goodwill. They were compelled to respect the balance of power. Later, as the United States expanded across the Mississippi, it needed to open diplomatic relations with new tribes, so it followed the same precedent.
70. AMINN1_140926_412.JPG: 1790 & 1794 George Washington's Treaties
71. AMINN1_140926_419.JPG: Two of the first treaties the US government made were with the Muscogee (Creeks) of Georgia and Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) of New York. Viewpoint: Native Nations: The Muscogee and Haudenosaunee were both unhappy with their American neighbors. The states of Georgia and New York had alienated the two nations by making unjust treaties and allowing their citizens to trespass on Indian lands. The tribes wanted the federal government to assert its powers and revoke those illegal treaties. Viewpoint: United States: George Washington knew the cost of war and wanted to avoid it with diplomacy. International politics were on his mind. The Muscogee and Haudenosaunee homelands lay in strategic buffer zones between the United States and lands that Spain and Britain claimed. The Muscogee were mostly allies of Spain; many Haudenosaunee were close to Britain. These alliances increased the Indians' bargaining power and made the United States eager to have them as friends.
72. AMINN1_140926_427.JPG: Ceremonial Gifts: The exchange of ceremonial gifts among Native Nations predates European contact. Native and colonial diplomats continued to follow gift-giving protocols. Americans redesigned them. George Washington started the practice of giving Indian leaders a medal bearing his image to represent his role as head of state in international relations. Every president who followed him, up to Benjamin Harrison in the early 1890s, did the same.
73. AMINN1_140926_430.JPG: George Washington peace medal, 1795
74. AMINN1_140926_441.JPG: Thomas Jefferson peace medal, 1801
75. AMINN1_140926_444.JPG: James Madison peace medal, 1814 John Quincy Adams peace medal, 1825
76. AMINN1_140926_450.JPG: Pipe, 1814 Major General William H. Harrison (later the ninth US president) presented this pipe to the Lenape "in peace and friendship" at the second Treaty of Greenville in 1814. On that occasion, those Lenape who had sided with the British in the War of 1812 reconciled with the United States.
77. AMINN1_140926_458.JPG: One Bowl, Many Spoons: The Haudenosaunee saying "one bowl, many spoons" expresses the idea that all share resources. It was based on a law in the Kaianerekowa, or Great Law of Peace, which binds the Six Nations together. In treaty negotiations with the United States, Haudenosaunee leaders adapted the expression to stress Indian unity in the face of American efforts to negotiate with different nations separately. The leaders referred to Indian solidarity as "one spoon, one dish," and urged Indian nations to stand fast together.
78. AMINN1_140926_467.JPG: The words "treaty" and "nation" are words of our own language, selected in our diplomatic and legislative proceedings by ourselves... We have applied them to Indians as we have applied them to the other nations of the earth. They are applied to all in the same sense. -- Chief Justice John Marshall, 1832
79. AMINN1_140926_469.JPG: Serious Diplomacy
80. AMINN1_140926_475.JPG: Non-Indian Population Expansion, 1820-90
81. AMINN1_140926_479.JPG: American Indian Population Decline and Recovery in the United States Area, 1492-1980
82. AMINN1_140926_481.JPG: Non-Indian Population Growth in the United States Area, 1492-1980
83. AMINN1_140926_483.JPG: Bad Acts, Bad Paper
84. AMINN1_140926_489.JPG: In the 1800s, the United States abandoned the ideals of the Two-Row Wampum, the treaties became "bad paper" -- tools for confiscating Indian land. Viewpoint: Native Nations: Most Native Peoples entered the nineteenth century thinking the United States recognized their inalienable rights to their lands, sovereignty, languages, and cultures. But the young republic's imperial expansion alarmed them. In the War of 1812, many sided with Britain in hopes of stopping US growth. After the war, Britain withdrew support for its Indian allies. Native Nations realized they needed new strategies. They were weary of war. Their population was dropping as epidemics of European diseases swept through. They pinned their hopes on treaties of friendship, hoping to live peaceably with their new neighbors. Viewpoint: United States: The United States was becoming an expanding power with continental ambitions, but it lacked the power or will to control its own citizens. The European population boom was overflowing onto US shores. Americans moving west squatted illegally on Indian lands while speculators sold rights to Indian lands even before they were ceded by treaty. Pressure for new land for a growing population made the acquisition of Indian lands by treaties a national priority.
85. AMINN1_140926_493.JPG: 1838 The Potawatomi Trail of Death
86. AMINN1_140926_497.JPG: Land: The Potawatomi story shows how removal was accomplished -- through enticement, threat, deception,and force. The Potawatomi signed more than forty treaties in an effort to stay in their homes. The treaties offered only the appearance of choice. Viewpoint: Potawatomi: The Potawatomi Nation of more than fifty independent but closely related bands lived in the woodlands around Lake Michigan. They defended their land through armed struggle from 1754 to 1815, when they signed a treaty of peace with the United States. After that, they used negotiation, strategy, and resistance. By 1830, the Potawatomi were sharing the upper Midwest with 1.5 million non-Indian newcomers. Ecological devastated the Potawatomi economy, which depended on a diverse environment. With game declining, the only money they had to pay their debts to traders came from land sales. Viewpoint: United States: The United States had big plans for Potawatomi land. Businessman wanted roads and canals. Speculators and squatters wanted farmland and town sites. Starting in 1816, the government came to the Potawatomi twenty-eight times in twenty-five years, always wanting more land. At first the deals seemed good -- tens of thousands of dollars in down payments and annuities. But by 1821, land sales were cutting away the heart of the Potawatomi homeland, and chiefs like Matea urged their people to refuse. Then US tactics changed.
87. AMINN1_140926_500.JPG: Map showing the Michigan Road and Wabash-Erie Canal, 1833 These two projects converged in the heart of Potawatomi land. Shippers wanted the canal linking the Wabash River and Lake Erie. Farmers wanted the road running from Lake Michigan to the Ohio River. The Potawatomi sold the land for both projects. In 1838, they were marched into exile along the new road.
88. AMINN1_140926_502.JPG: major Potawatomi Land Cessions, 1795-1833
89. AMINN1_140926_507.JPG: Potawatomi panel bags, c 1850 TO the Potawatomi, human well-being was tied to a sacred landscape inhabited by cosmological creaturers. The thunderbird and underwater panther, shown on these bags, were spiritual beings of the sky and underworld.
90. AMINN1_140926_511.JPG: Leopold Pokagon, n.d. Pokagon led a band that converted to Christianity, lived by farming, and owned individual plots of land. In this way, they hopped to escape deportation. The strategy worked and they won exemption from removal at the Treaty of Chicago on 1833.
91. AMINN1_140926_514.JPG: Three Potawatomi Chiefs, 1863-71 Mesquawbuck (right) was a former war chief held in great respect. Naswawkay (middle) knew the treaties by memory and spoke for his people in negotiations. Iowa (left) was a younger man who tried to achieve influence by cooperating with the United States. He signed a fraudulent treaty in 1836.
92. AMINN1_140926_516.JPG: Matea, a Potawatomi Chief, 1838 Matea, a distinguished orator and influential leader, strongly opposed the sale of Potawatomi land. But even his oratory could not unite the other chiefs to refuse the desperately needed money offered by the Americans.
93. AMINN1_140926_522.JPG: Negotiators: Treaty negotiations were no longer dignified ceremonies between leaders of the United States and Indian Nations, but rather ruthless grabs for land and money. Viewpoint: Potawatomi: The Potawatomi chiefs were not united. So they used a strategy of giving up the land but reserving many small plots for individuals and villages to live on. The Indians could not keep newcomers out, but at least they would be able to remain on reserved lands. In 1832, the Potawatomi gave up their last large piece of tribal land in Indiana. The treaty provided more than 120 small reservations for them. They thought they would be safe. Viewpoint: United States: US treaty commissioners used ruthless tactics. Whiskey flowed freely, influential chiefs and interpreters got bribes. When one chief refused to sign, the commissioners found another who would. Trivial clashes with non-Indians were exaggerated into "Indian uprisings," giving US agents excuses to threaten punishment and demand land in compensation. To persuade the Potawatomi to move west, the government offered payments, transportation, and millions of acres of new land. Every year from 1833 to 1837, hundreds of Potawatomi gave in and moved. "The President does not know the truth... He does not know that I have refused to sell my lands, and still refuse. He would not, by force, drive me from my home, the graves of my tribe and my children who have gone to the Great Spirit... I have not sold my lands. I will not sell them. I have not signed any treaty, and I shall not sign any." -- Menominee (Potawatomi leader), 1838
94. AMINN1_140926_526.JPG: (left) Lewis Cass, c 1855-65 As the governor of Michigan Territory, Cass negotiated many important Potawatomi treaties. He supported Andrew Jackson and the removal policy, and became Jackson's Secretary of War in 1831, with responsibility for Indian affairs. (right) George E Ewing, c 1850s This Indiana businessman made a fortune giving Indian customers goods on credit, then demanding payment from the government out of money for Indian lands. Many Potawatomi were deeply in debt to Ewing. (bottom) Abel C. Pepper, c 1890s Pepper's job was to get the Indians out of Indiana one way or another. A former militia officer, Pepper became a US sub-agent for the Indiana tribes in 1829.
95. AMINN1_140926_531.JPG: George E Ewing, c 1850s This Indiana businessman made a fortune giving Indian customers goods on credit, then demanding payment from the government out of money for Indian lands. Many Potawatomi were deeply in debt to Ewing.
96. AMINN1_140926_534.JPG: Abel C. Pepper, c 1890s Pepper's job was to get the Indians out of Indiana one way or another. A former militia officer, Pepper became a US sub-agent for the Indiana tribes in 1829.
97. AMINN1_140926_537.JPG: Treaties
98. AMINN1_140926_541.JPG: Treaties: The ink on the treaty in 1832 was barely dry when the government broke its promise to let the Potawatomi stay on their tiny reservations, forcing negotiations for more treaties in 1834 and 1836. A chief named Menominee, whose land was a refuge for people who did not want to move, refused to sell. Agent Abel Pepper found three other chiefs to sign instead. Outrages, Menominee went to Washington to see Secretary of War Lewis Cass, who promised the chief would not be deported. In August 1838, Abel Pepper arrived to evict Menominee and his people. Armed militia arrested the leaders and forced everyone into a detainment camp. That September, more than 850 Potawatomi were forced to set out for Kansas. A typhoid epidemic struck. The soldiers drove them on. So many died that the journey was called the Trail of Death.
99. AMINN1_140926_543.JPG: Potawatomi removal, 1838 George Winter Winter sketched the Potawatomi leaving Logansport, Indiana. The day before, doctors reported three hundred cases of illness. But the journey went on "with bayonets prodding their backs," according to the priest in attendance. Two people died that day, and twenty-one more were left behind, too sick to move.
100. AMINN1_140926_546.JPG: The Mother of We-wis-sa, c 1863-71 George Winter We-wis-sa's aged mother died on September 12, 1838, as she was being deported. The artist wrote that the coerced emigration was a "cunning cruel plan."
101. AMINN1_140926_549.JPG: Potawatomi Trail of Death, 1838 Twin Lakes -- Sept. 4, 1838 -- Forced march begins Osawatomie -- Nov. 4, 1838 -- Forced march ends after 660 miles
102. AMINN1_140926_555.JPG: Council meeting at Lake Kee-wau-nay, 1839 George Winter At this 1837 council, agent Abel Pepper (at table, right) orders the Potawatomi to leave Indiana. Naswawkay (in white coat) responded, "We have been promised often that we all should have great riches if we would only sell our lands," he said. "We have ceded our lands. We see no promises performed."
103. AMINN1_140926_558.JPG: Model 1816 musket and bayonet, c 1816-44 The militia units that enforced the removal of the Potawatomi in the 1830s used the Model 1816 musket. It was common in the United States from 1816 until the early 1860s.
104. AMINN1_140926_562.JPG: While you... say, "Behold the wonders wrought by our children in this foreign land," do not forget that this success has been at the sacrifice of our homes and a once happy race. -- Simon Pokagon, 1893
105. AMINN1_140926_565.JPG: Aftermath: The Potawatomi who had been removed were not allowed to stay on their new lands. Those in Iowa were forced to move to Kansas as non-Indians moved in. Some in Kansas lost their land and had to negotiate for new lands in Oklahoma. In 1893, the United States celebrated its progress at a grand world's fair on what had once been Potawatomi land -- the Chicago riverfront. Simon Pokagon, son of Chief Leopold Pokagon, handed out a book printed on birch bark that rebuked fairgoers for forgetting that their progress had been bought with Indian suffering. Today, seven Nations of Potawatomi people have lands in Kansas, Michigan, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, and Canada. They retain a connection to their homeland and are making vigorous efforts to reclaim their cultural heritage.
106. AMINN1_140926_569.JPG: Lands of the Potawatomi, 2014
107. AMINN1_140926_572.JPG: The Redman's Rebuke, 1893 Simon Pokagon (Potawatomi) Birch bark Pokagon, an early activist for treaty rights, published four books and numerous articles speaking out against injustices endured by American Indians. He distributed this book at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago to protest the rationale for the fair: to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus's "discovery" of America.
108. AMINN1_140926_582.JPG: "They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition. Established in the midst of another and a superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear." -- President Andrew Jackson, 1833
109. AMINN1_140926_585.JPG: Bad Acts, Bad Paper
110. AMINN1_140926_591.JPG: General Andrew Jackson's sword and scabbard, 1812 Jackson carried this sword and scabbard during the War of 1812 and the Creek War (1813-14). As a result of the Creek War, the United States gained a vast tract of land in present-day Georgia and Alabama.
111. AMINN1_140926_597.JPG: The Potawatomi Trail of Death, 1838 Tuesday, 4th Sept: Left... behind... thirteen persons, three of whom are very sick, and proceeded on our march. The day was exceedingly sultry, and the roads choked up with dust. Wednesday, 5th Sept: Fifty-one persons were found to be unable to continue the journey -- ... they were therefore left, the most of them sick... a child died on the evening of this day. Friday, 7th Sept: A child died this morning. Saturday, 8th Sept: A child three years old died and was buried -- The chief We-wiss-sa came in with his family... himself sick. Sunday, 9th Sept: Physicians came into camp today, and reported three hundred cases of sickness... A child died to-day. ... The priest... asked and obtained leave to say mass.... A child died since dark. ...
112. AMINN1_140926_600.JPG: Removal President Andrew Jackson advocated deporting all Indians east of the Mississippi to the West. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 made this drastic plan law. To implement it, the government used treaties. Viewpoint: Native Nations: Native people east of the Mississippi knew their right to choose their own path was under attack. Some withdrew, some resisted, others adapted. By 1830, many Indians in the East had become farmers who raised livestock and crops for market and practiced Christianity. It made no difference. The most prosperous tribes were the first to be deported to western lands. They objected strenuously and fought removal as long as they could. Viewpoint: United States: Among non-Indians, removal was also controversial. Public figures like Congressman Davy Crockett argued that it violated the law and honor of the United States. Advocates of removal had to make it look voluntary. They used a new kind of treaty: the removal treaty. To pressure Native leaders into signing, they tried persuasion, promises, bribes, threats, fraud, and coercion. The United States promised new land, education, economic help, and relocation aid in return for the Indians' ancestral land. When nothing convinced tribes to consent, soldiers forced them out.
113. AMINN1_140926_604.JPG: "What good man would prefer a country covered with forests and ranged by a few thousand savages to our extensive Republic, studded with cities, towns, and prosperous farms?" -- President Andrew Jackson, 1830
114. AMINN1_140926_607.JPG: "We are despoiled of our private possessions, the indefeasible property of individuals. We are stripped of every attribute of freedom and eligibility for legal self-defense. Our property may be plundered before our eyes; violence may be committed on our persons; even our lives may be taken away, and there is none to regard our complaint. We are denationalized; we are disenfranchised.... And this is effected by... treaty." -- John Ross (Cherokee), 1836
115. AMINN1_140926_614.JPG: Slaughter of the Bison: "The civilization of the Indian is impossible while the buffalo remains upon the plains," wrote Secretary of the Interior Columbus Delano in 1873. Elsewhere in America, Indian independence had crumbled after food sources were destroyed. On the Plains, that meant bison. In the late 1800s, hordes of hunters fanned out to slaughter the herds and sell the hides and bones. Army men like General Philip Sheridan applauded. "They are destroying the Indians' commissary," he said. "Let them kill, skin, and sell until the buffaloes are exterminated." Trail of the Hide Hunters, 1872 Thousands of buffalo hides were made into leather belts for running the machinery that powered the factories of the Industrial Revolution.
116. AMINN1_140926_618.JPG: "I love the land and the buffalo... Soldiers cut down my timber; they kill my buffalo; and when I see that, my heart feels like bursting... This is our country. We were happy... Then you came." -- Satanta (Kiowa), 1867
117. AMINN1_140926_625.JPG: 1851 The California Unratified Treaties Protecting the Settlers, 1861 J. Ross Browne from Harper's New Monthly Magazine This sarcastically titled engraving shows a massacre at an Indian village in the Nome Cult Valley in 1858-59. Vigilantes ranged California in search of Native victims. As late as 1870, some communities still offered bounties for Indian scalps and heads.
118. AMINN1_140926_631.JPG: Land of the California Nations, ca 1848
119. AMINN1_140926_634.JPG: California and the Gold Region Direct
120. AMINN1_140926_641.JPG: Land: As bad as treaties could be, their absence was worse. The California story illustrates what happened when the treaty system broke down, leaving Indian people with no lands, no protection, and no rights. Viewpoint: Native Nations: Native Californians lived in small bands and villages that were politically independent but shared a close relationshipment to their diverse environment. They sustained one of the largest indigenous populations in North America. In 1769, the Spanish established a chain of missions to turn the Natives into Catholic agricultural laborers. Over the next eight years, disease killed two out of every three Native Californians. One traveler described graves covering the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. California was still home to about 150,000 Native people in 1848, the year gold was discovered. Viewpoint: United States: United States troops occupied California in 1846, during the Mexican War. They immediately issued orders restricting Indian movement, denying Indians the vote, and banning them from testifying in court against any white person. When gold was discovered, fortune hunters from across the country came to stake claims on Indian lands. In their search for riches, the newcomers disturbed the natural environment, depleted traditional food sources, and unleashed an orgy of frontier violence that upended the lives of California's Native Peoples.
121. AMINN1_140926_644.JPG: Joseph Sharp, 1849 By 1850, more than 300,000 gold seekers had come to California. Like Sharp, they were mostly young men between eighteen and thirty-five years old. They were Americans, California Natives, Cherokees, African Americans (free and enslaved), and immigrants from China and Europe.
122. AMINN1_140926_647.JPG: California Gold Diggers, c 1849-52 Among these miners on the Sacramento River are two Indians using a sifting basket, and a third pointing at a promising digging spot. In 1848, possibly half of the four thousand miners in the Sierra Nevada Mountains were Native Americans. Later, white prospectors forced them out.
123. AMINN1_140926_652.JPG: Negotiators: In eleven months between March 1851 and January 1852, three federal commissioners negotiated eighteen treaties that extinguished Indian claims to almost all of California west of the Sierra Nevada. Viewpoint: Native Nations: The Indian negotiators are not easy to identify. Because Native people were not informed in advance, commissioners arriving at a new location negotiated with whomever they could persuade or induce to assemble. Between 100 and 139 Native villages attended. But they did not all constitute tribes, and the treaty signers were not all chiefs. Whole villages spurned the commissioners' invitations. Translators were not always available for the myriad of tongues spoken in California. When they were, they struggled to find words for concepts like "land cessions" and "reservations." Viewpoint: United States: When the commissioners for the United States arrived in California, the governor told them that the state was prepared to "make war upon the [Indians] which must of necessity be one of extermination." The commissioners began to see their task as saving the Indians by separating them from a murderously hostile Anglo population. But did their best. Unfortunately, the US Senate had to ratify the treaties, and the state of California was determined to prevent that.
124. AMINN1_140926_653.JPG: Maidu leaders with treaty commissioners, 1851 We do not know the names of the Maidu leaders in this picture. The US commissioners are (left to right) Oliver M. Wozencraft, Redick McKee, and George W. Barbour.
125. AMINN1_140926_660.JPG: Oliver M. Wozencraft, ca 1850-60s One of three officials who negotiated treaties with California Indians, Wozencraft protested that the Indians "have been treated in a manner, were it recorded would blot the darkest page of history that has yet been penned."
126. AMINN1_140926_662.JPG: Peter Hardeman Burnett, ca 1860 California's first governor, Burnett opposed all rights for non-white people. "That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races, until the Indian race becomes extinct, must be expected," he told the legislature in 1851.
127. AMINN1_140926_665.JPG: Act for the Government and Protection of Indians, 1850 This California law legalized the forced adoption and sale of Indian children as well as the involuntary servitude of Indian men and women. As many as ten thousand Indians may have been indentured or sold between 1850 and 1863.
128. AMINN1_140926_671.JPG: "It will be indispensably necessary that the Indians should be protected from those claiming to be civilized beings." -- US treaty commissioner O.M. Wozencraft, 1851
129. AMINN1_140926_674.JPG: Treaties The treaties Native Californians signed in 1851-52 provided eighteen reservations (about 11,700 square miles, one-seventh of California) as homelands for indigenous people -- leading to an outbreak of violence against them. Anglo-Californians mounted a campaign against the treaties. The US Senate gave in, and put the treaties under an order of secrecy to conceal the fact that they ever existed. Non-Indian Californians unleashed a reign of terror against Native Peoples. "If that tale... could be impartially related," said one army man in 1852, "it would be a picture of cruelty, injustice, and horror scarcely to be surpassed by that of the Peruvians in the time of Pizzaro." At least 4,500 California Natives perished in anti-Indian violence between 1848 and 1880. Some families fled to small military reservations established by the federal government. "I am very old... My people were once around me like the sands of the shore... many... many. They have all passed away. They have died like the grass... I do not complain, the antelope falls with the arrow. I had a son. I loved him... I do not know where he is... I am alone." -- Unidentified Native Californian from Dolores Mission, ca 1850
130. AMINN1_140926_680.JPG: "It is a mercy to the red devils to exterminate them, and a saving of many white lives. Treaties are played out -- there is one kind of treaty that is effective -- cold lead." -- Chico Courant newspaper, 1866
131. AMINN1_140926_687.JPG: California Unratified Indian Reservations, 1851-52
132. AMINN1_140926_690.JPG: Bond of the State of California for War Indebtedness, c 1853-62
133. AMINN1_140926_694.JPG: Aftermath: The US Senate concealed the eighteen California treaties for fifty years. When they were finally made public in 1905, California Indians discovered what had been promised to them. They sued for compensation in 1928. It took until 1944 for the case to be decided. The court awarded the Indians $5,025,000 for all they had lost. Later, in a great historical irony, the Cabazon and Morongo bands of Mission Indians won a landmark lawsuit before the US Supreme Court. It gave them the right to operate a casino on a reservation established in 1876. The decision gave not only California Nations, but also those all across the United States, the right to conduct gaming free of regulation by the states. In this way, they too struck gold.
134. AMINN1_140926_701.JPG: Disease, malnutrition, labor exploitation, homicide, and migration eroded the Native California population from about 150,000 in 1848 to 15,377 in 1900 -- a 90 percent decline. Numbers rebounded in the 1900s through higher birth rates and migration from the other states. By 2000, more than 330,000 Native people lived in California.
135. AMINN1_140926_705.JPG: Success or Failure Depends on Indians, ca 1932-33 Ransom Randolf Clark In 1905, the Senate removed the order of secrecy that kept the eighteen California treaties concealed. This political cartoon shows Uncle Sam haunted by the ghost of his past misdeeds.
136. AMINN1_140926_709.JPG: Agua Caliente Casino, 2013 California tribes opened the door to economic self-sufficiency for many Native Nations by fighting the state of California all the way to the Supreme Court for gaming rights.
137. AMINN1_140926_712.JPG: 1868 The Navajo Treaty
138. AMINN1_140926_719.JPG: Land: In 1868, the Navajo became the only Native Nation to use a treaty to escape removal and return to their home. Viewpoint: Navajo: The Navajo call themselves the Dine, or "The People." In the beginning, tradition says, they emerged from the lower worlds into the place called Dinetah. The Holy People created four sacred mountains to mark the borders of their homeland. Within these boundaries, the Dine lived by a philosophy called sa'ah naaghai bik'eh hozhoon, "everlasting and beautiful living." For years, the Navajo defended their land against Mexican and New Mexican slave traders and livestock raiders. In 1848, the US Army arrived. Clashes between the army and the Navajo followed. Viewpoint: United States: The United States sent Brigadier General James H. Carleton to subdue the Navajo in 1862. He ordered Colonel Christopher "Kit" Carson to destroy sheep herds, corn fields, peach orchards, and homes. Between 1863 and 1866, the army marched about 11,500 Dine people 400 miles to a desolate reservation at Bosque Redondo in New Mexico. Even though the army had declared it unfit for a post because the dry soil supported nothing but mesquite, cactus, and drama grass, Carleton chose Bosque Redondo as a reservation for the Navajo and Mescalero Apache. The Navajo called Bosque Redondo Hweeldi, which means "stripping away."
139. AMINN1_140926_727.JPG: Say to them, "Go to Bosque Redondo, or we will pursue and destroy you. We will not make peace with you and any other terms... This war will be pursued against you... until you cease to exist or move." -- General James H. Carleton's orders to Colonel Kit Carson, 1863
140. AMINN1_140926_730.JPG: Navajo Lands and the Long Walk, 1863-66
141. AMINN1_140926_740.JPG: Navajos waiting for ration tickets at Bosque Redondo, c 1864-68 The desert at Bosque Redondo never produced crops, and the formerly self-supporting Navajo faced starvation. The government spent $1.5 million a year to feed them. It was not enough. An Indian agent reported, "They eat their rations in two days, and during the other three days they suffer, eating hides, and begging wherever they can." Navajo captives under guard at Ft. Sumner, ca 1864-68 Fort Sumner was the US Army installation built to guard the prison camp at Bosque Redondo. The Navajo leader Barboncito said of it, "This land does not like us neither does the water."
142. AMINN1_140926_742.JPG: Colonel Christopher H. "Kit" Carson, c 1860-75 A former fur trapper and Indian agent, Carson expressed serious doubts about General Carleton's ruthless orders, but carried them out anyway. He used scorched-earth tactics to destroy Navajo sources of food and shelter. They were starved into surrendering.
143. AMINN1_140926_745.JPG: Brevet Brigadier General James H. Carleton, c 1864-66 Critics accused Carleton of war crimes against the Navajo. His rigid insistence on moving them to Bosque Redondo cost the War Department about $10 million. For that he was relieved of his command in 1866.
144. AMINN1_140926_748.JPG: Dine (Navajo) cross pendant, c 1880s Kit Carson obtained this cross from a Dine silversmith as a gift for his wife. The Dine learned to work silver in the mid-1800s, but did not begin to set turquoise into their silverwork until the 1880s.
145. AMINN1_140926_754.JPG: Barboncito, ca 1869 Photo by Valentine Wolfenstein As much a spiritual as a military leader, Barboncito had tried to negotiate an alliance between the Navajo and United States, but eventually turned against the Americans. He was removed to Bosque Redondo in 1864, but escaped. He was deported there a second time in 1866.
146. AMINN1_140926_758.JPG: Negotiators: By 1868, it was clear that the desolate Bosque Redondo reservation was a failure. Two federal commissioners came to persuade the Navajo to move to Indian Territory. Viewpoint: Navajo: The Navajo leaders were Manuelito and Barboncito, both warriors. "In Navajo, a warrior says what is in the people's hearts," said Bighorse, who rode with Manuelito. He "talks about what the land means to them. Brings them together to fight for it." The tall, powerful Manuelito has held out longer than any other Navajo leader. "It will shed my blood on my own land," he said. Barboncito was small and tough, with spiritual power. Before the treaty, he performed a ceremony called the Ma'ii Bizee'nast'a (Put Bead in Coyote's Mouth). Afterward, he predicted, "We'll be set free." Viewpoint: United States: The main US negotiator was General William Tecumseh Sherman, famous for his ruthlessness in the Civil War. After Appomattox, he was put in charge of the western army. Sherman's stated policy was that all Indians not on reservations "are hostile and will remain so till killed off." Sick of war but skeptical of peace, he wanted the Navajo to move to Oklahoma to avoid further conflict with non-Indian newcomers. He was authorized to offer them cattle, seed, schools, and other inducements. If those failed, he had soldiers.
147. AMINN1_140926_762.JPG: Manuelito, ca 1882 Manuelito (Hastin Ch'ilhaajini) led nearly 1,000 Navajo fighters in an attack on Fort Defiance, Arizona, in 1860. During the Navajo removal, he led a band that eluded capture for three years and became a symbol of resistance. Manuelito surrendered in 1866, and was marched through Santa Fe on the way to Bosque Redondo. Juanita, wife of Manuelito, 1874 Photo by Charles M. Bell Oral history credits Juanta (Asdzaa Ti'ogi) and other Dine women with the success of the treaty of 1868. As medicine man Pete Price told it, "After the men of the tribe had failed, the women went to the white men, cried and pleaded to be allowed to go back to their home in the west. The women were successful and the people returned to their country."
148. AMINN1_140926_766.JPG: Major General William Tecumseh Sherman, 1865 Photo by Mathew Brady "War is hell," Sherman was famous for saying. Though a member of the Indian Peace Commission, he was skeptical of its mission, which he called "a humbug."
149. AMINN1_140926_770.JPG: Treaty: Even the tough, skeptical General Sherman was touched by the Navajos' strong yearning for their homeland... and relented. In an eloquent opening speech, Barboncito told Sherman: "Our Grand-fathers had no idea of living in any other country except our own and I do not think it right for us to do so... Our God... created it specially for us." When Sherman praised Indian Territory, Barboncito answered: "I hope to God you will not ask me to go to any other country except my own." The longing of Navajo people for their country was too strong for Sherman. "You are right," he said. "All people love the country where they were born and raised." He agreed to let the Dine return to a portion of their homeland. That summer, the Dinne walked back home. Though 8,570 had been incarcerated, only 7,300 returned.
150. AMINN1_140926_776.JPG: Navajo delegation, 1874 Photo by Charles M. Bell This photo was taken when Juanita and Manuelito (seated in middle) led a delegation to ask President Ulysses S. Grant to restore land left out of their reservation in 1868. They were unsuccessful.
151. AMINN1_140926_780.JPG: "After we go back to our country it will brighten up again and the Navajos will be as happy as the land, black clouds will rise and there will be plenty of rain. Corn will grow in abundance and everything look happy." -- Barboncito, 1868
152. AMINN1_140926_783.JPG: Aftermath: The Navajo returned to a reservation that was a quarter of their original lands, and started over from scratch. Over the years, they negotiated and brought back so much surrounding land that today the Navajo Nation has the largest land base, and the second-largest population, of any US Indian Nation. The Navajo still commemorate the treaty, which they call Naal Tsoos Sani, or "Old Paper." "From the Navajo perspective," writes Dine historian Jennifer Denetdale, "the treaty reflects the foundation of the US-Navajo relationship. The Navajo people trust that the United States will fulfill its legal and moral oligations under the treaty."
153. AMINN1_140926_787.JPG: Navajo Lands, 1868-2014 Original Navajo Reservation -- Created by 1868 treaty Navajo Nation Today -- Land added since 1868
154. AMINN1_140926_791.JPG: "Civilization" -- The Assault on Indian Nationhood
155. AMINN1_140926_795.JPG: In 1871, the US Congress decided to deal with Indians by executive orders and acts of Congress under a new policy: forced assimilation of Indian people, which it called "civilization." Viewpoint: Native Nations: Indian Peoples never thought of themselves as uncivilized. They had governments, religions, and social systems, and they wanted to stay civilized in their own way. Some defied US policies. Many more showed outward compliance but preserved their cultures in secret. Other sought to blend in but felt inauthentic. Luther Standing Bear (Lakota) said he felt like "an imitation of a white man." Nevertheless, by 1900 whole tribes, languages, and cultured had been wiped out. The Indian population sank to a low of 250,000. Viewpoint: United States: The United States summarized its pragmatic new Indian policy: "It costs less to civilize than to kill." Even well-meaning advocates of American Indians believed that the modern world had no room for Native Nations. The rights of Indian sovereignty could scarcely be imagined by policy makers of the time. They believed that Native Nations had to be absorbed into an American notion of civilization at whatever cost. TO break down Indian resistance, officials used ruthless methods.
156. AMINN1_140926_798.JPG: Chiricahua Apache children upon arrival at Carlisle Indian School, 1886 Chiricahua Apache children four months after arriving at Carlisle, 1887 Photos by J.N. Choate Boarding school promoters took before-and-after shots to publicize their progress at transforming Indian children. The children's expressions told a counterstory.
157. AMINN1_140926_802.JPG: Students on the Carlisle Indian Industrial School grounds, 1884 Photo by JN Choate The Carlisle boarding school used military discipline, uniforms, hierarchy, and conformity to train children in non-Indian culture. It taught reading, writing, Christianity, and vocational skills -- farming and trades for boys, sewing and cooking for girls.
158. AMINN1_140926_807.JPG: "The surest way to kill a race is to kill its religion and its ideals... This is to kill the souls of a people. And when the spirit is killed, what remains?" -- Frederick Peso (Mescalero Apache), ca 1976
159. AMINN1_140926_813.JPG: Boarding Schools: "Kill the Indian, save the man" was the motto of Richard Henry Pratt, the most prominent Indian educator of the late 1800s. Progressive reformers like Pratt believed it was essential to get Indian children away from their families and nations in order to prevent parents from raising the children in their own cultures. So the reformers founded boarding schools where children could be isolated from Indian languages, values, and traditions. Cultural erasure was the stated goal.
160. AMINN1_140926_814.JPG: Government School, Pine Ridge Agency, South Dakota, 1891 Photo by WR Cross Families longing to be near their children camped on tipis outside this boarding school. Schools built on reservations enrolled 8,000 students by 1900.
161. AMINN1_140926_822.JPG: "The soldiers came and rounded up.... the Blackfeet children... None of us wanted to go and our parents didn't want to let us go... Our belongings were taken from us... and set afire. Next was the long hair, the pride of all Indians. The boys... would break down and cry when they saw their braids thrown on the floor." -- Lone Wolf (Blackfoot), ca 1969
162. AMINN1_140926_833.JPG: "Civilization" Regulations: "The chief duty of an agent is to induce his Indians to labor in civilized pursuits," said the 1884 Regulations of the Indian Department. The government established a set of "Indian offenses" for which people could be tried in court and jailed. They practicing traditional religion, ceremonial dancing, and giving away belongings at a funeral. Adherence to these "civilization" rules was enforced by harsh punishments and a system of justice in which Indian people had no appeal or recourse. Indians petitioned the legislative and judicial branches of the federal government to challenge their oppression. Congress and the courts turned their backs.
163. AMINN1_140926_836.JPG: Horse pulling a plow guided by an Apache man, 1903 Government-mandated "civilization" for Indians meant earning a living by farming, even though fewer and fewer non-Indians supported themselves that way.
164. AMINN1_140926_839.JPG: Confined to the Reservation: Reservations -- lands originally set aside for the use of Indian Nations -- became virtual prisons, ruled with autocratic authority by federal government agents. "Agents.... must confine their [Indians'] movements wholly within the limits of their respective reservation," said the Civilization Regulations. "Under no pretext must they leave the same without a special permit." Forbidden to leave a place where earning a living was hard, Indian people became dependent on the government for food.
165. AMINN1_140926_843.JPG: Breaking Up the Reservations
166. AMINN1_140926_846.JPG: "It is peculiar and strange to me [that] ... you have not... one law that permits us to think free, act free, expand free, and to decide free without first having to go and ask... the Secretary of the Interior." -- Robert Yellowtail (Crow) to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, 1919
167. AMINN1_140926_852.JPG: Breaking Up the Reservations: In the 1880s, "friends of the Indian" decided that tribally held land was holding Indians back. Private property, they thought, was key to fostering self-sufficiency and would induce Indians to give up their communal ways. The General Allotment Act of 1887 gave the federal government the power to break up reservations and allot land to private owners. After each Indian received land, the "surplus" would be sold to non-Indians. "The General Allotment Act is a mighty pulverizing engine to break up the tribal mass," wrote President Theodore Roosevelt in 1901.
168. AMINN1_140926_853.JPG: Effects of Allotment on Part of the Crow Reservation, 2005
169. AMINN1_140926_856.JPG: Indian Land for Sale poster, 1910 While the allotment act was intended to make Native people private property owners, Indian landholdings fell from 138 to 48 million acres while it was in force (1887-1934). Many reservations today are a patchwork of land privately owned by Indians, land kept in trust by the government, land privately owned or leased by non-Indians, and land owned by tribes.
170. AMINN1_140926_859.JPG: Scene of allotment drawing, El Reno, Oklahoma, 1901 Sales of reservation land, like this one in Oklahoma, created land rushes as non-Indians crowded in to get a share.
171. AMINN1_140926_865.JPG: Mila Hanska Tashunke Icu or American Horse (Olgala) giving information to allotment officer, 1907 Photo by Edward Truman The law required Indians to be "competent" -- assimilated and self-supporting -- before they could own land outright. People who still honored their traditions, like Mila Hanska Tashunke Icu, generally held land with the government as trustee.
172. AMINN1_140926_871.JPG: Crazy Snake Indians in the old jail in Muscogee, 1901 Photo by Allison Aylesworth The United States sent the Eighth US Cavalry to arrest Chitto Harjo for resistance to allotment, and he served nine months in prison. Eight years later, a local posse attacked his followers, and a gun battle resulted. United States marshals went to arrest Harjo, but he escaped and was never found.
173. AMINN1_140926_878.JPG: Crazy Snake (Chitto Harjo) and his band, 1901 Harjo, whose Native name was Magically Brave Snake, was commonly referred to as Crazy Snake. He led a movement to resist efforts to dissolve the Muscogee Nation and allot its land to individuals. He told a Senate committee: "This land... was given to me and my people, and we paid for it with out land back in Alabama."
174. AMINN2_140926_009.JPG: Great Nations Keep Their Word
175. AMINN2_140926_017.JPG: In the late 1900s, Indians began using treaties as powerful tools to turn the tables and demand a return to the balanced, Two-Row way. Viewpoint: Native Nations: Indian people who lived through the long nightmare of removal, allotment, and forced assimilation never gave up on treaty rights. Treaties, though broken and abused by the United States, still had the force of law. Native Nations pursued justice through every available channel: activism, the courts, and Congress. They argued that the national sovereignty recognized in treaties empowered them to seize control of their own destinies and thrive. But gaining this control took persistence, resolve, and good lawyers. Viewpoint: United States: The United States in the twentieth century careened between policies intended to break up Native Nations and policies intended to make amends. In the 1930s, the Roosevelt administration opted the "Indian New Deal," which suggested pathways to tribal self-government. From the 1940s through the 1960s, Congress adopted a policy called "termination," which aimed to end the unique status of Indian Nations. In the 1960s, public opinion shifted again. A new openness toward human rights created an opportunity for Native Nations to take control of their futures.
176. AMINN2_140926_020.JPG: We Never Gave Up
177. AMINN2_140926_024.JPG: We Never Gave Up: Generation after generation of Indian leaders traveled to Washington DC to represent the interests of their nations. They came to insist on their rights, point out grievances, and remind successive administrations that the United States had nation-to-nation treaty obligations.
178. AMINN2_140926_027.JPG: Activists: In the 1960s, young Indian leaders with intellectual vigor, a new political agenda, and activist strategies emerged. They wanted to reinstate the idea of the Two-Row Wampum: coexistence as separate, independent peoples.
179. AMINN2_140926_030.JPG: Termination: Turning Point: The threat of termination galvanized Native people to defend their status as separate nations. Congress called its policy toward American Indians from the 1940s through the 1960s "termination." The goal was to end recognition of Native Nations. Termination meant loss of land and the end of tribal governance. The resistance of Native people brought a sweeping victory in 1970. In a historic message to Congress, President Richard Nixon rejected termination and called on legislators to make tribal self-determination US policy. He advocated "a new era in which the Indian future is determined by Indian acts and Indian decisions." After this turning point, Native Nations demanded a return to a consent-based relationship with the United States.
180. AMINN2_140926_041.JPG: Terminated Tribes and Bands, 1953-64
181. AMINN2_140926_044.JPG: "Reservations do not imprison us. They are our ancestral homelands, retained by us for our perpetual use and enjoyment. We feel we must assert our right to maintain ownership in our own way, and to terminate it only by our consent." -- Declaration of Indian Rights, 1954
182. AMINN2_140926_047.JPG: 1945-today: The Salmon Wars
183. AMINN2_140926_050.JPG: Land: The long struggle of traditional salmon fishers in Puget Sound demonstrates how Native Peoples achieved recognition of treaty rights against stiff opposition. Their story achieved national recognition. Viewpoint: Native Nations: Throughout the Pacific Northwest and Great Lakes, fishing was critical to survival and cultural identity. In treaties that gave up land, farsighted Indian leaders had reserved the rights to fish, hunt, and gather on ceded land forever. A century later, their descendants faced competition from commercial fisheries. States routinely violated treaties by enforcing game laws on Native people. Fishing tribes were forced to defend their rights. "I spent thirty years on the tribal government fighting for rights that was supposed to be guaranteed," said Willy Jones Sr. (Lummi). Viewpoint: The States: All across America, development and environmental change had depleted natural resources. States enacted conservation laws to protect wildlife and fish. In Puget Sound, the state of Washington enforced those laws against Indian fishermen in spite of treaties that guaranteed access to age-old fishing places. Commercial fishing companies and non-Indian sport fishermen argued that treaties gave Indians unfair advantages. They claimed that Indian fishermen would deplete the supply for everyone else.
184. AMINN2_140926_053.JPG: Chief Leschi, ca 1855 Leschi, a Nisqually chief, refused to sign the Medicine Creek Treaty. In 1855-56, he led about three hundred warriors in an armed effort to expel intruders from their land. Betrayed by two of his men, he was captured, tried, and hanged. In 2004, the Washington state legislature reversed his conviction.
185. AMINN2_140926_057.JPG: Puget Sound Nations, ca 1970
186. AMINN2_140926_063.JPG: "My dad was a fisherman, my grandfather was a fisherman... I am a fisherman. I'm teaching my boys how to fish so that's part of our heritage. It's in our blood and it will never go away." -- Merle Jefferson (Lummi), 2009
187. AMINN2_140926_066.JPG: "One of the continuing themes that the majority culture never wants to hear is that the Indians want to be Indians." -- Ada Deer (Menominee), 1984
188. AMINN2_140926_070.JPG: Negotiators: Inspired by the civil rights movement, Puget Sound Indian fishermen began staging protests called "fish-ins" in the 1960s -- a strategy that produced widespread publicity. Viewpoint: Native Nations: Traditional fishermen were backed by their Native Nations, Indian activists, celebrity supporters, and civil rights organizations. But success hinged on the nations' ability to enlist the federal government in their defense. The tribes argued that state game laws could not overturn the federal treaties that guaranteed their right to fish. The Justice Department agreed, and filed the lawsuit United States v. Washington. For the federal government, the case was about federal vs. state jurisdiction. For the tribes, it was about sovereignty. For the fishermen, it was about their livelihoods and identity. Viewpoint: The States: The state of Washington argued for states' rights against the tribal and federal governments. Sport and commercial fishermen backed the state. The state asserted its right to conserve and manage natural resources by imposing licenses, seasons, catch limits, trespass laws, and other controls on everyone. Sport and commercial fishermen argued that the Indians were unfairly demanding special rights no one else enjoyed, and that Indians would irresponsibly deplete the fish.
189. AMINN2_140926_074.JPG: Sport fishermen competing in a fishing derby, Tulalip, Washington, ca 1929-32 Sport fishermen's organizations controlled the state agency set up to regulate them, the Department of Game. When they objected to Indians being exempt from state game laws, the state cracked down on the Indians.
190. AMINN2_140926_079.JPG: Scow load of salmon taken by commercial fishers on Puget Sound, n.d. Commercial fishermen claimed that the Indians depleted the fish. In fact, many Native Nations had already imposed seasons and limits on their citizens.
191. AMINN2_140926_089.JPG: Actor Marlon Brando just before his arrest during a fish-in, 1964 Celebrity supporters brought media attention and public awareness. On this occasion, Brando was quoted as saying: "Christ Almighty, look at what we did in the name of democracy to the American Indian ... We had four hundred treaties with the Indians and we broke every one of them."
192. AMINN2_140926_092.JPG: Treaty Beer can, ca 1980s In the 1980s, two Wisconsin businessmen marketed "Treaty Beer" to sport fishermen and hunters around Puget Sound and the Great Lakes as a protest against fishing and hunting rights guaranteed to Indians by treaty.
193. AMINN2_140926_097.JPG: Court Decision
194. AMINN2_140926_101.JPG: Court Decision: The case of the Puget Sound fishermen ended up in the courtroom of George H. Boldt, a conservative, no-nonsense judge. It took him four years to study the case. In 1974, Boldt handed down a landmark decision, finding for the Indians on every major point. The ruling set off a furious backlash. "The fishing issue was to Washington state what busing was to the East," wrote Congressman Lloyd Meeds. "It was frightening, very, very emotional." Nevertheless, higher courts affirmed the decision. It had been hailed as one of the most significant rulings on treaty law in the twentieth century.
195. AMINN2_140926_106.JPG: Aftermath: The Boldt decision in favor of the Indians had national repercussions and contributed to a renaissance of tribal identity. In Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, Ojibwa people adopted the same tactics as the Puget Sound fishermen and won their own series of court cases. "Once treaty right harvests have begun," said Curt Kalk of the Mille Lacs Band, "people start to see a little bit more of the comaraderie, the closeness to taking care of the resource." Today, Puget Sound fisheries are managed by a cooperative system in which federal, tribal, and state governments share control. Tribes on the Columbia River and Great Lakes follow this regional model. Indian organizations have become strong conservationists. But their struggle is not over.
196. AMINN2_140926_109.JPG: Anishinaabe Fishing Rights, 2013 by David Bradley Bradley is respected as both an activist and an artist. His artworks are often commentaries on issues affecting Anishinaabe people -- the Ojibwa of the Great Lakes who are still defending their treaty-guaranteed fishing rights.
197. AMINN2_140926_115.JPG: Changing Washington: In the 1970s, Indian organizations adopted a comprehensive legal and political strategy to bring about change in Washington DC. Viewpoint: Native Legislative Strategy: The political strategy acknowledged that to effect real change, Native Nations had to go to Congress and the president. Between 1970 and 1990, often with the help of executive agencies and the White House, Native people persuaded Congress to pass more significant Indian legislation than during any comparable period in American history. These laws reaffirmed and updated many treaty rights, and added new ones. Native Nations now manage their jobs, pass laws and enforce them, tax residents, regulate business, and provide services for their people. They maintain a nation-to-nation relationship with the United States. Viewpoint: Native Legal Strategy: The legal strategy relied on lawyers specializing in the complexities of Indian law. The Native Nations' legal advocates selected test cases that presented the issues most clearly. In a critical case that came to the Supreme Court in 1973, Justice Thurgood Marshall relied on an 1932 decision by John Marshall that had defined tribes as sovereign nations. The case clarified that in the United States there are three types of ruling authority -- the federal government, states, and Indian tribes -- and it set the scene for a flood of favorable court decisions.
198. AMINN2_140926_118.JPG: "A treaty, including one between the United States and an Indian tribe, is essentially a contract between two sovereign nations.... this Court has long given special meaning to this rule... '(The) treaty must... be construed (as it) would naturally be understood by the Indians.' " -- Justice John Paul Stevens, 1979
199. AMINN2_140926_122.JPG: United States Supreme Court, 1972: The Court handed down sixty-five Indian law decisions between 1970 and 1985 -- more than in any other period in American history. The decisions often upheld the continuing validity of treaties and the sovereignty of Native Nations. They established that treaties have no expiration date and are to be interpreted as the Indian people understood them.
200. AMINN2_140926_134.JPG: Gavel, 1995 The National Indian Health Board presented this gavel to Senator Daniel K. Inouye in 1995. As the chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, Inouye became one of the strongest allies of Native Nations in Congress.
201. AMINN2_140926_145.JPG: Senator Daniel K. Inouye addressing a joint hearing of the Senate Ways and Means Appropriation Committee, 1989 Inouye, a Japanese American from Hawai'i, was the first non-white person to chair the Senate Indian Affairs Committee. Here, he is urging lawmakers to accept a settlement in a Puyallup Indian land claim.
202. AMINN2_140926_150.JPG: "We are not going to move any place... My people are going to live there until the Creator changes the world and we would like to have our treaty protected.... My people are still growing as long as the sun is going." -- Watson Totus (Yakama), 1964
203. AMINN2_140926_153.JPG: 1975: Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act
204. AMINN2_140926_156.JPG: 1978: Indian Child Welfare Act
205. AMINN2_140926_159.JPG: 1978: American Indian Religious Freedom Act
206. AMINN2_140926_163.JPG: 1988: Indian Gaming Regulatory Act
207. AMINN2_140926_167.JPG: Agua Caliente Casino deck of cards and casino chips, 2013 The Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that states could not regulate gaming on tribal land. Justice Byron White wrote, "Tribal sovereignty is dependent on, and subordinate to, only the Federal Government, not the States." The decision was a ringing endorsement of Native sovereignty. In 1988, Congress passed a statute that allowed some state participation in the regulation of the industry.
208. AMINN2_140926_175.JPG: 1990: Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)
209. AMINN2_140926_178.JPG: Sovereignty: The Two-Row Solution: Native Nations are still working to bring their relationship with the United States back in line with the principle of co-equals traveling side by side. Tribal governments work hand in hand with the federal government to administer programs affecting their citizens' welfare. Indian Nations have become key parts of the national regulatory programs and social services delivery systems. Indian national sovereignty has always existed. Treaties oblige the United States to recognize and respect that sovereignty. While many treaty promises remain unfulfilled, the principle of sovereignty makes treaties vital to Indian life today. Governing a Nation: Indian Nations have many of the same powers and obligations as states and other governments within the United States. These photos illustrate how Indian Nations enforce laws, provide schools, offer health care and job training, manage natural resources, and run tribally owned businesses.
210. AMINN2_140926_184.JPG: Most Americans Live on Treaty Land: Every treaty in United States history has a story as complicated and tragic as the small sample shown in this exhibition. These stories are not finished. The US Senate ratified more than 370 Indian treaties. About 250 more executive orders and acts of Congress took the form of treaties. Nearly every part of the country outside the original thirteen colonies is affected by a treaty made by the United States. Every American today has inherited the rights and obligations made in their government's treaties.
211. AMINN2_140926_190.JPG: "We believe in the inherent right of all people to retain spiritual and cultural values, and that the free exercise of these values is necessary to the normal development of any people." -- Declaration of Indian Purpose, 1961
212. AMINN2_140926_193.JPG: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, 1971 Dee Brown This history of US betrayals and injustices against American Indians was published as public interest in Native issues was growing. Written by a non-Indian historian, its stark facts and tone of outrage made it influential among Native activists and their audiences.
213. AMINN2_140926_197.JPG: Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, 1969 Vine Deloria, Jr. This book became an instant classic. With biting wit and serious argument, Deloria presented the case of American Indians to mainstream readers. He followed it with more than twenty books.
214. AMINN2_140926_207.JPG: The Struggle Continues: The Two-Row Wampum represents an ideal: separate nations moving forward together, independent but in harmony. In the past forty years, the relationship between the United States and Native Nations has been repaired and rebuilt with this ideal in sight. But the healing with last only as long as the principle of good-faith diplomacy between honorable nations prevails.
215. AMINN2_140926_210.JPG: "From the earliest days of the United States as a small, beleaguered nation to a moment of global near consensus, the longstanding integrity of Treaties has been paramount. While the path of honoring Treaties has hardly been easy, and often resulted in tragic consequences, the United States and Native Nations maintain their Treaty relationship of peace and friendship." -- Suzan Shown Harjo, 2013
216. AMINN2_140926_213.JPG: Shan Goshorn Pierced Treaty: Spider's Web Treaty Basket, 2007 This basket evokes the continual renegotiation of agreements with Native Nations. Intentionally unfinished, it is handwoven in a traditional Cherokee design called Spider's Web. It is made from paper printed with text from the Oklahoma and Cherokee Nation Tobacco Compact, which has been in contention for decades.
217. AMINN2_140926_227.JPG: "Great Nations, like great men, should keep their word." -- US Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, 1960
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