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Alice

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Policy and Laws

What is the Allotment Act?

The General Allotment Act of 1887 (The Dawes Act) provided that the president, at his discretion, could allot (divide up) reservation land to Indians, with the title to be held in trust by the United States for twenty-five years. This law mandated the conversion of Indian lands that tribes previously held in common into small parcels open to individual ownership. It granted that full citizenship for Indians would accompany the allotment, and conferred citizenship upon two classes of Indians born within the limits of the United States: Indians to whom land allotments were made and Indians who had voluntarily taken up residence separate from any Indian tribe and who adopted the "habits of civilized life." Besides these two categories of Indians, Indian women who married citizens could become citizens beginning in 1880, and under the Act of November 1919, Congress made all Indian veterans who served in World War I U.S. citizens.

When were Native Americans granted U.S. citizenship?

Under the Indian Citizen Act (1924), all Indians born in the United States were declared citizens of the United States. By then, two-thirds of Indian people (women who married U.S. citizens, for example) had gained citizenship through laws enacted during the previous fifty years, such as the Allotment Act.

What is the Indian Reorganization Act?

In 1934, Congress passed the Wheeler-Howard Act (Indian Reorganization Act) to secure rights for Native Americans on reservations, ending the policy of allotment. Its main provisions were to restore to Native Americans management of their assets (mostly land), to prevent further depletion of reservations' resources, to build a sound economic foundation for Indian people on reservations, and to return local self-government to Native American tribes.

What is the American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978?

This act states the policy of the United States to "protect and preserve for American Indians their inherent right of freedom to believe, express, and exercise the traditional religions of the American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut, and Native Hawaiians, including but not limited to access to sites, use and possession of sacred objects, and the freedom to worship through ceremonial and traditional rites." The American Indian Religious Freedom Act is an important legal protection for Native rights to religious expression.

What is the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)?

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990), or NAGPRA, is a federal law that provides a process for museums and federal agencies to return certain Native American cultural items, human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony to lineal descendants, culturally affiliated Indian tribes, and Native Hawaiian organizations. It empowers tribes to claim their human remains and cultural items from federal collections and non-Smithsonian museums.

How and why are Native arts protected?

The Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 is a truth-in-advertising law that prohibits misrepresentation in the marketing of Indian arts and craft products within the United States. It makes it illegal to offer, display for sale, or sell any art or craft product "in a manner that falsely suggests it is Indian produced, an Indian product, or the product of a particular Indian or Indian tribe or Indian arts and craft organization, resident within the United States."

What is the Canadian Indian Act of 1876?

This is the Canadian federal legislation, first passed in 1876, that sets out certain federal government obligations and regulates the management of Indian reserved lands. The act has been amended several times, most recently in 1985. The Canadian constitution recognizes three groups of aboriginal people-Indian, Métis, and Inuit.

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Native Knowledge 360° | Frequently Asked Questions

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Native Knowledge 360° is the National Museum of the American Indian's national initiative to inspire and promote improvement of teaching and learning about American Indians. Check out the answers to some of the most frequently asked questions by educators and students at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian.

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The earliest native settlers, according to archeologists, were about 13,000 years ago. How did they get to North America?

It is believed that a massive glacial movement caused the sea level to drop, and the land then connected Alaska and Siberia across the Bering Sea.

There began a migration of Siberian and Asian people across the Bering land bridge. These people were searching for herds of animals which they depended on for their existence.

With advances in DNA analysis, scientists have connected the ancestry of Native Americans to various Asian populations.

Today, there is a general agreement that that the first migration involved Siberian and Asian people crossing the land bridge into what is now Alaska.

As they followed the various herds, and over thousands of years, they moved down the coast of North America and into the central plains.

First Settlers

The original settlers in any country are called indigenous peoples. One of the indigenous people of North America is the Native Americans.

When Christopher Columbus first landed in what is now America, he thought he and his crew had landed in India.

He called the indigenous people he met in 1492 Indians and that name was used for many years.

Today, we use the words Native Americans to describe the descendants of the indigenous people of North America.

The indigenous people traveled all over North America, Central and South America. In North America, they lived and traveled from Alaska to what is now the Mexican border and everywhere in between.

They lived in groups called tribes and each tribe had its own culture and language.

Different Tribes

Some tribes lived mostly in the central part of North America like the Comanche and the Arapaho. The Cherokee and the Seminole lived in the southeast part of North America.

Some other tribes throughout North America are: Eskimo in the Arctic areas; Plains Indians; Nez Percé in the NW coastal area; Pueblo in NE Arizona and NW New Mexico; Navajo in New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah; Apache in SW states, Sioux, Cherokee, Cree in the central plains, the Haida in the northern coastal area.

From what archeologists can surmise, there didn't appear to be a lot of fighting between the different tribes before the arrival of Christopher Columbus.

Each tribe claimed a little territory in which to live and find food. The tribes close to the coasts relied on fishing and trapping.

The tribes that were further inland followed the herds of bison, bear, reindeer, moose and elk and trapped smaller animals. The used the hides of animals for shelter and clothing.

After the arrival of the Europeans from Spain and other places, the tribes started to feel the impact of these new settlers and their dominating ways.

Things began to change and the tribes felt it was necessary to defend their lands and their way of life and some tribes became very warlike.

1. Where do archeologists believe the first people to arrive in North America came from?

2. How did they cross the Bering Sea?

3. What is an indigenous person?

4. What group of people settled in the Arctic?

5. Name 3 tribes that depended on fishing and trapping.

6. Bonus question! Can you name the very famous man below?

1. Archeologists believe the first people in North America came from Siberia and Asia.

2. There was a land bridge that connected Siberia to Alaska.

3. An indigenous person is a part of a population that was first to inhabit a land or country.

4. The group of indigenous people that inhabited the Arctic was the Eskimo.

Three tribes that inhabited the central part of North America were the Navajo, the Pueblo, and the Apache among others.

Explore Native America

History and Events

Native American Timeline

King Philip's War

The French & Indian / Seven Years' War

Battle of Little Bighorn

Trail of Tears

Wounded Knee Massacre

Native American Reservations

Native American Civil Rights
Culture and Way of Life

Agriculture & Food

Homes & Dwellings

Teepees, Longhouses & Pueblos

Roles of Men & Women

Social Structure

Life of a Child

Native American Tribes

Native American Groups & Societies

Apache Tribe

Blackfoot Nation, Siksika Tribe

Cherokee Tribe

Cheyenne Tribe

Chickasaw Tribe

Inuit Tribe

Iroquois Confederacy

Navajo Nation

Osage Nation

The Pueblo People

Seminole Nation

Sioux Nation
Native American People

Famous Native Americans

Crazy Horse

Chief Joseph

Sitting Bull

Maria Tallchief

Will Rogers

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Native American Facts - US History For Kids

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The earliest native settlers, according to archeologists, were about 13,000 years ago. How did they get to North America? It is believed that a massive glacial movement caused the sea level to drop, and the land then connected Alaska and Siberia across the Bering Sea.

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Books and Stories in Celebration of Native Americans, their voices, and their stories.

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Books and Stories in Celebration of Native Americans, their voices, and their stories.

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Megan

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The month is a time to celebrate rich and diverse cultures, traditions, and histories and to acknowledge the important contributions of Native people. Heritage Month is also an opportune time to educate the general public about tribes, to raise a general awareness about the unique challenges Native people have faced both historically and in the present, and the ways in which tribal citizens have worked to conquer these challenges.

National Congress of American Indians. Native American Heritage Month. Retrieved from http://www.ncai.org/initiatives/native-american-heritage-month.

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Research Guides: Celebrate Native American Heritage Month: Resources from Delta Library

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The month is a time to celebrate rich and diverse cultures, traditions, and histories and to acknowledge the important contributions of Native people. Heritage Month is also an opportune time to educate the general public about tribes, to raise a general awareness about the unique challenges Native people have faced both historically and in the present, and the ways in which tribal citizens have worked to conquer these challenges.

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Contains events, resources for teachers, and artwork

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Paying tribute to the rich ancestry and traditions of Native Americans.

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Lesson plan about comparing Native American Culture with Native American stereotypes

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Lesson plan about comparing Native American Culture with Native American stereotypes

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Native American Cultures Across the U.S.

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This lesson discusses the differences between common representations of Native Americans within the U.S. and a more differentiated view of historical and contemporary cultures of five American Indian tribes living in different geographical areas. Students will learn about customs and traditions such…

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Why Native Americans have Protested Mount Rushmore

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Why Native Americans have Protested Mount Rushmore

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Why Native Americans Have Protested Mount Rushmore | HISTORY

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While Mount Rushmore is considered a treasured historic site for some Americans, to Native Americans, it can represent a stinging history.

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Totem National Park - important place in my hometown

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Totem National Park - important place in my hometown

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Alice

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For Many Native Americans, Thanksgiving is a Day of Mourning

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For Many Native Americans, Thanksgiving is a Day of Mourning

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Alice

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For many Native Americans, Thanksgiving is a day of mourning

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The National Day of Mourning is a Thanksgiving counter-commemoration. Now in its 50th year, the custom involves a few hundred Native Americans and allies gathering near Plymouth Rock to consider the holiday from the perspective of Native Americans.

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Alice

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In this activity, students will explore the perspectives of two Native American authors about the meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday and then write journal entries.

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Interactive Time Lapse Map of Native land loss

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Interactive Time Lapse Map of Native land loss

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Alice

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This interactive map, produced by University of Georgia historian Claudio Saunt to accompany his new book West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776, offers a time-lapse vision of the transfer of Indian land between 1776 and 1887. As blue "Indian homelands" disappear, small red areas appear, indicating the establishment of reservations. (Above is a GIF of the map's time-lapse display; visit the map's page to play with its features.)

The project's source data is a set of maps produced in 1899 by the Bureau of American Ethnology. The B.A.E. was a research unit of the Smithsonian that published and collected anthropological, archaeological, and linguistic research on the culture of North American Indians, as the nineteenth century drew to a close.

While the time-lapse function is the most visually impressive aspect of this interactive, the "source map" option (available on the map's site) offers a deep level of detail. By selecting a source map, and then zooming in to the state you've selected, you can see details of the map used to generate that section of the interactive. A pop-up box tells you which Native nation was resident on the land, and the date of the treaty or executive order that transferred the area to the government, as well as offering external links to descriptions of the treaty and of the tract of land.

In the site's "About" section (reachable by clicking on the question mark), Saunt is careful to point out that the westward-moving boundaries could sometimes be vague. Asked for an example, he pointed me to the 1791 treaty with the Cherokee that ceded the land where present-day Knoxville, Tenn. stands. The treaty's language pointed to landmarks like "the mouth of Duck river," a broad approach that left a lot of room for creative implementation. When dealing with semi-nomadic tribes, Saunt added, negotiators sometimes designated a small reservation, "rather than spelling out the boundaries of the cession."

This vagueness benefited the government's purposes in crafting treaties and executive orders. "Greater legality and more precision," Saunt argues, "would have made it impossible to seize so much land in so short a time."

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Interactive Time-Lapse Map Shows How the U.S. Took More Than 1.5 Billion Acres From Native Americans

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This interactive map, produced by University of Georgia historian Claudio Saunt to accompany his new book West of the Revolution: An Uncommon History of 1776 , offers a time-lapse vision of the transfer of Indian land between 1776 and 1887. As blue "Indian homelands" disappear, small red areas appear, indicating the establishment of reservations.

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Alice

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Native-land.ca - Our home on native land

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New Teacher's Guide!

We are pleased to present our new and revised Teacher's Guide, released March 2019. This version includes detailed instructions on how to use Native Land, as well as exercises for use by teachers of different levels, from kids to adults. The Guide discusses the pros and cons of the map itself, the importance of learning more about colonialism, and provides resources for teachers to learn more.

We would love to hear your suggestions and corrections to our guide. You can download it here:
Download the Teacher's Guide
Older Teacher's Guide (2015)

It makes me really excited that teachers want to use Native-Land.ca in their classes. Of course I'd love for people to spread the map around more, but there are some very important things to take into account when using this map.
First of all, this map must be used critically. Maps potentially function as colonial artifacts and represent a very particular way of seeing the world - a way primarily concerned with ownership, exclusivity, and power relations.
There are a ton of issues when it comes to using a map like this. And if people do not take these things into account, the map may prove more harmful than valuable.

Start a discussion:

What are the difficulties when it comes to mapping Indigenous territories?

How does the modern idea of a 'nation-state' relate to Indigenous nations?

Who defines national boundaries, and who defines a nation?

What sources are being used, and what biases are in those sources?

How have colonial maps attempted to disposses Indigenous people of their land?

What is Indigeneity? Who counts as Indigenous?

Get feedback:

Are these maps useful, or do they contribute to colonial ways of thinking about Indigenous people?

Will your students use this map to learn more about their own history?

Should these maps be expanded?

Historical Primer
Shauna Johnson, UBC - Contributor
In Canada and the United States, there is a long, dire history of colonization that has impacted indigenous peoples in many ways. While history books highlight famous white explorers and celebrated major events such as the discovery of 'New Lands', keep in mind that narratives told in the text books tell one side of the story; the story that the Europeans, as the all 'superior humans' chose to put in the history books (King, 2012).

When we talk about history, we talk about stories of the past. These stories have been organized into agreed upon events and interpretations that tell how "we" got from here to there. The problem with this is that those who held the most power chose the stories that were to become a part of history. History is a tool to tell stories about how they became powerful and how the powerful use that power to remain in power. So when it comes to the oral histories of indigenous peoples, many of the narratives were discounted, ignored, and erased from history by altering or not acknowledging the accounts of indigenous peoples (Smith, 2012) (King, 2012).

One reason behind this may originate back to the Papal Bulls of discovery, a doctrine in the 15 th century that granted catholic explorers full authority to convert, subjugate, remediate, and forcefully remove indigenous peoples from their land. If they refused, they were authorized to enslave and kill them as a way to save their souls (Miller et al, 2010). It was the belief that those who embraced Christianity were more human or superior beings than those who didn't, and thus incapable of having their own legal, economic or political institutions to govern themselves. In short indigenous peoples were lesser humans, and therefore had inferior relationships/rights to land. This belief provided a foundation in which imperial laws were established, rationalizing and legitimizing and imperial assumption of power over indigenous lands and resources. Indigenous (as well as other systems of knowledge) were dismissed. Instead, western systems of knowledge were positioned as being superior and trumping all others (Smith, 2012).

Conceptualization of space is only one tool that was used to create three basic entities on paper to help shape and redefine the indigenous perspective of space: The line, centre and the outside. The line was used to create boundaries, map territories, to survey land and create properties, and to mark the limit of colonial powers. The centre was always focused on the colonial power, with everything else being oriented in relation to it. Everything outside the limits of power was considered irrelevant or non-existent (Smith, 2012).

The concept of mapping has had a tremendous impact upon indigenous peoples for centuries. Since it was first developed, the indigenous ways of orienting themselves on their lands were redefined. As soon as lines were drawn on maps by European hands, indigenous place names, which are intricately connected with indigenous history, stories, and teachings, were replaced with English names, erasing indigenous presence from the lands. Traditional homelands were divided and classified into different geographic features, properties and imperial nations states, dividing and separating indigenous families. Languages and cultural teachings were lost as children were forced to attend residential schools and learn western ways of knowing.

References:

King, Thomas (2012) The Inconvenient Indian: A curious Account of Native People in North America. Toronto: Random House Publishing.

Miller, Robert J., Jacinta Ruru, Larissa Behrendt, and Tracey Lindberg (2010). Discovering Indigenous Lands: The Doctrine of Discovery in the English Colonies. Oxford: University of Oxford Press. Ch. 4.

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai (2012). Decolonizing Indigenous Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books.

Further reading

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We are pleased to present our new and revised Teacher's Guide, released March 2019. This version includes detailed instructions on how to use Native Land, as well as exercises for use by teachers of different levels, from kids to adults.

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Alice

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Mapping

We strive to map Indigenous territories, treaties, and languages across the world in a way that goes beyond colonial ways of thinking in order to better represent how Indigenous people want to see themselves.

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Native Land is a resource to learn more about Indigenous territories, languages, lands, and ways of life. We welcome you to our site.