All Tribes and Regions

1000 This is the approximate date of the formation of the Iroquois League, the

oldest political alliance in North America.

1638 The first reservation, for the remaining members of the Quinnipiac Tribe, is

established in Connecticut.

1775 American colonists declare war against Great Britain. The colonies’ provisional

government—the Continental Congress—establishes three Indian

commissions (northern, middle, and southern); each commission is

charged with preserving amiable relations with indigenous tribes and keeping

them out of the violence. However, many Indians ally themselves with

the British, and many join forces with the American colonists.

1777 The Articles of Confederation organize the new government of the United

States. The articles assume authority over Indian affairs except when the

“legislative right of any State within its own limits [is] infringed or violated.”

1778 The United States signs its first Indian treaty, with the Delaware Nation; in

exchange for access to that nation’s land by U.S. troops, the United States

promises to defend and admit the Delaware Nation as a state.

1789 The U.S. Constitution is adopted. Article I, section 8, grants Congress power

to regulate commerce among foreign nations and Indian tribes.

1789 Congress places Indian affairs under the War Department.

1802 Congress appropriates over ten thousand dollars for the “civilization” of

Indians.

1803 As part of the Louisiana Purchase, the United States acquires lands on which

numerous Indian tribes reside.

1815 The United States begins the process of removing Indians to western lands.

1816 Congress restricts licenses for trade with Indians to America citizens.

1824 The Bureau of Indian Affairs is created within the War Department.

1827 John Ross is elected president of the Cherokee Nation; he is the first president

since the adoption of the nation’s new constitution that year in New

Echota, Georgia.

1830 President Andrew Jackson successfully pushes his Indian Removal Bill

through Congress.

1831 The U.S. Supreme Court, in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, holds that Indian

tribes are domestic dependent nations, not foreign nations.

1832 In Worcester v. Georgia, the U.S. Supreme Court, in an opinion written by

Chief Justice John Marshall, ensures the sovereignty of the Cherokees; however,

President Andrew Jackson refuses to follow the decision and initiates

the westward removal of the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw,

Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole). The term Five Civilized Tribes originated

because these five tribes modeled their governments after federal and state

institutions and had assimilated key aspects of white culture.

1835 The Treaty of New Echota is signed. Cherokees agree to westward removal.

1838 The Trail of Tears begins. Cherokee Indians are forced to travel almost thirteen

hundred miles without sufficient food, water, and medicine; almost

one-quarter of the Cherokees do not survive the journey. The Potawatomies

in Indiana experience similar hardships on their Trail of Death.

1847 Pueblos in Taos, New Mexico, ally with Latinos to overthrow the newly

established U.S. rule.

1848 The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, bringing the Mexican-American

War to an end. As a result of the vast amount of land ceded to the

United States, many new Indian tribes fall under U.S. jurisdiction.

1849 The Department of the Interior is created, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs

is shuffled from the War Department to the Interior Department.

xxiv TIMELINE OF AMERICAN INDIAN PEOPLES

1853 The Gadsden Purchase is completed. More tribes come under the jurisdiction

of the United States.

1854 Several southeast U.S. tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muskogee,

and Seminole) form an alliance.

1861 The Civil War begins. Various Indian tribes fight on both sides. Stand Watie,

a Cherokee, becomes the only Indian brigadier general in the Confederate

Army; he leads two Cherokee regiments in the Southwest.

1864 Approximately eight thousand Navajos are forcibly marched to Fort Sumner,

New Mexico, on the Navajo Longest Walk; after three years of harsh

imprisonment, the survivors are released.

1865 Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrenders to Union general Ulysses S.

Grant at Appomattox; at General Grant’s side is Colonel Ely S. Parker, a fullblooded

Seneca.

1867 The Indian Peace Commission finalizes treaty making between the United

States and Indian tribes.

1869 President Ulysses S. Grant appoints Brigadier General Ely S. Parker to head

the Bureau of Indian Affairs; Parker is the first Indian to fill this position.

1871 Congress passes legislation that ends treaty making with Indian tribes.

1884 In Elk v. Wilkins, the U.S. Supreme Court holds that the Fourteenth Amendment’s

guarantee of citizenship to all persons born in the United States does

not apply to Indians, even those born within the geographical confines of

the United States.

1901 Congress passes the Citizenship Act of 1901, which formally grants U.S. citizenship

to members of the Five Civilized Tribes.

1921 Congress passes the Snyder Act, which for the first time appropriates money

for Indians under a broad authority given to the secretary of the interior,

regardless of the amount of Indian blood or residence. This act greatly

expands the moneys available for Indians because it releases the federal

government from a strict adherence to treaty provisions.

1924 Congress passes the Indian Citizenship Act, conferring citizenship on all

American Indians.

TIMELINE OF AMERICAN INDIAN PEOPLES xxv

1934 Congress passes the Indian Reorganization Act, which allows for tribal selfgovernment,

and begins the Indian Credit Program; concurrently, the Johnson-

O’Malley Act provides for general assistance to Indians.

1939 Chief Henry Standing Bear and other Sioux leaders appeal to Korczak

Ziolkowski, who worked on the presidential sculptures at Mount Rushmore

in former Sioux territory, to create a similar monument to Crazy Horse.

Ziolkowski begins work in 1947; in 1998 his son, Casimir, continues to

work on the monument.

1944 In Denver, Colorado, the National Congress of American Indians is

founded.

1948 Through judicial means, Indians in Arizona and New Mexico win the right

to vote in state elections.

1949 The Hoover Commission recommends “termination,” which would mandate

that Congress no longer recognize Indian sovereignty, thus eliminating

all special rights and benefits.

1953 Congress passes a law—introduced by Wyoming Representative William

Henry Harrison—that gives California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, and

Wisconsin legal jurisdiction over Indian reservations, thus initiating the termination

process.

1958 Secretary of the Interior Fred Seaton begins to retract the termination policy.

1961 More than 210 tribes meet at the American Indian Chicago Conference,

where the Declaration of Indian Purpose is drafted for presentation to the

U.S. Congress.

1968 Congress passes the American Indian Civil Rights Act, providing individual

Indians with some statutory protection against their tribal governments.

This protection is loosely modeled on the protection the U.S. Constitution

provides against state and local governments.

1968 The American Indian Movement (AIM) is founded; it is a protest movement

based on the model of the black civil rights protest groups.

1969 Indian activists occupy Alcatraz Island near San Francisco in addition to

staging sit-ins at the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

1960s–1970s From the late 1960s to early 1970s, tribes begin to create tribal colleges

to ease the transition from reservation life to mainstream schools.

Twenty-seven such colleges are created.

xxvi TIMELINE OF AMERICAN INDIAN PEOPLES

1971 The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act is passed, eliminating 90 percent

of Alaska Natives’ land claims in exchange for a guarantee of forty-four million

acres and almost $1 billion.

1972 In protest of a history of broken promises to Indian tribes, two hundred Indians

participate in the Trail of Broken Treaties march and ultimately occupy

the Washington, D.C., office of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

1973 AIM organizes an occupation of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation

in South Dakota, near the Nebraska border; the occupation ends

with an armed confrontation with the FBI. AIM member Leonard Peltier is

still (as of 2006) held in federal prison for the murder of two FBI agents,

despite evidence that his trial was unconstitutional and unfair.

1975 The Indian Self-Determination and Education Act is passed, giving Indian

tribal governments more control over their tribal affairs and appropriating

more money for education assistance.

1979 The U.S. Supreme Court awards the Lakota Nation $122.5 million in compensation

for the U.S. government’s illegal appropriation of the Black Hills

in South Dakota.

1980 The Penobscots and Passamaquoddies accept monetary compensation

from the U.S. government for their lands (now the state of Maine), which

the Massachusetts government took illegally in 1790.

1986 Congress amends the Indian Civil Rights Act and grants tribal courts the

power to impose criminal penalties.

1988 The Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act is amended, giving Alaska Native

corporations the option to sell their stock after 1991.

1988 Congress officially repeals the thirty-five-year-old termination policy.

1992 U.S. Representative Ben Nighthorse Campbell, a Cheyenne from Colorado,

is elected to the U.S. Senate.

1993 Ada Deer is appointed assistant secretary for Indian affairs by President

Clinton. She is the first Indian woman to hold the position.

1994 Three hundred representatives from the 556 federally recognized Indian

tribes meet with President Bill Clinton, the first time since 1822 that Indians

have been invited to meet officially with a U.S. president to discuss issues

of concern to Indian peoples.

TIMELINE OF AMERICAN INDIAN PEOPLES xxvii

1994 Clinton signs a law that provides Indians with federal protection in the use

of peyote in religious ceremonies.

1996 Laguna Pueblo faces a legal challenge regarding its long-standing tradition

of allowing only men on the ballot for tribal office.

1996 The University of Arizona creates the first Ph.D. program in American

Indian studies.

1996 Skeletal remains of an ancient person (9,000–10,000 years old, estimated),

dubbed “The Ancient One” by Native peoples and “Kennewick Man” by

scientists, are found on the banks of the Columbia River, setting up an intense

conflict between the First Nations and the scientists over what is to be done

with the skeleton.

1997 For the first time in history, American Indians are included in the presidential

inaugural festivities as special and individual participants. American

Indians are in the parade and have an American Indian ball.

1997 Alaska Natives take a case to the Supreme Court regarding their right to tax

others on their land (forty-four million acres). The question posed: Does

“Indian Country” exist in Alaska as a result of the 1971 Alaska Native

Claims Settlement Act?

1998 Four thousand Alaska Natives march in Anchorage in protest of Alaska legislative

and legal attacks on tribal governments and Native hunting and

fishing traditions.

1998 In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court rules that, in the absence of a

reservation, the Venetie Tribe of Alaska does not have the right to tax others

on land conveyed under the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. In

essence, the Court decrees that “Indian Country” does not exist in Alaska.

1998 Clinton issues Executive Order No. 13084, “Consultation and Coordination

with Indian Tribal Governments,” in which he pledges that the federal government

will establish and engage in meaningful consultation and collaboration

with Indian tribal governments in matters that will significantly

impact their communities.

1998 Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt is investigated in an Indian casino scandal

under claims that he denied a gaming license to several Wisconsin tribes

because of White House pressure to satisfy competing Minnesota tribes

who made large contributions to the Democratic National Committee.

xxviii TIMELINE OF AMERICAN INDIAN PEOPLES

1998 The Makah Nation of Washington State renews its traditional practice of

whaling after a respite of seventy years, despite protests from many environmental

and other groups.

1999 A federal judge holds Secretary of the Interior Babbitt and Secretary of Justice

Rubin in contempt for failure to provide documents related to the Indian trust

funds class action lawsuit.

1999 Clinton visits the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation in South Dakota on a swing

through some of the most impoverished communities in America. He is the

first sitting president since Calvin Coolidge in 1927 to make an official visit

to an Indian reservation.

2000 Brad Rogers Carson, an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma,

is elected as the Congressman for the 2nd District of Oklahoma. He is

the only enrolled tribal member in the House of Representatives at the time.

2000 In Rice v. Cayetano the U.S. Supreme Court strikes down a restriction that

had allowed only persons with Native Hawaiian blood to vote for the

trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

2000 Assistant Secretary of the Interior Kevin Gover (Pawnee) issues a startling

apology to Native peoples on behalf of the BIA, decrying the poor treatment

Indians have experienced from his agency.

2000 The U.S. Supreme Court declines to review a religious freedom case centering

around the use of Devils Tower, a sacred site to several Indian

nations. This decision upholds a federal court ruling that supported the religious

rights of Indians against challenges from recreational rock climbers.

2001 President Bush nominates Neal A. McCaleb (Chickasaw Nation) to serve as

Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs.

2001 The U.S. Supreme Court, reversing a Court of Appeals judgment, unanimously

rules on May 29 that the Navajo Nation’s Hotel Occupancy Tax on

nonmembers on non-Indian fee land is invalid.

2001 U.S. Census data show that the self-identified population of American Indians

increased from 1 million to more than 2.4 million, a 26 percent increase. An

additional 4 million Americans claimed at least part Indian ancestry.

2001 A federal Court of Appeals rules that tribal trust funds had been mismanaged

by the government.

TIMELINE OF AMERICAN INDIAN PEOPLES xxix

2002 In a blow to the Makah Nation, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rules in

Anderson v. Evans, in a case brought by animal advocacy groups, that the

government had violated the National Environmental Policy Act by failing to

prepare an environmental impact statement prior to approving the whaling

quota and also held that the Marine Mammal Protection Act applied to the

tribe’s proposed whale hunt.

2002 President Bush signs an executive order reaffirming the federal government’s

commitment to tribally-controlled colleges and universities.

2002 Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Assistant Secretary Neal McCaleb are

placed in contempt of court by federal judge Royce Lamberth for ongoing

problems associated with the Indian trust fund lawsuit.

2002 The New Mexico Supreme Court, in a first ever development, adds federal

Indian law as a subject on the state’s bar exam.

2003 Senators Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Daniel Inouye, cochairs of the Committee

on Indian Affairs, send a letter to the parties in Cobell v. Norton (the

Indian trust fund litigation), urging them to settle the lawsuit without delay.

2004 Dave Anderson (Choctaw/Chippewa), founder of Famous Dave’s barbecue,

is selected by President Bush to serve as assistant secretary of Indian affairs.

Anderson resigned in 2005 after less than a year on the job, citing the difficulties

he faced trying to serve tribes as a Washington bureaucrat.

2004 The National Museum of the American Indian opens on the mall in Washington,

D.C.

2004 Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the only American Indian in the U.S. Senate,

leaves office at the end of his term.

2004 The BIA formally acknowledges the Schaghticoke Tribal Nation of northwestern

Connecticut.

2004 In United States v. Lara the Supreme Court holds that tribal courts had the

inherent sovereign power to criminally prosecute nonmember Indians, and

that such power did not violate the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment

double jeopardy clause.

2004 Congress passes a controversial law, the Western Shoshone Claims Distribution

Act. This law will distribute $138 million under the Western Shoshone

Claims Commission Judgment Fund to tribal members for the millions of

xxx TIMELINE OF AMERICAN INDIAN PEOPLES

acres of land owned by the tribe. Many Shoshone, including the noted Dann

Sisters, fought to defeat this bill as they maintain that they retain a treaty right

to the lands in question.

2004 Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and others introduce S.J. Res. 37, a “Resolution

of apology and a resolution of reconciliation” to Native peoples. This

measure, if adopted, would be the first formal U.S. apology to First Nations

and would “acknowledge a long history of official depredation and ill-conceived

policies by the United States Government regarding Indian tribes....”

2004 Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoes a bill that would have prohibited

five California high schools from using the name “Redskins,” a word long

considered derogatory by most Native communities.

2004 In Boneshirt v. Hazeltine a federal district court rules that South Dakota violated

the 1965 federal Voting Rights Act when it approved a statewide

redistricting plan that had the effect of diluting the voting power of Indians

in two districts.

2004 President Bush signs into law the American Indian Probate Reform Act. This

measure is designed to limit the fractionation of Indian trust land.

2004 The U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs holds hearings in an effort to

sort out the financial relationship between six tribes and two Washington

lobbyists, Jack Abramoff and Michael S. Scanlon, who charged the tribes

over $66 million in less than four years for a minimal amount of work.

2005 Two Connecticut tribes, the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation and the Schaghticoke

Tribal Nation, recently granted federal recognition, have their federal

status rejected by the Interior Department’s Board of Indian Appeals after the

tribes were challenged by the state’s congressional delegation. Their cases

are sent back to the BIA for further review.

2005 President Bush’s fiscal year 2006 budget proposes cuts of more than $200

million for education, housing, health, and other Indian programs.

2005 In July, and over the objections of several Columbia River Basin tribal nations,

a team of scientists spends ten days examining the 9,000–10,000-year-old

skeletal remains of “The Ancient One.”

2005 In July Elouise Cobell and other plaintiffs propose that the nine-year-old

class action lawsuit involving Indian trust funds could be ended if Congress

provided $27.5 billion for a settlement and agreed to other principles.

TIMELINE OF AMERICAN INDIAN PEOPLES xxxi

2005 Jeffrey Weise, a Red Lake Chippewa teenager, kills ten people, most of

whom are Indian high school students, in an unprecedented rampage on the

Red Lake Reservation in Minnesota.

2005 In City of Sherrill, New York v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York, the

Supreme Court rules in an 8-1 decision that, despite an existing principle of

Indian law which holds that tribal nations enjoy immunity from state and

local taxation of reservation lands until that immunity has been unequivocally

revoked by Congress, the City of Sherrill had the right to impose property

taxes on land that had been repurchased by the Oneida Nation within

the Nation’s historical territorial boundaries.

2005 The Oneida Nation, among other tribal nations, independently pledges

$1 million to efforts to help survivors of the Indian Ocean tsunami and

earthquake.

2005 The Navajo Nation Council unanimously enacts a law that outlaws samesex

marriages—the Cherokee National Tribal Council in Oklahoma had

passed a similar measure in 2004. Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. veto this

law, but the Council, by a vote of 62-14, votes to override the president’s

veto.

2006 Jack Abramoff, the Republican lobbyist who financially exploited several

tribal leaders, pleads guilty to charges of conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion.

Source: Modified from Paula D. McClain and Joseph Stewart Jr., “Can We All Get Along?” Racial and Ethnic

Minorities in American Politics, 4th ed. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 2006), 237–41