Native American Indian & Alaskan Heritage Month

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) houses original treaties made between the United States and American Indian nations. NARA also houses instructions issued to treaty commissioners, minutes of treaty councils, and other records related to American Indian treaties.

From 1778 to 1871, the United States signed some 368 treaties with various Indigenous people across the North American continent.

Almost 200 years ago, the Treaty of New Echota between Cherokee Nation and the United States government was signed.

On Wednesday, the House Committee on Rules is taking the first step toward seating a tribal government delegate in the chamber. More specifically, the hearing focuses on what it would take to finally bring the Cherokee Nation into the halls of power on Capitol Hill, nearly 200 years after the United States made such a promise by treaty.

Since 1990, Federal law has provided for the repatriation and disposition of certain Native American human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony. By enacting NAGPRA, Congress recognized that human remains of any ancestry "must at all times be treated with dignity and respect."

To acknowledge a long history of official depredations and ill-conceived policies by the Federal Government regarding Indian tribes and offer an apology to all Native Peoples on behalf of the United States.

Sacheen Littlefeather had only 60 seconds to speak at the 1973 Academy Awards. In her brief speech, she refused the Oscar for best actor on behalf of Marlon Brando, faced a mixture of loud boos and cheers, and defended the rights of Native Americans on national TV.

There has been a broad range of sincerity, depth, and publicity within the few apologies offered by the United States government to Native American Peoples throughout history. One more apology was added to this short list on June 18, 2019, delivered on behalf of the state of California by Governor Gavin Newsom.

It’s time — long past time — to officially acknowledge what our country did and to speak an apology. Not only for taking children from Native families, but for the broken treaties and the carnage visited upon First Nations people by U.S. government policy. Without this necessary step, the healing process our community desperately needs cannot truly commence, and we cannot repair the resentment that stems from our troubled past.

As it was with the 2010 defense appropriations act, H.R. 3326 (now, Public Law 111-118), which contained America’s first apology to Native Americans for historic policies of assimilation and forced removal.

In 1993, the U.S. Congress devoted an entire resolution to apologizing to Native Hawaiians for overthrowing their kingdom in 1893. But a U.S. apology to Indigenous tribes took until 2009 and came stealthily tucked away in an unrelated spending bill. If you just happened to be reading the 67-page Defense Appropriations Act of 2010 (H.R. 3326), tucked away on page 45, in between sections detailing how much of your money the U.S. military would spend on what, you might notice Section 8113: "Apology to Native Peoples of the United States."