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American Indians

Indigenous people
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Nurse Harriet Curley takes the pulse of a patient at Sage Memorial Hospital on the Navajo Indian reservation in 1949. (AP)

How Native Americans Were Vaccinated Against Smallpox, Then Pushed Off Their Land

Nearly two centuries later, many tribes remain suspicious of the drive to get them vaccinated against the coronavirus.
by Dana Hedgpeth via Washington Post on March 28, 2021
Picture of Devil's Tower

Historical Monuments of the First People

A Story Map that highlights events, sites, and people important to Native American history.
by Caitlinn Grimm via Library of Congress on February 8, 2021
Indian Congress installation

The Historic Indian Congress is Reunited in Omaha by Artist Wendy Red Star

The Apsáalooke artist has created a major new installation for her solo show at the Joslyn Art Museum using photographs of the 500 delegates taken in 1898.
by Karen Chernick via The Art Newspaper on February 1, 2021
"Join or Die" snake political cartoon.

The Iron Cage of Erasure: American Indian Sovereignty in Jill Lepore’s 'These Truths'

Lepore’s framework insists that the “self-evident” truths of the nation’s founding were anything but.
by Ned Blackhawk via Diplomatic History on December 29, 2020
Profile portrait of Zitkala-Sa, a Native American woman, with long hair and beaded necklaces

Gertrude Simmons Bonnin (Zitkala-Ša): Advocate for the "Indian Vote"

The story of Indigenous women’s participation in the struggle for women’s suffrage is highly complex, and Zitkala-Ša’s story provides an illuminating example.
by Cathleen D. Cahill via National Park Service on December 14, 2020
Tepary beans, squash, and corn against a black background

Returning Corn, Beans, and Squash to Native American Farms

Returning the "three sisters" to Native American farms nourishes people, land, and cultures.
by Christina Gish Hill via The Conversation on November 20, 2020
Visualization of documented visitation networks among reservations placed onto a map made in 1890.

Native Networks and the Spread of the Ghost Dance

A digital companion to "We Do Not Want the Gates Closed Between Us," telling the story of Native American resistance to forced resettlement on reservations.
by Justin Gage via nativeamericannetworks.com on October 8, 2020

Disease Has Never Been Just Disease for Native Americans

Native communities’ vulnerability to epidemics is not a historical accident, but a direct result of oppressive policies and ongoing colonialism.
by Jeffrey Ostler via The Atlantic on April 29, 2020

The Original Southerners

American Indians, the Civil War, and Confederate memory.
by Malinda Maynor Lowery via Southern Cultures on November 27, 2019
A woman walking toward an isolated house on the Navajo reservation.

The Native American Women Who Fought Mass Sterilization

Over a six-year period in the 1970s, physicians sterilized perhaps 25% of Native American women of childbearing age.
by Brianna Theobald via Time on November 27, 2019
Painting of a building, entitled "Outpost," by Hattie Ruth Miller.

Unsettling Histories of the South

Social movements that have pushed for inclusion and equality in the South have often evaded or ignored the issue of Native land and sovereignty.
by Angela Hudson via Southern Cultures on September 18, 2019

This Land Is Whose Land? Indian Country and the Shortcomings of Settler Protest

As a Native person, I believe “This Land Is Your Land” falls flat.
by Mali Obomsawin via Folklife on June 14, 2019
“Two Guns Arikara” (1974-77) painting of a Native American man, by T. C. Cannon.

T. C. Cannon’s Blazing Promise

The painter, who died at the age of thirty-one, vivified his Native American heritage with inspirations from modern art.
by Peter Schjeldahl via The New Yorker on April 6, 2019

The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee

“Our cultures are not dead and our civilizations have not been destroyed. Our present tense is evolving as rapidly and creatively as everyone else’s.”
by David Treuer via Longreads on January 22, 2019

The Vanishing Indians of “These Truths”

Jill Lepore's widely-praised history of the U.S. relies on the eventual exit of indigenous actors to make way for other dramas.
by Christine DeLucia via Los Angeles Review of Books on January 10, 2019

DNA Tests Make Native Americans Strangers in Their Own Land

Reviving race science plays into centuries of oppression.
by Aviva Chomsky via The Nation on November 29, 2018

Why a Woman Who Killed Indians Became Memorialized as the First Female Public Statue

Hannah Duston was used as a national symbol of innocence, valor, and patriotism to justify westward expansion.
by Barbara Cutter via Zócalo Public Square on April 9, 2018
Activists march in a protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in Washington, D.C. (March 10, 2017).

DAPL and the American Indian as 'Protector'

Native Americans' fights for environmental protection should not be seen as battles against progress.
by Paul C. Rosier via Hindsights on September 7, 2017
Text of Medicine Creek Treaty.

Medicine Creek, the Treaty That Set the Stage for Standing Rock

The Fish Wars of the 1960s led to an affirmation of Native American rights.
by Alicia Ault via Smithsonian on June 9, 2017

How I Feel As a Native Woman When Trump Idolizes Andrew Jackson

Trump has called Andrew Jackson a "military hero and genius and a beloved president."
by Adrienne Keene via Teen Vogue on April 19, 2017
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Exhibit

Native Pasts

This exhibit showcases the cultural, political, and environmental histories of American Indians, from ancient civilizations to contemporary activism.

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