DiversityInc - Winter 2012

American Indian

The first American Indian Day was celebrated in May 1916 in New York. Red Fox James, a Blackfeet Indian, rode on horseback getting endorsements from 24 state governments. In 1990, President George H. W. Bush signed a joint congressional resolution designating November as National American Indian Heritage Month.

1614 Pocahontas marries English Jamestown colonist John Rolfe in Virginia, bringing temporary peace between English settlers and Algonquians

1758 First North American Indian reservation is established in New Jersey

1824 Bureau of Indian Affairs is established

1830 Indian Removal Act gives the president the power to negotiate removal treaties for American Indians to move west of the Mississippi. About 4,000 Cherokee die as a result. Route is later known as The Trail of Tears

1834 Congress bans alcohol sales on American Indian lands

1851 Indian Appropriations Act of 1851 gathers American Indian tribes and places them on reservations

1871 Indian Appropriation Act of 1871 dissolves the status of Indian tribes as sovereign nations

1887 Congress passes Dawes Act, dividing reservation lands into privately owned parcels

1890 Roughly 300 Sioux are killed at Wounded Knee in last battle between federal forces and American Indians

1912 Jim Thorpe, an athlete of the Sac and Fox tribe, wins Olympic gold medals for the pentathlon and decathlon

1924 Indian Citizenship Act classifies American Indians as “citizens”

1929 Charles Curtis becomes the 31st vice president of the United States, the first person with significant acknowledged American Indian heritage to reach this level of the executive branch

1934 Congress passes Indian Reorganization Act to protect American Indians from loss of lands and to provide funds for economic development. Also helps re-establish tribal governments

1968 Indian Civil Rights Act grants American Indians most protections under the Bill of Rights and 14th Amendment

1972 The American Indian Movement seizes the Bureau of Indian Affairs national headquarters and presents a 20-point list of demands

1973 American Indians occupy Wounded Knee in South Dakota

Sacagawea

Jim Thorpe
Charles Curtis

1978 American Indian Freedom of Religion Act allows “American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut and

Native Hawaiian [people] … inherent right” to free exercise of their traditional religions

1980 Supreme Court orders U.S. government to pay $122 million to Sioux Indians for land illegally taken in South Dakota in 1877

1982 Supreme Court supports tax levied by the Jicarilla Apaches in New Mexico, allowing tribes to tax production of oil, natural gas and other minerals on reservations

1988 Congress passes Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, protecting American Indians’ gaming rights from states’ infringements

1989 National Museum of the American Indian opens in Washington, D.C.

1990 First National American Indian Heritage month is celebrated (November)

1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act provides process for museums to return American Indian remains and artifacts to tribes upon request and to protect their grave sites

1990 Native American Languages Act protects “the rights and freedom of Native Americans to use, practice and develop

1992 Foxwoods Casino opens on Pequot Reservation in Connecticut

1997 U.S. military allows American Indian soldiers to use peyote in their religious services

2000 The U.S. Mint issues a dollar coin with the image of Sacagawea, the Shoshone woman famed for guiding the Lewis & Clark expedition through the western United States

2005 National Collegiate Athletic Association bans use of “hostile and abusive” American Indian mascots in postseason tournaments

2009 Federal government settles dispute with American Indians, claiming they were swindled out of billions of dollars in oil, gas, grazing, timber and other royalties overseen by the U.S. Department of the Interior since 1887

2009 Congress passes and Obama signs Native American Apology Resolution

2011 Judge clears New York state to tax
cigarettes sold on American Indian
reservations
Sources: AOL, Bloomberg, CBS, ESPN, gradebook.org, Legends of America, NowPublic.com, Seattle Times, TIME, University of Wisconsin, U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Mint