Wendat (Huron) wampum belt ca. 1612 Quebec, Canada. Whelk shell, quahog shell, hide, bast fiber yarn NMAI 1855 The Wendat gave this belt to the Haudenosaunee to create a peace agreement.
States. I have heard many times, from Natives and non-Natives alike, that the Museum must tell the “real story” of the history between the U.S. and the Indian tribes. Telling that story is undoubtedly a part of our responsibility as an educational institution dedicated to increas- ing and diffusing knowledge about Native history and culture. As we celebrate the 25th anniversary of the founding of our Museum and the 10th
anniversary of the opening of our
flagship Museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., it is most fitting that we present Nation to Nation, an exhibition telling the story of treaties between the United States and American Indian Nations. The exhibit will be marked by a compan-
ion book, Nation to Nation: Treaties Between the United States and American Indian Nations. The contributors, a distinguished group of Na- tive and non-Native historians, legal scholars and tribal activists, have tapped a vast array of sources, including tribal oral traditions, interviews, historical documents, illustrations, newspaper articles and Native material culture, to recount the evolution of U.S.–Indian treaty making from the 17th
century to the present.
Their work focused on many different aspects of the treaty story, yet the book is unified by a consistent effort to interpret the history of U.S.–Indian treaty making from the perspec- tive of Native people. This approach, which animates recent scholarship in American
“ DESPITETHEMORAL,LEGAL,HISTORICAL ANDCONTEMPORARYSIGNIFICANCEOF INDIANTREATIES,MOSTAMERICANSKNOW LITTLEABOUTTHEM.”
Indian history, is consistent with one of the principal canons of American law concerning treaties – that treaties must be interpreted as the Native signers understood them. From a Native perspective, the story
began with American acceptance of tribal self-government and nation-to-nation diplo- macy through treaty making. That promising start quickly morphed into disaster through broken and coercive treaties that promoted Indian removal and tribal land loss, as well as government policies that dismantled tribes as political institutions, obliterated tribal land ownership and fostered the forced assimila- tion of Native people into white culture. Happily, the story does not end there. For
Native people never gave up on their treaties or the tribal sovereignty that treaties recog- nized. Beginning in the 1960s, Native activ- ists invoked America’s growing commitment to social justice to restore broken treaties, to demand congressional legislation – or mod- ern treaty amendments – that repaired the
damages that had been inflicted on tribal communities by U.S. Indian policies, and to rejuvenate tribal governments long subju- gated by heavy-handed federal agents. Today, the reassertion of treaty rights and tribal self- determination is evident in renewed tribal po- litical, economic and cultural strength, as well as in reinvigorated nation-to-nation relations with the United States. The fundamental tenets of early treaty making – the recognition of tribal govern- ments and Indian consent – are alive and well…at least for the moment. The future is untold, and ultimately the gains of Native Na- tions in modern times are set in fragile beads rather than carved in stone. Yet there is opti- mism in Indian Country that Americans will better understand their shared history with Indian Nations and that, as a result, they will join Native people in celebrating and uphold- ing the rights enshrined in treaties. X
Kevin Gover (Pawnee) is director of the National Museum of the American Indian.
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 39
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100
