This is my summary of the OVERSIGHT HEARING on The Preventable Epidemic: Youth Suicides and the Urgent Need for Mental Health Care Resources in Indian Country held Thursday, March 25, 2010. WEBCAST here. [172 mins.] Senator Franken called the hearing to order, he was visibly exhausted from a voting session that lasted until 3 AM … Continued
Susan LaFlesche was the first American Indian woman to become a doctor and to practice Western-style medicine among her own people. She became a doctor at a time when there were only a handful of other Indian doctors trained in western medicine-Charles Eastman and Carlos Montezuma. In addition, it was highly unusual at this time … Continued
The popular histories of Indians often focus on the many Indian wars, often fought in the Southwest or on the Great Plains. In 1907, the War Department officially enumerated 1,470 incidents of military action against American Indians between 1776 and 1907. According to the War Department, only two of these actions have the formal status … Continued
The Missouri River has an important place in American history. In 1803 the United States purchased the rights to govern the Louisiana Territory, an area which spread from the Mississippi River west to the headwaters of the Missouri River. The Lewis and Clark expedition was then sent out to find the headwaters of the Missouri, … Continued
Following the Civil War, attitudes regarding race in the South hardened. Reinforced by pseudo-scientific reports that claimed that Whites were a superior race, and by religious claims that Whites had been chosen by God to have dominion over others, the Southern states passed laws regarding miscegenation and other forms of racial mixing (including segregated schooling, … Continued
This diary was inspired by the recommended diary Suicide State Of Emergency On Pine Ridge Reservation by Winter Rabbit. Permission granted to post the following in its entirety: The Arrogance of Ignorance: Hidden Away, Out of Sight and Out of Mind Regarding life, conditions, and hope on the Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota (Sioux) Reservation of … Continued
This is the second in a three-part series on the Dark Ages of American Indian Religious Freedom. For the past five centuries, American Indians have had their religions suppressed (sometimes brutally and violently) and denied. With the formation of the United States and the adoption of the Bill of Rights which speaks of freedom of … Continued
Since the very beginning of the United States, the idea of American citizenship for Indians has been a controversial subject. American government is based on Native American models. American democracy was inspired in part by the Indian democracies which the European colonists saw around them. After independence from England, the newly formed United States wrote … Continued
In Oregon and California, an agreement has been reached for the removal of four hydroelectric dams from the Klamath River. The tribes in the area have fought for decades for the removal of these dams because they block salmon from their spawning grounds. The struggle for the removal of the Klamath River dams is only … Continued
Thomas Jefferson is not only one of the best-known founders of the United States and a former President: he also helped formulate American Indian policy during the early years of the nation. Indian History: While many Americans during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries strongly denied the antiquity of Indian people in North America and … Continued
