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Native American History

Agreements like the Treaty With the Delawares (1778) are powerful reminders of American Indian nations' legal right to territorial sovereignty.

Why the Very First Treaty Between the United States and a Native People Still Resonates Today

The Treaty With the Delawares, signed in 1778, has arrived at the National Museum of the American Indian

An example from a collection of drawings made by Sioux artists living in Fort Yates, North Dakota, in 1913.

Newberry Library Digitizes Trove of Lakota Drawings

The art is part of a larger digitization project of early American history by the Chicago-based research library

The Tsimshian people first settled American land over 6,000 years ago. This image was captured in 1890, after the fateful arrival of European settlers.

New Research

Unraveling the Genetic History of a First Nations People

By looking at the DNA of Tsimshian people before and after European contact, researchers paint a more nuanced history

Malacites of the Wanabaki Confederacy standing along the edge of the water at French village, Kingsclear, celebrating Corpus Christi Day, ca 1887.

Researchers Are Tracing Wabanaki Canoe Routes in New Brunswick

The First Nation routes were ancient “highways” that traversed rivers, creeks and streams

Junius Brutus Stearns, "Hannah Duston Killing the Indians" (1847). Oil on canvas.

The Gruesome Story of Hannah Duston, Whose Slaying of Indians Made Her an American Folk “Hero”

A century after killing and scalping ten Native Americans, she was memorialized in what might well be the first public statue of a female in America

More than 150 Years Later, Canada Exonerates Six Indigenous Chiefs Hanged in 1864

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau affirmed that the chiefs had acted in ‘war, not murder’ when they attacked white settlers who had encroached on their land

Undated photo provided by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows fake Native American styled-jewelry seized by federal officials during a 2015 investigation in New Mexico.

Trending Today

Investigators Crack Down on Fraudulent Native American Jewelry

In April, Albuquerque jewelry dealer Nael Ali is set to be sentenced under the 1935 Indian Arts and Crafts Act

"Early Days"

San Francisco Votes to Remove Statue with Racist Depiction of Native Americans

The monument shows a Mexican vaquero and Franciscan monk towering over a Native American man

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7,000-Year-Old Native American ‘Bog Burial’ Found Off the Coast of Florida

Experts have identified the remains of at least six individuals, and suspect there are many more bodies to be found

Choctaw chief Greenwood LeFlore had 15,000 acres of Mississippi land (above, his Mississippi home Malmaison) and 400 enslaved Africans under his dominion.

How Native American Slaveholders Complicate the Trail of Tears Narrative

The new exhibition ‘Americans’ at the National Museum of the American Indian prompts a deeper dive for historic truths

"Now," says the American Indian Museum's director Kevin Gover (right with Lonnie Bunch, director of the African American History museum) "some of these institutions are able to produce excellent scholarship that tells a vastly different story from what most Americans learn.”

Two Museum Directors Say It’s Time to Tell the Unvarnished History of the U.S.

History isn’t pretty and sometimes it is vastly different than what we’ve been taught, say Lonnie Bunch and Kevin Gover

Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park gives a view of Neníisótoyóú’u (Longs Peak) in Colorado, left of center.

Cool Finds

This Account is Reclaiming the Indigenous Names for Mountains One Geotag at a Time

A Navajo climber is leading a social media campaign to spread awareness of the indigenous names of peaks

Manifestipi (installation detail) 2016 by ITWÉ Collective

The Innovative Spirit fy17

The Tipi Gets a Makeover

Ideas of evolution and tradition commingle in a new show at the American Indian Museum in New York City

Philip Yenyo, executive director of the American Indian Movement for Ohio, leads a protest of the Cleveland Indians Chief Wahoo mascot before a baseball game against the Detroit Tigers Friday, April 10, 2015, in Cleveland.

Smithsonian Curator Weighs in on Cleveland Indians’ Decision to Retire ‘Racist’ Logo

Chief Wahoo, says Paul Chaat Smith, is a prime example of how the appropriation of Native American culture can be terribly problematic

Likenesses of American Indians have been used to sell everything from cigars to station wagons.

Probing the Paradoxes of Native Americans in Pop Culture

A new exhibition picks apart the cultural mythologies surrounding the first “Americans”

A scientific illustration of the Upward Sun River camp in what is now Interior Alaska.

New Research

Genetics Rewrites the History of Early America—And, Maybe, the Field of Archaeology

The genome of an infant from Upward Sun River, Alaska offers tantalizing insight into the story of human migration

Jimi Hendrix was “a central figure in the history of African-American music,” says Kevin Strait, a historian and curator at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, home to this gold-brocade vest that the musician wore.

Gone at 27 and Eternally Youthful For the Ages, Jimi Hendrix Would Have Been 75 This Year

A gold-brocade vest at the Smithsonian evokes the innovative musician’s enduring legacy

Pleito cave site

Virtual Reality Is Allowing Us To See Some of the World’s Most Inaccessible Archaeological Sites

A Native American tribe in California got a chance to reconnect with its past through virtual reality models of sacred sites

The Ten Best History Books of 2017

From presidential biographies to a look at the long rise of fake news, these picks will surely interest history buffs

Graduate Fernando Yazzie after the ceremony at Navajo Technical University.

The Importance of Graduating in the Navajo Way

Education in traditional knowledge, as well as global issues, form the foundation of this Navajo Nation university

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