Native American History

Signed on October 17, 1865, just days after the initial Treaty of the Little Arkansas, this supplemental agreement formally united the Apache with the Cheyenne and Arapaho as one confederated tribal group. With U.S. approval, the Apaches agreed to dissolve their confederation with the Kiowa and…

Signed in Santa Fe, New Mexico, this treaty marked a formal peace agreement between the United States and various Apache leaders, including Mangus Colorado and Capitan Vuelta. The Apache agreed to recognize U.S. authority, cease hostilities, and abstain from raids into Mexico. In return, the U.S.…

Signed along the Little Arkansas River in the aftermath of the Sand Creek Massacre, the Treaty of Little Arkansas sought to establish lasting peace between the United States and the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. It offered financial compensation, land grants, and a reservation south of Kansas to…

Signed at Medicine Lodge Creek on October 21, 1867, the Medicine Lodge Treaty with the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache formally incorporated the Apache into a shared reservation agreement with the Kiowa and Comanche tribes. Negotiated by U.S. peace commissioners during a broader campaign to end…

This map, which was created in 1883, shows the different indigenous reservations with the borders of the United States. 

This photograph is described as, "Sitting Bull, half-length portrait, facing front, holding peace pipe." Sitting Bull was a Hunkpapa Lakota leader who led his tribe during a period of resistance against the United States government.

This lithograph, created by Henry Steinegger in 1878, depicts General Custer during the Battle of Little Bighorn. The illustrator depicted a scene showing the struggle that ensued leading up to Custer's death. 

This map, created by Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin and the American Antiquarian Society, shows the different Indigenous tribes from the year 1600 in the East and from 1800 in the West. 

<p><span class="deck"> One innovation profoundly changed—and prolonged—the culture of the Plains Indians</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck">So spoke Sitting Bull, greatest of Sioux chiefs, as he bitterly watched his people bargain away their Dakota homeland</span></p>

<p>Thousands of Native American pictographs and petroglyphs are at risk from vandalism amd theft.</p>

<p>The hands of Pueblo potter Maria Martinez have reached back across more than seven hundred years of history to create pottery that is now proudly displayed in museums and private collections all over the world.</p>

<p><span class="deck">Did the Indians have a special, almost noble, affinity with the American environment, or were they despoilers of it? Two historians of the environment explain the profound clash of cultures between Indians and whites that has made each group almost incomprehensible to the other.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">How Creek Indian number 1501 repaid a debt</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Starting with a single, haunting battlefield image, an amateur photo detective managed to reconstruct a forgotten photographer’s life and uncover a treasure of Indian portraits.</span></p>

<p>Elaborate earthworks engineered 2000 years ago by an impenetrably mysterious people still stand in astonishing abundance throughout the Ohio River Valley.</p>

<p><span class="deck"><lead_in> AFTER CENTURIES OF CONFLICT OVER THEIR RIGHTS AND POWERS,</lead_in> Indian tribes now increasingly make and enforce their own laws, often answerable to no one in the United States government. Is this the rebirth of their ancient independence or a new kind of legalized segregation? </span></p>

<p>In Florida during the 1830s, a young Indian warrior led a bold and bloody campaign against the government's plan to relocate his people west of the Mississippi River.</p>

<p>While his brother Tecumseh was assembling the greatest Indian confederation the United States army would ever confront, the “Prophet” launched a fateful preemptive attack in Indiana Territory in 1811.</p>

<p>Considered by many to have been the world’s greatest athlete, Jim Thorpe persevered through triumphs and tragedy.</p>

<p>Bison are returning to tribal lands under a conservation program launched by Deb Haaland, the first Native American Secretary of the Interior.</p>