Many Feathers and Much Paint Don't Make an Indian

Toronto, Ont -  A special corespondent of the Mail in the Blackfeet country writes from Fort McLeod and makes serious charges against the Indian agents and contractors of systematic plunder and fraud, while the settlers are charged with smuggling whisky into the Northwest territories and with carrying on a traffic in Indian girls, who are bought for from * $10 to $20 each, and sent to frontier towns for immoral purposes. [*$276 - $553 in 2017 currency] 1886 Jan 31, The Leavenworth Times 

Tribes in Virginia in line for big changes after gaining federal recognition Posted: Tuesday, January 30, 2018     It's official -- there are now 573 federally recognized tribes in the United States. Some 400 years after welcoming the first settlers at Jamestown in Virginia, the Chickahominy Tribe, the Chickahominy Tribe - Eastern Division, the Monacan Nation, the Nansemond Tribe, the Rappahannock Tribe and the Upper Mattaponi Tribe gained formal recognition of their status on Monday. That's when President Donald Trump signed H.R.984, the Thomasina E. Jordan Indian Tribes of Virginia Federal Recognition Act, into law. “Today we celebrate a decade of hard work,” Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Virginia), the sponsor of the House version of the bill, said in a press release on Monday. "Our ‘first contact' tribes of the Commonwealth of Virginia will finally receive the recognition they deserve." "Virginia’s tribes have loved and served this nation, and today our c

by Levi Rickert Published January 29, 2018      CLEVELAND – Bowing to pressure from the Major League Baseball’s commissioner’s office, the ownership of the Cleveland Indians announced on Monday, January 29, 2018, it will retire Chief Wahoo logo by the 2019 baseball season. Click here to continue reading... 

Blood Decision Expected Washington - How much white blood it takes to convert a full-blood Indian into a mixed blood is to be passed upon by the supreme court. The question has arisen specifically in the case of the Chippewa Indians of White-Earth reservation in Minnesota, where under the law "mixed bloods" are permitted to sell their allotted lands at once. The circuit court of appeals on the eighth circuit has held that an undeniable mixture of either blood makes Indians mixed blood in the meaning of the law. 1914 Jan 29, Fort Gibson New Era 

Cleveland claimed team name, logo honoured Louis Sockalexis By Jorge Barrera, CBC News  Posted: Jan 29, 2018 A descendant of the first Native American to play major league baseball says the Cleveland Indians' decision to scrap its "Chief Wahoo" logo is a good move, but it won't "mend the pain" caused by the caricature. .. Click here to read the entire story .. "It's a great move on behalf of major league baseball to recognize the fact that dehumanizing any race or any creed of man is wrong," said Chris Sockalexis,  a tribal historic preservation officer with the Penobscot Indian Nation, in eastern Maine. Robert Roche, a Chiricahua Native American who lives in Cleveland and is part of the People Not Mascots organization, has fought the Cleveland Indians over their name and logo for more than 40 years. " "It is only so they can placate people and continue making the money," said Roche, in a telephone interview.  &quo

from them, against the contemplated invasion of the Indian Territory. Interested railroad corporations and land pirates are inducing...   Jan 28, 1880 The Brooklyn Daily Eagle 

MDEQ denies putting up disrespectful "No Costumes" Sign School Officials Mum by Levi Rickert 26 JAN 2018 STEPHENSON, MICHIGAN – It was a Michigan Department of the Environmental Quality (MDEQ) public hearing on whether or not to approve an application for the Back Forty Mine. Opposition from the Menominee Tribe and other American Indians has been widely known by non-Indians in this small Michigan town, near the border of Wisconsin.  Click here to continue ... 

Wild West Show Faulty image of Indians being examined at university 1983 Jan 26, New Braunfels Herald Zeitung       Provo, Utah - Although Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show has been off the entertainment circuit for nearly 100 years, the image of Indians created by the show lingers on - in motion pictures, television shows and textbooks, according to a Brigham Young University professor.       The faulty stereotype of Indians that persists is being examined in a contemporary Indian affairs class taught at BYU by Dr. Janice White Clemmer [Wasco-Shawnee-Delaware], assistant professor of American Indian Education and History. Mrs. Clemmer is believed to be the first Indian woman in the United States to earn two doctoral degrees, one in cultural foundations of education and the other in history.       "Images of Indians portrayed in most movies, television shows, cartoons and textbooks stereotype them as the bad guys, perpetuating the same type of negative image which Buf

January 24, 1849 James Marshall discovers gold near Sutter’s Fort, California. News of the find begins the California Gold Rush of 1849.

On January 23, 1870 in the Massacre on the Marias, 173 Blackfoot men, women and children were slaughtered by U.S. soldiers on the Marias River in Montana in response for the killing of Malcolm Clarke and the wounding of his son by a small party of young Blackfoot men.

 No stereotypes  Can Be Expected In Indian Plays by George Boosey 1977 Jan 23, The Bridgeport       Tulsa, Okla – Neither savages nor stoic warriors, American Indians are human beings who have something to say to the American people, according to members of the American Indian Theater Co.          “We are breaking away from the stereotypes,” said Shirley Elm, who works with the theater company and with the Tulsa Indian Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse.       “A stereotype is not humor, whether it is a good stereotype or a bad stereotype. Hollywood is in to good stereotypes now.”       The AITC, organized in Dec 1975, has produced one play and is planning another for March, but is careful not to move too fast – quality is important.       “I think the Indian has something to say and I think the people want to listen,” Ms. Elm said.       The company’s first production was “The Ecstasy of Rita Joe,” a serious play written by Peter Rygn, who grew up on an Indian re

      San Francisco, Cal - Jan 22 - The Piute Indians are said to be starving on their barren reservation in Nevada. Not a cent of the Congressional appropriation of $7,000* secured by Senator Dawes of Massachusetts has reached them. [*About $193,822.00 today]      The winter in Nevada has been a very severe one. The reservation is so barren that nothing could be grown on the land to provide against it. The Indians number 7000. Almost their sole means of subsistence has been pine nuts, fish from Pyramid Lake, and rabbits. The latter is the only game on the reservation. Sarah Winnemucca, the member of the tribe who lectured East on the condition of the Piutes, and who is now spending a few days in this city, says: "My people are utterly destitute. Numbers of them are famishing in the snow." She attributed their misery to the negligence of reservation officials.  1885, Jan 23, Chicago Daily Tribune. 

According to the 10th annual report of the Indian commissioners, one half of the Indians wear clothes such as are worn by civilized people. 1879 Jan 23, The Weekly Republican 

Warden Wants Control - Of Inmates' Hair Length 1985 Jan 23, Logansport Pharos Tribute       Boise, Idaho - The mustached warden of the Idaho Penitentiary wants to outlaw long hair and beards on convicts.      But state lawyers warn that Indian and Jewish inmates may go to court to keep their long hair and beards.       Prison Warden Arvon Arave said Tuesday that he wants all inmates clean-shaven so that he can maintain order at the overcrowded prison.       "I've got a natural prejudice against long hair and beards," Arave said. "There is a connection between that kind of control and control in general."       However, Idaho Deputy Attorney General Robert Gates told the state Corrections Board that the panel could be sued if prison officials continue to prohibit Indians from wearing long hair and orthodox Jews from sporting full beards.        He said several federal courts have ruled prison grooming standards cannot infringe on the religi

Read more here...  ...for this kind of labor, and unused to the harsh treatment of their new masters, thousands of these unfortunate people died under the cruel yoke, and other thousands, drives to desperation, sought often in suicide. The experiment of making the natives work failing in most instances, but chiefly at the earnest representation of the philanthropical priest , Las Casas , the red-skin at last was left alone, and his able brother, the more vigorous and enduring negro of the Guinea coast, was substituted for him in the sad existence of slavery... 1860 Jan 21, Daily ALta California 

1912 Jan 21, The Courier Journal              The American Indian is not vanishing. As a race, Indians are increasing in numbers. As a race, too, they have arrived at racial consciousness. Among the first to get there are the leaders in religion. With the Bible as a foundation, Indians have recently come to say:       “If the Indians are factors in America, Indians must make themselves such. If Indians procure their rights, Indians must do their share in the struggle. What may have answered for the times of Providence Plantation and Jamestown, and two to three centuries ago, will not answer for the present. Indians must adapt themselves. They can do so and still be Indians.”       There have been Indian associations, of course. But the Society of American Indians is different. Indian associations have included white people. Some of them hardly have ventured to include Indians, or at least none who could dominate the purposes and the plans of the associations. The Society of Amer

1819 Jan 20, The Times (England) 

1870 Buffalo herds are diminished to a crisis point for Plains Indians. On January 20, Buffalo Soldiers, under the command of Captain Francis Dodge, came upon a settlement of Mescalero Apache in the most remote region of New Mexico’s Guadalupe Mountains and attacked them, killing ten Mescalero Apache and taking 25 ponies.

  … A Message was received from the President by Congress on the 14th ult, transmitting a report of the Secretary at War, with the correspondence which took place between the Governor of Georgia and General Jackson, touching the arrest, etc of Obed Wright – a case of cruelty almost unparalleled towards the wretched Indians, and of audacious insolence on the part of Jackson towards the Civil Power of the United States; this was referred to the Committee on Military subjects.   1819 Jan 20, The Times (England) 

      Portland, Jan 18th - The following dispatch from Pendleton, dated 17th, via Walla Walla the 18th, is just received: Aps, the remaining Indians convicted of complicity in the murder of whites last summer, was hanged here today. The same precautions were observed to prevent trouble. A number of whites and Indians attended the execution. Several prominent Indians addressed the whites, assuring them of peace in the future. Two hours before the execution "Aps"  big farewell to his people. He said he died as an innocent man; he had killed no one; abjured his people to profit by his fate, to always remain steadfast friends to the whites and not harbor ill feeling towards them. In an interview with the principal chiefs, all displayed great anxiety to have it understood that they had no intention to retaliate, but would remain peaceful. They ask for even justice, and that the wholesale plundering of their horses by lawless whites be stopped. Regarding Commissioner Hoyt's re

      "Honest Injun" is a name particularly appropriate to the red men in the Canadian Northwest. According to recent troubles in that region they strictly observe the law of cache, and any passer-by may hang part of his possessions on the limb of a tree and pursue his journey. When he returns he will find his cache undisturbed. Ofttimes hunters, being over burdened, hang their rifles upon a tree and come back for them perhaps a week later.      So strict is the line drawn in the minds of the natives between mine and thine that a gold watch and chain could be left and when its owner returned he would find it unmolested.       A cache of provision is not, however, considered so sacred, and an Indian, if hungry, feels that he violates no laws of possession if he helps himself to enough to satisfy his hunger.       If these statements of travelers can be relied upon the origin of the phrase "Honest Injun" is readily accounted for. -- New York World. 1899 Jan 20,