American Indian Specfic Links And Materials
Native American Rights Fund: The Fund is a non-profit organization that provides legal representation and technical assistance to Indian tribes, organizations, and individuals nationwide. The site includes both current and past issues of the NARF Legal Review, a biannual newsletter covering important Indian law issues, and other publications. The publications section contains a link to Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Native Peoples, a page which discusses issues such as when Native Americans were granted U.S. citizenship, whether they are subject to federal and state taxes, and what "tribal sovereignity" means. The site also includes information about the National Indian Law Library and a searchable catalog with descriptions of over 11,000 items in the Library's collection.
National Indian Justice Center: The Center's goals are to design and deliver legal education, research, and technical assistance programs to improve tribal court systems and the administration of justice in Indian country. The site has links to tribal codes and constitutions, articles on current events and legal developments, lists of publications which can be ordered, and a comprehensive page of resource links.
Native Law News Digest: This site has a daily listing of links to news stories related to Indian law. The links are generally available for about a week.
National American Indian Court Judges Association: The mission of the Association is to strengthen and enhance tribal justice systems. The site includes links to extensive tribal court and domestic violence resources and policy updates.
Native American Bar Association: The group serves as the national association for Native American attorneys, judges, law professors, and law students. The site includes job opportunities, coming events, a membership application, and an excellent links page.
National Native American Law Students Association: The site includes the organization's newsletter and information about its moot court competition.
The Tribal Law Journal: The goals of this University of New Mexico School of Law on-line journal is to promote indigenous self-determination by facilitating discussion of the internal law of the world's indigenous nations. The site contains articles, links to multimedia presentations, student profiles of tribal government structures, and links to relevant sites.
American Indian Law Review: The primary objective of this University of Oklahoma College of Law journal is to provide a forum for scholarly writing in the areas of law that particularly affect American Indians. The site includes indices for the articles, reviews, and student notes published by the Review and information on a writing competition for law students it sponsors.
Native American Law: This monthly publication is published solely in cyberspace by Patricia Christine Aqiimuk Paul, an Inupiaq woman. The site contains both current and past issues and a page of relevant links.
National Congress of American Indians: The Congress is the oldest and largest national Indian organization. The site includes a section of Issues in Indian Country with documents related to the issues specified, including position papers and press releases, a directory of tribes, links to tribal governments and Indian organizations, and legislative updates.
Indian Law Resource Center: The Center is directed by Native Americans and dedicated to protecting the rights of indigenous peoples throughout the Americas to live in dignity and respect according to the ways of their ancestors. The site contains descriptions of the Center's programs, papers, issues of its newsletter, press releases, and an excellent links page which includes links to relevant international human rights organizations and documents.
Native American Constitution and Law Digitization Project: The Project, a cooperative effort among the University of Oklahoma Law Center, the National Indian Law Library, and Native American tribes, provides access to Tribal Constitutions and Codes and other legal documents pertaining to Native Americans. It includes sections on Indian Land Titles, Indian Reorganization Act Era Constitutions, and the entire text of the Handbook of Federal Indian Law by Felix S. Cohen published in 1945.
Kappler's Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties: This site contains a complilation of United States treaties, statutes, and excutive orders pertaining to American Indian tribes. The original documents are enhanced by the editor's use of margin notations and a comprehensive index.
Cornell U.S. Indian Law Site: This comprehensive site has links to documents and materials pertaining to Indian Law in the United States, including statutes, regulations, and court decisions.
Relations between the United States and Native Americans: The Avalon Project at Yale Law School: This site includes treaties, cases, presidential messages, and other documents issued between 1789 and 1887 concerning the relations between the United States and Indian tribes.
Index of Native American Legal Resources on the Internet: This site contains a HUGE list of links to legal sources related to Native American issues. This site is one section of the Index of Native American Resources on the Internet, a comprehensive and well-organized listing of Native American sites. Another section, Native American Media Resources on the Internet, has links to Native American newspapers, journals, magazines, documentary photography exhibits, broadcast media, and current relevant news stories.
Native American & Aboriginal Law Research Links: This long list of links to primary material, bibliograhpies and collections of web links, and Indian Nations' Pages is published by the New England School of Law.
California Indian Legal Services: This agency is an Indian-controlled law firm organized to provide specialized legal representation to Indians and Indian tribes. The site includes a News section which has its newsletter, an Alerts section, the California Judges Benchguide to the Indian Child Welfare Act, and an excellent links page.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs: The Bureau is the principal bureau within the federal government responsible for the administration of federal programs for federally recognized Indian tribes. The site contains information on pertinent legislation, press releases, reports, and an extensive list of links to sites with information about American Indians. The Tribal Governments section of the site contains the list of federally recognized tribes, extensive statistical data, maps of Indian lands, a directory of tribal leaders, and a list of tribal state gaming compacts. A list of tribes not recognized by the federal government is available from another site.
The People's Paths: This site is designed to provide information about American Indian Culture and other Native Cultures. It includes links or Paths to Political and Legal Issues, a Cherokee Legal Documents Path, and Paths to Changing News among many others.
American Indian and Alaska Native Populations: This Census Bureau site contains demographic data about the American Indian population in the United States.
Native Americans and the Environment: The goals of this site include educating the public about environmental problems in Native American communities and exploring the values and historical experiences Native Americans bring to bear on environmental issues. The site has a comprehensive bibliographic database, a casestudy on the Makah Whaling coflict, and links to on-line documents and sites.
National American Indian Housing Council: The Council is a national membership organization that promotes, supports, and upholds tribes and tribal housing agencies in their efforts to provide culturally-relevant, decent, safe, sanitary, and affordable housing for native people in American Indian communities and Alaska native villages. The site includes research reports, a State of Indian Housing Fact Sheet, Census Bureau data about American Indians, issues of the Council's newspaper, press releases, and also a legislative news section. The Council has transferred its advocacy responsibilities to a new entity, the Coalition for Indian Housing and Development. The Coalition's site contains legislative updates.
A Line in the Sand: This site focuses upon the issues of Native American cultural property and sovereignty and contains numerous links to relevant materials, sites, and legal resources. It has sections on real property, intellectual property, and archaeology and anthropology.
American Indians and Crime: This study reports the rates and characteristics of violent crimes experienced by American Indians and summarizes data on American Indians in the criminal justice system. Its discusses violence both against and by Indians. The site includes the press release announcing the publication of the study in Febraury 1999 and a pdf version of the full study.
Historical Images of the Native American Experience: This site contains a collection of photographs and images arranged chronologically from the prehistoric period to 1990.
The Alcatraz Indian Occupation of 1969: This article written by Dr. Troy Johnson provides a brief history of the occupation. Photographs of the occupation telling the story through the eyes of those who made up the occupation force are available at this other site created by Dr. Johnson.
The Autobiography of Geronimo: This site contains the American Indian leader's story in his own words.
Native American Documents Project: This California State University, San Marcos project's site includes extensive data about the results of allotment between 1887 and 1915. The General Allotment Act of 1887, also known as the Dawes Act, authorized the President to break up tribal lands into separate parcels owned by individual tribal members and resulted in the transfer of large blocks of land into non-Indian hands. The site contains an alphabetical list of reservations for which specific data is provided and a list of suggested readings for additional study. The site also contains the Indexed Published Reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and the Board of Indian Commissions for 1871, which touch on most aspects of federal Indian policy at the time. Additionally, it contains 111 indexed documents pertaining to the Rogue River War and Siletz Reservation, most from the 19th century.
Alcatraz History: The Story of the Indian Inmates: This site discusses the use of Alcatraz to hold Native American prisoners begginning in 1873. The largest group of Indian prisoners were 19 Hopi imprisoned there in 1895. Their crime was to refuse to farm individual allotments as the government instructed them to and to oppose the forced education of their children in government boarding schools. Related sites, Hopi History: The Alcatraz Prisoners Part 1 and Part 2, provide more details on the prisoners, the events leading up to their imprisonment, and its consequences.
The Dakota Conflict Trials 1862: On December 26, 1862, the United States hanged 38 Sioux, the largest mass execution in American history, as a result of the trials. Held before a five member military commission the trials followed armed conflicts between whites and members of some Sioux tribes. President Lincoln ordered the executions, but prevented the hanging of 265 other Sioux. This site, part of the Famous Trials Project by Professor Doug Linder of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, includes accounts of the trials and execution, excerpts from speeches and letters by participants, records of the trials, a chrononlogy, maps, photographs, a bibliography, and a list of relevant links.
A Brief History of the Trail of Tears (1838-1839): This page, part of the official site of the Cherokee Nation, discusses the consequences of the Indian Removal Act and how the policy of Indian removal affected the Cherokees. Additional information is available from this site discussing Cherokee Chief John Ross, who carried a petition to Washington containing 15,000 signatures, 90 % of all Cherokees, protesting the Treaty of New Echota. The Treaty purported to give up Cherokee lands in Georgia in exchange for land west of the Mississippi River pursuant to the Indian Removal Act. Subsequently, United States Army forcibly moved the Cherokees from Georgia to the Indian Territory, what is now the State of Oklahoma. It is estimated that approximately 4,000 Cherokees died during the ordeal. In Cherokee the journey is called "Nunna-da-ul-tsun-yi" or "trail where they cried." Generally, it is called The Trail of Tears.
The Cherokee Trail of Tears: This site contains another good brief description of the Trail of Tears, but begins by discussing the overall federal Indian removal policy. The site index contains links to a timeline, statistics of some of the groups making the trip, an article written from a eye-witness account of a Cherokee camp along the way, and stories of people affected. Another famous account, provided by John G. Burnett, an army private who participated in what he described as "the most brutal order in the History of American Warfare", is available from this link. The account is part of the website of the Cherokee Historical Society of Houston which also contains a list of links to Cherokee-related sites and materials. Additionally, the Trail of Tears has another list of links of relevant sites and materials including a Map of the Trail of Tears, General Winfield Scott's Address to the Cherokees, and his General Order to his troops. This list is part of a site developed by the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government which contains an extensive list of sites and materials related to the Cherokees including the treaties between the United States and the Georgia Cherokees. The Trail of Tears , and a number of short recollections of the trip are contained in this site.
The Choctaw Trail of Tears and Death (1831-1833): This article discusses the removal of the Choctaws from Mississippi to what is now Oklahoma pursuant to the Indian Removal Act of 1830. It is part of the Official Website of the Choctaw Nation. Another article, The Choctaw Trail of Tears, is on a site which also includes the 1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek by which the Choctaw Nation exchanged their lands for land in what was then known as the Indian Territory. That site's index contains links to the Choctaw Constitution and a page of Choctaw links, among others.
Worcester v. Georgia (1832): Georgia law made it illegal to live on Cherokee land without a license and taking an oath of loyalty to the State. Worcester, a missionary, was convicted and sentenced to four years in prison for violating the law. He appealed his conviction to the United States Supreme Court contending that the Georgia statute under which he was convicted was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court agreed and found the Georgia law to be null and void. However, Georgia refused to comply with the Court's decision, and Worcester remained in jail. President Andrew Jackson had taken the position that States should be able to exercise sovereignty over Indian tribes and Indian lands and refused to enforce the Supreme Court's decision. He is reported to have said, "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it." Felix S. Cohen, Handbook of Federal Indian Law 123 (1945).
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831): Relying on treaties with the United States assuring the Nation of sovereignty over tribal lands, the Cherokees sought an injunction preventing the State of Georgia from enforicing state laws which made Cherokee lands and those on it subject to its laws and sovereignty. The United States Supreme Court held it did not have jurisdiction over the case.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830: This federal statute authorized the president to make land available west of the Mississippi River to any Indian tribe which would exchange its land east of the River for it. This site contains the text of the Act. President Andrew Jackson had outlined his arguments for the legislation about three quarters of the way into his first State of the Union Address in 1829, and in his second State of the Union Address the following year he claimed the policy had been successful.
American Indians and the Revolution: This article by historian Wilcomb E. Washburn discusses the role of Native Americans in the American Revolution and its impact on them. It includes suggestions for further reading.
Pocahontas: Icon at the Crossroads of Race and Sex: This site contains an introduction briefly setting forth some of the key events of her life. It then provides links to one set of materials discussing how she is portrayed in the art and literature of the nineteenth century and links to another set of materials discussing how she is portrayed as half-raced and fully sexed. The site also has suggestions for further reading.
American Indian History and Related Issues: This site is created and maintained by the American Indian Studies Program at California State University, Long Beach. It contains a long list of links to sites and materials which discuss the history and culture of Native Americans in North America and has been expanded to include Indian people of Central America and Mexico.
The University of Arizona American Indian Studies General Reading List: This site contains an extensive list of books and articles pertaining to American Indians. One section of the list is specifically directed to the Law and Policy Concentration of the American Indian Studies Program.
Native American Sites: This site provides a comprehensive and well-organized list of American Indian sites, maintained by Lisa Mitten. She is a Mohawk urban Indian, a former librarian at the University of Pittsburgh, and currently an editior for CHOICE Magazine, an academic book review journal for libraries. Her goal is to provide access to home pages of individual Native Americans and Nations, and to other sites that provide solid information about American Indians.