Free Republic

The Biden administration’s war on the ability of American Indians and tribal nations to develop their energy resources is finally receiving the probing attention it deserves, resulting in an aggressive pushback from American Indians and tribal leaders. The tipping point came last month when Biden’s Department of the Interior announced a 20-year moratorium on new oil and gas leases on 350,000 acres of federal land within 10 miles of Chaco Culture National Historic Park in northwestern New Mexico. Navajo Nation, which earlier withdrew its support for a 5-mile park buffer due to the economic cost to tribal members, had lobbied...

The Pilgrims didn’t bring ‘genocide’ to America. They barely brought themselves, with half of their company dying that first winter, in 1620-21.Americans have a great and exuberant tradition that touches our sense of belonging and our pride in coming together. No, I am not referring to Thanksgiving, that festival of gratitude, generosity, and welcome. I am referring to the equally great and exuberant tradition of trash-talking other people. Supposedly we have reformed. Ethnic slurs that were once common have retreated to the dark corners of dive bars and the even darker corners of anti-social media. We live in a time...

DENVER — A North Dakota-based organization representing Native Americans sued Colorado this week for a measure banning American Indian school mascots which was passed last year amid a nationwide push for racial justice following George Floyd’s murder in Minneapolis. The lawsuit by the nonprofit Native American Guardian’s Association was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court... ...The suit argues that the complete erasure of Native American imagery is not beneficial and that the use of positive and respectful Native American symbols and mascots in schools honors the group, helps neutralize offensive stereotypes and teaches the public about Native American history. ...

Like most new racial history exercises, land acknowledgments are less about a true reflection of the past than grievance politics and superficial gestures.Leftist media was all aglow on Feb. 23, when Interior Department Secretary nominee Deb Haaland began her testimony before the Senate by stating: “I acknowledge that we are on the ancestral homelands of the Nacotchtank, Anacostan, and Piscataway people.”A Vox article gushed: “It’s likely the first time a Cabinet nominee acknowledged tribal lands upon testifying before the Senate.” An indigenous activist in the Washington Post called it a “rebuke of … the countless politicians and bureaucrats who dedicated...

Remember when the tribal leaders were “optimistic” about Joe Biden and overwhelmingly voted for him? The honeymoon is already over for the Ute Indian Tribe in Utah. Joe Biden wasted no time destroying tens of thousands of jobs his first day in office by canceling the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Biden also put a 60-day moratorium on new oil and natural gas leases and drilling permits on federal lands and states in the west and southwest are furious. The Ute Indian Tribe in Fort Duchesne, Utah blasted the Biden Administration’s restrictions on federal energy development. “Your order is...

Revisionist histories are nearly always written (or posted to the internet) with an agenda in mind — it's no different for the Pilgrims and Thanksgiving.Four hundred years after the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts in November 1620, this Thanksgiving promises to be the most isolated celebration in living memory. Thanks to the internet, however, virtual gatherings will be possible. Thanksgiving in the age of the internet also means, for many amateur historians, debunking the many myths surrounding the story of the original Thanksgiving. This project of correcting the Thanksgiving legend has picked up steam in recent years. It is part of...

Aimee Jorjani, chairman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation Why is a Trump appointee stopping progress on America’s efforts to compete with China in the vital arena of 5G technology? That’s the question being asked in the wireless industry, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the White House itself. In June of 2019, Aimee Jorjani was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as the first full-time chairman of the obscure Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP). The council is a creation of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) and its job is to “promote the preservation, enhancement, and sustainable use...

Devon Archer was convicted of defrauding the Oglala Sioux Indian tribe out of bond-sale proceeds. Hunter Biden was not implicated in the scheme, which defrauded the Oglala Sioux Indian tribe out of the proceeds of bond sales. | Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File/AP Photo A federal appeals court reinstated the fraud conviction of Hunter Biden’s former business partner on Wednesday, reversing a lower court judge who had granted his request for a retrial. Hunter Biden was not implicated in the scheme, which defrauded the Oglala Sioux Indian tribe out of the proceeds of bond sales. But the scheme was committed under...

SIOUX CITY, Iowa — After nearly one hundred years in business, Sue Bee Honey is changing its longtime logo. The cooperative of beekeepers from across the nation is painting over the wall of its headquarters on Lewis Boulevard where an image of a Native American girl with a feather in her hair and wings has been featured for years. The president of the Sioux Honey Association says the change has been in the works and isn't linked to recent concerns by some companies about racial insensitivity. "We have moved away from that logo with any of our labels and consumer...

Settlers in New England highlighted the conflict between self-preservation and the selfless sharing of the Gospel. Gospel-motivated settlers wanted to bless the native inhabitants, both physically and spiritually. Unfortunately, other settlers viewed natives as an unpredictable danger, as sometimes they would kidnap women and children, or steal from farms. In a larger sense, what both sides were experiencing was a colliding of civilizations. Europe, Asia, China, India, North Africa, and the Middle East, all had centuries of written languages, metal tools, scientific advancements, agricultural technologies, and powerful weapons. By comparison, natives of North America had a subsistence lifestyle. This was...

The Presidential Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives announced 12 Tribal consultations to occur virtually across the United States in the coming months. WASHINGTON – The Presidential Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives announced 12 Tribal consultations to occur virtually across the United States in the coming months.  American Indians and Alaska Natives experience disproportionately high rates of violence. President Trump has called the crisis of missing and murdered Native Americans “sobering and heartbreaking.” The Presidential Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives, also known as Operation...

The American Indian and Alaska Native people have endured generations of injustice. They experience domestic violence, homicide, sexual assault, and abuse far more frequently than other groups. These horrific acts, committed predominantly against women and girls, are egregious and unconscionable. During Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives Awareness Day, we reaffirm our commitment to ending the disturbing violence against these Americans and to honoring those whose lives have been shattered and lost. Resiliency, collaboration, and resourcefulness are all necessary to eradicate the heartbreaking incidents of missing persons and fatal violence experienced by American Indian and Alaska Native communities...

She was never a stereotype. That was my thought earlier this month when I heard that “Mia,” as the Land O’Lakes Native American maiden was known, had been taken off the butter box. She was gone, vanished, missing. I knew Mia had devolved into a stereotype in many people’s minds. But it was the stereotype some saw that bothered me. North Dakota state Rep. Ruth Buffalo (D), for instance, told the Pioneer Press in St. Paul, Minn., that the Land O’Lakes image of Mia went “hand-in-hand with human and sex trafficking of our women and girls … by depicting Native...

The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe got a frightening notice from the Trump administration just as residents are grappling with the devastating impact of COVID-19.The U.S. Interior Department is rescinding the reservation status of a Native American tribe whose plan to build a casino on its Massachusetts land was attacked by President Donald Trump last year. The planned gaming operation would have competed for business with nearby Rhode Island casinos with strong ties to Trump, who once owned, then bankrupted, casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The federal Bureau of Indian Affairs informed the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe on Friday that its 321-acre...

One of the few remaining Navajo Code Talkers who used their native language to confound the Japanese in World War II has died. The family of Joe Vandever Sr. says he died Friday of health complications in Haystack, New Mexico. He was 96. Tribal leaders called him a great warrior and a compassionate family man.  He was among hundreds of Navajos who served in the U.S. Marine Corps transmitting messages using a code based on the Navajo language. It was never broken. His death leaves less than a handful of Navajo Code Talkers still alive.

Every Columbus Day, liberals insist that the story of European colonization is a simple narrative of good versus evil: horrible Europeans came upon innocent Native Americans, introducing slavery, exploitation, and oppression. A massive archaeological discovery blows one of many gaping holes in this narrative. While Europeans did indeed do horrible things, the natives weren't exactly innocent. Two hundred and fifty skeletons of children between the ages of 4 and 14 have been unearthed at Huanchaco, Peru, in what experts say is likely the world's largest child-sacrifice site. Huanchaco is a site of the Chimú culture (1200-1400), a predecessor to the...

KILLINGLY, Conn. (WTNH) The future of Killingly High School‘s nickname is still unclear as of Thursday morning. During a meeting on Wednesday, the school board decided to table the vote on whether to change it. For more than 80 years, students there have been called the “Redmen.” Their mascot is a chief wearing feathers, but now that could come to an end as some are calling it racist. “It’s more of a pride and honor thing. We respect what we wear. I wouldn’t wear something I don’t respect!” Killingly is not the first local town to take this up. Manchester...

AKWESASNE, Que. -- A funeral will be held Saturday for the last of the Mohawk code talkers from the Second World War, Louis Levi Oakes, who died peacefully on Tuesday surrounded by family at age 94. Oakes was the last surviving member of a group that used the Mohawk language to help relay encrypted secure messages to Allied forces during the Second World War -- one of 33 native languages used by U.S. troops to share vital information. "Levi was one of Akwesasne's most respected elders and the remaining survivor of the World War II Mohawk Code Talkers," the Akwesasne...

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch broke with conservatives and joined four other liberal justices in a 5-4 tribal rights decision Monday. The Supreme Court upheld a Native American man’s hunting rights under a 150-year-old treaty. Crow tribe member Clayvin Herrera was charged in 2014 for off-season hunting in the Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming but argued that a treaty signed in 1868 between the tribe and Wyoming allowed him to hunt any time of the year. The state argued the treaty was nullified in 1890 when Wyoming achieved statehood, lower courts agreed, and the case made its way to the...

Verlon Jose had long vowed President Trump would build a wall along his tribe’s 75-mile border with Mexico only “over my dead body.” But late last month, the Tohono O’odham Nation’s vice chairman stood at the border and praised a planned wall meant to deter migrants, smugglers — and, according to the tribe, federal agents — from disturbing its lands. The wall he described was not physical, but virtual: 10 towers up to 140 feet tall, with radar and night vision cameras capable of surveying over several miles and streaming footage around the clock to the Border Patrol. “The idea...