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Indigenous Activists Claim Alcatraz Island (1969)
On November 20, 1969, eighty-nine Native Americans, led by activist Richard Oakes, seized control of Alcatraz. From 1934 until 1963 this small island in San Francisco Bay had been home to the federal prison Alcatraz. Nicknamed "The Rock," the [...]
An Indigenous Student Argues for Assimilation (1902)
In 1887, Congress enacted the Dawes Act, referred to as the Dawes Severalty Act or General Allotment Act. It empowered the federal government to redistribute tribal lands: rather than being communally owned by tribes, land would be owned and farmed [...]
Zitkála-Šá Remembers Her Mother's Curse (1921)
Zitkála-Šá was born on the Yankton Reservation in South Dakota in 1876. When she was 8, she left her Dakota community to attend a Quaker missionary-run boarding school in Indiana. She also attended Earlham College, a Quaker school in Indiana, and [...]
Diane Burns Sheds Light on Gentrification (1988)
Artist and poet Diane Burns was born in Lawrence, Kansas in 1957: her father was Chemehuevi and her mother was Anishinabe. In the 1970s she moved to New York City where she created art that challenged stereotypes of Native Americans and addressed [...]
Critical Discussion of Thanksgiving
This activity is designed to help students to reflect on their own perceptions of Thanksgiving, learn how the holiday originated, and how it has changed overtime. They will also engage with what the holiday means from Indigenous perspectives. [...]
Seneca Chiefs Address George Washington (1790)
In 1790, Cornplanter, the chief of the Seneca nation (a nation within the Haudenosaunee Confederacy) and two other chiefs sought redress from the supreme executive council of Pennsylvania for wrongs committed by British colonists. The chiefs [...]
Background Essay on Iron Horses and American Indians
This essay discusses the impact of the transcontinental railroad on Native American life. It focuses on the role of buffalo hunters in the federal government's policy of Indian removal. This essay, and the related Iron Horse vs. the Buffalo [...]
Background Essay on Building the Railroads
This essay explains how railroads transformed late-nineteenth century America and shows how their impact was felt differently across class and racial lines.
How is History Recorded? The Lewis and Clark Journals and Lakota Winter Counts
In this activity, students read two primary documents from the early 1800s: a journal entry from the Lewis and Clark expedition and a Lakota Indian "winter count" calendar. Using an analysis worksheet, students identify key ideas and details from [...]
A Civil Rights Organizer Condemns "Jane Crow"
Pauli Murray entered law school in 1941 with the "single-minded intention of destroying Jim Crow." Though on the frontlines of civil rights demonstrations and behind the scenes of many organizational meetings since the 1940s, Murray and other [...]