The Education of Little Tree is exposed as the work of a non-Indian who had been a speechwriter for Alabama governor George Wallace and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. The author, Asa Earl Carter (a. k.a. Forrest Carter), who died in 1979, presented himself as a Cherokee and his book as the true story of how he learned the traditions of his tribe from his traditional grandparents.
First published in 1976 and reissued 1986, the book was embraced by teachers faced with developing multicultural curricula in the late 1980s. The book became an unlikely best-seller and in 1990 was awarded the American Booksellers Award, an honor annually bestowed on the favorite book of booksellers across the United States.
The Supreme Court grants states the right to tax Indian cigarette sales to non-Indians.
In the case of Oklahoma Tax Commission v. Citizen Band Potawatomi Indian Tribe, the state of
Oklahoma maintains that the Potawatomi owe state tax on any sales of cigarettes to non-tribal members on their reservation. The Supreme Court agrees but also holds that because of the sovereign status of the Potawatomi, Oklahoma cannot sue the tribe for the amount owed. The decision, therefore, in practice is a victory for the Potawatomi: Although the Court upholds Oklahoma’s right to this tax income, it gives the state no means to force the Indians to
Pay.
Tribal leaders are asked to use reservation land to store nuclear waste.
At the annual conference of the National Congress of American Indians (see entry for JUNE 13 TO 20, 1961), David Leroy, the head of the U. S. Office of Nuclear Waste, encourages Indian tribal leaders to allow the United States to store nuclear waste on their reservations. Leroy offers a $100,000 grant to any tribe that agrees to consider housing waste for 40 years. For tribes prepared to pursue waste storage, the United States promises another $200,000 for study of appropriate sites and $2.8 million once negotiations are finalized.
Over the objections of many tribal members and others concerned about the possible health risks, 20 tribes will apply for the $100,000 grants within six months. Several leaders, however, will be forced to return the money by pressure from their people.
February
The InterTribal Bison Cooperative is founded.
Hosted by the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society, representatives of 19 tribes come together in the Black Hills of South Dakota to find ways in which tribes can work with one another to increase the buffalo population. From this meeting emerges the InterTribal Bison Cooperative, a nonprofit organization that offers Indian tribes information and the funds needed to maintain buffalo herds and develops educational programs to teach the importance of the buffalo in Indian cultures.
April 4
The 1990 census shows a growing Indian population.
The U. S. Census Bureau releases its 1990 figures, which set the population of Indians and Alaskan Natives at almost two million. The number represents a 40 percent increase since 1980. Although the Indian population in the United States is clearly growing, much of the increase is attributed to the diminishing stigma on Indianness, which previously had prevented many people from identifying themselves as Indians. (See also entry for MARCH 2001.)
June 6
Canada’s Studio One promotes Native filmmaking.
Founded by the National Film Board of Canada, Studio One in Edmonton, Alberta, is founded as the first Native-operated studio for film production. The studio, dedicated to producing films that counter stereotypes about Canada’s Natives, offers aspiring filmmakers instruction and access to production facilities.
Summer
Indians protest against the Atlanta Braves at the World Series.
During the World Series between the Atlanta Braves and Minnesota Twins, protests are held at the stadiums of both teams to denounce Atlanta’s team name and the “tomahawk chop” performed by its fans. To show support for the Braves, fans make a chopping motion with their hands to the beat of a drum—a gesture that the protesters criticize as belittling to Indian peoples and cultures. Over their objections, many spectators still make a modified version of the “tomahawk chop”—among them former President Jimmy Carter and the wife of the Atlanta Braves’s owner Ted Turner, Jane Fonda, who had been a celebrity advocate for Indian rights in the 1960s and 1970s.
P
“When we see these folks dressed as Indians and wearing war paint, the stereotypes of Indians come out. They wear headdresses, which are very spiritual in nature, very ceremonial. It would be like if we went to a game with a lot of Catholics and started giving communion in the stands or hearing confessions. It wouldn't show respect.”
—Roger Head, head of the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council, on the 1991 World Series protest against the Atlanta Braves
The Seneca agree to a renewal of the Salamanca lease.
Several months before its expiration, the lease on lands in the town of Salamanca, New York, on the Seneca’s Allegany Reservation is renewed for 40 years. The original hundred-year lease was negotiated in 1892, when the United States, eager to take control of the growing railroad town, pressured the Seneca to sign an agreement that yielded them very little income; on some parcels of land, rents were as low as a dollar a year for the life of the lease. As legislated by Congress, the new lease grants the Seneca Nation $60 million in compensation for the previous unfair agreement and allows for rent increases of $750,000 a year. It also names the Seneca as the owners of “improvements”—including homes and other buildings— on the leased land. The new lease infuriates many residents of Salamanca and increases tension between the Seneca and their non-Indian neighbors. (See also entry for JANUARY 1942.)
Aleut skeletal remains are reburied on Kodiak Island.
Under the terms of the National Museum of the American Indian Act (see entry for NOVEMBER 28, 1989), the Smithsonian returns 756 skeletal remains for reburial to the Aleut of Larsen Bay, on Kodiak Island in Alaska. In addition to 5,000 artifacts, the remains were collected on Kodiak Island in the 1930s by anthropologist Ales Hrdlicka while employed by the Smithsonian Institution.
The U. S. government renames the Custer Battlefield National Monument.
Under pressure by Indian groups, Congress enacts Public Law 102-201, which changes the name of the Custer Battlefield National Monument in Montana to the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. The law also calls for the construction of a monument to memorialize the Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors who defeated the Seventh Cavalry, led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, during the Battle of Little Bighorn (see entry for JUNE 24 TO 25, 1876). (See also entries for FEBRUARY 1997 and for JUNE 25, 2003.)
Canada announces its plan to create the new territory of Nunavut.
Acting on a proposal first presented to the government in 1976, Canada declares that it will create the territory of Nunavut, which will be composed of 350,000 square kilometers of land in the eastern half of the Northwest Territories. Approximately 85 percent of the population of the new territory will be Inuit. The Canadian government also allocates $580 million to fund the territorial government and new Inuit businesses in the territory. In exchange for the creation of Nunavut, the Inuit of the eastern and central Arctic agree to relinquish their aboriginal claims to more than 1 million square miles of territory.
World History
