In January 2005, the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development issued a new report on the state of American Indians living on reservations based on census information from 1990 to 2000. The report examined Indians’ progress in a variety of socioeconomic categories, including income, unemployment, poverty, education, and housing conditions. The Harvard Project discovered that Indians still lagged far behind other Americans in these areas—an unsurprising finding considering their long history of discrimination and dispossession. But what was surprising was the report’s contention that, in the 10 years examined, American Indians had made enormous strides toward improving their social and economic status.
The success and growth of the Indian gaming industry certainly has had a hand in these improvements. But the Harvard Project found that even tribes without gaming operations made huge steps forward, even as federal funding for Indian social programs dropped. At the beginning of the 21st century, the majority of tribal groups—with or without the benefit of casino income—were finding ways to improve their lives at an impressive pace. At the same time, their population continued to grow to unprecedented numbers. In the 2000 census, 2.5 million Americans identified themselves as American Indians or Alaska natives, representing a 26 percent increase from just a decade earlier.
Entering the 21st century, Indian peoples have plenty of reasons for optimism. Yet, they still face many challenges—some old and some new. While in many ways a positive force, gambling income has created new problems within and between some Indian groups. For instance, the leaders of several tribes unhappily became primary players in the national political scandal focused on Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who in 2006 confessed to defrauding these leaders out of millions.
Tribes also face renewed threats to their sovereign status. In the 2000s, a series of court rulings helped erode Indian sovereignty and restrict Indian rights. Perhaps the most significant has been the decision in Wagnon v. Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation (2005), which found that Kansas could impose a tax on gasoline sold on the tribe’s lands. As the first major Supreme Court decision of the Roberts Court, the ruling has alarmed Indian leaders as a harbinger of similar decisions to come.
The Indian plaintiffs in Cobell v. Norton also continue to deal with government officials hostile to their concerns. Instigating the largest class action suit in the history of the United States, the plaintiffs charge the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) with mismanaging trust accounts set up by the government for individual Indians in the 19 th century. Since the lawsuit was filed in 1996, Judge Royce C. Lamberth has repeatedly taken to task government officials involved in the case for making false representations and possibly destroying evidence. Largely because of his outspokenness, Lamberth was removed from the case in 2006.
Despite these ongoing battles, Indians have also recently seen some victories in their efforts to secure their rights and earn the respect due their peoples and cultures. Some of these victories, though largely symbolic, show an increasing shift in the way both Indians and non-Indians view America’s first peoples. For instance, in 2005, Boston lifted a 330-year-old ban against Indians entering the city—now deemed an embarrassing relic of the early Massachusetts colonists’ hostility toward nearby Indian groups. In 2001, after years of litigation, the descendants of Lakota warrior Crazy Horse achieved a moral triumph by compelling a company responsible for selling Crazy Horse Malt Liquor to issue a formal apology for defaming the name of their ancestor.
The issue of Indian team mascots has also received increased attention. The National Collegiate Athletic Association in 2005 banned teams with “hostile and abusive” Indian mascots from participating in postseason tournaments. The resulting controversy has forced Indians and non-Indians alike to reexamine old and familiar Indian mascots and reevaluate whether they are innocent celebrations of past peoples or damaging stereotypes that actively humiliate and demean Indians of today.
Similarly, several new memorials ask Americans to rethink the way Indians fit into the narrative of the nation’s history. At the site of the Battle of Little Bighorn, an Indian memorial, dedicated in 2003, honors the Indian warriors who defeated the Seventh Cavalry, calling into question the traditional depiction of Indians as the villains in that famous conflict. And at Bosque Redondo in New Mexico, a new memorial invites visitors to learn about the most painful era in Navajo (Dineh) history—an era that until recently has been largely ignored outside the Navajo tribe.
The National Museum of the American Indians (NMAI), located on the National Mall in Washington, D. C., is further evidence of America’s renewed efforts to understand and commemorate Indians of the past, while celebrating modern Indian nations. With more than 8,000 objects on display, its exhibits tell the story of some 500 Indian peoples from an Indian perspective.
The dedication of the museum was itself a momentous event. Joining in the festivities were approximately 25,000 Indians, the largest gathering of Indians in modern American history. In his address to the crowd, museum director W. Richard West, Jr., expressed his desire that the NMAI opening would become a historical landmark in still another way. For West, the museum “is a symbol for the hope, centuries in the making, that the hearts and minds of all Americans, beyond this museum and throughout the Americas, will open and welcome the presence of the first peoples in their history and in their contemporary lives.”
World History
