In New Jersey the Native American Advancement Corporation recently took ownership of a 63-acre property. President of the conservation non-profit Tyrese Gould Jacinto spoke to ICT about her own connection to the land and its future.
Earlier this summer Cherokee Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. won re-election to office for another four-year term. As he begins a new administration the chief has called this some of the most challenging times in Cherokee history.
A Blackfeet educational leader, Earl Barlow, died July 26 at age 96. Barlow was known in Montana as “the father of Indian Education” after leading efforts to recognize tribes in the state’s 1972 constitutional convention. During the Carter and Reagan administration, he was appointed as Director of the Office of Indian Education within the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
A new study shows that the settlers’ slaughter of buffalo led to a lasting environmental and economic impact for Indigenous people today. Buffalo, or bison, were massacred in the Great Plains region starting in the 1870s, and the killing persisted until the population dwindled from eight million to roughly 500. The study charted a drop in height for buffalo-reliant peoples by more than an inch. This data is often an indicator of malnutrition or disease, especially in childhood.
A long simmering controversy over a university professor’s claims of Native ancestry is heading toward something of a conclusion. University of California at Riverside Native Studies Professor Andrea Smith’s” claims of Cherokee heritage have been challenged for at least 15 years. She has stuck by her assertions. After faculty members accused her of fraud she has agreed to step down next year, but without retracting her claims, according to a U.C. spokesperson.
Last week, a group of 13 state attorney generals sent a letter urging Congress to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. Leading the effort is New Mexico attorney general, Raúl Torrez. The act provided compensation and medical care for downwinders from nuclear testing sites and uranium miners. However, people within a 150 mile radius of the Trinity Site, where the first atomic bomb was detonated, were left out.
It’s not just Confederate statues that are controversial. Those that chronicle the American West and Indigenous people are on the list. Police in Santa Fe are investigating the partial destruction of a monument to Christopher “Kit” Carson, who represents a brutal history in the Southwest. He led a military campaign to remove Navajo people from their homeland by destroying crops, livestock and homes. Many Navajos died during the Long Walk, starting in 1863, as well as during a yearslong detention in eastern New Mexico.
