Native Americans

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Railway Ordered to Pay $400M for Trespassing on Reservation

BNSF Railway sent 100-car trains carrying crude oil through tribe's Washington reservation

(Newser) - BNSF Railway must pay nearly $400 million to a Native American tribe in Washington state, a federal judge ordered Monday after finding that the company intentionally trespassed when it repeatedly ran 100-car trains carrying crude oil across the tribe's reservation. US District Judge Robert Lasnik initially ruled last year...

Report: Colorado Was Built Up on $1.7T of Indigenous Land

Nonprofit IDs 10 tribal nations that were dispossessed of their homelands

(Newser) - A report published this week by a Native American-led nonprofit examines in detail the dispossession of $1.7 trillion worth of Indigenous homelands in Colorado by the state and the US and the more than $546 million the state has reaped in mineral extraction from them. The report, shared first...

Feds Say Tribe Can Resume Hunting Whales

Makah Tribe in Washington state has legally hunted only one whale in around 100 years

(Newser) - The Makah Tribe is the only Native American tribe with a treaty that includes whaling rights, but they have legally hunted only one whale in around a century. That's set to change after a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration decision, the New York Times reports. The Washington state tribe...

Kristi Noem Now Banned From All Tribal Lands in State She Governs

9th Native American tribe votes to bar her from reservation

(Newser) - Kristi Noem was already banned from one-fifth of the state she governs ; now she's banned from even more of it. Indigenous groups in South Dakota have now barred the far-right governor from any and all tribal lands in the state, the Guardian reports. Nine Native American tribes reside in...

Kristi Noem Is Now Banned in 20% of the State She Governs

Another 2 South Dakota tribes ban governor over comments she made in March

(Newser) - South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is now banned from entering nearly 20% of her state after two more tribes banished her this week over comments she made earlier this year about tribal leaders benefitting from drug cartels, reports the AP .
  • What she said: "We've got some tribal leaders
...

Newborns in Great Plains Tribes Paying a Steep Price

ProPublica explains syphilis rates are off the charts, with infants at unprecedented risk

(Newser) - Syphilis cases have been on the rise in the US, as has the number of infants born with the disease. But nowhere have those two stats wrought more misery than in South Dakota— more specifically among Native Americans on reservations there. ProPublica reports that "the syphilis rate among American...

The Movement to Bring Back the Bison

Advocacy and federal rule changes are helping restore an animal vital to the Plains

(Newser) - Before European colonization, an estimated 30 million bison roamed North America's Great Plains. By 1884, Modern Farmer writes that only 325 remained due to a systematic effort to expand territories and push Native communities dependent on them west. They take a look at efforts, which are now being boosted...

Chiefs' Success Renews Activists' Efforts

Group takes protest against use of Native American imagery to Las Vegas

(Newser) - Rhonda LeValdo is exhausted, but she refuses to slow down. For the fourth time in five years, her hometown team and the focus of her decades-long activism against the use of Native American imagery and references in sports is in the Super Bowl. As the Kansas City Chiefs prepare for...

Giant of Native American Literature Dies
Giant of
Native American
Literature Dies
OBITUARY
Jan 29, 2024 12:21 PM CST

Giant of Native American Literature Dies

N. Scott Momaday was a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1969

(Newser) - N. Scott Momaday, a Pulitzer Prize-winning storyteller, poet, educator, and folklorist whose debut novel House Made of Dawn is widely credited as the starting point for contemporary Native American literature, died last week at age 89. Momaday died at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, said publisher HarperCollins. He...

Mad Scramble in US Museums on Native American Displays

New rules handed down by Biden administration prohibit such exhibits without consent from tribes

(Newser) - Museums across America have started closing exhibits highlighting Native American artifacts in an attempt to comply with new Biden administration rules that mandate venues get the OK from Indigenous tribes before displaying those samples. The requirements under the updated Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act , originally passed in 1990,...

South Dakota Hotel Apologizes After Ban on Native Americans

Co-owner has stepped down from management after public dispute

(Newser) - A South Dakota hotel is apologizing after one of its owners attempted to ban Native Americans from the premises, reports the South Dakota Standard . The public apology from the Grand Gateway Hotel in Rapid City is part of the settlement of a discrimination lawsuit brought by the Department of Justice,...

Native Americans in Montana Challenge New Gender Law

Members of Two-Spirit community say their religious and cultural rights are being violated

(Newser) - A new law in Montana that went into effect last month rigidly defines sex in ways that Indigenous Two-Spirit Native Americans say violate their religious and cultural rights. CNN breaks down how Senate Bill 458 affects that community, and how they're pushing back against it. A little background: Gov....

ACLU: School Broke the Law by Forcing Boy to Cut His Hair

Native American child requested exemption for faith, cultural reasons but was denied, letter claims

(Newser) - The American Civil Liberties Union says an elementary school in Kansas is enforcing an unlawful policy under which an 8-year-old Native American boy was forced to choose between having long hair and attending school. The member of the Wyandotte Nation chose to cut his long hair after his mother visited...

A New Look at the Killing of the 'Face of Red Power'

Richard Oakes, a Mohawk, was shot to death in 1972, and the shooter went free

(Newser) - In one sense, the events that day were straightforward: "On Sept. 20, 1972, a white man pulled out a pistol, pointed it at an unarmed Indigenous father and fired a single bullet. It struck Richard Oakes in the heart, killing him almost instantly." So write Jason Fagone and...

Ancient Mounds in Ohio Join Ranks of World Gems

UNESCO recognizes earthworks by Native Americans as a World Heritage Site

(Newser) - A network of ancient Native American ceremonial and burial mounds in Ohio described as "part cathedral, part cemetery, and part astronomical observatory" was added Tuesday to the UNESCO World Heritage Site list. Preservationists, led by the Ohio History Connection, and Indigenous tribes, many with ancestral ties to the state,...

Colorado Peak Gets a Meaningful Name Change

Mount Evans is now Mount Blue Sky

(Newser) - Federal officials on Friday renamed a towering mountain southwest of Denver as part of a national effort to address the history of oppression and violence against Native Americans. The US Board on Geographic Names voted overwhelmingly to change Mount Evans to Mount Blue Sky at the request of the Cheyenne...

At This River, Officials Try to Turn Back the Clock 100 Years

Klamath River restoration project is a massive, $500M endeavor, involving removal of 4 dams

(Newser) - The largest dam removal project in US history is underway along the California-Oregon border—a process that won't conclude until the end of next year with the help of heavy machinery and explosives. But in some ways, removing the four dams is the easy part, per the AP . The...

Dig Begins to Find Buried Native American Children

Archaeologists are seeking lost cemetery on grounds of ex-boarding school in Nebraska

(Newser) - Bodies of dozens of children who died at a Native American boarding school have been lost for decades, a mystery that archaeologists aim to unravel as they begin digging in a central Nebraska field that a century ago was part of the sprawling campus. Crews toting shovels, trowels, and even...

DOJ: This 'Made What Happened to George Floyd Possible'

After 2-year investigation, agency finds Minneapolis cops engaged in pattern of discrimination

(Newser) - The Justice Department accused Minneapolis police Friday of engaging in a pattern of violating constitutional rights and discriminating against Black and Native American people following an investigation prompted by the killing of George Floyd. The sweeping two-year civil rights investigation concluded that systemic problems in the Minneapolis Police Department "...

Supreme Court Hands Big Win to Native American Tribes

Justices uphold law stipulating Native American kids up for adoption go to Native American families

(Newser) - The Supreme Court delivered a big win to American Indians on Thursday, upholding a law that stipulates Native American children up for adoption should go to Native American families. NPR reports that the 7-2 ruling defied predictions, with Amy Coney Barrett writing the majority opinion and only Clarence Thomas and...

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