American Indian / Native American Studies – Exam Notes

Indigenous Ways of Knowing

• Knowledge systems rooted in place, kinship with land, animals, plants; conveyed via stories, ceremony, seasonal practice.
• Creation stories affirm origin “since time immemorial,” rebutting Bering Strait narrative.
• Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK): sustainable land-care (fire, harvest cycles); 7-generation principle guides decisions.
• Place-based learning links language, history, environment; example: California tribes’ tending of acorn, salmon, basketry plants.

Core Political Concepts

• Sovereignty: inherent nation-to-nation authority; limited only by explicit Congressional action.
• Self-determination: tribes control governance, courts, police, schools, research.
• Self-governance: operational control of federal programs (P.L. 93\text{–}638).
• Colonization / Imperialism: violent seizure, forced law, religion, economy.
• Settler Colonialism: ongoing project that removes/erases Natives to replace them; not a past event.
• Racist Nativism: whites cast selves as “native” Americans, marking non-whites as foreign.
• Genocide (UN, 1948): any of 5 acts committed with intent to destroy a group; all met in U.S. Indian policy.
• Tribal Critical Race Theory (TribalCRT): 9 tenets framing colonization as endemic and policy as rooted in white supremacy while centering story, survivance, sovereignty.
• Blood Quantum: U.S. tool to shrink tribal rolls; halves each mixed generation; many tribes now adopt lineage criteria instead.

Key Federal Policies & Shifts (Selective)

• 1830 Indian Removal Act ➔ Trail(s) of Tears.
• 1887 Dawes Allotment Act ➔ loss of communal land.
• 1934 Indian Reorganization Act ➔ end allotment, encourage tribal constitutions, land-into-trust.
• 1953 Termination & Public Law 280 ➔ state jurisdiction, loss of status; officially reversed 1970.
• 1975 Indian Self-Determination & Education Assistance Act ➔ contract/compact authority.
• 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) ➔ keep Native children with Native families.
• 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) ➔ economic development.

Stereotypes & “Othering”

• Imaginary tropes (Brian Baker): roaming nomad, childish ward, wild dancer, “redskin warrior.”
• Functions: justify land theft, reservations, paternalism; produce invisibility yet hyper-visibility via mascots, film.
• “Playing Indian” & sports mascots reinforce settler identity; erasure of living peoples.

Historical Trauma & Education

• Boarding-school era (1879–1970s): “Kill the Indian, save the man” → loss of language, abuse, graves.
• Relocation (1950s): urbanization, attempted assimilation; sparked intertribal activism.
• Ongoing intergenerational impacts: high violence, health disparities, over-suspension of Native students.

Movements & Resistance

• Red Power Era: Alcatraz occupation (1969–71), Trail of Broken Treaties (1972), Wounded Knee II (1973).
• Water & Land Defense: Standing Rock “No DAPL” (2016–17); Shasta Dam raise opposition.
• MMIWG2S: grassroots response to crisis of Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women/Girls/Two-Spirit; federal MMU (2021).
• LANDBACK: campaign to return public/“surplus” lands (e.g., Black Hills) to tribes.
• Language/Cultural Revitalization: Breath of Life institutes; tribal dictionaries, immersion schools, hip-hop artists incorporating language.

Contemporary Governance & Economy

• Land, water, mineral rights reserved unless ceded; litigated in courts (e.g., Winters, Arizona v. California).
• Gaming, energy, forestry, agriculture fund services; still within federal-trust oversight.

Study Reminders

• Always link policy to its aim: control land & resources.
• Distinguish political/legal identity (citizens of sovereign nations) from racial category.
• Note pendulum of U.S. policy: removal → allotment → reorganization → termination → self-determination.
• Center Native agency, survivance, and present-day leadership when analyzing history.