Native American

04/29/2026

❤🇨🇦

Canada feels like an estranged sibling now. All because a madman destroyed the relationship.

When we finally get him out, I'm hoping they can finally forgive us.

04/28/2026

04/27/2026

Did you know? Native Americans have inhabited North America for over 15,000 years, developing diverse cultures, languages, and sophisticated societies long before European contact. Today, there are 574 federally recognized tribes in the United States, each with unique traditions, histories, and contributions. Learning about Native American heritage helps us appreciate the rich cultural diversity that shaped our continent. 📚

04/26/2026

Should Native American History Be a Required School Subject? Education leaders from the Cherokee Nation have supported programs that teach students about Indigenous history and culture in schools across the United States. Supporters say learning Native history helps students better understand the full story of the country. These programs can help: • Teach accurate historical perspectives • Preserve Indigenous stories and knowledge • Build respect between cultures 👇 Question for you: Should Native American history be a required subject in schools? Comment YES or NO

04/25/2026

What do you think? Say Yes

04/24/2026

Why Native Americans Have Protested Mount Rushmore
While Mount Rushmore is considered a treasured destination for some Americans, to Native Americans, it can represent a stinging legacy.
The faces of four U.S. presidents gaze from a granite face mountain in the Black Hills of South Dakota. To some, Mount Rushmore is hailed as the “Shrine of Democracy.” To American Indians, the monument is typically considered a shrine of illegal occupation.
So while Mount Rushmore attracts some 3 million visitors annually as a tourist destination, it has also been the site of multiple American Indian protests and occupations. Among the most notable in the 20th century, were in 1970 and 1971, when Native American activists climbed and then occupied Mount Rushmore as a protest against what they declared as the theft and desecration of a spiritual site.
The 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie
Tribes such as the Shoshone, Salish, Kootenai Crow, Mandan, Arikara, and the Lakota have long lived around the Black Hills, a sanctuary the Lakota call “The Heart of Everything That Is.” Indigenous people knew the land centuries before white people had ever seen it, says Gerard Baker, a Mandan-Hidatsa Indian who served as Superintendent at Mount Rushmore National Memorial from 2004 to 2010.
The Black Hills were reserved for the Lakota (also known as the Teton Sioux) in the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie. But the discovery of gold in the region prompted U.S. prospectors to soon overrun the area, and the government began forcing the Sioux to give up their claims on the land.
Warriors, including Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse led resistance against the land seizures, but, by 1877, the U.S. government had officially confiscated the land. Ever since, the Sioux and other American Indian activists have protested the U.S. government's claim to their ancestral lands.
American Indian Protests of 1970s
On August 29, 1970, a group of Native Americans, led by the San Francisco-based United Native Americans, ascended 3,000 feet to the top of Mount Rushmore and set up camp to protest the broken Treaty of Fort Laramie. The following year, on June 6, 1971, a group of Native Americans, led by the American Indian Movement (AIM), occupied the carved Mount Rushmore to demand the 1868 treaty be honored. Twenty Native Americans—nine men and 11 women—were eventually arrested and charged with climbing the monument.
Marcella Gilbert, a Lakota and Dakota community organizer, recalled watching televised coverage of her mother, AIM leader, Madonna Thunderhawk, occupying Mount Rushmore in 1970. The following year, at age 12, Gilbert participated in the next occupation. She remembers the event as being “cool,” but also a little tense. Upon a “let’s go” order, she ran with others to the top of the site.
She recalls that adults taking part in the occupation eventually noticed police and National Park Service rangers gathering below. A decision was made to take the younger members, including Gilbert, back down the mountain before the police arrived.
When an adult returned down the mountain with the children, Gilbert recalls watching from hidden locations as federal agents raided their camp. “We were in the trees,” says Gilbert. “I remember them tearing through our tents, just like they did at Standing Rock. Taking all the food, breaking into the shed.”
In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court awarded the Great Sioux Nation $105 million as compensation for their loss of the Black Hills, a sum that was rejected by the Sioux Nation. The tribes instead continued to demand the return of the land, and the rejected money remains in a government bank account.
Mount Rushmore Presidents and Their Conflicts With Native Americans
Baker says most park employees are well-versed in the traditional story of Mount Rushmore—and the U.S. presidents it honors. This history includes how, in 1924, South Dakota State Historian Doane Robinson asked sculptor John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum to carve a monument in the Black Hills. Borglum chose to carve George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln into Rushmore Peak. The National Park Service Mount Rushmore website cites Borglum’s reason for choosing the men, stating, “They represented the most important events in the history of the United States.”
Baker says he encouraged his National Park Service staff to expand the story of Mount Rushmore to include the history of American Indians. For example, the Mount Rushmore sculptor allotted the most prominent rock display to the first president of the United States, George Washington. As Dartmouth College Professor Collin G. Calloway writes in The Indian World of George Washington, Washington became known as "Town Destroyer" among the Iroquois after 1779 when he called for the "total destruction and devastation" of the American Indian settlements across upstate New York.
Borglum chose to depict President Jefferson, a primary author of the Declaration of Independence, for representing the growth of the United States. However, as James Rhonda writes in Thomas Jefferson and the Changing West, Jefferson also laid the groundwork for aggressively acquiring Indian land.
When Theodore Roosevelt took office as the 26th president in 1901, he’d already established a hostile relationship toward American Indians, saying in an 1886 speech, “I don’t go so far as to think that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but I believe nine out of every 10 are.”
Borglum chose to memorialize Lincoln because, as he said, Lincoln represented “the preservation of the United States.” As Lincoln led preservation of the country during the American Civil War, he also signed off on an ex*****on order to hang 38 Dakota in Minnesota in what became the largest mass ex*****on in U.S. history.
“All those presidents did something good for the country," says Baker, but, he adds, they also played a part in the U.S. government's oppression of Native American cultures.

04/23/2026

𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐄 𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐍𝐆!
𝙔𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙤𝙬 𝙀𝙮𝙚𝙨 (𝙄𝙨𝙝𝙩𝙖𝙯𝙞) , of the Lakota Nation, photo by Frank Fiske 1906. Yellow Eyes was an informant for Chief Sitting Bull and was with him at the Battle of Little Big Horn. She and her family escaped with him to Canada and returned with him when he surrendered in 1881. She went on to Fort Peck with her son and husband and the other warriors. Information obtained from one of her descendants, Dorothy Eiken.One summer Chief Sitting Bull had a Sun Dance for the people in which Yellow Eyes was present, it was a very harsh winter in Canada and the people were without food and on the verge of starvation. The spirits gave Chief Sitting Bull a sacred song that is still sung at Sun Dance to this day. It gave them courage, following the Sun Dance the Buffalo were plentiful even if it was for a short time. Without the Buffalo we would not have survived and without us they would not have survived, we are connected by blood and spirit. The Buffalo give us strength and courage in the hardest of times, the old Buffalo Nation Man said “we will live.”

04/22/2026

“Before I was six years old, my grandparents and my mother had taught me that if all the green things that grow were taken from the earth, there could be no life. If all the four-legged creatures were taken from the earth, there could be no life. If all the winged creatures were taken from the earth, there could be no life. If all our relatives who crawl and swim and live within the earth were taken away, there could be no life. But if all the human beings were taken away, life on earth would flourish. That is how insignificant we are.”
Russell Means, Oglala Lakota Nation (November 10, 1939 – October 22, 2012).

04/21/2026

Russell Means. He is a man of all trades. He is a actor and author and activist. Grew up watching him on the news in the 70s. With the siege at Wounded knee.
As a child I didn't understand because schools don't teach anything about real American Indian history. I took it upon myself to read and learn and ask questions.
Because of Russell Means is why I learned what was happening to American Indians.

04/19/2026

𝐒𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐊 (𝐜𝐚. 𝟏𝟖𝟎𝟎–𝟏𝟖𝟕𝟏)
A Kiowa war chief and medicine man, Satank (Set-angia, Sitting Bear) was probably born circa 1800 near the Black Hills of South Dakota and was of Kiowa and Sarsi descent. A member of the Koitsenko warrior society, Satank won notoriety in combat against the Cheyenne, Pawnee, and other Kiowa enemies. Many Kiowa believed he possessed mysterious powers and shunned him. He was one of several leaders who emerged after the death of the chief Dohasan in 1866.
Satank was among those who placed their mark upon the Fort Atkinson Treaty of 1853 and the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867. The latter relegated the Kiowa to a reservation in the Leased District of Indian Territory. His discontentment with reservation life intensified after Texans killed his favorite son in 1870. An elderly but vengeful Satank joined Satanta, Big Tree, and other restless Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, and Comanche warriors on raids into Texas.
On May 18, 1871, Satank participated in an attack upon a wagon train in which seven teamsters were killed near Fort Richardson, Texas. He was arrested at Fort Sill for his involvement in the massacre and was ordered to stand trial for murder. On June 8, 1871, he was placed securely in a wagon for transport to Jacksboro, Texas. Singing the Koitsenko death song, he assailed his military es**rt and was killed. His body was buried at Fort Sill

04/19/2026

For decades, Indigenous stories reached the screen without Indigenous voices guiding how those stories were told. Visibility existed, yet real creative authority was often missing. This imbalance shaped public understanding of Native communities and influenced how Indigenous youth saw themselves reflected in media.
When stories are filtered through outside perspectives, nuance and truth can be lost. Stereotypes fill the gaps left by absence, and lived experience is reduced to simplified narratives. The impact of this extends far beyond film, touching identity, confidence, and belonging.
The first Academy Award nomination for a film directed by an Indigenous North American filmmaker marks a powerful shift that should have come much sooner. It signals a change in who holds the pen and who decides what stories look like, sound like, and mean.
This moment is about authorship and honesty rather than trophies. It represents the right to speak from lived reality, cultural memory, and community knowledge without translation or distortion from outside voices.
When Indigenous creators lead their own narratives, the result carries depth, care, and truth rooted in experience. This milestone opens space for more voices to rise, while reminding us how many Indigenous stories still remain unheard and waiting to be shared on their own terms 🎬🪶.

04/18/2026

Montana is the only U.S. state with a constitutional mandate requiring public schools to teach and preserve Native American history and culture. This commitment comes from Article X of the Montana Constitution and is carried out through a statewide initiative known as Indian Education for All. The mandate recognizes that Indigenous nations are not just part of history, but living communities whose cultures, languages, and contributions remain vital today.
The policy ensures that all students, Native and non-Native alike, learn accurate and respectful representations of Indigenous peoples. Lessons are developed in collaboration with Montana’s Tribal Nations, helping prevent stereotypes and historical erasure while centering Indigenous perspectives. This approach emphasizes sovereignty, cultural continuity, and the deep historical ties between Native nations and the land now called Montana.
More than a curriculum requirement, this mandate reflects an ethical responsibility. It acknowledges past injustices while affirming that understanding Indigenous history is essential to building mutual respect and informed citizenship. Montana’s model stands as an example of how education can move beyond omission—creating space for truth, accountability, and cultural respect in the classroom..