Indigenous Studies Commons^™

Evans Committee Statement On Pioneer, Ramona Beltran, Richard Clemmer-Smith, Tamra Pearson D’Estrée, Alan Gilbert, Adam Rovner, Dean Saitta, Billy J. Stratton, Tink Tinker, Nancy D. Wadsworth, Viki Eagle, Julia Bramante, Amanda Williams, Sara Schwartzkopf

John Evans Study: Supporting Materials

Letter from University of Denver faculty and alumni on the university's use of the 'Pioneer' moniker.

Defining Genocide In Northwestern California: The Devastation Of Humboldt And Del Norte County’S Indigenous Peoples, Gavin W. Rowley

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

In recent years, historians and the American public have increasingly debated whether or not the crimes that have been committed against Native Americans in the United States constitute genocide. Although the Humboldt and Del Norte region was conquered by Euro-Americans later than the rest of the US, genocidal crimes were prevalent within the counties of Humboldt and Del Norte in Northwestern California. The genocide committed against the Indigenous Peoples there were carried out by vigilante groups with the support of the California state government as well as the US federal government. I argue not only that genocide, as defined by …

“To Destroy In Whole Or In Part”: Remembering Our Past To Secure Our Future, Jack Norton Jr

Humboldt Journal of Social Relations

This essay proposes that the history of California includes the intended destruction and decimation of native cultures, including their forced removal, illegal land acquisition, slavery, separation of families, and outright murder enacted by the private citizenry and governmental agencies during European contact can be defined as genocide as outlined by the United Nations Geneva Convention, 1948. The lasting legacy of contact on aboriginal lifeways and tradition, as well as the recent resurgence of native traditions and culture is addressed to suggest that the health and healing of native communities lies in reconciling the past to make passage into the future.

Girl Talk: How Friendships Between Moravian And Native Women Sustained The Moravian Mission At Shamokin Pennsylvania, 1742–1749, Lindsay R. Richwine

Student Publications

From 1742 to 1755, Moravian missionaries attempted to establish a mission at the Indian town of Shamokin. While the Moravians failed to convert any native peoples, they succeeded where other missionaries failed by maintaining a continued presence. By using evidence from sources such as the Shamokin mission diary, this project asserts that it was the friendships forged between Native and Moravian women in the early years of the mission that integrated the Moravians into the community at Shamokin. Through an examination of the lives of the women present at Shamokin in this period, this project situates itself within existing research …

Indian Boarding School History: An Analysis Of Two Letters From The Perris Indian School, Erica Maien Ward

History in the Making

This paper is not meant to be the traditional research paper. It is a brief look into the documents researchers find and analysis while researching on a topic. The documents provide a view into the people and policies of that time period. The two letters that will be analyzed later in this paper are examples of Indian boarding schools’ policies that had direct effect on the lives of the students and their families.1 In the turn of the twentieth century, Indian boarding schools were still operating on the premise of assimilation of the American Indian into the "white culture." Hopefully, …

Making The Case For Genocide, The Forced Sterilization Of Indigenous Peoples Of Peru, Ñusta P. Carranza Ko

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

Peru’s national health program Programa de Salud Reproductiva y Planificación Familiar (PSRPF) aimed to uphold women’s reproductive rights and address the scarcity in maternity related services. Despite these objectives, during PSRPF’s implementation the respect for women’s rights were undermined with the forced sterilization of women predominantly of indigenous, poor, and rural backgrounds. This study considers the forced sterilization of indigenous women as a genocide. Making the case for genocide has not been done previously with this particular case. Using the normative markers of the Genocide Convention, this study categorically sets forced sterilization victims from the state-led-policy as victims of genocide, …

Ecocide Is Genocide: Decolonizing The Definition Of Genocide, Lauren J. Eichler

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

I demonstrate how the destruction of the land, water, and nonhuman beings of the Americas constitutes genocide according to Indigenous metaphysics and through analysis of the decimation of the American buffalo. In Genocide Studies, the destruction of nonhuman beings and nature is typically treated as a separate, but related type of phenomenon—ecocide, the destruction of nonhuman nature. In this article I follow in the footsteps of Native American and First Nations scholars to argue that ecocide and the genocide of Indigenous peoples are inextricably linked and are even constitutive of the same act. I argue that if justice is to …

Chicanx Murals: Decolonizing Place And (Re)Writing The Terms Of Composition, Nora K. Rivera

English Faculty Articles and Research

Drawing from an interpretive decolonial framework that understands multimodal writing as the act of creating co-composed knowledge, this article analyzes Chicanx murals as multimodal compositions that exemplify the continuation of the Aztec tlacuilolitztli practice of writing with images. This work also invites rhetoric and composition scholars to reexamine Western understandings of history, particularly the history of writing.

Washed Away: Native American Representation In Oklahoma Museums And High Schools, 2000 – 2020, Catherine E. Thompson

Graduate Masters Theses

Each state in our union has a unique history and story as it plays into the formation of the United States; one of the unique and historically relevant narratives to United States is that of Oklahoma. The state of Oklahoma has gone through a multitude of changes over the last several centuries. Unfortunately a significant part of the history that has made Oklahoma so singular continues to be overlooked by the public and through education. Native Americans were forced off their ancestral lands and moved to Oklahoma. The state was then developed through a series of federal acts and invasive …

Form, Function, And Context: Lithic Analysis Of Flaked Stone Artifacts At A 17th-Century Rural Spanish Estancia (La 20,000), Santa Fe County, New Mexico, Clint S. Lindsay

Graduate Masters Theses

This thesis examines the flaked stone artifact assemblage recovered from LA 20,000, a 17th-century (ca. 1630-1680 AD) rural Spanish colonial estancia located near Santa Fe, New Mexico. Settlements like LA 20,000 were important locations of cultural interaction between Spanish colonists and local Indigenous peoples who often worked and lived together in multi-cultural households. By analyzing the procurement, production, and use of flaked stone artifacts to identify choices and activities performed at the site by the people who lived and labored there this study helps to fill gaps in the knowledge and understanding of 17th-century flaked stone artifact production and use …

Visiting Mission San Luis Rey And Remembering The California Native American System San Luis Rey Mission, Oceanside, Ca., Jonathan Smith

History in the Making

No abstract provided.

Mcgirt V. Oklahoma, United States Supreme Court, Neil M. Gorsuch

US Government Documents Related to Indigenous Nations

This United States (US) Supreme Court case, decided July 9, 2020, clarified the boundaries of Indigenous land within the state of Oklahoma (OK) and, by extension, the limits of Oklahoma’s jurisdictional reach. Following the perpetration of his crimes in 1997, Oklahoma state court convicted Jimcy McGirt of three sexual offenses; however, McGirt contended that the state lacked the jurisdiction to try him for these crimes because he is an enrolled member of the Seminole Nation and because his crimes took place on the Creek Reservation (Muscogee Nation). Oklahoma argued that although an 1883 Treaty established a section of land for …

A War From Within: An Analysis Of The Factors That Caused The Collapse Of The Iroquois Confederacy, Jessica Howe

History in the Making

This report hopes to answer the question, how and why one of the most powerful and long lasting Native American Confederacy collapsed during the Revolutionary War? This paper investigates how the economy, diplomatic disunification, and the deterioration of traditional religious beliefs through Christianity caused the Iroquois Confederacy to crumble. Although many others have attempted to answer this question, this research is different in that it relies heavily upon both historical and anthropological sources providing it with a unique interdisciplinary perspective. Furthermore, the specific context of this paper is also distinctive and is supported by primary and secondary sources. The narrow …

Mai Te Kopu O Te Wahine: Considering Maori Women And Power, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku

Pacific Studies

Moko kauae: female Maori facial tattoo. This is the subtle power of maintaining a femininity that offends, that endures, that persists in the face of the settlers’ and invaders’ descendants; threatens sensibility and comfort levels; and continues to fascinate and challenge, charm and repel. Whether or not they were aware doing this, the elderly women who continued to inscribe their faces into the final decades of the past century and wear their identity and heritage with pride, were effectively confronting the colonizer and saying, we are here, and we will never ever go away. My face may make you uncomfortable, …

Reflections On Women, Power, And Faith In Prechristian And Postchristian Polynesia, Penelope Schoeffel

Pacific Studies

In this article, I aim to draw attention to the scholarship of Alan Hanson and Neil Gunson, demonstrating that throughout pre-Christian Polynesia, chiefly women—even more so than chiefly men—possessed great mana and the powers to make or remove tapu. Gunson identified many great women chiefs and rulers in ancient Polynesia believed to have been descended from the gods. Hanson showed that the tapu on women in ancient Eastern Polynesian societies was because of their dangerous affinity to the gods. The missionary notion that pre-Christian Polynesians were mired in darkness led to the subordination of women when Christianity replaced the religious …

Women, Power, And Place In Polynesia: Articulations From Samoa And Aotearoa, New Zealand, Melani Anae, Penelope Schoeffel

Pacific Studies

Introduction for the Vol. 43, No 1-Jun 2020 edition of the Pacific Studies Journal.

“Filling Up The Other Kete”: Ambivalence, Critical Memory, And The Resilience Of Older Māori Jewish Women, Hadas Ore

Pacific Studies

This article is part of the first study on the memories that Māori Jews share growing up and living in contemporary Aotearoa/New Zealand as well as the effect of their memories on their well-being and success in life. The study was conducted through open-ended in-depth interviews during 2016–2017. Examining more closely how six older women negotiate power and constitute indigenous agency, the analysis in this article looks into the particular way they employ their critical memory in order to overcome their ambivalence toward tertiary education. In my analysis, I apply the recent development in the theory of nostalgia with empirical …

Vol. 43 No. 1 (2020): Pacific Studies Full Issue, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Pacific Studies is published two times a year by The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies, Brigham Young University Hawai‘i #1979, 55–220 Kulanui Street, Lāʻie, Hawai‘i 96762, but responsibility for opinions expressed in the articles rests with the authors alone. Subscription rate is US$40.00 yearly, payable to The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies. The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies (formerly The Pacific Institute) is an organization funded by Brigham Young University Hawai‘i. The Center assists the University in meeting its cultural and educational goals by undertaking a program of teaching, research, and …

Papatūānuku, Karlo Mila

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Women Matai (Chiefs): Navigating And Negotiating The Paradox Of Boundaries And Responsibilities, Sailiemanu Lilomaiava-Doktor

Pacific Studies

This paper examines Samoan conception of gender roles and transformations examining women's status and situation in light of ideological changes regarding gender relations and expectations in contemporary Samoa. I situate my paper in Samoan ways of knowing regarding gender roles and norms and draw on feminist (Trask 1984) works to provide guiding light for the cross cultural use of feminist theory to Samoan concepts of feagaiga, fa‘a-matai (chieftainship system), and gender equality. I study women's roles especially as they take on matai titles and examine what gains have been made and the dynamics involved for matai in the masculine (read: …

Vol. 43 No. 1 (2020): Pacific Studies Front Matter, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Front Matter for the Vol. 43, No 1-Jun 2020 edition of the Pacific Studies Journal.

Matai Tamaitai: “The Mistress Of The Family”, Melani Anae

Pacific Studies

This article examines faamatai (the Samoan chiefly system) and the impacts of globalization that have disempowered or reempowered women in new ways. The discourse of “women” in a transnational context is explored by perspectives from six life-story interviews of matai tamaitai in Hawaiʻi, Sydney and Oceanside and data from 88 women matai from a global online faamatai survey. It explores the faamatai tenet of ‘lima malosi ma loto alofa’ (strong hands and a loving heart), experienced as the exertion of her pule (secular authority), malosi (economic strength), mana (spiritual power), and mamalu (reverence, dignity, and social power) free from ‘traditional’ …

“The Amazing Iroquois”: Haudenosaunee History In Myth And Memory, 1776–1955, John C. Winters

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project is a history and memory study of Iroquois exceptionalism. This is an idea that shaped our understanding of the Iroquois as the “most studied” Indian nation and that they, as the debunked Iroquois Influence Thesis claimed, influenced the structure and scope of the U.S. Constitution. My study examines the lives of four related (by blood and by claim) Seneca leaders: Red Jacket, Ely S. Parker, Harriet Maxwell Converse, and Arthur C. Parker. These four stand out because each was one of the most famous Native Americans of their generation who worked within and against American colonial society and …

The Greenville Investigation: Missing And Murdered Indigenous Women And Boarding School Runaways, Kate Mook

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Indian boarding schools were created by the United States government in the nineteenth century in order to “civilize” and assimilate American Indians. In this research, I utilize public information regarding the missing and murdered Indigenous women (MMIW) crisis in the United States as well as primary documents from a report by Special Agent Lafayette Dorrington of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Dorrington investigated the case of five American Indian girls who ran away from the Greenville Indian Industrial School in 1916.

I will refer to the documents as “The Greenville Investigation” instead of Dorrington’s title- “The Greenville Desertion” - …

Status Of Mineral Ownership Underlying The Missouri River Within The Boundaries Of The Fort Berthold Indian Reservation (North Dakota), Department Of The Interior, Daniel H. Jorjani

US Government Documents Related to Indigenous Nations

This memorandum, dated May 26, 2020, from the United States Department of the Interior (Office of the Solicitor) to the Assistant Secretary of US Indian Affairs and the Assistant Secretary of Land and Minerals Management rescinds the Solicitor’s January 18, 2017 opinion regarding mineral rights on the Fort Berthold Reservation and asserts that the state of North Dakota, not the Three Affiliated Tribes, is the legal owner of the submerged lands beneath the Missouri River. The Solicitor cites the “Historical Examination of the Missouri River within the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, Precontact-1902” and his interpretation of laws and case precedent …

Time Machine Research And Approach, Tarek Bouraque

Theses and Dissertations

Time Machine is a hybrid documentary that explores the logics of enslavement, colonialism, eurocentrism and their interconnectedness in our globalized world. Mustapha Azemmouri, born in 1502, undertakes a journey to the 21st century to recount his own story of enslavement and exploration, and reflects on a collective puzzle of 500 years of hidden history.

The Mapuche And Chilean State: An Analysis Of The State Reaction To Mapuche Protests, Mckenna Gossrau

Honors Theses

The history between the Mapuche and Chilean state is long and complex. Since 2000, the conflict between the state and Mapuche has periodically drawn wider public attention as well as public demands for change. In this thesis, I look to examine how the Chilean state has reacted to the demands of the Mapuche since 2000. Mapuche activists have protested violently and peacefully against state policy that has left many rural Mapuche impoverished and landless. This project assesses the impact of protests on state-Mapuche policy. The project also examines how deeply entrenched neoliberal fiscal policies of the state play a central …

My Family, Their History: Using Exploratory Inquiry & Pragmatic Methods To Learn History, Lowellen Sucgang

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

History education is at a crossroads. The availability of information at our fingertips has the potential to change how the non-historian sees history and the other social sciences. This capstone researched ways the non-historian can utilize the changing face of history education by implementing the pragmatic methods of John Dewey’s education philosophy called instrumentalism. Principal issues discussed include the pros and cons of out-of-classroom history education, utilization of exploratory inquiry for research and the usefulness of primary sources for a historiography. To apply instrumentalism ideals and methods, I created a historiography about my ancestors and how their lives intertwined with …

Touching Hearts In Both Life And Death: Brett Lee Lundstrom, Laurel Schlegel

DU Undergraduate Research Journal Archive

The following article is a product of the Veteran’s Legacy Program, a collaboration between the Veteran’s Association and undergraduate history departments. Undergraduate history students at the University of Denver began writing biographies about the veterans buried at Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver, Colorado.

Remixing The Archives: Indigenous Interpretations Of History And The Future, Marcella Alexis Ernest

American Studies ETDs

This dissertation examines how Native art makes critical interventions that are aesthetically and intellectually arranged with the intention of displacing the master narratives. The project tracks how film and photography—historically used by non-Native people as a tool of colonialism—are being reclaimed by the visual and sonic scholarship of contemporary Native artists. The project shows how multidisciplinary artists use technology to remix audiovisual archives from a specific time in American history: portrait photography and ethnographic filmmaking at the turn of the twentieth century, Hollywood’s frontier representations of Indianness in twentieth-century motion pictures, social guidance classroom films from the 1950s, and digital …