Indian Country Today reports that on April 9 five Canadian First Nations have signed a new treaty with the federal government. The historic signing of the Maa-nulth Treaty was 16 years in the making. “This is the beginning of the end of the Indian Act here, and that’s a wonderful thing for all of us,” [...]

News From Indian Country reported on May 18 that a small group of powerful House Democrats asked the Justice Department to investigate whether some American Indian tribes are segregating or discriminating against African Americans, who qualify as “freedmen” and tribal citizens under several tribal constitutions. In a letter to new Attorney General Eric Holder, several [...]

The Vancouver (B.C.) Sun reports that “Aboriginals on the west coast of Vancouver Island are planning to kill one per cent of sea otters per year for ceremonial reasons. Staff of the Nuu-Chah-Nulth Tribal Council and the federal fisheries department have together created a draft sea otter management plan that has been submitted to native [...]

News From Indian Country, May 4, 2009, page 4, reports on a class action lawsuit seeking to force the federal government to pay out hundreds of millions of dollars for taking the Black Hills. The U.S. Supreme Court already held in favor of the Sioux tribes in 1980 that the U.S. had to pay for [...]

News From Indian Country, May 4, 2009, at page 2, reports that on April 22 the Navajo Nation legislature voted to ban drivers from using cell phones while driving unless they use a hands free system.

The Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe of Washington will break ground next month on a cultural center at the site of an ancestral village. The center will feature some of the artifacts that were discovered at the Tse-whit-zen Village. It will also promote tribal culture and house some tribal programs. “We also are really trying to [...]

I have written before about how underrepresented American Indians are in the professional fields such as the law. Here’s a story on how few Indian dentists there are: George Blue Spruce (Ohkay Owingeh/Laguna), the nation’s first American Indian dentist, has dedicated his life to making sure he won’t be the last. Blue Spruce became a [...]

A study published in the May issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution claims all modern-day Native people descend from a single group. Researchers examined the DNA from 20 Native groups in the U.S., Canada, Greenland, Central America and South America. They found a common genetic marker in all of the populations. The genetic marker was [...]

The federal government must pay a woman from the Pine Ridge Reservation nearly $600,000 after she was sexually assaulted by a military recruiter, a judge from the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled. Lavetta Elk, 26, a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, cited the “bad men” provision of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie. [...]

New York Gov. David Paterson (D) asked Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to approve two off-reservation casinos in the Catskills. Paterson said the Bush administration was wrong to reject casinos for the St. Regis Mohawk Tribe and the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohican Indians. He cited local and state support for the projects, as well as the [...]