A former Penobscot Indian Nation chief is calling on national Indian organizations to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery and all laws and policies based on it. Penobscot elder and former Chief Jim Sappier has drafted identical resolutions for the United South and Eastern Tribes and the National Congress of American Indians in support of the [...]

Indian Country Today reports that Chile’s new president, Sebastian Piñera, may be steering the government toward greater conflict with the Mapuches. Mapuche activists have resumed demonstrations to pressure the government to return ancestral lands and free their jailed leaders. On April 23, approximately 200 members of the Mapuche Territorial Alliance protested in the southern city [...]

An Indian Country Today article described the 6th Annual American Indian Business Expo conducted by the Denver-based Rocky Mountain Indian Chamber of Commerce April 12 – 13. The promises and pitfalls of small business and the complex paths to success were described by Colorado Natives R. Carol Harvey, Navajo, executive secretary of the Colorado Commission [...]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled in March that the Osage Nation’s reservation ceased to exist 100 years ago under the Osage Allotment Act. The tribe initially filed the lawsuit that reached this conclusion in 2001 when the Nation sued the Oklahoma Tax Commission asserting that federal law prohibited the state [...]

Representatives of American Indian tribes say they must be consulted during a five-year federal study of the Missouri River and its reservoirs. At a meeting in Fort Pierre S.D., officials of several South Dakota tribes told the Army Corps of Engineers about erosion, sedimentation, and water supply problems along the river. The agency is holding [...]

Argentina is celebrating the bicentennial of the revolution that paved its way to independence from Spain. The nation’s indigenous people, however, are calling attention to a legacy of invasion and displacement that continues to this day. Just as during the 500 year “celebration” of Columbus Day and the recent bicentennial commemoration of the Lewis & [...]

Tribal rangers from southern Idaho and northern Nevada Indian tribes will use helicopter flights over their ancestral homeland in the Owyhee Front this weekend to keep watch on important cultural resources and help protect them from vandals and thieves. The Shoshone-Paiute Tribes on the Duck Valley Indian Reservation are descended from Western Shoshone and Northern [...]

The Associated Press reports today that The Navajo Nation Supreme Court struck down an attempt by the Navajo Tribal Council to limit the courts’ use of a centuries old set of traditional tribal laws in making court decisions. Chief Justice Herb Yazzie says Navajos have lived by the laws known as “Dine (dih-NEH’) Fundamental Law” [...]

At a meeting in Geneva Switzerland, UN experts stated on May 20 that “Cultural diversity can only thrive in an environment that safeguards fundamental freedoms and human rights.” They stressed that defending diversity goes hand in hand with the respect for the dignity of the individual. “Cultural diversity,” the group said in a joint statement, [...]

New York’s highest court recently ruled that Cayuga and Seneca counties could not prosecute the Cayuga Indian Nation for selling untaxed cigarettes at its LakeSide Trading stores yet Cayuga County District Attorney Jon Budelmann said he still intends to pursue criminal charges against the Nation. “My reading (of the decision) is that we can’t prosecute [...]