Indian Removal Act

In 1823 the Supreme Court handed down a decision which stated that Indians could occupy lands within the United States, but could not hold title to those lands. This was because their "right of occupancy" was subordinate to the United States' "right of discovery." In response to the great threat this posed, the Creeks, Cherokee, and Chicasaw instituted policies of restricting land sales to the government. They wanted to protect what remained of their land before it was too late.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2959.html


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Sand Creek Massacre

Homeland Security: Fighting Terrorism since 1492


At Sand Creek on November 29, 1864, John Chivington led the Colorado Volunteers in a dawn attack on Black Kettle and his band, who had been told they would be safe on this desolate reservation. Two hundred Cheyenne men, women and children were slaughtered, and their corpses often grotesquely mutilated, in a massacre that shocked the nation.


http://www.lastoftheindependents.com/sandcreek.htm


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Native American Rights Fund Case update

Significant Forward Progress on Implementing Nez Perce Water Settlement
On May 15, 2004, the Nez Perce Tribe, the State of Idaho, and the federal Department of the Interior announced publicly that a settlement of the tribe's claims in the Snake River Basin Adjudication (SRBA) had been reached. Since 1998, the Nez Perce Tribe, the United States, the State of Idaho, and local communities and water users in Idaho had engaged in mediation as part of the SRBA to resolve the claims of the Nez Perce Tribe in the Snake River and several of its tributaries. The SRBA is the legal inventory of about 150,000 water rights in 38 of Idaho’s 44 counties. The Nez Perce dispute had been the biggest outstanding dispute in the Snake River Basin.


http://www.narf.org/events/07/nezperce.htm

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