Here is a summary of Native American-related news around the U.S. this week:
First Native American Treasurer Sworn into Office
Mohegan Chief Marilynn “Lynn” Malerba is the first Native American treasurer of the United States.
“We all know that, historically, many promises have not been kept to the indigenous peoples of this nation. But we can and will do better,” Malerba said at Monday’s White House swearing-in. “My appointment is a promise kept.”
In prepared remarks, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called Malerba’s appointment a signal of the Biden administration’s “respect for, and commitment toward, our nation-to-nation relationship, trust and treaty responsibilities, and Tribal sovereignty and self-determination.”
Malerba’s signature will now appear on U.S. currency alongside Yellen’s.
President Joe Biden appointed Malerba U.S. treasurer in June and gave her oversight of a new Office of Tribal and Native Affairs at the Treasury Department, which will work to help strengthen tribes’ economies.
“This office will serve as a hub for Treasury’s portfolio of issues related to Indian Country,” Yellen said. “It will lead Treasury’s nation-to-nation diplomacy on issues regarding the economic security of tribal nations. It will provide expertise internally across policy offices and bureaus and push for increased interagency collaboration and cooperation on tribal economic development.”
In October 2021, the Government Accountability Office found that the Treasury Department “faced challenges” distributing more than $8 billion in certain COVID-19 relief funds for tribes.” The GAO said Treasury had relied on inaccurate population data to make payments and had failed to consult tribes prior to those payments, recommending that Treasury update its tribal consultation policies.
Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez congratulated Malerba on her appointment as Treasurer and sent a message in Diné and in English to citizens of the nation he leads.
He joined Cabinet members, lawmakers and other officials at the White House Tuesday to celebrate passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, a $430 billion bill that allocates $720 million to tribes to help them take action against the effects of climate change.
“The Navajo Nation has a seat at the table with President Biden and his administration,” said Nez, according to the Indian Gaming website. “The American Rescue Plan Act delivered over $2 billion to the Navajo Nation, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is delivering millions more, and now the Inflation Reduction Act will help our people with drought mitigation, clean energy initiatives, lower prescription costs, and much more.”
While in Washington, Nez also met with Environmental Protection Agency officials, calling for expanded efforts to clean up waste from hundreds of abandoned uranium mines on Navajo land. Between 1944 and 1986, the federal government and its contractors extracted nearly 30 million tons of uranium ore from Navajo lands, leaving behind radioactive waste and other dangerous contaminants, including arsenic, copper, nickel, and selenium.
Commerce Department Grants Nevada Tribe More Than $5 million to Improve Water System
U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo says her department’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) is granting $5.2 million to the Walker River Paiute Tribe in Schurz, Nevada, to help boost economic growth by improving the tribe’s water system.
The funds will support replacing and expanding four water mains and installing 45 fire hydrants, the lack of which previously limited commercial development. This EDA investment will be matched with $156,674 in local funds and is expected to create or retain 25 jobs.
“President Biden is committed to supporting tribal communities in their recovery from the coronavirus pandemic,” said Raimondo. “This EDA investment will provide more secure water system infrastructure to the Walker River Indian Reservation, improving economic resilience and creating the potential for business growth and expansion.”
The Desert Research Institute and the Guinn Center for Policy Priorities, both based in Nevada, recently published findings of a joint study assessing water security in Native American homes and communities in Nevada.
Analyzing U.S. Census Bureau data on the availability of safe, hot and cold running water, flush toilets and baths and/or showers, researchers found that between 1990 and 2019, an average of 0.67 percent of Native American households in Nevada lacked complete indoor plumbing — higher than the national average of 0.4 percent.
In 2019, study authors say more than 20,000 Native Americans in Nevada were “plumbing poor.”
“Previous studies have found that Native American households are more likely to lack complete indoor plumbing than other households in the U.S., and our results show a similar trend here in Nevada,” said study author Erick Bandala. “This can create quality of life problems, for example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when lack of indoor plumbing could have prevented basic health measures like hand-washing.”
Bandala blamed population growth, climate change and water rights.
U.S. Department of Commerce Invests $5.2 Million in American Rescue Plan funds for water system improvements in support of commercial business growth on the Walker River Indian Reservation
Tribes in South Dakota Agree to Buy Wounded Knee Site
A highly symbolic parcel of land on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota could soon pass back into Native hands.
The Oglala Lakota and Cheyenne River tribes have agreed to purchase 16 hectares of land at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Long owned by non-Natives, it is close to the site where the 7th U.S. Cavalry slayed scores of Lakota men, women and children in 1890.
The Oglala Lakota tribe said it would pay $255,000 of the $500,000 purchase price, and the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, whose Miniconjou ancestors under Chief Spotted Tail comprised most of the massacre victims, would pay $245,000.
The tribes will petition the U.S. Department of the Interior to hold the land in trust and allow it to remain undeveloped, as a permanent memorial to those who died.
Why must a tribe buy land on its own reservation, only to turn it over to the government?
The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty set aside all of the land west of the Missouri River as the “Great Sioux Reservation,” to be held in common by tribes. But in 1887, Congress authorized the president to break up reservation land into small parcels which were distributed to tribe members who registered on tribal rolls. Members did not own the land outright, however; the government held it in trust for their use. Land left over after those allotments was sold or leased to non-Native settlers.
Who originally purchased the Wounded Knee site is not clear. The settlement was first named Brennan, after a federal agent who supervised the reservation from 1899 to 1917, according to a 1951 article in the Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, SD) newspaper.
In 1918, a man by the name of Roy Thomas built a trading post there, which remained in operation through two more owners before its destruction in the 1973 American Indian Movement occupation of Wounded Knee.
The present owners left Wounded Knee and listed the property for sale for nearly $4 million, a price far out of reach for the tribe.
In 2013, actor Johnny Depp announced he would buy the property and donate it to the Oglala tribe. Three years later, then-newspaper owner Tim Giago proposed buying it and constructing a museum there. Both projects fell through.
Alabama University Holds Largest Collection of Indigenous Remains to Date
The U.S. National Park Service (NPS) says the University of Alabama has completed an inventory of its archeological holdings, which contain the largest number of indigenous human remains and artifacts ever catalogued by the Park Service.
According to an announcement in the Federal Register, the University of Alabama Museums conducted excavations at Moundville and other sites in Alabama’s Hale and Tuscaloosa Counties between 1930 and 2003, taking away the physical remains of 10,245 Native American ancestors and more than 1,500 artifacts.
In November 2021, a delegation of Muscogee (Creek) leaders met with the university requesting the return of those remains and artifacts. Months earlier, the Muscogee and six other tribes — the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole Nations in Oklahoma, the Coushatta Tribe in Louisiana, the Seminole Tribe in Florida, and Alabama-Quassarte Tribal Town — sent a claim to the university invoking the 1990 federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), which requires federally funded institutions to return remains to tribes and families to whom they belong.
The University of Alabama Museums has acknowledged “a cultural affiliation” with the present-day Muskogean-speaking tribes and is calling on them to submit a written request to return the remains and artifacts.
“We are just reiterating that we look forward to continuing to work with the tribes on the appropriate repatriation efforts,” the University of Alabama associate vice president for communications, Monica Watts, told VOA.
Moundville was occupied for seven centuries and at its height was a 121-hectare fortified city positioned on a bluff overlooking the Black Warrior River in west-central Alabama. By the 1500s, it had been abandoned for reasons scholars still debate; the first Spanish conquerors arrived in the state in 1519.
The university is only one of more than 150 institutions which have conducted inventories of their holdings since mid-September 2021, as NAGPRA requires. To see the full list, click on this link:
California City Considers Giving Land Rights to Two Tribes
Oakland, California will consider returning two hectares of city land to the Indigenous peoples from whom it was taken.
If approved, the proposed “cultural conservation easement” would allow the East Bay Ohlone tribe and the Confederated Villages of Lisjan Nation to immediately begin using and maintaining the land known as Sequoia Point. The city, however, would retain ownership of the area.
“Today we are letting healing begin,” Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said at a press conference on the site. “Today is the day when we acknowledge the harm that government and colonialization has done to the first people of this land. The original sin of Native genocide that happened right here on this land was just the beginning of additional exclusionary laws and acts that have happened over generations.”
She said the city could eventually sell the land to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust, which represents the two tribes.
Oakland to return land rights to Indigenous group
Source: Voice of America