Native Americans

 

Electronic Resources Accessible from DOI Locations Only

These databases are available to all departmental employees at their desktops. Employees who are teleworking may access them through the Department's VPN. Others must contact a Reference Librarian for assistance.

 

American Indians and the American West, 1809-1971

Gale Virtual Reference Library

Includes:

  • American Indian Biographies
  • American Indian Culture
  • American Indian History
  • American Indian Tribes
  • Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy)
  • UXL Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes


HeinOnline

Includes:
  • Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: History, Culture & Law
  • U.S. Department of the Interior Library 


Indian Claims Insight
 

JSTOR

Includes:
  • Arts & Sciences II and VII
  • Early Journal Content

 

Web Sites -- Table of Contents

 

News

 

Tribal Governments

 

Other Organizations

 

Federal Government


Department of the Interior

    Bureau of Land Management

    Bureau of Reclamation

    Fish and Wildlife Service

    Geological Survey

   National Park Service

Others

    Census Bureau

    Department of Agriculture

    Department of Health and Human Services

    Department of Housing and Urban Development

    Department of Justice

    Environmental Protection Agency

    National Indian Gaming Commission

    Smithsonian Institution

    U.S. House of Representatives

    U.S. Senate

 

Guides to Federal Records

 

Guides to Collections in the National Archives

The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe, New Mexico worked with the US National Archives Office of Innovation and the National Archives Foundation to digitize and make available almost four hundred treaties ratified between Indian tribal nations and American governments from 1722 to 1869. The website hosts the full text of these treaties along with interactive features, including maps of cessions (lands ceded in each treaty).

Explore over 18,000 photographs from the Bureau of Indian Affairs (Record Group 75). The finding aid presents more than a century of archived photographs of Native American communities from the National Archives Catalog in a researcher-friendly format, searchable by Tribal Nation, topic, or state. 

Legal Sources

  • Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act Resource Center
     
  • American Indian and Alaskan Native Documents in the Congressional Serial Set: 1817-1899
    The U.S. Congressional Serial Set contains the House and Senate Documents and Reports from Congressional committees dealing with proposed legislation and issues under investigation. It also includes materials from the executive branch. American Indian and Alaskan Native documents are interspersed chronologically (not topically) throughout the Serial Set. This collection was assembled using Steven L. Johnson’s bibliography, Guide to American Indian Documents in the Congressional Serial Set: 1817-1899, Clearwater Publishing Company, 1977. Documents were scanned at the Donald E. Pray College of Law Library under the supervision of Marilyn K. Nicely, retired Law Librarian for Native American Law Digitization, and are published by the University of Oklahoma College of Law.
     
  • American Indian Law Journal
     
  • American Indian Law Review
    American Indian Law Review Index Page includes links to an Articles, Commentaries and Notes Index; an Author and Book Review Index; a Legislation, Statutes and Treaties Index; a Subject Index; a Table of Cases; and a Tribal Index.
     
  • Consultations on Cobell Trust Land Consolidation
     
  • Cornell Legal Information Institute: American Indian Law
    Cornell Legal Information Institute provides a list of virtually all legislation that pertains to Indian Law with links to the full text of the legislation.
     
  • Database of Statewide Tribal Legislation
    Produced by the National Conference of State Legislatures, the database provides descriptions and histories of bills introduced into state legislatures which affect Indian tribes. Search bills from 2010 to the present by keyword or bill number, and limit results by state and status.
     
  • Early Recognized Treaties with American Indian Nations
    Published by University of Nebraska Libraries Electronic Text Center. Provides access to the nine federally recognized Indian treaties that are absent from volume 2 of Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties, by Charles J. Kappler. This site therefore complements the digitized Kappler collection provided by the Oklahoma State University Library Electronic Publishing Center. All 375 treaties are now available online through these two resources.
     
  • Guide to Law Online: Indians of North America
    The Guide to Law Online is a selective, annotated compendium of Internet links produced by the Law Library of Congress. In compiling this list, emphasis is on sites offering the full texts of laws, regulations, and court decisions, along with commentary from lawyers writing primarily for other lawyers. Materials related to law and government that were written by or for lay persons also have been included, as have government sites providing general information.
     
  • Index of Native American Legal Resources on the Internet
     
  • Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties
    Compiled and edited by Charles J. Kappler. Hosted by the Oklahoma State University Library. Volumes I through VII are available on the web both as fully searchable digitized text and as page images.


Indian Claims Commission

Office of Hearings and Appeals

A and M Decisions (1920-1970)
Copps Mineral and Public Land Laws (1881, 1890)
Digest of Grazing Decisions (1993-2001)
Director's Decisions (1996 to the present)
Hearings Division (Selected, 2000 to the present)
IBIA Decisions (1970 to the present)
IBLA Decisions (1970 to the present)
Land Decisions (1881-1929) and Interior Decisions (1930-1994)
Solicitor's Opinions (1993 to the present)
 

  • Rules and Regulations for the Organization of the Indian Tribes of Oklahoma under section 3 of the Oklahoma Welfare Act as approved by the Secretary of the Interior, Harold L. Ickes, December 18, 1936
     
  • Tribal Court Clearinghouse
    The Tribal Court Clearinghouse is designed as a resource for tribal justice systems and others involved in the enhancement of justice in Indian country.
     
  • Turtle Talk
    Turtle Talk is the blog for the Indigenous Law and Policy Center at Michigan State University College of Law. There are news items related to Indian law and politics, with a special emphasis on topics related to Indian tribes in Michigan and the Great Lakes region. In addition, Turtle Talk offers links to every Supreme Court case involving Federal Indian law from 1959 to the present.

 

Bibliographies and Resources

 

Digital Libraries

  • American Indians of the Pacific Northwest
    This collection represents a selection of the collections of the University of Washington Libraries and the Museum of History and Industry in Seattle, and the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture in Spokane, Washington. It includes original photographs and documents about the Northwest Coast and Plateau Indian cultures, complemented by essays written by anthropologists, historians, and teachers about both particular tribes and cross-cultural topics. These cultures have occupied, and in some cases still live in parts of Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. Maps are available that show traditional territories or reservation boundaries.

    Most of the photographs date from before 1920. Primary text sources include six Indian treaties negotiated in 1855 and over 3,800 pages from the Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior from 1851 through 1908. Secondary sources include 89 articles from the Pacific Northwest Quarterly and 23 papers from the University of Washington Publications in Anthropology series. A few additional photographs and articles were sought from other institutions and added to the collection to complement the topical essays.
     
  • Duke Collection of American Indian Oral History
    Beginning in 1966, tobacco heiress and philanthropist Doris Duke funded seven American Indian oral history projects, including one based at the University of Oklahoma. The Duke Collection of American Indian Oral History online provides access to typescripts of interviews (1967 -1972) conducted with hundreds of Indians in Oklahoma regarding the histories and cultures of their respective nations and tribes. Related are accounts of Indian ceremonies, customs, social conditions, philosophies, and standards of living. Members of every tribe resident in Oklahoma were interviewed.
     
  • Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian: Photographic Images
    The North American Indian by Edward S. Curtis is one of the most significant and controversial representations of traditional American Indian culture ever produced. Issued in a limited edition from 1907-1930, the publication continues to exert a major influence on the image of Indians in popular culture. Curtis said he wanted to document "the old time Indian, his dress, his ceremonies, his life and manners." In over 2000 photogravure plates and narrative, Curtis portrayed the traditional customs and lifeways of eighty Indian tribes. The twenty volumes, each with an accompanying portfolio, are organized by tribes and culture areas encompassing the Great Plains, Great Basin, Plateau Region, Southwest, California, Pacific Northwest, and Alaska. Featured here are all of the published photogravure images including over 1500 illustrations bound in the text volumes, along with over 700 portfolio plates.
     
  • Living History, Living Words
    The signature project of Joy Harjo, the 23rd U.S. Poet Laureate, features a sampling of work by 47 Native Nations poets through an interactive ArcGIS Story Map and a newly developed Library of Congress audio collection.
     
  • McCasland Digital Collection of Early Oklahoma and Indian Territory Maps
    Between 1803 and 1925 more than 1,000 political, expedition, geographical, meteorological, and topographical maps of the Oklahoma region were produced and included in the American State Papers and the U.S. Congressional Serial Set. This site is sponsored by the Oklahoma State University Library and funded by the McCasland Foundation of Duncan, Oklahoma. Newly digitized maps are added weekly.
     
  • Omaha Indian Music
    Omaha Indian Music features traditional Omaha music from the 1890s and 1980s. The multiformat ethnographic field collection contains 44 wax cylinder recordings collected by Francis La Flesche and Alice Cunningham Fletcher between 1895 and 1897, 323 songs and speeches from the 1983 Omaha harvest celebration pow-wow, and 25 songs and speeches from the 1985 Hethu'shka Society concert at the Library of Congress. Segments from interviews with members of the Omaha tribe conducted in 1983 and 1999 provide contextual information for the songs and speeches included in the collection.
     
  • Papers of the War Department, 1784 to 1800
    Produced by the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, this database offers digital images of documents pertaining to the U.S. War Department that are physically scattered in repositories across the nation. It also provides information about documents that are cited in existing records but appear not to have survived. Browsable by year, author, and recipient and searchable by author, recipient, location, year, and topic, the site includes documents on Indian affairs, veteran affairs, assistance to widows and children, military issues, and the establishment of the federal government.
     
  • University of Wisconsin Digital Collections: Documents Relating to Indian AffairsCurrently includes two collections, one relating to treaties, and another that provides the Office of Indian Affairs, Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1826-1932)

 

Art Exhibitions

  • Art of Native America: The Charles and Valerie Diker Collection, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, October 4, 2018-October 6, 2019. Features 116 pieces from the private collection of philanthropists Charles and Valerie Diker, 91 of which were recently donated to the museum. The artwork in this exhibition represents more than fifty different Native cultures from across North America. For the first time in the Met's history this exhibition is being presented in the American Wing rather than in the galleries for the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, where the museum's previous exhibitions of American Indian art have been held.
     
  • Infinity of Nations, the digital counterpart to an ongoing traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of the American Indian. This exhibit features explanatory text and images of indigenous art throughout the Americas, organized geographically and culminating with examples of contemporary Native American art.

 

Directories of Internet Sites on Native Americans

 

Was this page helpful?

Please provide a comment